#camelry

The Latin word canarius descends to Italian as the word canaio, but it means “dog breeder”. (But “canary” actually does have to do with dogs, because the place’s name is “island of dogs”.) I think the word you actually want, for dog-mounted soldiers, is brackry, which comes from bracco “hound”, and then from bracchiere (same -iere as in cavaliere “horseman, knight”), which means “whipper-in, person who keeps hunting-dogs in line”. From which you can then construct *braccheria, which in the real world probably means something like “dog management” (both the endeavor itself and those engaged in it, as cavalleria means both the horsemen of a military force and the virtues they are expected to exhibit), but which would, in a world where people can ride dogs, refer to them.

This leads me to think my goblins, whose talking oxyaenids are known as “grim-hounds”, also have a brackry, same as the halflings (theirs is even also light, though it can talk). My elves, who ride a larger, talking version of Homotherium that I call “panthers” in the narrative, would presumably be described as having “panthry”; except for the dark elves, whose talking hyaenodont mounts are called “brutes”, and I will call their mounted soldiery “belvry”. Belbus, one of the other Latin words for “hyena”, probably comes from the same root as belua, meaning “brute”, and that is belva in Italian.

Then my dwarves, who ride giant talking wolverines (based on Megalictis but with a very generous interpretation of “as big as a black bear”) that I refer to as “martens”, have “martory”, because the Italian word for “marten” is martora. The orcs and ogres ride giant talking swine, the one the size of cattle and the other the size of the giant European hippopotamus H. major, which would presumably be “porcry” (maybe “porkry”?), from porcheria, but that’s the Italian for “pigsty”. Nevertheless—Italian uses the same word for “mounted soldiers” as for “code of honor of knights” (where English uses the Italian form for the first one and the French form for the latter, which is admittedly cheating).

The British Camel Corps marches towards Khartoum in 1885. Although the British would triumph at the Battle of Abu Klea, it was of little consequence, reaching the city too late to save Gen. Charles Gordon and the defenders.

31 Day Lady Warrior Challenge

9: Desert Raider

German Schutztruppen (Colonial force) patrol the Kalahari Desert on camels.

Adornment of a camelryman, Qarth

Camel mounted Turkish officers of the Ottoman Army, riding through Jerusalem.

Scouts of the Egyptian Camel Corps in Sudan.