More on the lexical history of 'blood' in (Bantu) East Africa

Contrary to its universal stability and its low rank on borrowability scales (Haspelmath & Tadmor 2009, Haspelmath, Tadmor & Taylor 2010), the lexicalisation of the concept blood (Haspelmath & Tadmor 2009) seems to have undergone a remarkable history of replacements across Bantu Africa, motivated by both internal and external pressures. This is particularly true of Eastern Africa where the widespread loanword *sakame attests to an economically-driven transfer from Southern Cushitic *ts’aq’amee ‘trickle (from a leakage)’ in the context of the Bantu adoption of the practice of bleeding cattle. The contribution is an attempt to unravel some (neglected) aspects of the lexical history of the concept blood in Bantu East Africa and add a higher degree of resolution to the general picture painted by Ehret 1974 and Ehret 1998.