meyakan
Sapé edit
Particle edit
meyakan
- A word used when counting, signifying "one", "two", or "three" when the corresponding number of fingers is held up. The literal signification is variously suspected to be "finger" or "denumerable entity".
Further reading edit
- Hansjakob Seiler, Iconicity between Indicativity and Predicativity, in Iconicity in Language (edited by Raffaele Simone): "In a situation where gestures pointing out fingers and other parts of the body are essential in counting, the formal distinctiveness of the corresponding numerals is of minor importance. The extreme case, viz. complete identity, is cited by Greenberg (op. cit.: 257 after Koch-Grünberg) for the language of the Kaliana […] "