Reconstruction talk:Proto-Slavic/koňь

Eastern origin?

Besides the proposed Indo-European etymologies, probably an eastern origin could also be considered? Turkic for example have a root Proto-Turkic *kāb- (“to swell, to thicken”) (> Turkish kaba (“thick”)), which is used to describe ungulates. It is the origin of the later borrowings Polish kaban (“hog”), Russian каба́н (kabán, “boar, wild pig”). It is noteworthy that the Turkic forms exhibit variation between -b- and -m- (e.g. Kazakh қабан (qaban) : Kyrgyz каман (kaman)) just like the Slavic terms. Given that Russian лошадь (lošadʹ) is also a Turkic borrowing, it is worth examining these parallels (starting with the origin of the Turkic data, which may not be native). Bezimenen (talk) 12:11, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

‘Hornless’

• (Author?): from Proto-Indo-European *ḱem- (“hornless”). Cognate with English hind, Sanskrit शम (śáma-, “hornless”), Ancient Greek κεμάς (kemás, “young deer”), Old Prussian camstian (“sheep”) and camnet (“horse”).

All the major domesticated animals were horned cattle, hence the semantic contrast between, e.g., the hornless sheep of Old Prussian and the "hornless" horses of Old Prussian and Common Slavic eventually arose.

Sorry, but this etymology (which seems to be original research by Ivan Štambuk, who started this page, but that’s fine, in principle) is impossible, or at least very implausible. PIE *ḱ > Proto-Slavic *s, because Slavic is a satem language (see the satem reflex in Sanskrit śáma).
(Okay, there are a few exceptions where *ḱ appears as *k in Slavic, e.g. *ḱas- ‘cut’ > *kosa ‘scythe’, but there is really no reason to assume this exception if we have a perfectly plausible etymology that also explains the relationship between *koňь and *kobyla and that is based not only on Vasmer but also on all the other Slavic etymological dictionaries.) --Buncic (talk) 07:14, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

I've removed the "hornless" etymology from the Polish, Slovak, and Sorbian entries; would it give undue weight to add it here as a superceded theory? Wiljahelmaz (talk) 00:59, 23 November 2023 (UTC)