Re: fingers

Then it would come from E "pink", the (skin) colour - little pink one?
But all fingers of white people are equally pink, aren't they?

Ingmar

----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Bates" <chris.maths_student@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Monday, June 27, 2005 4:16 PM
Subject: Re: fingers


> We have it in the UK too, but I'd consider it baby talk rather than
> something I'd use to refer to one of my own fingers. And it sounds like
> a diminutive of pink in English too... I know that we don't really have
> a regular diminutive ending, but sometimes you can use -y, especially if
> affection is being expressed.
>
>> Is "pinky" American English? In that case it's likely to be derived from
>> Substandard colloquial Dutch "pinkie", Standard Dutch "pinkje", dim.
>> of "pink".
>>
>> This "pink", would it mean something like "the fifth (finger)", from
>> IndoEuropean
>> *penkwe , *pinkwe or so = five ?
>>
>> Ingmar
>

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