User:Chuterix/Chuterix's Proto-Japonic Reconstruction Dictionary Project/Proto-Japonic words possibly borrowed from other Proto-Languages?

I analyze Proto-Japonic with phonetic and semantic similarities (Sanskrit or Proto-Indo-Iranian) to suggest a possible borrowing.

Note this is just speculation and may possibly just be coincidental. This does not include already proposed words (e.g. 馬 (uma, “horse”) or 黒 (kuro, “black”)).

Here I only do PIE for now. Other Proto-Languages will be done later (e.g. check comparanda of 辛い (karai, “salty, spicy”), but not doing derivation proposal of that word).

Possible Words

Japanese	Proto-Japonic	English	Sanskrit/Other Early Asian Language	Proto-Indo-Iranian/Other Proto Asian Language from PIE	Proto-Indo-European	Problems
膨れる (fukureru, “to swell”)	*pukoru	N/A (maybe fill and fat?)	Sanskrit फक्कति (phakkati, “to swell”) (?)	N/A	*bʰelǵʰ- (“to swell”)	Remade into comparison (at least the Japanese entry), see the talk page here
張る (haru, “to blow”)	*paru	blow	N/A	N/A	*bʰel- (“to blow, to swell”)	There are no known Proto word descended from PIE related to Asia.
降る (furu, “to fall”)	*puru ("to fall")	fall (?), feather (?)	पतति (pátati, “to fall, to fly”) or पापतीति (pā́patīti, “to fly”) (whence Ancient Greek πίπτω (píptō, “to fall”))	*pátati	*peth₂-	Semantic shift to fall (although not as hard as motsu proposal and should probably be easy considering PIIR/PIE sense = fall) and final */-th-/ deletion must be explained
触れる (fureru, “to touch, to feel”)	*puru ("to touch, to feel")	feel	N/A	N/A	N/A	feel ultimately derived from Proto-West Germanic *fōlijan, no certain PIE root found
持つ (motsu, “to hold, to carry”)	*mətu	move	मीवति (mī́vati, “to move (?)”)	*míHwati	*mew-	Semantic and phonetic changes need to be explained (esp. have an object, for instance in ones hands ≠ transport an object from one place to another)
殺す (korosu, “to kill”)	*kərəsu	kill	Tocharian A ko- (“to kill, to chop off”) and Tocharian B kau- (“to kill, to chop off”)	Proto-Tocharian *kāu- (“to kill, to chop off”)	*kewh₂- (“to hit, to strike”)	(unsure on semantics) Phonetic changes need to be explained, and Eirikr told me to dumb down the korosu etymology to only cognate with Proto-Ryukyuan.
飼う (kau, “to feed (an animal)”) (first cited to Shoki 720 as kap(u); see NKD entry here)	*kapu	N/A	खादति (khā́dati, “to feed (on food, prey), to eat”)	*kʰā́dati	*kʷh₂ed-	Probably likely, as PIIR phonetics mostly match PJ *kapu. However, phonetic */-d-/ change or deletion must be explained. Semantics must also be explained: raise an animal; give animals food (?; either = or ≠) feed (on prey), eat; possibly derived through very ancient, rare, and obsolete special causative suffix *-pu (yodan)? Most very likely doesn't actually exist and *-su would better match the semantics. Compare 食う (kū, “to eat”, vulgar starting from the Muromachi Period; first attested in the Kojiki, with pronunciation kup(i)).
ない (nai, “not”), 無い (nai, “not”)	N/A	not, no	न (ná)	*ná	*ne	Very likely, as the phonetics and semantics match. Possibly at least cognates. Insufficent evidence to reconstruct to PJ.
早い (hayai, “early, quick-witted”)	*paya	N/A	पयस् (páyas, “milk”, metaphorically "power")	*páyHas (“milk”)	*peyh₂- (“fat, milk”)	Possibly an ancient metaphorical borrowing, normalized and reconfigured as an adjective. The PJ word would possibly expand later to mean "early".
焼く (yaku, “to burn, to grill”)	*yaku	N/A	root दह् (dah, related to burning), verb दहति (dáhati, “to burn”)	*dʰáǰʰati (verb)	*dʰegʷʰ-	Phonetic */d-/ → */y-/ may need some explanation, otherwise possibly a good borrowing.
JA NOT STARTED (PLACEHOLDER)	PJ NOT STARTED (PLACEHOLDER)	EN NO STARTED (PLACEHOLDER)	SA NOT STARTED (PLACEHOLDER)	PIIR NOT STARTED (PLACEHOLDER)	PIE NOT STARTED (PLACEHOLDER)	PROBLEM NOT STARTED (PLACEHOLDER)

Comments

Since you asked.  :) If you'd prefer to locate this somewhere else, or if you just don't want it, please move or delete as appropriate.

• *pukoru and *paru

These are a bit tricky. JA also has 吹く (fuku, “to blow”), and there have been (rare) cases of verbs developing an additional yodan ending -ru indicating ... some kind of extension of the core sense, as we see with 巻く (maku, “to roll”) → 捲る (makuru, “to repeat, to do something over and over again”), or 剥く (muku, “to peel”) → 剥る (mukuru, “to rip something off”, probably obsolete).

Meanwhile, in PIE, it appears that Proto-Indo-European *bʰelǵʰ- (“to swell”) has no "to blow" sense, and Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“to blow”) has no "to swell" sense. The JA term for "to blow" requires a velar consonant (/k/ or /ɡ/ in the PIE, which is now missing, while the JA term for "to swell" requires a lack of any velar consonant in the PIE, but the PIE definitely has one.

• *puru "to fall"

This very clearly has /u/ as the core vowel. None of the PIE reconstructions, nor the daughter languages, has /u/, manifesting instead /a/, /i/, and /e/. Most daughter languages also maintain some evidence of the PIE coda consonant /t/.

• *puru "to touch"

I suspect this might possibly be cognate with *puru "to fall", from the "touch" verb's core sense of "to briefly come into contact with something", much as you might expect of something light and flat that is falling, like a leaf or cherry blossom petal. Or perhaps with *puru "to shake, to rock". Consider also likely-related adverb ふらり (furari).

• *mətu

Very unlikely to be related to the PIE candidates you have listed. The core sense of JA motsu has always been "to have in one's possession, to have on one's person", closer to English "to hold" than "to transport".

• *kərəsu

Difficult to connect, as we've discussed earlier.  :)

Broadly, when looking for connections like this, I've learned that there are a couple key things to look for:

• The possibility of borrowings versus cognates
• Clearly explainable, and consistent, sound correspondences

For instance, kawara "roof tile" is very interestingly quite like Sanskrit kapala "dome of the skull". And there's a very good reason for this -- the Japanese term does indeed trace back to an early borrowing from Sanskrit.  ;) See also the etym at Japanese 瓦.

Similarly, my early excitement at finding that Korean also has a subject particle 가 (-ga) was somewhat tempered when I learned both that 1) this is not that old, only appearing from the late 1500s, and 2) it may well have been borrowed from Japanese.

Regarding sound correspondences, if you come up with some sound shifts to connect Proto-Japonic *kərəsu with PIE *kewh₂- (“to hit, to strike”), those sound shifts should be applicable in other areas to find additional related terms. If those sound shifts only work for this one derivation, then it's probably not correct.

Anyway, HTH! Cheers, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 00:53, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

@Eirikr New PJ←PIE theory created. Please review. -- Chuterix (talk) 02:50, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

• Re: *kapu, the PIE terms all seem to revolve around a core meaning of to bite — see also the related notes at Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/kǫsati. Meanwhile, the oldest Japanese senses are either to give food or water to an animal or to raise an animal by giving it food and water (the former takes the food or water as the object, the latter takes the animal as the object). Semantically, quite different.

Then we have the phonology, which really only aligns (somewhat) with the initial ka-.

• Re: 食う (kuu), consider the potential relationship with 口 (kuchi, ancient combining form kutu), and related term 加える (kuwaeru, “to add into”, original sense more like "to hold in the mouth").
• Re: *yaku, I note that the PIE terms almost entirely relate more specifically to "destructive burning", as opposed to the more useful "burning" one does to cook something for human consumption. That said, there is some "destructive" overlap in modern JA terms like 日焼け (hiyake, “sunburn”). The phonology is somewhat dubious, however.

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:33, 12 December 2022 (UTC)