#3464 PTB *wa SUCKLE / MILK / BREAST

This etymon is particularly well attested in Himalayish. Most of the NE Indian Areal Group forms (especially those with ‑ma as final syllable) look like loans from Tibetan. The root also occurs in Baic. There are several possible explanations for the final ‑m in certain Himalayish forms (Bantawa, Chamling, Hayu), as well as the nasalization in Bai ɯ̃ ‘nurse; suckle’: (a) they could be due to rhinoglottophilia¹ because of the zero or glottal-stop initial; (b) they could have arisen by assimilatory epenthesis to the initial p‑ of the following syllable; or (c) they could have been metanalyzed from the initial of the second syllable of the binome *o‑ma, which might originally have been borrowed from Tibetan as a unit before being reduced to a single syllable in the new Bantawa/Chamling compounds. The development of *wa > WT o is regular, e.g. *swa TOOTH > WB swâ/WT so; *g‑lwat ⪤ *s‑lwat LOOSEN / FREE > WB lwat/hlwat ⪤ kywat/khywat/WT glod‑pa ⪤ hlod‑pa.

This root appears principally in Himalayish and contiguous languages of the NE Indian Areal Group, but also in Bai, so that it must be set up for PTB.