Forty [1] (also shirt [2] ) is an old Russian unit for counting animal skins [1] [2] .
Content
Usage
It was used to count animal skins, including sable skins [1] .
In the fur trade of the 17th century, sables were usually kept by magpies , less often in pairs . Piece copies of the highest quality, “lonely” , for which when sorting failed to find an analogue [3], were sold even less often. Prices of forty sables, depending on the quality of the goods, fluctuated over a very wide range [4] .
Forty were counted, in addition, abdomen sables of relatively high varieties (naming: navels , abdomens , tips ), skins of ermines [4] , cats [1] , martens [1] , minks [4] , ferrets [5] .
| Pieces | Hundreds | Thousands |
| skins of beavers , wolves , hares , foxes , arctic foxes , lynxes , wolverines | sable tails (separated from low-grade skins) forepaws of foxes and arctic foxes | skins squirrels |
The account of animal skins by “magpies” is noted in the sources of the 12th-17th centuries [6] , however, as far as sables, it was found even in the middle of the 19th century [7] .
Examples
From the act of 1661 [1] :
- sable = forty and 24 sable = 64 sable;
- sables = forty and 37 sables = 77 sables.
Note : numbers are written in the Cyrillic numeral system .
Etymology
There are various interpretations. According to one, animal skins were wrapped in cloth, forty (a word related to the word shirt , from the old Russian shirt , corresponds to Old Slavic srachka , sraka , sraki ) [8] ; according to another, the word sorok goes back to the Old East Slavic * sirk , which is an early borrowing from the Turkic languages: tour. kırk “forty”, kaz. қырық "forty", Chuvash. dick "forty", with dissimilation k - k> s - k [9] .
Analogs
As an analogue, you can specify kiichtelus - an old Finnish measure, equal to 40 squirrel skins.
In the Norse counting system, there was another analogue of forty - timbr (timbr), which consisted of forty skins [10] . In Germany, 40 fur skins made up the [11] .
See also
- 40 (number)
- Kiihtelus
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 Forty // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
- ↑ 1 2 Shirt // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
- ↑ Yanitsky, 1912 , p. 31–32.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 Yanitsky, 1912 , p. 32.
- ↑ N.A. Magomedov, M.S. Abdurakhmanova. The role of the Indian merchants in the development of transit trade through Dagestan in the XVII - first half of the XVIII century // Bulletin of the Dagestan Scientific Center, No. 46, 2012
- ↑ Lebedinskaya V. G. SYSTEM OF NAMES OF UNITS OF MEASUREMENT IN RUSSIAN HISTORICAL METROLOGY // Bulletin of the Bryansk State University, Issue No. 2 (1), 2012
- ↑ Ledrov S.M. FURNITURE TRADE IN THE NIZHNY NOVGOROD FAIR IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE XIX CENTURY // Bulletin of the Nizhny Novgorod University. N. I. Lobachevsky, Issue No. 1-1, 2012
- ↑ Shirt // Fasmer’s Etymological Russian Dictionary.
- ↑ Max Fasmer. Etymological dictionary of the Russian language
- ↑ Forty // Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language by Max Fasmer .
- ↑ Dictionary of foreign words included in the Russian language. - Chudinov A.N., 1910.
Literature
- Yanitsky N.F. Trade in fur goods in the XVII century. . - K .: Type. Imp. University of St. Vladimir, 1912 .-- 33 p.
Links
- Dictionary Church Slavonic and Russian language . - SPb. : Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1847. - T. IV: R-V. - S. 189.
- Forty // Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language : in 4 volumes / auth. V.I. Dahl . - 2nd ed. - SPb. : Printing house of M.O. Wolf , 1880-1882.
- Izmail Ivanovich Sreznevsky , “Materials for the dictionary of the Old Russian language on written monuments. Volume 3 P - I "(1893) count. 465