# haima



## Encolpius

Hello, I just wonder where that word might come from, since I speak no Finnish I can't check its etymology myself. Does this have anything to do with the ancient Greek haima (blood). Most languages (incl. Hungarian) use compound words for pancreas. thanks.


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## Hakro

The Finnish word _haima_ means pancreas, but I have no idea about any connection with the ancient Greek, nor did my medical dictionary tell anything about the etymology (there it's written _haema_, probably from Latin).


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## Encolpius

Of course it might be an ancient Finno-Ugric word.


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## sakvaka

According to _Nykysuomen etymologinen sanakirja_* by Kaisa Häkkinen (2004),

*haima*
- There are no similar words in the language relatives of Finnish.
- In some Finnish dialects it means the _abomasum_**.
- It's distant origin has not been investigated yet, though the same word exists in Greek (αἷμα)and means _blood_.
- It wasn't used until the late 19th century. Earlier the pancreas was called _mehurisa_ (juice tonsil).

* The Etymological Dictionary of Modern Finnish
** one of cow's stomaches


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## Encolpius

thank you. it seems to be a mystic word


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## dinji

Encolpius said:


> Of course it might be an ancient Finno-Ugric word.


 
Truly ancient Finno-Ugric words very seldom begin with this phoneme */š/ > Finnish /h/. Therfore Finnish words beginning with this phoneme may a priory be assumed to be at most Finno-Mordvinic borrowings not older than the bronze age.
 
One exception may be the word for 'mouse': _*šiŋi-ri_ > Fi _hiiri_ & Hungarian _egér. _But since Uralic animal names frequently carries atypical phonology it does not form a good counter example. 
 
The word _haima_ also contains the diphtong _-ai-_ which may (or may not) indicate young age since there was a sound law which did not work very regularly (or according to a rule not yet formulated) which changed most words with -aiC-into -eiC-, like fi _heimo_ 'tribe, ethnos' < _*šajm-a-_ <= Baltic _*šaima_ cf. Lithuanian _šeimà ~ Latvian saime _'family, clan'.
 
But still we have the word _vaimo_ ‘wife’< Finno-Mordvinic *_vajma/vajmi_ ‘wife; spirit, soul’ which did not undergo this sound change.
 
The similarity to the Greek word is definitely a coincidence, which also Kaisa Häkkinen clearly points out in the etymological dictionary mentioned by Sakvaka.

Since the word originally meant one of the cow's bellies I wonder whether it does not belong together with the stem _haja_ from which words meaning 'decompose' are derived. A formation _haje + ma_ would be contracted to _haima_ and fits well together with the fact that the word has not participated in the sound change _-ai-_ > _-ei-_


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