In Sino-Tibetan languages, the words for the various liquids produced by or contained in the body tend to be transparent compounds where the last element is a morpheme meaning ‘water; liquid’.1 Of the many body fluids,2 only a few relate directly to the reproductive system (AMNIOTIC FLUID, MILK, SEMEN, VAGINAL SECRETIONS). In this chapter, however, in order to illustrate the scope of the various ST roots for WATER, I include a generous sampling of compounds referring to non-reproductive body fluids.3
1 Exceptions are BLOOD, URINE, SWEAT, and sometimes BILE, which are usually monosyllabic words.
2 That is, AMNIOTIC FLUID, BILE, BLOOD, MILK, PHLEGM, PUS, SALIVA, SEMEN, SNOT, SWEAT, TEARS, VAGINAL SECRETIONS.
3 The numerous roots for water (over ten at last count) in the STEDT database merit a separate study. Words for WATER seldom seem to be used by themselves in ST languages to mean URINE, unlike e.g. English, where make water is a common euphemism for ‘urinate’; for an exception see the WT form c̀ʻu below.