Calx-calcaneum (heel) has resulted in many parallel and similar words across Romance: călcâi in Romanian, cãlcãnju in Aromanian, calcagno in Italian, Galician calcañar/calcaño etc.
Callis (rough track, path of animal herd, then all kind of path or road) gave Romanian cale, meaning “way” (also, like in English way and French voie, “method”, “means”), “path” (also in computing), and “avenue”, which has parallels in both Eastern (Aromanian cali/cale (road) and maybe Dalmatian cal (road, street)) and Western Romance (calle). From Romanian cale derive a călători (to travel), călător (traveler, n.m.) and călătorie (travel, n.f.). —Latin calator, calātōrius - meaning personal attendant, servant of a priest, but also “footman” is not related, but is just based on calō (announce, proclaim; to summon, convoke), although the semantic closeness in Latin between calator as “servant”, “footman” and cālō -onis (military servant), and also cālō -ōnis (military wooden shoe: Calones calcei ex ligno facti - Paul-Festus 40, 25 L) is somewhat intriguing.—
Callum – means hardened or thick substance, namely skin of animals (hide) or skin and flesh of plants; also the hard covering of soil, also a callus, induration.
Because my native language is Romanian and I have always felt that the verb a călca (tread, step, trample on) is connected to the noun cale (path, road) — and that also a călca > călcătură, n.f., “footprint, step”—, I have tried to look into a possible etymological relation between their roots. I was expecting something like the relation between călca (tread) and călcâi (heel): the latter is based on calx > calcaneum, and the former on calcō < calx. As mentioned above, cale comes from callis = road, path.
Looking for possible connections between these semantic areas I have found that callis was often connected with callum, given that the latter is also naming the hardened surface of soil (Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary ) - the trodden earth – terra trita, which is the very definition of callis as “path trodden by animals”. This is contradicted by some dictionaries (Ernout-Meillet, Walde-Hoffmann) but encouragingly accepted by others (M. de Vaan).
Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine:
Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the Other Italic Languages by M. de Vaan:
To me the probability of the callis-callum connection seems increased by the possible connection of each of them to calx.
A semantic relation between cale=”path” and the idea of “being repeatedly trodden” (tread=călca, trodden=călcat, footstep=călcătură) is often present in Romanian. A common expression is cale bătută, “well-trodden path”, literally “beaten path”, which seems close to the original meaning of the root, just like in the expression a bate cale lungă (literally “to beat a long way”, meaning “to walk a long way”), or a bate calea degeaba (literally: "to beat the road in vain" - that is: to have walked a long way for nothing) where “to beat” is the natural, almost obligatory way of saying “to walk” (although in other cases "to beat" cannot be used instead of "to walk"), as if here cale required the violent aspect of “treading” (a călca=to tread, călcat=trodden) to be emphasized (an aspect which is essential to the relation calx > calcō; calx being a part of the foot used for 'kicking' (Aduorsus stimulum calces: "kicking against the pricks", Oxford Latin Dictionary - also here), cf. Romanian călcare/încălcare=”violation”, Italian calcio=”kick”.
The verb “to beat” (a bate/batere), commonly used to express this aspect of being “well-trodden”, led to the word bătătură, meaning the intentionally “beaten earth” area around peasants’ huts (in Romanian pământ bătut=”beaten earth” referring generally to this kind of terra trita adjusted to the needs of human habitation not just around a peasant’s house but also within it). Even more remarkably bătătură (plural bătături) also means literally “callus” (plural calluses or calli), which shows that in Romanian the verb bate “to beat” is understood as leading to the creation of “a hardened area of the skin (especially on the foot or hand) caused by repeated friction, wear or use”. —In fact, the formula for saying that not yet “broken in” shoes are hurting my feet and thus are producing pain, abrasion of the skin and calluses is mă bat pantofii, “my shoes are beating me”.
Not only that, but a bătătură=”callus” can be sometimes referred to as a “călcâi”, a “heel”, for saying that a such hardened area of skin has developed in an unexpected place, for example on the palm of the hand as a result of manual work —and thus the semantic circle is closed!— The heel being the exemplary callus! —As if the same action of treading/"beating" (călcare/batere) causes parallel results in exterior (terra trita=bătătură=trodden earth/path=callis) and in interior (bătătură=callus/callum=calx/heel).
I am not an expert but from the above not only the callis – callum relation, but also that between these and calx seems obvious to me.
Is this convincing? If not, what arguments can be brought against?
