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).
| 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[edit]
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)
- 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)
- @Eirikr: Regarding yaku going around the meaning "destructive burning", the NKD2 entry lists a similar definition:
[一] ② 燃やして形をなくす。燃やして灰にする。焼失する。※書紀（720）天智二年二月（北野本訓）「新羅人、百済の南の畔の四の州を焼燔(ヤク)」Meaning: [1] (a) By burning removes the shape. By burning make to ashes. Destroy by fire (lit. burn ⟨suru verb, on'yomi⟩). Shoki (720) Heaven Wisdom - Year 2, Month 2 (??? Kitano) "The people of Silla, burn four sands of the ridge of south Kudara"
- Not evaluating other responses for today. -- Chuterix (talk) 00:22, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
- Good find! I'm curious about the semantic overlap then between yaku and moyasu. The moyasu root moyu is intransitive, whereas yaku was apparently ambitransitive, with the yodan (perhaps main?) paradigm being transitive. Unsure if moyu "to burn" relates to moyu "to sprout", perhaps from the idea of flames arising in a fashion similar to buds (I may have read that somewhere... but I must confirm). ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 01:19, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
- Correction: ② Burn to nothing (literally, “eradicate by burning)”; burn to ashes; to destroy by fire. [Nihon] Shoki, second year of [Emperor] Tenji’s reign, second lunar month (Kitano-bon kun annotation): “Silla men wasted by fire four districts of the southern border of [Baekje]..” (Original text and modern annotation.) No need to thank me. ～ POKéTalker（＝◉＝） 00:00, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
fukureru[edit]
I realized that there are a few other likely cognates, pointing towards a root element puku.
- 袋 (fukuro)
- 膨らむ (fukuramu)
- 膨ら・脹ら (fukura, noun, -na adjective)
- 膨よか (fukuyoka, -na adjective), 膨やか (fukuyaka, -na adjective)
- ふくふく (fukufuku, adverb)
- ぷくっと (pukutto, adverb)
- 肺 (fukufukushi, old word for “lung”)
- 含む (fukumu), 含める (fukumeru)
- (possibly) 福福 (fukufuku, -na adjective), 福福しい (fukufukushii) -- the spelling could well be phono-semantic matching, given that part of the core meaning seems to be "plump"
In light of all the above, the root at the center of all this would seem to be OJP or jpx-pro */puku/ ("plump? plumply? bulgingly?"), with a possible relationship to 吹く (fuku, “to blow”). (Although, the more I look at it, the more I think that the verb is probably unrelated to the adverbial / adjectival root...)
(Side note: 張る (haru) as in the table above does not have any "to blow" sense that I'm aware of...)
HTH! ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 23:49, 27 January 2023 (UTC)