... In its unattested Proto-Canaanite form, the letter [gimel] may have been named after a weapon that was either a staff sling or a throwing stick, ultimately deriving from a Proto-Sinaitic glyph ... Bertrand Russell posits that the letter's form is a conventionalized image of a camel. The letter may be the shape of the walking animal's head, neck, and forelegs [cfr the way Taurus normally is depicted]. Barry B. Powell, a specialist in the history of writing, states 'It is hard to imagine how gimel = 'camel' can be derived from the picture of a camel ... The word gimel is related to gemul, which means 'justified repayment', or the giving of reward and punishment.

The Swedish word gammal means 'old' (and dry like a stick).

... Tu'i Tofua was the son of Vakafuhu. His mother was Langitaetaea, but she was only one of the many young women whom Vakafuhu had living behind the fences of his dwelling. When Tu'i Tofua grew he was given the first-born sons of all the wives for his companions, and they all used to play sika outside the enclosure of Vakafuhu. They made their sika of clean-peeled sticks and threw them in turn along the ground, they glanced them off a mound and each one tried to make the longest throw. One day while Vakafuhu was sleeping off a kava-drinking those boys were playing their game outside, and Tu'i Tofua threw his sika. Then indeed the enormous strength of Tu'i Tofua made that sika fly over the fences into his father's place. It landed where the women were and they all began to giggle, those girls, and shriek and laugh. They did this because they wanted that handsome youth to come among them, they desired him. More than his father they desired him. They fell with joy upon the sika of their master's son, and snapped it. When he came inside to get it back they called out things that made him embarrased. 'Haven't you got another long thing there, Tu'i?' those women said. 'This one's broken.' And they put their hands across their faces and they laughed ...