pink(y) penkwe / fingers

I tried to send this yesterday, but I got a message I was over my daily
limit of five messages already! Beginners mistake ;-)

Maybe "pink" isn't from *penkwe really, "vinger" (finger) itself  probl. is
according to the NEW, from *penkw-res, 'quintet'.

Yet another explanation, more creatively and imaginative and therefore it
will be liked more  by some of us, is given:
"vinger" < *penghrós = catcher, grabber, grasper, cf Dutch "vangen" = to
catch, German "fangen", Da Sw "få" = to get.

A third possibility I can think of would be a borrowing from an old, extinct
substratum or adstratum language in the Netherlands,
or maybe from the area their ancestors originated from. In Roman times there
were still all kind of tribes, normally classified as
Germanic or Celtic, or both (!) in our area, and there may have been people
that weren't one of these at all. Why wouldn't
"pink" come from them, still having to do with "five" then?

>
> Jan de Vries' Nederlands Etymologisch Woordenboek (NEW) says:
>
> pink 1 znw. m 'kleine vinger', sedert Kiliaen, die pinck en pinckoy als
> Holl. opgeeft, oostfri. en fr. pinke, pink.
> Wegens de smalle vorm van deze vinger zou met aan een afleiding van pin
> kunnen denken.
>
> So: the old Holland Dutch forms were pinck and (very interesting) pinckoy,
> and Frisian has it too.
> Because of the thin form of this finger it could be derived from 'pin' =
> pen, peg.
>
> So possibly, Engl pinky was borrowed from older Dutch pinckoy in stead of
> from pinck...
>
> Ingmar
>
>
>
>> I'll look ik up in my Dutch etymologic dictionary - if I can find that...
>> Maybe it's in the English ED too?
>>
>> But I still have the feeling *penkwe = five may has something to do with
>> it
>>
>> Ingmar
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Chris Bates" <chris.maths_student@...>
>> To: <CONLANG@...>
>> Sent: Monday, June 27, 2005 5:10 PM
>> Subject: Re: fingers
>>
>>
>>> Well, I know that I think of it as a derivation from the English word
>>> pink, but this could be a case of reanalysis. Ie English borrows it
>>> from Dutch, and then it's reanalysed as pink + diminutive y instead of
>>> as a unanalysable loan word.
>>>
>>>> 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
>>>>
>>>
>>
>