Árbók Háskóla Íslands - 02.01.1954, Page 53

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TABLE II — Continuation
Polynesian Greenlandic Chinese
nim-árpoq
“groans”
lieng “small bell”
Gestural sounds.
We have assumed that many IE. roots which designate to
strike, to press, to smash, to push, to thrust (as 1. qen- “to
thrust”) might have come into existence as a very natural
designation of “thrusting” etc. by moving the front of the
tongue to the hard palate as distinct from the velar n. But
we vill see by comparing the other unrelated languages that
corresponding examples of this kind are rather few in some
of them. Our list looks thus: