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Volume 36, Number 1 & 2, Spring/Summer 2008 Two Romanian terms (tureci and cioa

Volume 36, Number 1 & 2, Spring/Summer 2008 Two Romanian terms (tureci and cioareci) based on Old Germanic designations of leg-coverings Adrian Poruciuc University of IaUi Romanian has two etymologically difficult terms that designate traditional leg-coverings: tureci and cioareci. The following demonstration is meant to prove that the two terms (however much altered they may look like, in comparison with their original forms) are based on Old Germanic loans, more precisely, on variants of a double-member compound whose second element is a correspondent of Eng. breeches ‘trousers extending to or just below the knee’ (< O.Eng. bréc). Although the aims of this article are mainly etymological, many arguments in it are ethnographic, and they can be relevant for the very history of trousers in Europe (and in Eurasia, for that matter). Probably the earliest representation of the Indo- European horsemen who came to dominate the Iranian plateau towards the end of the 2nd millennium B.C. appears on a seal unearthed at Tepe Sialk. According to Jettmar (1983: 237), the clothing of those invaders is “unspecific”. Nevertheless, the checked cloth1 of their knee-long breeches is a quite remarkable feature (see Fig. XXIII in Jettmar’s book). What the horsemen on the Tepe Sialk seal clearly indicate is that riding-breeches were worn by second- millennium Indo-European invaders of Iran. As for Europe, here are some general facts and assumptions regarding Celto- Germanic trousers of the Iron Age, as presented in Owen 1966: 116: 1For the remotest antecedents of tartan-like cloth, see Mair 2005: 35, with comments on “the world’s earliest provable plaids (diagonal twill),” associated with three-thousand-year-old mummies of the eastern edge of Eastern Central Asia. In the same passage, Mair mentions “the co-occurrence of felt (a quintessentially pastoral product) among the earliest inhabitants of the Tarim Basin circa 3800 BP and in western Anatolia circa 4600 BP (the earliest known example of this material in the world).” 164 Adrian Poruciuc The Journal of Indo-European Studies This sartorial custom was taken over from the Celts, who in turn had it from the Eastern European, or Asiatic horsemen of the steppes. It is obviously a very satisfactory article of clothing for the horsemen, and this may have been the main reason for its adoption by the Germanic peoples; although deterioration of the climate may also have played a part, since the trousers are clearly much warmer than the dress of the Early Bronze Age. Judging from the illustrations on the monuments, the trousers were narrow at the ankles, a very practical arrangement in a cold, damp climate. The evolution of trousers as “thing” implies as many obscure turns and missing links as the evolution of most European terms for that piece of clothing. In regard to Rmn. tureci and cioareci, one can discern at least that those terms have a series of remote relatives in Romanian itself. Most important among those relatives are the members of a lexical family inherited by Romanian from Latin. Rmn. brace ‘drawers’, brâcinar ‘waistband’, brâcire ‘belt’, îmbrâca ‘to dress, clothe, put on’, and îmbrâcâminte ‘clothing’ are all ultimately based on Lat. bráca (pl. brácae, or brácés ‘breeches’), which was inherited by other Romance languages too (cf. Fr. braies, Sp. braga). Lat. bráca has generally been considered to be a Gaulish loan (cf. Ernout/ Meillet 1985), which appears to imply that it was in Gaul where the Romans first learned about breeches. (Pliny the Elder mentions that Gallia Narbonensis was also known as Bracata, due exactly to the specific leg-coverings of that province’s natives – cf. Naturalis historia, III, 31.) The etymology of Gaul. bráca is more complicated though. The Ernout/ Meillet dictionary (s.v. bráca) mentions that the term under discussion is a “Celto-Germanic word”. Pokorny’s Indo-European dictionary (1959 - s.v. *bhreg- ‘to break, crack’) presents Gaul. bráca (‘Kniehose’) as a “Germanic loan”, and O.Irish bróc as an “Anglo-Saxon loan.”2 In his turn, 2An interesting thing is that, if we assume an Old English origin for M.Irish bróc, it would mean that the term “returned” to English, which now, besides breeches, also has brogue ‘rough shoe of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands; hose, trousers; strong outdoor shoe’ < Irish, Gaelic bróg < M.Irish bróc - according to Hoad 1993 (s.v. breech). However, it is the same dictionary that (unlike de Vries 1961) indicates an Old Norse, not an Old English origin for M.Irish bróc. (That would imply that the Irish Celts borrowed both breeches and the term that designated them from the Vikings who dominated Ireland in the 9th century.) Two Romanian terms (tureci and cioareci) 165 Volume 36, Number 1 & 2, Spring/Summer 2008 de Vries (in his dictionary of Old Norse, 1961, s.v. brók ‘hose, beinkleider’) observes that the Celto-Germanic relationship commonly taken into consideration in discussions on Lat. bráca and on its correspondents has been diversely interpreted (in regard to the direction of initial borrowing - from Celtic to Germanic, or the other way around). In de Vries’s opinion (s.v. brók), one should “rather think of an originally Germanic word, especially since it refers to a piece of clothing specific to horsemen.”3 That remark deserves attention, from an Indo- European standpoint, in the light of archaeological- ethnographic facts such as the ones mentioned by Jettmar, Owen, or Mair (see above). Worth considering, in this context, is also what de Vries says on horsemen’s breeches in his dictionary of Dutch (1963), s.v. broek.4 In that case, de Vries takes into account that Du. broek (as cognate of O.Norse brók and O.Eng. bréc) designates a prehistoric article of clothing that early Germanic populations must have taken over from the “riding tribes of South Russia and Central Asia.” But, in regard to the etymology of broek, de Vries remains among the ones who consider that the origin of the word is uncertain (“de herkomst van het woord is onzeker”),5 and he finishes his commentary on Du. broek with two rhetorical questions: one on whether there be a connection between the Germanic terms of the break family and the Germanic designation of breeches (as double-piece garment); the other on whether the designation under discussion may or may not be a borrowing from a non-Indo-European language.6 Another etymological dictionary, Hoad 1993 (s.v. breech) presents the whole family of Germanic cognates, including O.Eng. bréc (a plural that shows effects of i-umlaut), O.Sax. brók, O.H.Germ. bruoh, and O.Norse brók, as based on a Germanic root (*brók-) “of uncertain origin.” We should, however, take into consideration that Bosworth’s dictionary 3All translations from other languages into English are mine. 4It is an eighteenth-century borrowing of Du. broek that Russ. brjuki appears to be based on (see Vasmer’s dictionary of Russian, s.v. brjuki). 5In his dictionary of Old Norse (1961, s.v. brók), de Vries favors the idea that O.Norse brók is “an originally Germanic word,” but he ends his comment on that word by considering its etymology as “obscure”. 6Certainly, a non-IE origin may not be totally excluded; but in such a case one should consider at least a folk-etymological influence of the Proto-Germanic lexical family of *brekan ‘to break’ on a designation of riding breeches borrowed from a non-IE language. 166 Adrian Poruciuc The Journal of Indo-European Studies (ed. 1983) gives O.Eng. brók (pl. bréc) with the meanings ‘1. the BREECH, nates 2. a covering for the breech; in pl. BREECHES, trousers, pantaloons; bráca, brácae, femoralia.’ From that presentation it results that a very early Germanic term for a certain piece of clothing simply derived from the Germanic designation of the lower part of the human body (“the breech”), where the trunk appears to “break” into two limbs. It also results, however indirectly, that the English words break, breach, breech, and breeches are cognates.7 Under such circumstances, the assumption that break and breeches are etymologically unrelated would represent a rather unusual approach. Among other things, the American Heritage Dictionary (AHD 1973) refers break, as well as breach, brake, and bracken, to IE *bhreg- ‘to break’, but breech and breeches (with the Scottish variant breeks) to a separate root, *brác- ‘trousers’, which is presented (in the Appendix of AHD) as “a northern European word, only in Celtic and Germanic.” According to Pokorny’s simpler presentation, IE *bhreg- appears to be the basis of Lat. frangere ‘to break’ (showing a specific Italic shift bh > f, plus a nasal infixation),8 of M.Irish braigid ‘(he) farts’ (showing preservation of a Proto-Indo-European g), as well as of a rich Germanic lexical family. Among the cognates of that family there are, on the one hand, verbs with the basic meaning ‘to break’ (Goth. brikan, O.Eng. brecan, O.Sax. brekan, O.H.Germ. brehhan), and, on the other hand, Germanic terms that designate ‘buttocks’ or ‘a cloth worn to cover the loins’. Not only the existence of a term like O.Norse brók ‘hose’, as a typically “northern European word,” but also certain phonetic aspects indicate a quite possible (Proto-)Germanic origin of the term that produced (most probably via Celtic) bráca in Latin. Speaking of reconstructions, IE bh became f in Latin, but b in both Celtic uploads/Litterature/ two-romanian-terms-tureci-and-cioareci-based-on-old-germanic-designations-of-leg-coverings.pdf