Publication details
Indo-European anatomical terminology III: Latvian mēle ‘tongue’
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2023 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Baltistica |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | Plný text |
| Keywords | Baltic; Tocharian; Indo-European; anatomical lexicon; etymology; semantic motivation |
| Description | In the present study the Latvian mele ‘tongue’, an isolate within the Baltic lexicon, is studied from the point of view of its etymology. The existing etymological attempts operate with the semantic development ‘speech’ › ‘language’ › ‘tongue’, which is naturally quite legitimate, but in the three concrete cases analyzed here is not convincing enough. The new solution connects the Latvian mele ‘tongue’, reflecting the Proto-Baltic *melii?a, with another isolate in the Indo-European anatomical lexicon, the Common Tocharian *mele- ‘nose’, reflecting the Pre-Tocharian *molo- or *melo-. The semantic connection between ‘tongue’ and ‘nose’ is not trivial, but there are strong arguments for its acceptance, if ‘tongue’ is interpreted as ‘taster’ and ‘nose’ is interpreted as ‘smeller’. |
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