assumed [Greek: kalos] to be the first half of the compound, he could only set down [Greek: kantzaros] as an unknown foreign, perhaps Slavonic, word.
But in his latest publication[1] he relinquishes this position and falls back once more on a dialectic form [Greek: kalitsangaros] which is reported to be in use at the village of Pyrgos in Tenos and at some places on the western shores of the Black Sea. This word he believes to be a compound, of which the second half is connected with a Byzantine word [Greek: toangiou], meaning a kind of boot, and the still existing, if somewhat rare, word, [Greek: tsangarês], 'a boot-maker,' while the first half is to be either [Greek: kalos], 'fine,' or [Greek: kaliki], 'a hoof[2].' The former alternative provides easily the form [Greek: kalotsangaros] or, as would be almost more likely, [Greek: kalikotsangaros], meaning 'one who wears fine boots'; while in the other alternative there results a supposed original form [Greek: kalikotsangaros], meaning 'one who has hoofs instead of boots,' whence, by suppression of the third syllable, comes the existing word [Greek: kalitsangaros], or again, by loss of the first syllable, a supposed form [Greek: likotsangaros] which developed into [Greek: lykokantzaros].
On the score of formation the former alternative is unassailable; but the latter, with its supposed loss of syllables, is more questionable. The loss of a first syllable is common enough in modern Greek, where it consists of a vowel only (e.g. [Greek: briskô][3] for [Greek: heuriskô], [Greek: mera] for [Greek: hêmera], etc.), but the supposed loss of the syllable [Greek: ka] would, I think, be hard to parallel. Again the loss of a syllable in the middle of a word is fairly common either through the suppression of the vowel [Greek: i] (or [Greek: ê], which is not distinguished from [Greek: i] in sound) as in [Greek: kalkantzaros] for [Greek: kallikantzaros], [Greek: ermos] for [Greek: erêmos], etc., or else when two concurrent syllables begin with the same consonant, as in [Greek: astropeleki], 'a thunderbolt,' for [Greek: astrapopeleki], but the loss of the syllable [Greek: ko] from the form [Greek: kalikotsangaros] is a bold hypothesis.
But on the score of meaning both alternatives are alike, II. pp. 1252-3.]or [Greek: kaligi] is a diminutive form from the Latin caliga. Besides its original meaning 'shoe,' it has acquired now the sense of 'hoof.' The transition was clearly through the sense of 'horse-shoe,' as witness the verb [Greek: kaligonô], 'I shoe a horse.']to give the v-sound of [Greek: u] following [Greek: e]. The [Greek: e] drops, and the [Greek: u] cannot then be used alone, for except after [Greek: a] and [Greek: e] it is sounded as a vowel.]
