What were body parts such as 'eye', 'tooth' and 'head' called 1200 years ago in Old English?
What were their cognates in Old Dutch, Old Swedish, Old High German, and the other medieval sister languages?
And what are the reconstructions of their common Proto-Germanic ancestors? Above and below are four graphics showing the words for sixteen body parts.
Stayed tuned: later this week, I'll post the graphics about the limbs!
Please note that these graphics focus on ... 1/
@yvanspijk Did old Norwegian and Danish really lack words for eye, ear, mouth and nose, or do we just not know those words?
Also, is it true that Norwegian, Icelandic, Swedish and Danish lack words for shoulder?
Or is it just that the gaps are words that aren't derived from proto-Germanic?
@pganssle It's indeed obsolete, as the cross indicates (see the legend in the top-left corner).
@yvanspijk Ah I looked a bit for that the cross meant but I didn't notice it in the legend 😅
@pganssle We don't know these words is what I thought, but it turns out they *are* attested in texts, but I didn't have these at my disposal.
The words for "shoulder" were borrowed from Middle Low German/Saxon. I decided not to put this kind of borrowings in the main part of the graphics.
@yvanspijk Also I've never heard the English word "bouk" before. Seems like it is UK specific and possibly the sense of "belly" is obsolete? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bouk