Naming the Horse

Abstract The book explores, through linguistic palaeontology, the role and impact of the horse in Indo-European society. In addition to correcting misrepresentations of that practice, it explains how linguistic reconstruction is practiced, illustrating in each case not only the phonological recovery of a word but also its semantic content and morphological properties. Reconstructions are placed into the context of semantic domains and are correlated with archaeological and ethnographic data to offer a glimpse into prehistory. The book discusses the decline of horse populations in prehistoric Eurasia and gives some background of archaeological complexes associated with early equine populations. It then discusses different markers of horse domestication, sifting the linguistic record for evidence of horse tack, terms associated with horse breeding and hybridization, and evidence gleaned from rituals involving horses. The book also demonstrates a shared prohibition of riding among members of the priesthood in five geographically diverse groups of Indo-Europeans, which demonstrates a prior knowledge of horse riding, and refutes earlier etymologies which link horses with dogs or derive the noun from ‘swift’ and concludes that the horse was the ‘unruly, spirited animal.’ This conclusion and common prohibitions against members of a priesthood riding horses are the clearest indications that the Indo-Europeans were among the earliest domesticators of horses. Ritual practices involving the horse account for numerous examples of horse burials and horse remains found among Chalcolithic and Bronze-Age sites across the Eurasian steppe, where the horse was first domesticated and where the Indo-European homeland is found.