Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online

This feature concerns the identity or differentiation between the expressions (words, compounds, or phrases) referring to ‘finger’ and ‘toe’. Words/phrases referring to ‘finger’ and ‘toe’ are counted as separate expressions even if there is formal overlap between them, as in e.g. Nigerian Pidgin finga ‘finger’ and finga fòr leg ‘toe’. In some languages the words meaning ‘finger’ and/or ‘toe’ include larger segments of the limbs, e.g. Gurindji Kriol wartan ‘upper limb below elbow’ is used to refer to ‘finger’. In such cases these semantically wider words were taken as a basis for classification. This feature has four values:

Differentiation: One word denotes ‘finger’ and another (possibly related) word denotes ‘toe’.

Identity and differentiation: There are at least three (possibly related) words; one denotes ‘finger’, one denotes ‘toe’, and the third denotes ‘digit’ (i.e. 'finger/toe').

Overlap: This covers cases of semantic overlap, where there are two different (possibly related) words, but one of them denotes ‘digit’, and the other one denotes only ‘finger’ or only ‘toe’.

Identity: There is a single word, which denotes 'digit' and no word that denotes only ‘finger’ or only ‘toe’.