Subject: summary : borrowings or replacements of ' ear '

some time i posted a query as to whether the term for ' ear ' is ever borrowed , or at least replaced by a neologism : here is a summary of the responses , for all of which i am very grateful and which i will again acknowledge in print , as the occasion presents ( an earlier summary contained other relevant discussion of the same topic ) : benji wald ( ibenawj @ mvs . oac . ucla . edu ) reports that in bantu the near-universal word for " ear " has the root * to . however , in sabaki ( kenyan coastal bantu , e . g . , swahili , pokomo , miji kenda ) the word is * sikilo ( e . g . , swahil sikio ) . this is based on the root * sikil " hear " ( e . g . swahili sikia ' hear ' ) ; the final - o is a bantu nominaliser . the most widespread bantu word for " hear " is not related to * sikil but has the morpheme * gu . thus in most of bantu the roots for " ear " and " hear " are not related . he also notes that some cushitic languages also derive ' ear ' from ' hear ' , somali deg " ear " deg-eyso " hear " , and suspects that the sabaki bantu construction for " ear " came about through contact , probably from cushitic . * * to this i would add that this also gives an example of replacement within afro - asiatic , of which cushitic is a part , since clearly this word is not related to , for example , the semitic word ( hebrew ozen , etc . ) - - amr * * bruce connell ( connellb @ vax . ox . ac . uk ) reports that , according to wilkins , david ( 1993 ) from part to person : natural tendencies of semantic change and the search for cognates . cognitive anthropology research group , max planck institute for psycholinguistics , working paper no . 23 : a ) semantic shift of ' ear ' to ' head ' is attested in bantu ; languages unspecified , but guthrie ( 1967-71 ) is ultimate source . b ) in dravidian , ' earring ' shifts to ' ear ' ; again languages unspecified , burrow and emaneau ( 1961 ) is ultimate source . i have also independently , i . e . , extra - linguist - ically , found out that laurent sagart argues that bai ( a minority language of china , i believe , whose genetic affiliations are controversial ) borrowed its word for ' ear ' from chinese , but that is not universally accepted . likewise , i have found an article by gregersen which assumes without detailed discussion that the vietnamese word for ' ear ' is borrowed from austronesian ( while this does not appear to be generally accepted either , it presumably at least indicates that the word in question is not a reflex of the mon - khmer prototype , and hence would be a replacement , but i have not yet checked this out ) . finally , i realized what i had been forgetting all along , namely , that many ( or is it all ? ) indo - aryan languages ( from sanskrit on down ) have a word for ' ear ' which is clearly not the indo - european word for ' ear ' , and hence a particularly clear example of a replacement . i thus still do not have an example of ' ear ' being borrowed which could be considered to be established beyond reasonable doubt , and would appreciate any references to such . = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = in addition , i omitted the following response from my earlier summary of responses to a more general query about the borrowing of body part terms : h . a . y . wolf @ stud . let . ruu . nl ( henk wolf ) : dutch _ neus _ ( nose ) in west frisian has become an alternative to the native _ noas _ ( see breuker , p . et al ( 1984 ) , foar de taalspegel ; koart oersjoch fan holl ^ anske ynsl ^ upsels yn it frysk , ljouwert : afuk ) .
