They’re actually called digits II - V. Phalanges are the individual bones which make up each digit (this applies to both fingers and toes).
The big toe is the only toe that (as far as I have been able to determine) has an actual name: the hallux (similarly, the thumb is the pollux, while, like the non-big toes, the other fingers have more prosaic names).
Speaking of Darwin.
I once read someone saying that all the toes except the big toe were evolutionary left overs without any functional purpose and likely to be gone from the human race within a short number of hundred thousands of years. Come to think of it, some people think the clitoris is likewise without evolutionary purpose. That might explain why they have such little place in our mind that they don’t/didn’t even merit a name. At least the toes, it still puzzles me the clitoris wasn’t given a name, or how the new name could replace all the older ones.
Well, thanks. But they didn’t ask about the big toe, or I would have mentioned hallux.
Only in the red light district
Toes, possibly, but I would doubt it. A person with fewer toes might be considered somewhat freakish, and therefore have a harder time finding mates, which would translate into an evolutionary advantage to keeping the standard number of toes.
But the clitoris absolutely, without a doubt serves a strong evolutionary purpose. A woman without a clitoris, or with a less-developed one, would find sex less pleasureable than would a normally-endowed woman. Such a declitified woman would therefore be inclined to have sex less frequently, and would therefore tend to have fewer offspring, so the declitification trait would therefore be expected to be surpressed in subsequent generations. If anything, evolution would be expected to lead to more sensitive clitorides or other erogenous structures.
As for why the noble clitoris has gone for such long stretches of time without a name, my guess would be that it’s because we don’t need to talk about it much. Of the times when it is necessary, methods other than words could be used: “Oh, that feels so good! I like it when you tickle me right there!”. Most frequently, when one is discussing the clitoris, it’s with an audience of one, and without any clothing getting in the way of the convenient visual aids
When the speakers of Mömö use just the unmarked word “kümi” without specifying the body part it goes with, it seems they generally mean the breast-nipples. So calling the clitoris the “nipple of the vulva” is kind of cute, but not as profoundly meaningful as “feminine core.”
Feminine core! What an idea for a musical subgenre of hardbanging-guitar girl-groups. Something to take the place of “Riot Grrl.” But with more eyeshadow and fishnets.
I didn’t have the Uzbek-English Dictionary by Karl Krippes with me when I was posting, so I had to go and look up the words again. In fairness to Krippes, I had it a little wrong. According to Krippes, diloq means ‘vagina’ and tilak means ‘clitoris’.
The two words are variants of the same Turkish-Persian word I etymologized above. The two variant forms might be explained by the nature of modern Uzbek, which is a blend of Chaghataic Turkic with some elements from the Qypchaq and Oghuz branches of Turkic. The form diloq with an initial d- instead of t- is characteristic of Oghuz Turkic. For example, Turkish (Oghuz) uses the word dil for ‘tongue’, while Uyghur (Chaghataic) and Kazakh (Qypchaq) say til.
Krippes cited several Russian-Uzbek dictionaries he drew upon for his data. However, from what I’ve seen, Soviet dictionaries are extremely prudish about including words about sex and genitalia, especially women’s. I wonder if Krippes got diloq and tilak directly from Uzbek informants. If so, how exact. More likely, an Uzbek confronted by an inquisitive Westerner (especially a blunt German like Krippes), might just blush at the word, gesture “down there,” and mumble something embarrassed… “Ayollarning… bilasiz… u narsa.” (Women’s… you know… that thing.) Under these circumstances, one has to question how accurate Krippes’s data could be. Unless he was married to an Uzbek woman; I don’t know if he is.
There was a web site with the rants of a crazy American who had once been married to a Khowar woman in the tribal mountains of northern Pakistan. He put his Khowari-English Dictionary on the web. It was replete with words for women’s intimate anatomy. His wife was kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalist tribesmen, however, and he never got her back. He made a web site to complain about this. I don’t know if it’s still up. For me, the story underlines the importance of a lexicographer either being a woman or being intimately involved with a woman who speaks the other language.
I added nengeshi gödizhik (feminine nucleus) to the Mömö dictionary as a new synonym for clitoris, in homage to the Japanese term inkaku. A loan-translation.
The word clitoris was omitted from my Chinese-English dictionary, but the character yin (same as the Japanese kanji in) has one of its meanings listed as: “Private parts (esp. of the female).” In Chinese, the kaku kanji meaning ‘nucleus’ is he.
However, I found online that the Chinese term for clitoris is yindi — the second character di literally means ‘base of a fruit’.
I also came up with a new use for the word kümi: a navel “outie” is called küjjini kümi. (While “innies” are simply called küjji, navel.)
That would cross the line at the border of “Sneaky” and go far into “Stupid” territory.
Actually, according to Zhongwen it is “yinhe”, for penis Zhongwen gives “yinjing”. Both using the same character.
In both cases “yin” means just “genitals” (most likely), with “he” meaning kernel, pit, core", and “jing” meaning “stem, stalk”. But there’s also the other meaning of “secret, hidden”, which is also plausible, and perhaps is a euphemism for both the clitoris (hidden kernel/pit) and the penis (hidden stem, stalk) .
That’s funny, I googled using “yinhe” but didn’t find clitoris; I did find “yindi” online (once you filter out the many hits for the Australian Aboriginal band Yothu Yindi. Hmm, I wonder if they ever toured China…)