Query Details

Query Subject:	The Words for Breast/Milk
Author:	Krisadawan Hongladarom
Submitter Email:	click here to access email

Linguistic LingField(s):	General Linguistics Semantics Lexicography

Query:	Dear Colleagues, The word for breast and milk in many Southeast Asian languages are often related etymologically. For example, in Thai nom(32) is breast, and nam(45)nom(32) 'water breast' is milk. The same situation is for Written Tibetan, though I'm not very sure if the word for breast is correct. Homa is milk, and Ho-Hdod 'milk desire(?)' is breast. (H is a voiced glottal fricative). In Rgyalthang, another variety of Khams Tibetan spoken in Yunnan (PRC), the word for milk is nei (231), which obviously came from nei(231)po(51) 'breast'. However, Rgyalthang also distinguishes between nei(231) 'breast milk' and wui(231) 'cow milk'. I'm wondering if the languages you speak or are familiar with have the same etymon for the words breast and milk and if the word for breast milk is the same as cow milk. I'll post the summary to the list. Thank you for your contribution. Dr. Krisadawan Hongladarom Department of Linguistics Faculty of Arts Chulalongkorn University Bangkok 10330 Tel. 662-2184690; Fax. 662-218-4697 Email: artfkhl@chulkn.car.ac.th
LL Issue:	9.170
Date posted:	04-Feb-1998
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