Talk:苧

Readings

@Poketalker: You'd asked, "what about ちょま, むし, and まお?" The lack of むし was an oversight: I just added it to the list in {{ja-readings}}. ちょま and まお are compounds, and as such, are not readings of 苧.

Does that answer your question? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 19:55, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

@Eirikr, hardly, but yes; this link in the JMdict section gave me the doozy. --POKéTalker (talk) 20:05, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

@Poketalker: JMdict as listed at Weblio is not reliable. The dataset is Jim Breen's, and you're much better off getting search results directly from his sites and mirrors, such as this entry for 苧, which clearly shows that ちょま and まお are compounds and not readings of 苧 itself. Weblio's presentation confusingly omits some of that detail, possibly due to Weblio using an outdated dataset.

You say "hardly", indicating that I didn't really answer your question. Please restate your question if there's anything remaining in this thread that you'd like more information about.

Cheers, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 20:50, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Sources

@Eirikr You added this completely unsourced etymology. Where's your sources?

@Tibidibi You added that Vovin claims it's a borrowing, with absolutely no sources. Where's your sources? Chuterix (talk) 20:26, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

@Eirikr, Tibidibi Particularly, karamushi for Eirikr, and mushi for Tibidibi. The edit was under his/her former account Karaeng Matoaya. Chuterix (talk) 20:27, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

As I hope you noticed, that edit was from 2013, eleven years ago at this point. We didn't add references for JA entries at that time as a general matter of course. I don't have access to the same sources as then, and some of those (the online ones) have changed since then.

The NKD and Daijisen entries at Kotobank don't mention the "steaming" thing, nor does the JA WP article. I'm not sure if my older NKD that was not quite as abridged as the Kotobank version might have mentioned this; I can't access that anymore without digging old computer hardware out of storage. Googling around just now, this search comes up quickly with a few relevant links.

This one (https://crd.ndl.go.jp/reference/entry/index.php?id=1000114864&page=ref_view) includes the following tidbit:

・『語源辞典　植物編』　吉田 金彦／編著　東京堂出版　2001
p.70の「からむし　苧」の項では、「イラクサ科の多年草。茎の皮から繊維を採り、越後縮などの布を織る。『和名抄』に「麻苧」加良天之」と見える。」とあり。語源として、「繊維を取るのにカラ（幹）を蒸すことから」が定説。茎を湿らせた上、むしろをかけて長時間蒸し、自然発酵させてから繊維を取ったことから、単にムシとか蒸麻（ムシヲ）とか呼ばれた」とあり。

I have a few issues with Yoshida's analysis.

• Ramie, like linen, is often retted to soften the harder outer coating, in order to harvest the inner fibers for textiles. Steaming isn't necessary: this is a kind of semi-controlled rotting, allowing natural decomposition processes to break down the too-tough plant fibers and unwanted gums and resins. Googling just now for ramie processing by steaming, I'm not finding as much as I'd expect if steaming were a regular part this process.
• The MYS uses the word musi as an apparent synonym. This makes sense in terms of word formation, as any varietal of the ramie plant imported from the continent would have had the kara appellation added to it, same as we see in other words with this prefix, like 唐天竺 (Kara-Tenjiku, “China and India”), or 唐織 (karaori, “Chinese textiles”), etc.
• This claims that the plant was also called 蒸麻 (musiwo), but I sure can't find any Japanese texts using this.
• Word formation going the other way, as in the proposed truncation from putative musiwo to just musi, seems unlikely if the musi is also the proposed stem / gerund of verb musu "to steam" used as a modifier on wo "ramie; hemp".

Separately, re: Vovin and a possible Korean borrowing, I must defer to @Tibidibi; I tried googling just now, and I can't seem to find anything relevant. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:36, 3 April 2024 (UTC)