IE "Urheimat" and evidence from Uralic linguistics

[Dr. John E. McLaughlin]

> I'm not beginning to understand ? Serbocroatian borrowed its word for
> "excrement" (balega) from Roumanian, and come to think of the English terms
> /faeces/, /manure/ or the gloss above. Surely, "high value" cannot really
> lurk behind the motivation for borrowing ?

This would be due to avoidance.  Reproductive body parts and elimination
functions are generally subject to very high degrees of euphemism,
conversion, and borrowing.  Our (English's, since that's our common
language) 'polite' words penis, vagina, eliminate, excrement, urine, and
urinate are ALL borrowed.  There are only a few dozen words of Karankawa
recorded from the coast of Texas, but one of those words is their word for
'penis'--it's a borrowing of Comanche wya (y is barred i) 'penis', which is
itself a conversion of the word for 'arrow', replacing an older ....

John E. McLaughlin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
mclasutt at brigham.net

Program Director
Utah State University On-Line Linguistics
http://english.usu.edu/lingnet

English Department
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Utah State University
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