In a series of lectures published in the comments section to the previous 2 posts, I discovered and detailed the Yeniseian origins of the Japonic language family. That's not to say that Japanese is a Yeniseian language, but that the Wa people used to speak a Yeniseian language, and they carried over many of their lexical items into the Altaic language that they shifted to after Yeniseian -- probably a Para-Mongolic language -- and have retained them even into the Japonic stage of their history, after incorporating Emishi / Ainu speakers along the way.
But the numerous examples I gave are mostly nouns and adjectives, and some highly important closed-class items like pronouns, kin terms, and particles / affixes. There are very few verbs in the examples -- until now!
The reason I couldn't draw Yeniseian origins for Japanese verbs is that I was trying to capture too many segments from the Japonic form, but it turns out that the final 2 segments in Japonic verbs -- Cu (some consonant, and "u") -- are just verb markers, not part of the semantic core of the word. I knew that already about the final "u" for Japanese verbs, but I did not appreciate the fact that the final consonant is not semantically crucial, it's only there for phonotactic reasons.
And that reason I didn't know that, is that nobody else knows that! So I couldn't just read about it in a Wikipedia article, Wiktionary entry, or even scholarly article, unless it's an obscure / forgotten one, entirely in Japanese, from the 15th C...
So in the interest of not only revealing the nature of Japanese verbs, but also to help connect them back to earlier Yeniseian forms that have been carried over after language shift, I'm going to start a new post on this topic.
The source of Proto-Japonic verbs is Wiktionary's list. See also some helpful intros from Wikipedia on the topic of Japanese conjugation and Japanese five-way vs. one-way verbs ("godan" vs. "ichidan").
First, to briefly summarize what *is* already known about Japanese verbs. They characteristically end in "u", not some other vowel, and not a consonant (coda consonants are banned in P-J). Other parts of speech are not this regularized in their ending, Japonic really wanted to clearly mark its verbs.
Before this final "u" is a consonant. Verbs fall into 2 classes. By far the most common are those where this consonant is considered the final segment of the stem of the verb. Less common are those where this consonant is "r", but the verb stem is considered to end in the vowel just before that, always followed by "ru". These classes are called consonant-stem verbs vs. vowel-stem verbs.
Example of a consonant-stem verb -- "kaku" ("to write"), has the stem "kak-".
Example of a vowel-stem verb -- "miru" ("to see"), has the stem "mi-".
The consonant-stem verbs are also known as "godan" or 5-way verbs, since the vowel that follows the stem comes in all 5 different Modern Japanese vowels, depending on the tense, aspect, etc. that the verb is being used it. So "kak-" is followed by "a", "i", "u", "e", and "o", before other suffixes and particles are added on, to indicate whether it's a negative, a command, the infinitive, the past, and so on.
The vowel-stem verbs are also known as "ichidan" or 1-way verbs, since their stems end in a vowel, and this is the one and only vowel in their conjugation pattern (before the negative, command, infinitive, etc. suffixes are added onto them).
Since the vowel-stem verbs have stems that end in a vowel, and the unconjugated verb must end in a vowel as well, and Japonic phonotactics prefer syllables that are "CV", a consonant must come between the end of the stem and the final "u". In every single case, this consonant is "r" -- showing that it is a dummy consonant, not semantically crucial to the particular verb it occurs in. For example, "miru" and "tomeru", whose stems are "mi-" and "tome-".
Now, for the part that is not understood, or if it was once understood, has not been transmitted to the present. This preference for verbs ending in "ru" is not unique to the vowel-stem verbs, where it is obligatory -- the most common final consonant for the consonant-stem verbs is "r", which means they also end in "ru"!
Can any ol' consonant be the final segment of a stem for the consonant-stem verbs? I skimmed through the list of P-J verbs and could immediately see that "r" was the most common, followed by "k", with others rare, and some non-existent. How is this not widely known??? There's a massive preference for and against certain segments as the final consonant of consonant-stem verbs.
I present these in the following list of 61 consonant-stem verbs and 16 vowel-stem verbs, which are the entire list of P-J verbs at Wiktionary. First they're split into the consonant (godan) vs. vowel (ichidan) stem verbs. And within them, they're ordered by the frequency of the final segment, from common to absent. Wiktionary lists "woi-" as "wo-", but it has an "i" in some forms, so it's like the others ending in a vowel sequence of "Vi". The vowel "ə" is AKA "o2".
Godan
R, 21
ar-
asar-
kir-
kukOr-
kur-
mapar-
nar-
nenpur-
ninkir-
panpakar-
pikar-
sir-
sur-
ter-
tukur-
tur-
ur-
watar-
wəntər-
yar-
ər-
K, 18
arik-
ik-
isonk-
k-
kak-
kik-
mak-
muk-
nonk-
sik-
suk-
tonk-
tontok-
uk-
unkok-
yak-
ək-
əyənk-
P, 9
ap-
asump-
ip-
kup-
op- ~ əp-
sinənp-
turunp-
tənp-
yukəp-
T, 5
kat-
mat-
mət-
ut-
ət-
S, 4
kərəs-
s-
əs-
ətəs-
M, 2
nəm-
yOnkam-
N, 2
in-
sin-
Y, 0
W, 0
Ichidan
A, 12
pukor-a-
wasur-a-
ank-a-
mak-a-
int-a-
nant-a-
nis-a-
wosam-a-
koy-a-
moy-a-
kuw-a-
uw-a-
I, 4
ai-
mi-
poi-
woi-
E, 0
O, 0
U, 0
Again, all of the vowel-stem verbs end in "ru" in the uninflected form. But the most common final segment for consonant-stem verbs is "r", yielding the ending of "ru" in their uninflected forms as well! This preference for "r" dwarfs nearly all other possible choices for consonants. In a close 2nd place is "k". In a distant 3rd place is "p", and even further behind are "t" and "s", with "m" and "n" rounding out the list of those that are actually present but rare, while "y" and "w" do not appear at all.
So, far from the final consonant of consonant-stem verbs being open to any ol' choice, there is clearly a strong preference for "r" and "k" and against most of the others. Next we investigate why this is, and draw conclusions for the study of etymologies -- very important to know if the final consonant in consonant-stem verbs is semantically crucial or vacuous! Turns out, it's vacuous, and that was what prevented me from discovering Yeniseian origins to Japonic verbs. Thankfully, that can now be corrected!
* * *
So why is "r" the default consonant for the final syllable -- "ru" -- of the uninflected form of Japonic verbs? When the Wa people were shifting from Yeniseian to Altaic / Japonic languages, their morphology changed from polysynthetic to agglutinative, i.e. where you stick or "glue" basic building blocks together in a long chain.
There are only so many building blocks, which introduces the homophone problem -- how can you tell that some suffix is a verb ending vs. a particle connecting two words vs. a noun ending vs. a prefix vs. anything else that a building block could be?
Polysynthetic languages are fusional, where all these changes to a stem are not building blocks concatenated together, but "bound" morphemes that can only appear in certain contexts and not on their own. English has very little of this left, although it is still fusional. A better example are the Romance languages that we studied in school.
In Spanish, the verb "to sing" is "cantar", and the stem is "cant-". Unlike Japanese, though, this stem does not merely receive a series of building blocks stuck on the end, one block for each bit of information added. Rather, the entire rest of the meaning comes from just one ending, which therefore come in dozens of forms.
One of these "bound" endings is "-o", yielding "canto", "I sing". This is the present tense, first person, singular number, indicative mood, simple aspect -- all of those bits of additional information, "fused" into a single morpheme that cannot appear on its own, but only on a verb stem. If you want "We sing", the ending is "-amos", yielding "cantamos". There is no clear relation between "-o" and "-amos" -- opacity is a feature of fusional morphology, whereas agglutinative morphology is transparent, since each bit of meaning has its own building block. That's not even to mention the dozens of other endings that "cant-" can receive, to fill out all those differences in tense, person, number, mood, and aspect!
Well, although agglutinative morphology is far more transparent than the opacity of fusional morphology, that comes at a trade-off with the homophone problem. In Spanish, there are almost no homophone problems across the dozens of endings that "cant-" can take, and none of them are homophones with other words throughout the language -- "amos", "aste", "arian", etc., are not free-standing words that could be confused with these fusional verb endings.
This makes the detection of word boundaries crystal-clear for fusional languages -- "Oh, I just heard '-aste', which can only be a verb ending, so that's the end of a word. And it followed 'cant-', which is a verb stem, so that must be the beginning of the word."
Agglutinative languages like Japanese have a huge potential homophone problem, since building blocks can hypothetically be combined in any which way, so how do you know which meaning is intended? Is "mi" the stem of a vowel-stem verb, is "mi" a noun", is "mi" a particle, is "mi" a suffix, or prefix, or pronoun? It could be any of those things, and in fact in Japanese it *is* several of those things.
Agglutinative languages also have the problem of detecting word boundaries, since the building blocks can appear in initial, medial, and final position, hypothetically. They aren't like "aron" in Spanish, which is a fusional verb ending that cannot appear as a prefix or as a stem of a noun or verb. Unlike hearing "aron" in Spanish and immediately knowing it's the end of a word, hearing "mi" in Japanese gives you zero information about whether it's the beginning, middle, or end of a word, since that building block can appear in all places!
Therefore, agglutinative languages have to try to impose a set of rules about which building blocks can appear at the beginning, middle, or end, and for verbs vs. nouns vs. adjectives. It mitigates some of the confusion about homophones and word boundaries, but doesn't entirely solve it.
How can they do this, if their whole morphology is about gluing together any ol' string of building blocks? Well, that's just the semantic side, where "mi" could refer to various things.
* * *
Enter, phonotactics! That is, the rules or constraints on what sounds, sound sequences, sound structures, etc., words can take in the language.
Getting right to the point, Japonic phonotactics prohibit "r" in initial position. It only occurs initially in words borrowed from Chinese, English, or other non-Japonic language. So it works perfectly to indicate medial or final position, eliminating initial position. When you hear "ru", you know it's the middle or end of a word. Again, doesn't totally solve the problem, but it helps.
That also means that "rV" cannot be a particle, since that would mean "r" in word-initial position. Japanese has tons of connecting particles, but none of them begin with "r". So when you hear "ru", you know it's not a particle, not a prefix or beginning of a stem, so it's either a suffix or a later part of a stem.
Why did the vowel have to be "u"? To avoid homophone problems, it seems: "ra" was already taken as a pluralizing noun suffix, "re" was already taken as a nominalizing suffix, and "ri" for and adverbial suffix. "Ro" seems to have been dispreferred on phonotactic grounds, it's by far the least common "r" syllable in OJ. So that leaves "ru" (3rd-most common "r" syllable in OJ) as the best choice for default verb ending.
From "ru", the default vowel ending for verbs became "u", even for verbs whose final syllable has some other consonant, like "kak-". In OJ, the most common syllable for a consonant does not always end in "u", e.g. "p" and "t". So it's not consonant-by-consonant phonotactics that determines the final vowel of the verb -- it's a default vowel that was originally established for "r", and it was copied for all other verbs in order to standardize the final segment of verbs -- "u".
Why didn't nouns and adjectives receive such rigidly standardized endings? Cuz they don't add on as many building blocks as verbs do in Japanese. Nouns are not inflected for number (mostly) or gender. They only take case suffixes. Adjectives do not have to agree with the nouns they modify, for number, gender, or case. Since verbs are going to take on all sorts of suffixes, it's more necessary to know where the end of the stem is, that all these blocks are being stacked on top of.
Which consonants other than "r" are allowed for consonant-stem verbs? This is both phonotactics and avoiding homophones, especially with suffixes and particles. And this is the only place where the 5-way conjugation of verbs is relevant -- since many vowels are going to follow the final consonant of the stem, this presents phonotactic and homophone problems for that consonant plus any of the vowels. That's a lot of problems to avoid, and only a few consonants can do so.
Starting with the consonants that are absent from consonant-stem verbs -- the approximants "y" and "w". From the P-J stage, the syllables "wu" and "yi" were banned in order to dissimilate approximants from their vocalic counterparts. Since both "i" and "u" would appear after "y" and "w" in the 5-way conjugation pattern, this would result in the syllables "yi" and "wu" appearing, and that's illegal. So, no consonant-stem verbs can end in "y" or "w". In fact, if they were intended to be the final consonant of a consonant-stem verb, they were given an invariant "a" afterward, and put into the 1-way / vowel-stem class instead. We'll get to those later.
The nasals "m" and "n" would not result in illegal syllables when conjugated, but they would involve too big of a homophone problem. "N" plus any vowel is already a highly common suffix or particle, especially the possessive particles "no" / "na" and the locative particle "ni", as well as the diminuitive noun suffix "ne". "M" would yield a bunch of homophones for common concepts like "seeing", "body", and "three", as well as the non-unique topic marker particle "mo", and "mu" was already a verb suffix (volitional, etc.).
Originally, "o" was not one of the vowels following the last consonant of the stem, so these homophones aren't so crucial, but they indicate the homophone problem nonetheless, which "r" does not have.
The problem with "s" is that "su" is already a verb unto itself, one of the very few that is monosyllabic, and a very ancient and common verb -- "to become" and "to do". Hearing this at the end of some other verb whose consonant stem ended in "s" would make it sound like the final "su" was this standalone verb being used as the 2nd element of a compound verb, or as an auxilliary verb for the part of the stem preceding "s". WAY too confusing. Evidently so confusing that over time, Japanese standardized "su" into "suru" with the most preferred verb ending, "ru", just to prevent any confusion.
I'll get to the handful of exceptions to these rare consonant verbs, in a bit, but briefly they seem to be compounds where the rare consonant was not originally the end of a stem, but the start of the 2nd element of a compound. So they're not such exceptions anyway.
"T" would yield "tu", which was already a common particle (genitive), as well as a verb suffix (completion), and a counter suffix for nouns. "To" was already taken by connecting word "and".
"P" would yield "pu", which was already a verb suffix (ongoing, repeating). Worst of all, "pa" was the topic marking particle.
That leaves only "k" as able to compete with "r". The only particle it would yield a homophone of is "ka", but that's a sentence-final particle, not one that connects words, so it's no problem for the end of a verb. However, "ka" was an adjective suffix in OJ. "Ki" as a certainty suffix for verbs came later during Classical Japanese, not in P-J or OJ. And "ku" was a not-so-common nominal suffix in OJ, but was also a standalone common verb in P-J, "to come", later standardized into "kuru". Same problem with "ku" as with "su".
"K" is not as flawless as "r", but a quantum leap above the other consonants, so "k" is more for the overflow, after a stem ending in "r" has already been taken -- the rest of the stem is fine, just alter "r" to "k", and presto, a new verb with no homophone problems.
E.g., since "sir-" and "sur-" already exist, "sik-" and "suk-" can be used instead. The "su" in "sur-" has to do with "rubbing", while the "su" in "suk-" has to do with "liking, loving". The "si" in "sir-" has to do with "knowing", while the "si" in "sik-" has to do with "spreading out". Rather than conflate the unrelated "su"s and "si"s into homophonous "suru"s and "siru"s, use the default "r" for one and the over-flow "k" for the other. Bingo.
* * *
Before exploring this matter of the less common consonants being an over-flow when the more common consonants were already taken, let's address the matter of how many of these verbs are morphologically atomic vs. complex.
Well, any time there's a nasal + obstruent, it just means there's a morpheme boundary, and this will later get rendaku-fied in OJ. Rarely is there any evidence for the nasal.
Also, Japanese morphemes in general and verbs especially want to be bisyllabic / bimoraic, or perhaps monosyllabic / monomoraic, not more than 2 syllables / moras. Atomic verbs could be hiding inside verbs of 3+ syllables, though, while not being attested on their own. So I'm inclined to only count 4 verbs under stem ending in "p" -- those whose infinitive is 1 or 2 moras ("apu", "ipu", "əpu", "kupu"). The others are complex, and the "p" is really an initial or medial consonant to a later element of a compound, not the final consonant of an atomic stem.
Then restricting the analysis to atomic verb stems, the idea that less common consonants are an over-flow for already taken more-common consonants, predicts that the less common verbs should have more common counterparts -- the ones they are trying to avoid homophony with, by using a less common over-flow consonant. This excludes monosyllabic verbs, since their sole consonant is not a dummy consonant, and you can't tell whether or not there's a competing form -- what precedes this consonant is nothing, not a sequence of vowels and consonants.
Let's see...
Of 10 "k" verbs, 6 have higher-ranking counterparts ("kik-", "sik-", "suk-", "uk-", "yak-", "ək-"). Also, "kak-" may have a counterpart hiding inside of either "panpakar-" or "pikar-".
Of 4 "p" verbs, all have higher-ranking counterparts, and 1 has both of them! ("əp-")
Of 5 "t" verbs, 4 have higher-ranking counterparts, some with more than one.
Of 1 "s" verb, it indeed has every higher-ranking counterpart ("əs-").
Of 1 "m" verb, it does not have any higher-ranking counterparts. This is "nəm-" meaning "to drink", and perhaps it was allowed its very rare final nasal in the stem, as part of onomatopoeia, where eating and drinking tend to have nasal consonants -- both consonants are nasal here, in fact, just like "nom-nom" in English.
Of 2 "n" verbs, both have multiple higher-ranking counterparts.
So yes, the less common consonants are over-flow choices, for when the better choices are already taken, and homophony must be avoided.
And in all cases, to reiterate the main point, these final consonants in the stem are NOT semantically crucial, they are vacuous and only chosen on the basis of phonotactics and avoiding homophony. Important to bear in mind when trying to find earlier ancestors of these verbs...
* * *
What about the 1-way / vowel-stem verbs? Here again we see them acting as either over-flow for already taken forms, or to avoid phonotactic prohibitions.
By far the most common vowel-stem verbs end in "a", and they are transcribed as "-a-", to hint that the "a" is just a dummy consonant. If it weren't, then the other consonants could show up as well -- but they don't. Only "i" shows up as well, and it's rare, and most of those involve vowel sequences, not consonant + "i".
This "a" seems to have been "hard-coded" to prevent the 5-way (or earlier, 4-way) vowel pattern from spawning. Every conjugated form will have "a".
Well, that avoids the ban on approximants "y" and "w" -- both of those are fine followed by "a". Indeed, unlike the consonant-stem class, where "y" and "w" are totally absent, they make up 4 of the 12 entries for vowel-stem ending in "a", just before the dummy "a". Since they couldn't end in "y" or "w" when illegal vowels could result under the 5-way / 4-way pattern, just hard-code the following vowel to be "a", and problem solved!
I'm inclined to think that means these approximants *are* semantically meaningful, since they went through the extreme measure of hard-coding a dummy vowel afterward, to allow the approximant to be preserved. If it were just an over-flow choice of consonant, there are better choices -- the nasals, the sibilant, or "t" or "p", which were generally not chosen. They really wanted the "y" and "w" to stay in these cases.
That goes for the other 2nd-to-last consonants in the vowel-stem class -- which means there's a sick inversion going on! The final consonants in the consonant-stem class are vacuous, while the latest-occurring consonants in the vowel-stem class are meaningful! The 5-way class is really "consonant stem for phonetics, but the preceding vowel for semantics", and the 1-way class is really "vowel stem for phonetics, but the preceding consonant for semantics". Neat.
Another 4 of the 12 vowel-stem verbs are from consonants that are rare in the consonant-stem class (2 "t"s, 1 "s", 1 "m").
Only 2 of 12 vowel-stem verbs are from the super-common "r" in the consonant-stem class, and another mere 2 of 12 from the super-common "k" in the consonant-stem class. In the vowel-stem class, "r" and "k" are not so dominant at all -- combined, they are as common as "y" and "w", which are totally absent in the consonant-stem class!
The over-flow pattern shows up here again. The atomic "kor" in "pukor-a-" could be hiding in "kukOr-" from the consonant-stem class. The atomic "sur" in "wasur-a-" already appears in "sur-". The atomic "mak" in "mak-a-" already appears in "mak-".
As for the vowel-stem verbs ending in "i", 3 of them involve vowel sequences, which are generally a feature of P-J nouns, not verbs. E.g., "tai" = "hand", whose forms have an "a" sometimes and an "e" other times. And the 1 vowel-stem verb that does not have a vowel sequence, "mi-", is cognate with a P-J noun that does have a vowel sequence, "mai" = "eye". Perhaps "miru" began as "mairu", which would make it fit better with the other "i" vowel-stem verbs, and for whatever reason the "a" was deleted.
None of these 4 would have a homophone in the consonant-stem class if they had an "r" hard-coded after their vowel stem, e.g. "ai-" could be altered to "air-" and not compete with an existing consonant-stem verb of that form. Ditto for the others.
Here it seems more like phonotactics play a role -- atomic stems / infinitive verbs cannot be more than 2 moras. "Airu", "poiru", and "woiru" all have 3 moras, so they can't be hard-coded into "r"-ending consonant-stem verbs. In fact, their descendant or variant forms will not have 3 moras either -- "eru", "hiru", and "oru / iru".
Again that suggests that "mi-" used to be "mai". Otherwise it's unusual, since its infinitive, "miru", has only 2 moras as is desired -- that should result in it being treated as a consonant-stem verb ending in "r", "mir-". But if it was originally "mai-", then "mairu" would have 3 moras, break the rule, and get lumped into the "i"-ending vowel-stem verbs, along with "ai-", "poi-", and "woi-".
* * *
I'll get to etymologies in a separate post, or perhaps in the comment section to this post. The most important thing before that is laying out this foundation, about what segments are semantically meaningful vs. vacuous. It turns out, a lot of those consonants are meaningless, so they don't need to be captured in an etymology, only the first "CV" syllable.
Sadly, that makes the etymologies less convincing, since a 3-segment etymology is more convincing than a 2-segment one. But that's just the way the cookie crumbles with Japonic historical linguistics...
Aside from showing a number of Yeniseian origins for Japonic verbs, I'll also draw a parallel between the phonotactic structure of their verbs, and how it parallels Japonic.
Briefly, none of the Proto-Yeniseian verbs -- hardly any words at all -- begin with a nasal. Yeniseian is polysynthetic and prefixing, while Japonic is agglutinative and suffixing -- so it's the same process. Yeniseian verbs avoid initial nasals, Japonic verbs avoid final nasals (in the stem). Japonic is rife with suffixes and particles beginning with nasals, while Yeniseian has several prefixes for verbs that begin with a nasal.
So they share this avoidance of nasals in the part of the verb that gets the most modification during conjugation. And since those particles are carry-overs from Yeniseian to Japonic, as I showed earlier, this is not a coincidence across language families. Yeniseian verbs avoid initial nasals in their stem, and Japonic as the end of their stem, for cognate reasons.
I've also discovered another sound correspondence between Proto-Yeniseian and Proto-Japonic, but I'll get to that one later as well. But briefly, P-Y "tɬ" corresponds to P-J "p", at least in initial position. Not very phonetically expected or motivated -- why not alter "tɬ" to simply "t" or "s" or even "r"? -- but it is what it is.
Well, let me end with at least one etymology! P-Y "cej" means "to rip". P-J lacks "c", but can shift its location to velar "k", as I showed in previous examples. The coda consonant is not allowed, and turns into its vocalic counterpart "i". Since vowel sequences are not preferred, and the 2nd usually takes over the 1st, that gives "ki" as the stem.
Whaddaya know? "Kir-" in P-J means "to cut"! Infinitive: "kiru". And that final "r" in the stem is semantically vacuous, it's only there to make verbs adhere to the standard of "ru" being the final syllable. That means only "ki-" is meaningful in Japonic -- and perfectly matches the expected form that would derive from P-Y "cej". QED!
Another sign that consonant-stem verbs don't want to end in nasals, is that the only 2 ending in "n", "in-" and "sin-", in fact have hybrid conjugations in OJ. Two of their conjugated forms (adnominal, exclamatory) look like vowel-stem verbs.
ReplyDeleteProto-Japonic passive verb suffix looks like the famous Proto-Na-Dene detransitivizing prefix, which also gives the passive forms of verbs.
ReplyDeleteP-ND form is "də-"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Na-Dene/d%C9%99-
Japonic is suffixing rather than prefixing, so it goes on the end. Since P-J does not have voiced obstruents, "d" is out -- but "r" is in.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/-(a)r-
In fact, in OJ there was alternation between "re" and "ye" for the passive suffix, suggesting that they were two attempts to render the same unpronounceable segment from some other source.
Well, "d" could be devoiced into "t" for Japonic, but pretty soon everything merges into "t". Why not alter some things into "r" or "y"?
Like "d", both "r" and "y" are voiced, in the alveolar / palatal-ish place, and "r" is pretty stop-like -- a tap / flap.
Vajda relates P-ND "də-" to Proto-Yeniseian "ɟe-", which is an imperative prefix, not about passivity exactly. However, also in OJ there was alternation between "ro" and "yo" for the imperative verb suffix. And "ɟ" is a voiced palatal stop, so "r" and to a lesser extent "y" could be attempts to render that in Japonic as best they could. The "r" is voiced, stop-ish, and near palatal (coronal), while "y" is voiced, not very stop-ish, but in the palatal place.
So these two seemingly unrelated OJ pairs of alternating "r" / "y" affixes -- one pair for the passive, one pair for the imperative -- could be the missing link between Yeniseian and the Na-Dene "d-" classifier. They're all trying to get at a similar sound, for similar meanings. Japonic has both of these meanings, imperative and passive, while Yeniseian only has the imperative, and Na-Dene only has the passive.
Glorious Nippon, Nowa-san no Aaku, for so many things -- not just American culture, but prehistoric Northeast Asian language links as well! ^_^
On Japanese mythology, religion, and sacred language purging, and returning to one of the obviously compound verbs in the consonant-stem list -- "yOnkam-", meaning "to bend". In the previous post's comments, I showed a Yeniseian origin of the Japonic word for "bow", the weapon, which is "qewǰ" in P-Y and "yu" in P-J in stem form, although "yu + mi" where "mi" means "body, main part of an object". An example of the P-Y (and P-Athabaskan) "q" and P-J "y" correspondence (at least initially).
ReplyDeleteWell, since there's no evidence for a nasal in "yOnkam", it's really a compound, and later rendaku applied at the word boundary when the compound was lexicalized. It can't be a coincidence that "to bend" has a stem that means "bow", the weapon. The "O" means either "o" or "u", and it's "u" in all attested forms.
So the P-J word for "to bend" was really "yu + kamu" in the dictionary form. The verb "kamu" is not attested on its own in P-J -- but we can tell that it means "to take the shape of", since compounding it with the word for "bow" yields "to bend".
It would be one of the very rare exceptions to the consonant-stem preference, since "kam-" ends in a nasal, a big no-no. But it's a rare exception.
It's not a vowel-stem verb, since "yOnkam-" has an "i" as well as a "u" following the "m" in conjugated form.
I think this verb "kamu" / "kami" is behind the Proto-Japonic word for "god, spirit, animist presence", "kamui", which also has an alternation between final "u" and "i":
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/kamui
It's the "kamu" form of this otherwise unattested verb, plus the emphatic subject marker "-i".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%84#Etymology_3
So, it means "the one who takes shape", "the shape-taker", etc. -- the first entities to take definitive shape, back when the universe was just a void or uniformly featureless and formless matter. Organized entities, not just random chaos.
As the animist / Shinto religion became more and more organized, from a folk religion into an institutionalized one with priests and shrine maidens and so on, the word "kami" took on a sacred tone, not just a descriptive tone of "primeval entity that has been here before us, and will be here after us". All sorts of animist religions have words for "spirits".
But turn it into a priestly religion, and suddenly you can't talk about them in mundane or everyday terms. Or -- if your term for them came from mundane origins, those mundane usages must be swept away.
I think that's exactly what happened, and why "kamu" meaning "to take shape" is not otherwise attested. It is hiding out inside a compound term that has lexicalized into a single verb, and even then, its initial consonant has been subtly altered by rendaku -- "yugamu" -- making it even harder to spot by the crusade to wipe it out in non-sacred contexts. Word purges can easily fail to find their targets when they're inside a compound.
When it was understood that "kami" meant "the one who takes shape", you could no longer use the verb "kamu" = "to take shape" in a mundane context.
So instead, a more roundabout compound was invented, to avoid the taboo of "kamu". It is "katachizukuru", which comes from Japonic words meaning "shape" and "to build / make", much like the compound phrase "to take shape" in English.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%BD%A2%E4%BD%9C%E3%82%8B#Japanese
But originally, the Wa people had a morphologically simple word for "to take shape" -- "kamu" -- before the concept of "taking shape" took on a sacred tone, with the rise of a priestly religion centered around the kami.
Neat. ^_^
Addendum: it's not unexpected for "kamu" to have a nasal at the end of its consonant-stem, since higher-ranking choices for that final consonant are already taken in P-J -- "kak-" and "kat", meaning only lower-ranking choices were available. That leaves only "s", "m", or "n". The "s" verbs are about as common as the "t" verbs, so they had to go noticeably down further -- to the nasals, where they flipped a coin between "m" and "n".
ReplyDeleteThis may also explain why it was lost -- not only the purge of suddenly sacred words that used to be for mundane contexts, but it's from an unstable verb class, consonant stems ending in "m". Words ending in "mu" just don't sound like good ol' Japonic verbs, so all the more reason to get rid of "kamu" and replace it with "katchizukuru", whose verb *does* end in "ru" like Japonic really wants verbs to end.
There are other possible reasons why the Japonic word for "spirit, god" originally meant "the one who takes shape". It's not necessarily the very first series of gods who ever existed in the history of the universe, emerging from primordial chaos.
ReplyDeleteThe kami are all over the natural world, and are here in the present time. Not just creator gods from long ago.
So perhaps it's setting up an opposition between entities that are spiritual, ethereal, intangible -- vs. entities that are material, corporeal, etc. Spirits vs. bodies.
A body is made from solid concrete matter, whereas a spirit is more abstract -- like a "shape" or "form".
It could also refer to the animist belief that natural objects were inhabited by spirits, like a mountain or a river. In that case, the spirit "takes the shape of" the mountain, or "takes the shape of" the river. The spirits are not solid, concrete, and definite -- they're protean, shape-shifting, and can take the shape of various natural objects, which they then inhabit and become the ruler over it.
So, a term like "yama no kami" = "mountain god" may have originally meant "the one who takes the shape of a mountain", i.e. an entity that was once abstract and protean, but then took up residence in the mountain, took its shape, and became bound to it as its spiritual over-seer.
This would have the same meaning in Japanese as "yama no katachi zukuri" -- "yama no katachi" = "the shape of a mountain", and "tsukuru" = "to build / make", and the suffix "-i" meaning "the one who does the verb it's attached to". "The one who takes the shape of a mountain".
That means "kamu" and "katachizukuru" are synonyms -- "to take the shape of".
Left out 1 verb, though it doesn't change the results. Wiktionary mis-tagged it as a noun, so it didn't show up in the list of verbs.
ReplyDeleteIt's "ki-" ("to put on clothes"), a vowel-stem verb ending in "i" -- and so, the dictionary form ending in "ru", "kiru".
It's like "miru" in that way -- and therefore, probably like "miru" in other ways. Like it was probably "kairu", to fit with the rest of the "i"-ending vowel-stem verbs -- "CVV" then "ru".
Also like "mi" = "to see", which is related to vowel-alternating forms "ma, me" = "eye" (from P-J "mai"), "ki" = "to put on clothes" must be related to P-J "kai", which comes in vowel-alternating pairs "ka, ke" = "animal fur", i.e. the outer layer of "clothing" that non-human animals wear.
I think the direction of extension is from the human term to the animal term, as in English -- the animal's fur is called a "coat", which was first used to refer to human clothing, then extended to animal fur.
Similarities in Yeniseian and Japonic morpheme's phonological shape. I mean garden-variety words, not affixes or particles, not small closed-class words like pronouns. The typical noun or verb. Not compounds, morphologically simple words.
ReplyDeleteYeniseian wants these words to come in the form CV(G)C -- two consonants that bookend the word, a nuclear vowel between them, and an optional glide "w" or "y" ("j") in the coda before the bookend consonant.
Japonic makes one little change -- banning coda consonants -- but after that, it's the same. Two book-ending consonants with a crucial vowel between them, only now adding a dummy vowel at the end -- CVCV. The optional glide is not possible, and if it were there and the word is being carried over into Japonic, it'll have to turn into a vocal counterpart first ("w" -> "u" or maybe "o", and "y" -> "i"), then one of the two vowels in the resulting sequence must remain and the other get deleted, or maybe they fuse into some single 3rd vowel.
Verbs show this template the best, since the final vowel must be "u", and is therefore a dummy vowel signalling its part of speech. The variable part is just CVC-, for both consonant-stem verbs and the dictionary form of vowel-stem verbs, like "miru".
Even for nouns, where the 2nd V can vary, it often seems like a dummy vowel chosen on the basis of phonotactics (frequency of occurence with the preceding C), or avoiding homophony.
Morphemes (aside from a few pronouns etc) are not bare vowels. And bare vowels can only occupy an entire syllable in word-initial position -- and even then, this is a not a common way to begin a word, overwhelmingly they begin with consonants. Both Yeniseian and Japonic.
Japonic is a bit more lenient about word-initial vowels, but they're still not common -- and some of them may not have the proper reconstruction, as they may have had a consonant that has since been deleted, as in the illegal syllables "wu" becoming "u" and "yi" becoming "i". Some of the P-J words beginning with "u" really used to begin with "wu" before the ban on it solidified, likewise for words beginning with "i" really beginning with "yi" once upon a time.
There doesn't seem to be any counterpart that would require subtracting words that begin with consonants -- Japonic does not insert an initial consonant before a bare vowel. So the words that begin with consonants, have always begun with consonants. Unlike the vowel-initial words.
For both Yeniseian and Japonic, the 2nd consonant is often a semantically vacuous segment tacked onto a semantically coherent core CV. Not to say that the first CV is crystal-clear -- but at least defined by some semantic field like "body part" or "kin term" or "weather" etc.
ReplyDeleteYeniseian researchers have already noticed this about its morphology, like "pub" = "son" and "pun" = "daughter", suggesting a common base of "pu" = "child kin term". Then "pub" breaks down into "pu + b" and "pun" into "pu + n". The "b" and "n" are not semantically meaningful in themselves, they don't appear across the language, so they're not a meaning-bearing unit. They just distinguish the various members of a class that shares the initial "CV(G)" segments.
So really they're like subscripts, or as we say in English "child kin term 1," "child kin term 2", "child kin term 3", and so on. The words "1", "2", and "3" are no more meaningful in this context than final "b" and "n" are in the Yeniseian child kin terms. It's not compositional semantics, it's just giving an arbitrary subscript or index to the various members of a class that share some hazy semantic field like kin term, weather, body part, etc.
As I've shown in previous etymologies of Japonic words that come from Yeniseian origins, these semantically vacuous subscript consonants are not always carried over into Japonic -- only the meaningful core of "CV" (where an optional glide has vocalized and replaced or been replaced by the original nuclear vowel).
I think this is going on big-time with Yeniseian verbs carrying over into Japonic. And just look at that list of consonant-stem verbs in Japonic -- there's no way the 2nd C is meaningful, if it overwhelmingly wants to be "r", or perhaps "k", and is resistant to "p" or "t" or "s", barely tolerates "m" or "n", and rejects "y" and "w". It is clearly chosen based on some phonotactic concern, standardizing the verb's sound paradigm, and avoiding homophony.
That's why Japonic did not carry over the often semantically vacuous 2nd C in a word -- they knew it was meaningless, and they could use the same strategy in Japonic to come up with a new vacuous 2nd C, but one that would obey Japonic phonotactics and phoneme inventory. Yeniseian has lots of verbs ending in "n", but that's a huge problem for Japonic, so almost none of their verbs have "n" as the 2nd C. They'll come up with a new vacuous consonant, and it seems "r" was it, and "k" was the first over-flow choice after "r".
So, in the same way that Yeniseian "pub" breaks down into "pu + b" = "child kin term + vacuous index segment", so does Japonic "kiru" ("to cut") break down into "ki + r + u" = "root meaning cut + vacuous index segment + verb-typical final vowel". That root "ki" was inherited from Yeniseian, where "cej" = "to rip".
Does Yeniseian "n" correspond to Japonic "r"? It's striking that there aren't many bans on what consonants can occur in which position in either language family -- but they both have one very strong ban on one consonant, and in initial position. Yeniseian bans nasals initially, while Japonic bans liquids initially.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of a word -- or a verb, anyway, and considering the 2nd C to be the end of the verb stem in Japonic -- Yeniseian is happy with nasals but not liquids or retroflexes. Japonic is happy with liquids as the 2nd C, but not nasals (for verbs at least, possibly nouns as well for the same reason -- they don't want the 2nd syllable of a 2-syllable noun to sound like a particle, and several highly frequent particles begin with "n").
I'll have to investigate this further by seeing if there are plausible carry-over candidates, where P-Y "n" corresponds to P-J "r". Just throwing it out there for now as something noticeable about the two families.
More on Japonic having words that begin with a vowel, but used to begin with "w" or "y" way back when, and its flip-side. The main point is that this strengthens the case for Japonic morphemes being of the shape CVCV -- since some of those that are VCV used to have a C before them, but it dropped out due to an early ban on it before the V in question.
ReplyDeleteWell, what about another apparent violation of CVCV -- CV? Perhaps these words, too, used to have another C that has disappeared, only at the end rather than beginning. And not due to incompatibility with a following V, but due to a ban on coda consonants, becoming a vowel instead, and the "one vowel per syllable" rule.
E.g., P-Y "cej" has shape CVC. Japonic turns coda glides into vocalic counterparts, yielding a shape of CVV. Then it bans vowel sequences, so regardless of how that's resolved, the final shape is CV.
But if you look back into such a word's deep ancient pre-history, you might find a consonant there after all -- a coda glide from Yeniseian! The exact same consonants that disappeared in initial position, although they disappeared for different reasons. But still, more "y"s and "w"s than you might think at first glance, as both 1st C and 2nd C in Japonic.
They are clearly reconstructed in these positions for Yeniseian, cuz Yeniseian doesn't ban coda consonants, and doesn't have the glide-vowel dissimilation going on, as Japonic does.
Why don't Japonic verbs begin with "p" or "w"? I looked at the endings of verbs (really the 2nd C), but what about the 1st C? Again, looking at atomic verbs, not compound or complex ones.
ReplyDeleteP-J verbs are happy to begin with "k", "m", "n", "s", "t", and "y".
There are only 2 consonants that they appear unhappy with. One is "w" (there's only "woi-"), but I think that may reflect the overall weakness of "w" in Japonic as a whole -- not just verbs, not just in initial position. "W" has been on a long-term decline ever since the beginning. I'll get to the implications of that later, but briefly it means that some P-J verbs that begin with a vowel actually used to begin with "w", but this weakest of consonants has disappeared -- yes, even at the P-J stage.
The second and really strange one is "p" (there's only "poi-"). There's a parallel between "w" and "p" for beginning verbs -- their only example is followed by "oi-". That makes them vowel-stem verbs, which are rare compared to consonant-stem verbs. And it makes then "i"-ending vowel-stem verbs, which are rare compared to "a"-ending vowel-stem verbs.
Another parallel is that both "w" and "p" are labial consonants, although fellow labial consonant "m" is very happy as a verb onset. Still worth noting.
Also like "w", "p" is historically weak in Japonic -- it first weakened to bilabial fricative "f", and from there it weakened further into the whispery puff of "h" (bilabial "f" only remains before "u"). In some cases, like between vowels, it weakened to "w", and like "w" in general it sometimes vanished altogether between vowels.
"M" has occasionally vanished between vowels, or in some cases hardened into "b" (when this voiced obstruent became available). But initially, it has not weakened or been altered or vanished. Sure enough, it is the only labial consonant that is happy as a verb onset in P-J.
Forgot to mention, in case it needs repeating, that "r" is banned in initial position, no matter what part of speech, so of course it's banned as the onset of a verb too.
ReplyDeleteEnter the Yeniseian connection! Recall that the direction of adding affixes is reversed between Yeniseian (polysynthetic, likes prefixes) and Japonic (agglutinative, likes suffixes). So, nasals are rare at the beginning of verbs in Yeniseian, and nasals are rare at the "end" (2nd C) of verbs in Japonic. This is due to avoiding confusion with affixes and particles that begin with nasals, and those affixes and particles are from a shared origin.
ReplyDeleteThere's something similar going on with initial labials being rare in Japonic verbs (only "m" is happy). This would seem to correspond to the final position in Yeniseian.
And indeed, labials are not very happy at the end of Yeniseian verbs. The plain labials are already not so common -- 0 verbs end in "b", 1 in "m", 2 in "w", and 3 in "p".
But the labialized consonants are even rarer -- 0 end in "kʷ", and 1 apiece end in "xʷ", "ŋʷ", and "gʷ" (which comes in two closely related variants, both meaning "to pull" = "bagʷ" or "to pull, to stretch" = "wejgʷ").
This ties back into the first illuminating sound correspondence I discovered between P-Y and P-J -- that the labialized velars in Yeniseian corresponded to plain labial consonants in Japonic, simlar to Q-Celtic and P-Celtic.
I'm at a loss to explain this ban on initial labials in Japonic verbs, and final labial / labialized consonants in Yeniseian verbs.
In Yeniseian, there's a clear explanation for not wanting "ŋʷ" at the end of a verb -- it is also a verb prefix (the perfective), so it would creation confusion about it being the start or end of the verb. And where it's allowed as a coda consonant, it's often part of a suffix for nouns or adjectives -- not verbs. So even if you interpreted it as the final sound, it would confuse you about the part of speech it belonged to.
However, that doesn't explain why the other labial / labialized consonants are unwanted at the end of Yeniseian verbs. They aren't in prefixes to verbs, or suffixes to nouns or adjectives, and would create no confusion.
Although I can't explain the near-ban on labials at the end of Yeniseian verbs, it is still a distinctive fact about the proto-language, and it corresponds to a similar near-ban on labials at the start of Japonic verbs, which I may be unable to explain as well. Still, these distinctions parallel to each other.
There's no reason why "p" should be avoided at the start of Japonic verbs. It's not part of any prefix, so it wouldn't confuse you about whether it was the start or end of the verb.
ReplyDeleteNor could it be interpreted as a noun or adjective that modified the following single-syllable root verb. That is, "pVru" could not be thought of as "pV + ru", for the simple reason that "r" is banned in initial position -- so there cannot be a single-syllable verb "ru", with "pV" modifying it.
And remember, "ru" is by far the desired ending syllable for Japonic verbs. If "pa", "pi", "pu", "pe", or "po" wanted to be followed by a syllalbe to create a verb, it would be "ru". If you heard "paru", you'd have to conclude it was an atomic verb, not a complex one.
Here's where it gets stranger -- there actually are several P-J or OJ words of the form "pVru", which sounds like they should be verbs, but almost none of them are!
"Paru" goes back to OJ and means the season "spring" (noun).
"Piru" goes back to P-J and means "daytime" (noun).
"Puru" in P-J means "ancient, old" (adjective).
"Peru" in P-J means "garlic" (noun).
The sole exception is "poru", which doesn't exist in P-J, but in OJ is a verb meaning "to want, to desire".
So clearly, there was no phonotactic rule against "pVru" -- only a rule against this form being a verb, despite it having the ideal phonetic shape of a verb!
There must have been some deep-seated hatred of verbs beginning with labials, which I think goes back to the Yeniseian hatred of verbs ending with labials. Both language families hate the "closed" side of a verb having a labial.
Again, no functional explanation within either language family -- it's some kind of shibboleth, and it is shared between the two families, suggesting an ancient connection. In this case, Japonic speakers used to be Yeniseian speakers, before migrating out of the Steppe and into the Korean peninsula and Japanese islands.
Cliff-hanger for now: Yeniseian verbs do not begin with a vowel (only one on the list does, and it's complex, with the initial vowel coming from a noun). Yeniseian words in general don't begin with a vowel, but especially not verbs. Only nouns and a few adjectives.
ReplyDeleteP-J verbs also prefer beginning with a consonant rather than vowel, but there are quite a few more exceptions to this rule in Japonic than in Yeniseian (where there are none).
That suggests that, once upon a time, the semantic core of these verbs was not just the bare vowel -- since morphemes in P-J cannot be a bare vowel. Remember, the 2nd syllable in atomic verbs in Japonic is usually not meaningful. So that leaves the 1st syllable to bear the meaning -- and if that 1st syllable is a bare vowel, it cannot be a morpheme, and cannot bear meaning, in Japonic.
Solution: once upon a time, these verbs began with a consonant, and this 1st syllable CV (not just V) was a meaning-bearing unit in Japonic, and presumably in whatever language it ultimately came from.
The obvious places to look are those resulting from the ban on "wu" and "yi", which would turn into "u" and "i" alone as the 1st meaningful syllable, plus a 2nd syllable that meant nothing.
But that is not enough -- there are verbs that begin with "a" and "ə", despite no ban on them after any consonant. Oddly, no P-J verbs begin with "e" or "o1".
So, perhaps they used to begin with consonants that were legal in Japonic, but historically weak -- like "w" or "p".
Or perhaps they used to begin with a Yeniseian consonant that was not pronounceable in Japonic, and there were already too many Yeniseian consonants merged into the small number of Japonic consonants, so they just said "screw it, delete the consonant altogether". That is one technical way to avoid homophony for a CV syllable, just delete the C.
There are no morphemes that are bare vowels in Japonic natively, so there aren't a ton of existing words or morphemes that are the bare vowel -- so it's a small over-flow container for making the transition from Yeniseian to Japonic phoneme inventory while avoiding homophony.
This is a whole 'nother secret passageway to explore, so it'll have to wait until later. Just laying out the logic for now...
All-over Japanese etymology lightning round. First, a Yeniseian one, where P-Y "su" refers to a bird species, hazel grouse. It's a game bird, more like a hen -- not a bird of prey, not a cute little songbird, but one that would be important to hunter-gatherers, as a game bird.
ReplyDeleteThere's a suffix in several P-J and OJ bird names that is also "su", which appears to mean "bird", and the syllables preceding it describe what kind of bird it is, probably by an onomatopoeia for that species. There's P-J "karasu" (crow), OJ "mozu" (shrike), OJ "ugupisu" / MJ "uguisu" (warbler, nightingale), and OJ "potətəgisu" / MJ "hototogisu" (cuckoo).
Perhaps P-Y "su" was generalized to mean "bird", not as a standalone term (that's "təri" in P-J), but as a suffix or classifier. Why not "təri"? This is more like chicken, and especially related to its meat for eating. Crows, shrikes, nightingales, and cuckoos are not livestock for eating. A grouse, although a game bird meant for eating, was not livestock -- and so, would have had a "wild" or "undomesticated" connotation.
Going through the P-Y words for avians, there are various waterfowl names which are not appropriate to crows, cuckoos, etc. that do not spend time in the water. There being so many names for waterfowl (and other water creatures like otters) reflects how central the Yeniseian River and river-life was to the speakers of P-Y.
As a reminder from an earlier discovery here, the Japanese word for "duck" = "kamo" is a P-Y carry-over ("cam" = "goose, northern pintail duck").
P-Y does have an abstract word for "bird", but it's too morphologically complex to carry over into Japonic -- "tɬejVŋʷja", meaning "the winged one". The simplest bird name they had was "su", so that worked best as a suffix in Japonic -- one mora, both "s" and "u" and their combination "su" are totally legal in Japonic, so no problem. And it doesn't refer to waterfowl, making it appropriate for various non-waterfowl bird names in Japonic.
Next, eggplant in Japanese, which I got curious about after watching Watame's BBQ stream with Irys, Bae, and Mori! They started talking about its name in English, and how it has nothing to do with "egg", what the British name for it is, etc. So I decided to look into the Japanese etymology...
ReplyDeleteIn OJ, it's "nasubi", and the existing theories assume that it's from earlier "nasumi", where "mi" = "fruit". I will assume that as well -- eggplant is a fruit, with a whole bunch of seeds inside it, it hangs off of a branch of a tree, etc.
The only confusion is what "nasu" means. The cliff-dwelling sage has the answer!
It's a complex term "na + su", where "na" means "middle, semi-" and "su" means "sour". That is, "nasumi" is a fruit that is semi-sour -- not super-sour, since Japanese eggplants are on the mild and sweet side, but also not sweet like other fruits like apples.
Why not call it "semi-sweet" ("na + ama")? Well, it's on the sour side of the spectrum, not the sweet side. Semi-sweet is sweet -- half-way between neutral and sweet. Semi-sour is half-way between neutral and sour. Eggplants are on the sour side, not the sweet side.
In fact, the P-J word for "pear", "nasi", comes from the same roots, and puts them in the same order. Like the MJ word for eggplant, which is "nasu", the P-J word for pear omits "mi" at the end.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/nasi
The meaning may be slightly different for "nasi" = "pear", which could refer to the interior (or "naka") being more sour than most of the flesh. IDK.
"Naka" meaning "interior" has the extra suffix "ka", referring to a place. So "naka" = "na + ka" or "middle + place". So, "na" can be used as a prefix, without "ka", if it's used to indicate a degree of intensity -- like "semi-" -- rather than to indicate a spatial location, like interior.
The "na" in "nasumi" means "semi-", indicating the degree of sourness, not "interior, inside". So "na" alone is fine, it doesn't need to be "naka".
I'm grateful to Watame and the 3 Japan-residing EN vtubers she hosted, for making me curious about this word's origin in Nihongo! ^_^
Another reason not to call it "semi-sweet" = "na + ama", is that this complex term would contract the two "a" vowels and yield "nama", which means "raw" in P-J -- definitely NOT semi-sweet. xD
ReplyDeletePerhaps that's why pear ("nasi") is called "semi-sour" rather than "semi-sweet", despite being on the sweet side. If P-J wanted to say "semi-sweet", it would come out as "raw" as in uncooked, and that's not what they intended. So, might as well call it semi-sour -- they know it's a sweet fruit, but it's somewhat more sour than other sweet fruits.
ReplyDeleteBack to Yeniseian, and exploring the carry-overs that result in a vowel-initial word in P-J. Japonic phonotactics want a word to begin with a consonant, and no morpheme can be a bare vowel (aside from a few closed-class nouns like personal pronouns).
ReplyDeleteSo in a word of the form VCV, semantically it cannot break down as "V + CV", since the bare vowel "V" cannot bear meaning on its own. It can't be a morpheme.
In the previous post's comments section, I was looking at P-Y and P-Athabaskan "q'" and "q" becoming "y" in Japonic. That is, voiceless uvular stop. There's a voiced counterpart in P-Y, transcribed "ɢ". It's like a hard "g" in English, only made further back, in the uvular place.
Japonic does not have the uvular place. The nearest would be velar, and it would have to be devoiced since P-J didn't have voiced obstruents -- that would make it "k". But that would seem to be the natural choice for "q" instead, and yet "q" became "y". There are also velar and uvular voiceless fricatives in P-Y, which would seem destined for "k" in P-J. Too many consonants trying to merge into "k"!
Especially since "ɢ" is voiced, that's yet another step away from "k", and makes it lower priority than "q" or "x" -- not to mention "c" (palatal voiceless stop), which wants to merge into "k" as well (as we saw, P-Y "cam" -> P-J "kamo").
So perhaps "ɢ" was simply dropped altogether -- it's too weird for Japonic ears, and the nearest legal sound already has a zillion competitors. So just drop it.
Since "ɢ" appears initially in P-Y, it is one source of P-J words that begin with a vowel.
Well well well, what do we have here...?
P-Y "ɢat" = "fire, hearth". Delete that troublesome "ɢ", and you get "at". Both "a" and "t" are fine as segments, and in that order, but coda consonants are banned in Japonic. So stick a dummy vowel on the end.
In OJ, the most common "t"-syllable is "to2", but that would violate Arisaka's law, since it would put "o2" in the same morpheme as "a". Subtly changing the vowel to "o1" would result in homophony with P-J "ato1" = "footprint".
So the next 2 most-common "t" syllables were chosen -- "ata" and "atu".
"Ata" forms the base for the total reduplicated phrase "ata + ata" = "atata" (after contraction of the 2 "a"s on either side of the morpheme boundary). This means "warm", and goes back at least to the 1700s, although I'm not sure how much further back.
"Atu" goes all the way back to P-J, though, and means "hot".
There are no other P-Y words of the form C + "at", in fact final "t" is pretty rare as well. So if the Japonic words are of Yeniseian origin, it would have to be from "ɢat" for phonetic reasons -- but that's a perfect semantic match as well!
How about final "ɢ"? The P-Y word for "eagle" is "dawɢ", which I do not think is related to the Japonic word for it, "taka". That would require the "a" to be preserved, but in all other examples I've shown, the coda glide turns into a vowel and replaces the preceding nuclear vowel. And it would require "ɢ" to become "k", which I don't think is going on with that Yeniseian consonant.
ReplyDeleteInstead, let the glide turn into a vowel and replace "a". So far, we've seen "w" turn into "u" and "o", usually "u". But this time, it's "o".
The "d" devoices to "t", and the "ɢ" drops out.
That yields "to", which forms the first half of P-J "təri" = bird. The second half, "ri", is a common noun-forming suffix ("thing", "one", etc.).
Wiktionary's entry for "tori" lists several instances of "to" being used as the 1st element of a compound, all relating to birds. E.g., "togari" (from "to + kari") = "bird-hunting", "toya" (from "to + ya") = "bird coop", and so on.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%B3%A5#Japanese
That entry also mentions possible cognates in Korean, including Middle Korean "tolk" and Modern Korean "dak" = "fowl, chicken". This could be the missing link to the final "ɢ" in the P-Y source -- perhaps Koreanic *did* try to preserve that troublesome segment as "k", while Japonic decided to drop it altogether.
Or, the speakers of Koreanic used to speak a different language, much as Japonic speakers used to speak an Altaic language (and before that, Yeniseian). And in this intermediary language, they tried to preserve the final "ɢ" of P-Y. But the point being, the Koreanic speakers or their predecessors tried to preserve it, while the Japonic speakers and their predecessors did not, even though both ultimately derive from a P-Y source.
As for the Middle Korean term, perhaps the "l" was trying to preserve the glide "w". It has the same number of segments as the P-Y source, and with very similar qualities -- 1st is an alveolar stop, 2nd is a vowel, 3rd is an approximant (liquid or glide), 4th is a back stop.
I don't think this means the Koreanic term is closer *in time* to the Yeniseian source, since we know Koreanic is a younger language family than Japonic. It's just that Koreanic phonotactics are better suited to handling Yeniseian phonotactics, like allowing coda consonants, including coda clusters of "approximant + stop".
Japonic phonotactics do not allow that, so its carry-over looks more different than the Koreanic carry-over -- but it came first in time, as the older language family.
P-Y "ɢej" = "big" and used in compounds to add special value, like grandfather, possibly "khagan" deriving from "big ruler", and so on.
ReplyDeleteP-J drops the "ɢ", the coda glide turns into "i" and replaces the nuclear vowel, yielding simply "i".
There's an archair Okinawan prefix "i" that adds special value or greatness to the noun it attaches to, e.g. "i + kutuba" = "legend", where "kutuba" = "word".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%84#Okinawan
In Japanese, there's a prefix "i" used in Shinto terms, adding a special, sacred, holy quality to the word they attach to. E.g., "i + noru" = "pray", where "noru" = "speak one's intention, usually to a deity".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%96%8E#Etymology_4
This sounds like the Japonic usage of the Sino element "dai" as a prefix, which also originally meant "big" in size in Chinese, but was extended to mean "large in importance, special-ness, value, etc."
P-Y "ɢan" = "conifer". In Japanese, there's a regional variant for "yew" that is "onko", which one source claims is of Ainu origin, but no such Ainu word is given.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%8A%E3%82%93%E3%81%93
The final "ko" almost certainly derives from P-J "kəi" = "tree". Usually, the "ko" in compounds goes first, and if it must go last, it's "ki". But after all, this is a regional variant, so perhaps they were fine with "ko" being the 2nd element in a compound tree name.
The main problem is, what does "on" mean? It must provide the species name, since "ko" just means "tree". And as we know, morphemes in Japonic cannot be bare vowel, and do not want to begin with a vowel. They'd rather be a consonant.
Perhaps there used to be a consonant there, but it was dropped between Yeniseian and Japonic.
Dropping "ɢ" from "ɢan" would yield "an" in P-J, not "on". There's no shortage of P-J words beginning with "an", so that doesn't seem to be a problem. And P-J would prefer sticking a dummy vowel on the end to make sure there are no coda consonants, even if there's going to be a suffix following it in a compound.
This is not the most straightforward etymology, but it is the best explanation that anyone has offered for "onko" referring to a coniferous tree.
P-Y "ɢajɢa" = "word, speech", and has the verb-nominalizing suffix "-ɢa", which means the unattested verb underlying it is "ɢaj" = "to say, speak".
ReplyDeleteDelete the "ɢ", "j" turns into "i" and replaces the nuclear vowel, yielding "i" yet again.
This is the root of the P-J verb "ipu" = "to say".
Now we're getting some mileage out of my analysis of the structure of Japonic verbs. The "p" in "ipu" is semantically vacuous, it's just a consonant preceding the verb final vowel "u". The preferred consonants "r" and "k" are already taken by OJ "iru" ("to enter") and P-J "iku" ("to come"). So next down in the hierarchy of dummy verb consonants, we get "p".
That dummy consonant sticks onto the semantically meaningful "i", which is of Yeniseian origin. And it explains why it begins with a vowel, against Japonic preferences -- it used to have a consonant back in Yeniseian, but it got deleted.
In fact, we know the "i" in "ipu" cannot be a Japonic-origin morpheme since they cannot be bare vowels. But if it began with a consonant, then all is fine. It *did* used to begin with a consonant (reflecting P-Y "ɢ"), but at some point it got deleted, leaving "i" as a meaning-bearing bare vowel in the P-J verb "ipu". The mystery is solved by noting that it was not always a bare vowel, so it could have born meaning in the past.
ReplyDeleteClarification, P-Y "dawɢ" = "to fly", while eagle derives from that, "dawɢVŋʷja" = "flying one". But as I've shown, these extra derivational and inflectional morphemes don't carry over into Japonic (and seemingly not Koreanic either). Just the semantic core, in this case the verb "to fly".
ReplyDeletePerhaps that's why Japonic preferred to add a nominalizing suffix to yield "tori", since they felt "to" was too close to the original part of speech, a verb or activity. To strengthen its noun status, stick "ri" on the end.
Koreanic didn't do that, they kept the coda cluster, which made it sound more noun-like in Koreanic, so no need to strengthen it with a nominalizing suffix.
Saving the big one for the finale! P-Y has a verb nominalizer suffix "ɢa", which we've already seen. In P-J, it would be simply "-a" after deleting the "ɢ".
ReplyDeleteBehold! The P-J suffix "-a" which attaches to verbs and yields a noun, which is the result of that verb. QED!
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/-a
Now, I said that morphologically complex words don't carry over every morpheme from P-Y to P-J. So, when "-ɢa" is used as a suffix for a particular word, it would not be carried over into P-J -- only the core of that particular word.
However, as a productive suffix in its own right, it *has* carried over -- as "-a". In this form, which is friendly to Japonic phonotactics, it *does* attach to verbs to yield nouns, but these verbs are Japonic verbs, not Yeniseian verbs.
This Yeniseian suffix is morphologically simple -- just one morpheme, "-ɢa". So, nothing to prevent it from carrying over into Japonic. Only when it's part of a complex word, does it fail to carry over.
This is yet another example of particles, affixes, and other closed-class morphemes carrying over from P-Y into P-J. I gave many already, e.g. the perfective verb affix, the nominal possessive connector affix, the interrogative stem, etc., carried over from Yeniseian into Japonic.
The key point is that these parts of speech are never borrowed or loaned across languages, let alone across language families.
The fact that Japonic has so many of these closed-class morphemes in common with Yeniseian, is that they share an origin. Not cuz they both descend from a common ancestor, but due to language shift -- Japonic speakers used to be Yeniseian speakers, and carried over many core elements of their old lexicon with them, even through the intermediate Altaic stage after Yeniseian but before Japonic.
Just want to say how grateful I have become for African-Americans, as one of the hold-outs of American culture during the collapsing imperial shithole era of American history. On the occasion of Christmas, and winter festivities, and the holiday spirit in general...
ReplyDeleteWhen you go out into the Real World these days in America, no matter where you are, you're in a small minority if you're American. There are so many foreigners here by now, thanks to Reaganism and accelerating during the Trump shithole era as well.
If you're a white American post-Boomer, you're in such a tiny minority that you feel like a stranger in your homeland.
That only leaves two demographic groups who are entirely American, but who you don't share everything with, to feel American with when you're in public space in the Real World.
One is Boomers, literally the most native-born generation in American history -- born decades after immigration stopped during the 1910s, but before the floodgates were thrown open by Reagan-era Republicans.
Only trouble with them is they're all at least your parents age (like me) or older. Cultures reproduce themselves throughout the generations, so when you sense that the only people who share your culture are all at least your parents' generation, it sends a strong signal that your culture is dwindling or over already.
Where there should be white Americans born after the Boomers, is a great big void, replaced by foreigners of all sorts of origins, which only compound the sense of alienation. You can't even identify with one of them, or even one region -- there are too many Latin American foreigners to create a cohesive Latin American-American community, let alone when they're also living cheek-by-jowl with a zillion different South Asians, Southeast Asians, Africans, and so on.
That sense of alienation and the end of your culture is most pronounced as you look at later and later births -- like kids who should be out trick-or-treating or sledding and having snowball fights.
The other group is African-Americans, who are 1 of the 3 core ethnic sub-groups in America -- Euro-Americans from before the Ellis Island era, or maybe including Ellis Islanders, American descendants of African slaves (not any ol' person with African DNA), and the Indians who were here in America before us (not any ol' person with New World DNA, we didn't conquer the Aztecs or Mayans or Incans, but the Cherokee, Navajo, and so on).
There's a tiny slice of Hispanic-origin Americans in the Southwest, who we took over during our expansion there, but it was thinly populated by Spanish-speakers at that time, since Mexico itself had only recently conquered it from the Southwest Indians. There are almost no core Americans of Hispanic descent -- those are Mexicans, Brazilians, etc., not Americans.
Cubans and Puerto Ricans, if they're from the Ellis Island era, go with the other Ellis Islanders. We conquered Cuba and Puerto Rico from Spain in 1898. By now lots of them don't even speak Spanish, like AOC, similar to Italians who gave up their language in America. Immigrants from Haiti don't count, since we never conquered them, and they've never been part of America.
It is often overlooked how many African Americans are traditional, particularly in the Black Belt Many still believe in separate gender roles.
DeleteAfrican-Americans are one of the 3 groups that have nowhere else to go in the whole world. They don't speak any language other than American English, they don't follow the folk customs of any African nation or culture, they don't practice any religion from over there, and they have no kin relations over there, through whom they could integrate into their society. They have never visited any part of Africa, and never will. In all these ways, they're the opposite of non-Americans who reside in America.
ReplyDeleteThey're stuck here, for better or worse, through thick and thin, in sickness and in health, whether they like it or not...
They're one of the three groups who you cannot seriously tell to "go back where you came from" -- they don't speak the language, follow the customs, practice the religion, or have kin networks to integrate into, anywhere outside of America. Euro-Americans from before / during the Ellis Island era, and the Indians from America, are the only other two groups -- what used to be 100% of the population, but now shrinking more and more after post-New Deal Republicans have thrown the borders open in the interest of cheap labor for employers.
So, during the Christmas season, when there should be Christmas spirit filling the air, it has instead gotten deader and deader, harder to breathe, a cultural vacuum choking out the life from American culture.
ReplyDeleteOne of the few pockets of air left in this flooding prison cell of a nation, is African-Americans. No other groups spontaneously talks to me in public, especially to pay compliments on my winter-season get-up. Complete strangers will stop me in the middle of the supermarket just to let me know how much they like the Christmas sweater, or fur hat, navy beret, or whatever else it may be. If it says "iconic American in winter", they go absolutely nuts for it.
And why wouldn't they? They too feel increasingly like foreigners in their own country. "Wow, get a load of this guy! Now THAT'S what we're supposed to see when we go out in public and brush shoulders with our neighbors during the Christmas season! Not some Indian neckbeard in flip-flops..."
Euro-Americans do this too, though they're more reserved, and they're mostly Boomers again. Euro-Americans under 60 mostly don't exist, and they've locked themselves indoors for the rest of their lives, to avoid the feeling of alienation and cultural dead-end-edness when they venture outside.
African-Americans are the only group that actually goes out in public, is proudly American, is excited when other Americans participate in hyping up the American cultural spirit, and hail from all generations. Just a couple weeks ago, an African-American girl of no older than 10 was the one who stopped me in the supermarket to say how much she loved my whole winter wonderland outfit. She was there with a sister and a mother or grandma in a Boomer-scooter.
And I don't live in a majority-black area. But even when I do go to the mostly-black area of town, they're just as likely to pay me compliments, joke around with me, and all that other stuff that makes you feel like you live in a culture larger than just yourself.
African-Americans are probably the biggest supporters of Halloween and Christmas, in the AMERICAN style of celebrating those holidays. It's taken for granted that they want their kids to dress up in a costume on Halloween or go trick-or-treating at least at school. It's a given that they're going to wear something with red and green near Christmas, or get their kids hyped up for Santa's visit, throw a Christmas party, and so on.
Well, what other choice do they have? They can't LARP as anything other than American. They don't know which African culture they came from, so they can't "dust off the Old World traditions" like some Euro-Americans do. They can't sneer at the American style of these holidays, in favor of some imagined superior culture that they LARP as. All they know is American Halloween, American Christmas, American Fourth of July, and so on. So it's American or nothing, for them.
You can't say that about any of the non-Americans residing in America. Even a large chunk of Euro-Americans still try to maintain some ties to the Old World that their ancestors came from, even if that conflicts with the American way of doing things.
African-Americans are the only group who are 100% committed to American culture, whether they planned it that way or not. Mostly not, and they adapted to the severing of links to their Old World culture by adopting an American-all-the-way attitude.
ReplyDeleteAnd although they have fostered a distinctly African-American sub-culture within the broader American culture, they have always preserved the American style at that higher / broader level. They have never tried to end Halloween or trick-or-treating -- either by a moralistic crusade or by ironic apathy / glib dismissal. They have never tried to cancel the Fourth of July cook-out, due to some imagined problematic nature of the American founding. They have never waged war on Christmas -- only Jews have ever done that.
For that matter, not even Muslim immigrants have ever dared to wage a war against Christmas, just cuz it's not what they do back in their homeland. Only Jews are that anti-American, and no I don't care if one or two generations of them created some of the iconic Midcentury American Christmas songs. That attitude obviously did not last very long, and is not only absent among them, it is anathema to them. They're the only demographic group that seethes and spits on Christmas.
And not cuz it's a Christian holiday. American Christmas has nothing to do with Jesus or Christianity, although it is timed to reflect the earlier practices of Euro-Americans from their Christian past. American Christmas is all centered around Santa, his elves, his reindeer, his sleigh, his bag of presents, coming down the chimney, cookies and milk left out for him, Christmas trees / boughs of holly, and all that other non-Christian stuff.
The main location for celebrating Christmas spirit in America is malls, or some kind of retail place like a department store, not church. Also the schools, which are not Christian either.
Only Indian Hindus threaten to follow the Jews in their Christmas-hating crusade. So far they're not so bad about it, but they have largely decided to follow the Jewish lead in general, so expect them to start bashing Christmas, malls, etc., like Republican flunkie wannabe Ramaswamy did last Christmas on Twitter.
In fact, there's a MENA baddie immigrant who works at a local supermarket, most likely Muslim, and seemingly from Iranian or maybe Afghani, or Pakistani origin. She wears her headscarf fairly loose, a la Iraniana, and she looks Indo-European rather than Saharo-Arabian.
ReplyDeleteAnnnnyyyyywaaaayyyyy -- she was just wearing a Santa hat with Christmas lights around the base of it. She was really into it! Nothing ironic or "ugly sweater" about it -- non-ironic fun and excitement! Even though it's not something her culture invented, and even though she's from a different religion than the one that its creators belonged to historically.
You just don't see that from Jews, American or foreign, despite them also being an "Abrahamic" religion that is not Christianity.
Back to African-American solid support for Christmas, they have continued contributing to the American Christmas song repertoire, after WWII. Usually in the soul / R&B genres, but those have always been listened to, and contributed to, by Euro-Americans. That includes the last Great American Christmas song, which is still played endlessly to this day, "All I Want for Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carey (one-quarter African-American, half Euro-American).
ReplyDeleteBy this point, the lesser American Christmas songs are kept alive by Euro-Americans who are country-adjacent, like Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Kelly Clarkson, and so on.
In the good ol' days, though, EVERY genre contributed to Christmas music. As American society has begun fragmenting, only the core American groups still keep at it -- and that has meant jazz has largely left the tradition, given how many Jews and Ellis Islanders were members of that genre.
The only jazz-y strain in Christmas music over the past 50-some years has been its R&B descendant, from African-Americans, not the descendants of Irving Berlin.
Something to keep in mind -- all the stuff dumping on blacks has always been about destroying the American culture, economy, and society, by picking on the easiest target among core American groups. Well, them and Indians who live on reservations.
ReplyDelete"They're more criminal!"
"They're more drug-using!"
"Their ancestors didn't invent Baroque fugues!"
So? Neither did Jews from Kyiyiyiyiyiyiyivvvv. And their white-collar criminality has destroyed America far more than random muggings and murders by African-Americans. And Jews love drugs more than African-Americans do.
All of this "elite human capital" bullshit is merely about opening the floodgates to cheap foreign labor, whether blue or white collar. To do that, they need to shit all over Americans as dumb, lazy, drug-addicted, and so on -- worthless scum who rot in the gutter and need to be eradicated in order to make way for the elite human capital from some fake degree mill in Bangalore, peasants from El Salvador, or aspiring white-collar criminals from Tel Aviv.
African-Americans may be more criminal, drug-using, and lower in IQ than Euro-Americans, but that doesn't make them less American culturally. They're one of the 3 core American sub-groups, and membership in that club is not based on an IQ test, marijuana test, or criminal background check.
It's based on whether you're 100% committed to Fourth of July cook-outs, dressing up and trick-or-treating for Halloween, Christmas, roller rinks, malls, speaking only English, classic American music, and everything else that makes us distinctly American. And *not* trying to actively destroy all of those American cultural foundations.
I never used to get tons of spontaneous compliments from African-Americans in public -- not that they antagonized me either. I've never been in a fight or stand-off with an African-American. Every fight I've been in was with a Hispanic.
But these days, I think African-Americans, too, have grown weary of all the non-Americans flooding our country, and even though I'm obviously not from their sub-group, I'm still from the same higher-level group of American that they are. And it's a real breath of fresh air for them, so they're happy to let me know and encourage me to keep out it.
And I'm grateful to them for their encouragement! ^_^ It's nice to see some Americans still eager to see some American culture in public. I would be doing it anyway, but it's better with some encouragement and motivation, and that's rarer and rarer to come by these days in the collapsing post-imperial shithole of America.
*One fight in elementary school was with a Chinese.
ReplyDelete*encourage me to keep "at" it.
ReplyDeleteAnother sign of wishy-washy-ness among Ellis Islanders, who are not Jews, is Italians. Yeah, they're not as anti-American as Jews -- not a high bar to clear.
ReplyDeleteBut I was just casually browsing some lists of American Christmas songs, and looking for the ones that are designed to desecrate American Christmas.
One is "Fuck Christmas" by Fear, whose only constant member is Italian-American.
Another is the uber-cringe-y "Dick in a Box", written by 2 Jews and someone who's 1/4 Italian and 1/4 Puerto Rican (another Ellis Island group that's Catholic and formerly Romance-speaking).
That made me ask, "I wonder if Lady Gaga ever made a Christmas song?" Yes she did, in 2008, same time as "Dick in a Box" -- "Christmas Tree", which is a very lame attempt at a gay / ho anthem on the topic of fucking on Christmas, cuz that's supposedly what it makes everyone think about, not Santa or gift-giving or malls or public spirit or even love (just fucking) or any of that truly Christmas stuff.
Italian-Americans are perhaps half-American by now, but the other half have decided, like Indian Hindus, to follow the lead of American Jews. If that means ironically or otherwise corroding Christmas a la Americana, well, that's no real price to pay. They were never historically into American Christmas -- their ancestors were into Roman Catholic Christmas, or Italian folk traditions like La Befana.
And they were a huge part of the jazz genre here, including its Christmas songs -- like "Linus and Lucy" by the Vince Guaraldi Trio, for "A Charlie Brown Christmas" from 1965.
Since Italian-Americans are not country-adjacent, that leaves only Italian-American R&B singers to sincerely contribute to -- or at least, preserve what others have created -- the American Christmas songbook. None come to mind, though.
As with so much else of American culture, Glorious Nippon remains one of the few repositories of it, as it is being actively destroyed within the nation that created it.
ReplyDeleteNowa-san no aaku...
Sometime later tonight I hope to get back on track with Japanese posting. Just want to say for now how great it is that there are Japanese companies like Hololive that are keeping the American Christmas spirit alive, even as the American empire itself is crumbling and as its culture is vanishing along with it, internally...
Forgot about the altercation with the Indian (native kind), back when I lived out West. Only time I've ever stalked and tracked someone down like they're not even human, and I were a hunter. I didn't kill him, though. Just enough to deter him from being a public nuisance in the future. He shoved me on a dark street, out of nowhere, although I didn't even get thrown off-balance, but it was a decent effort to body-check me.
ReplyDeleteI probably broke his nose when I tracked him down and got him back, but I didn't stick around to see how bad it was -- made a clean immediate escape, despite there being lots of people around. It took awhile to get the perfect opportunity to get revenge, *and then* make sure nobody saw or would report it. Before that -- tracking him around in the outdoors -- was the easy part, just tedious cuz he kept taking endless cigarette breaks and circling around, so I couldn't get too close.
Once he went inside a building, though, it was game over for him. When you're outdoors, especially at night, you're probably the only one there -- if someone is trying to close in on you, it's easy to hear that. Inside a building with all sorts of people, lights, furniture, etc., there's sensory overload, and you let your guard down cuz even if someone is tracking you down, it gets disguised under all that other sensory input.
Yes, he started it, totally unprovoked, probably while drunk / on something, wanting to act like a badass by being a public nuisance. I have never tolerated that kind of crap, I usually intervene to shut someone like that down even when I'm not the target of their nuisance. But especially on the very rare occasions where I *am*...
As fate would have it, we ended up sitting about 10 feet from each other in a Starbucks some months later, and he didn't even look me in the eye, kept his head down sheepishly the whole time. I didn't rub it in his face either. We already had an altercation, then let bygones be bygones... or maybe he was too drunk / high to remember that night, or my face.
That was a real "the Wild West is still alive" moment. When you're back East, you assume there are no more Indians in America, or if there are some, they're just crafting Kachina dolls all day or something, not prowling the dark streets while drunk, looking to randomly spoil for a fight with whoever crosses their path. And the anarchic environment where you have to punish them yourself, not rely on the powerless state to do it for you.
That incident didn't make me hate Indians (native kind), though. It was more of a "welcome to the Wild West" feeling.
There was a Navajo girl in one of the classes I was in, and she was a real babe, not only physically attractive but very smiley and wide-eyed and libidinal -- that also has the effect of not making me hate them. ^_^
That's part of a general pattern I discussed not too long ago -- anarchic shitholes usually have very good-looking women, since that's the only trait that the high-T rowdy marauder men are interested in. Southern Italy, Northern Lebanon -- and the American Southwest.
Actually, that reminds me of another altercation out in the Wild West -- with a tweaker, white guy, probably heritage American, but meth-head American.
ReplyDeleteI was walking toward the entrance of the supermarket, and this tweaker freak comes out, looks me in the eyes intensely, then immediately stares down at the ground, while heading on a very fast nervous collision course with me. Like, if he isn't looking at me, he's not doing it on purpose? IDK, his brain was fried.
I didn't swerve, checked him with my shoulder, maybe leaning into it a bit for extra oomph, and that sucker fell straight to the ground! Naturally, he looked up like it was my fault, cried "hey, c'mon, why'd you do that?" etc., trying to get sympathy from the onlookers. Nobody cared, though.
I went inside, he didn't follow me -- went to wherever he was originally heading -- and one woman followed me inside to tell me how ridiculous that guy was, can you believe that?, etc. And said good job for standing your ground.
Probably another incident like that that I'm forgetting.
But the point remains -- the fight-fights I've gotten in where only / mainly with Hispanics, and the only heritage Americans I've had altercations with were from the lowest rungs of their sub-groups, likely on drugs at the time, and even then, I've never had an altercation with a black crack-head or anything like that.
Jose Feliciano is Puerto Rican, BTW, back to the topic of heritage Americans and cultural contributions to the American Christmas songbook. Mexicans and other Central Americans have not contributed, cuz they're mostly foreigners residing here. There could be some old-timers from Texas or SoCal or New Mexico who've made regional contributions, but nothing at the national scale like "Feliz Navidad".
ReplyDeleteAnd the Hispanics I've had altercations with, I'm sure were Central American, not Puerto Rican or Cuban, since I've never lived around the latter, and there's no huge nationwide flood of Puerto Ricans.
I guess Nippon posting will have to wait until tomorrow. But speaking of anarchic regions of a country, and what the women look like, I'm reminded of the story that Vivi told about when some foreigners in Japan tried to pick her pocket, and she chased them down, pushed the woman to the ground, and berated her about why did she even come to Japan if she's just going to be a criminal?
ReplyDeleteThat is *very* Kansai behavior -- take the law into your own hands, cuz the central state hardly exists where you are... Although the imperial court was in Kyoto, de facto state power was exercised by the Shogun in Edo / Tokyo. So, Osaka has been more anarchic than places in the East or North of Japan. That's why the Yakuza flourish in Osaka rather than Tokyo or Sapporo.
It also means that Kansai girls are probably better-looking than girls from the East or North. Not trying to stoke any regional rivalries, just an observation... and my own grandmother was from very far north, Hokkaido. I have no personal pro-Kansai bias.
Of course there are babes from Kanto and Tohoku and Hokkaido, but I'll bet that *on average*, Kansai and maybe the West too is better-looking.
You can't judge from Tokyo or its larger metro area, since people from all over Japan flock there. If you see a babe on the streets of Tokyo, she could easily be a transplant from Osaka or Fukuoka.
That being said I agree black Americans get too much shit and are fellow heritage Americans for better or worse.
ReplyDeleteMillennials and Zoomers think getting in fights is only something that happens in movies -- no, it happens IRL when you're not dickless and cocooned from birth to grave, as the helicopter parents have sadly made Millennials and Zoomers. Getting into fights is par for the course for Gen X, who grew up during the height of the most recent crime wave (1958-1992).
ReplyDeleteIf I'd been a Millennial or Zoomer, I never would've been walking a dark street at night, I'd be playing video games in an exurb bedroom. And even if I did get shoved by an Indian street prowler, I would've just bitched about it on the internet.
But I didn't -- I hunted him down over the course of a few hours and made sure he got 10 times what he gave me, most of that time due to him taking so many breaks and circling around so he could've seen a follower.
Another thing that the gaymer generation has never done -- hunt anything IRL, even game animals. They're too cocooned and bubble-wrapped.
Certainly something that a rightoid would never do, we've seen by now they're all talk and no action. How has getting revenge for Charlie Kirk gone, BTW? You won't get revenge on an assassin, so you'd back down 100% on some random guy shoving you on the street. That's why I'm a non-voter or indie voter...
This happened over 10 years ago, but I didn't post about it at the time, cuz I don't live on the internet. Only now is it apropos, talking about the ethnic groups who've ever tried to try something with me.
I'm leaving aside others, too, like the time I won an all-out chase through crowded city streets -- me being the getaway driver this time. Some (Hispanic yet again) punk tried to be clever, I was more clever back, he got pissed and started chasing after me in his car with his fat Hispanic gf, and over the course of what seemed like hours, but probably was only 20-30 minutes, I was weaving in and out of traffic (lawfully), timing the approach to lights perfectly so they went red just as he was approaching, blasting Kick by INXS the whole time (this was the height of the '80s revival), and finally he gave up and turned away...
Later he bitched to the cops like a bitch, I got a call from one, but after I gave my side, they figured it was either his fault or a he-said / he-said situation, and I didn't hear from the cops again. Sucks to lose that chase after trying to act cute on the mean streets of the Wild West!
I did brag about that episode at the time, but to my brother IRL, not on here. That must've been 15 years ago... exciting times, the early 2010s, unless you were a gaymer Millennial shut-in. ^_^
It's sad to see Kanata graduate... I will always remember her as a shrine maiden for Japanese culture, cuz she and Marine are the queens of enka. ^_^
ReplyDeleteNot many vtubers, even the idols, preserve the enka tradition. In fact she sang the power ballad to end all power ballads, "Amagi Goe", during her last karaoke...
And her concert duet with Marine for this song, with the full Showa-era TV stage aesthetic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i16MlLBSz9g
Whatever she does next, I hope she finds a way to continue preserving classic and iconic Japanese culture.
On reflection, Black Lives Matter was an attempt to kick out "brown" / "POC" agendas from the Democrat party, and bring African descendants of slaves in America back to the forefront.
ReplyDeleteThat's why they didn't say Brown Lives Matter, Non-White Lives Matter, POC Lives Matter, etc.
And that's why they made police brutality their main topic -- not something that applies to Indians, Filipinos, Salvadoreans, and whoever else had wormed their way into the Democrat network by the 2010s. Also, not something that applied to fags or trannies -- the focus of both the Democrat establishment and activists during the 2010s. Also, not something that targets women.
By trying to make the focus about police brutality, or reparations for slavery, African-Americans were trying to defend *their* hard-won turf in the Democrat network, against all sorts of newcomers looking to squeeze their hand in the civil rights cookie jar.
Any civil rights BS that is not about African-Americans and the legacy of slavery, is less money and protection for them, and re-directed to some group that has nothing to do with them, like "women" in general, or fags / trannies.
More than just a naked defense of their own patronage hand-outs, it was an attempt to put the party's focus back on heritage Americans, who've been here since forever and have nowhere else to go -- not Indian code monkeys, Salvadorean drywallers, gloryhole visitors, men in dresses, and so on and so forth. BLM activists were not pushing Drag Queen Story Hour, it was an edgy branding for a mainstream appeal -- normie African-Americans who live for summer cook-outs.
And that's why the rest of the Democrats, establishment and activist alike, went into over-drive to steer things away from the old-school focus on African-Americans and slavery. Instead of focusing on "Black", they made it about "White" and "Whiteness" -- how to become less white, problematic whiteness, white privilege, bla bla bla.
Well, that's an easy way to make the focus about anyone who's not-white, like all shades of browns, POC, or whatever term. Shitting on white people doesn't mean elevating African-Americans -- it means anyone and everyone who decides they're Not-White (TM), and ipso facto entitled to all the civil rights goodies that Not-White (TM) groups are owed.
Only blacks themselves insisted on the phrase "Black Lives Matter" -- every other libtard cockblocked the blacks, and insisted on the "Whiteness" framing, to keep the expanding numbers of non-black browns happily inside the Democrat tent.
Blacks wanted these newcomers, many / most of whom aren't even American, out of the party's patronage network at a minimum -- maybe out of the country as well! But at least, slapping the brown / POC hand out of the civil rights cookie jar, which was intended only for African descendants of slaves in America.
Blacks got jackshit under usurper Biden's term, despite being the most loyal Democrat voter base. The Democrat focus on non-black browns, women, fags / trannies, etc., kept accelerating. And the framework remained "Whiteness" rather than "Black, and only Black".
But blacks had to give it a try, even if it wasn't guaranteed to pay off. Otherwise they would've gotten thrown out of the party altogether. They had to defend their turf from invaders.
So in many ways, BLM was the mirror-image of MAGA, also another "hail Mary" pass to save their own turf within their party's network, against all sorts of invaders, overlapping heavily with the invaders of the Democrat party.
ReplyDeleteEnough focus on globalism, return the focus to heritage Americans, who by the 2010s had begun to get less than nothing from their party's network.
Just as BLM was co-opted to focus on tearing down "Whiteness" rather than handing out goodies to the livers of Black Lives, so too was MAGA co-opted to be the same ol' 21st-century neocon globalism, but with edgy racist nihilist branding instead of fuddy-duddy moralizing White Man's Burden branding.
"America first doesn't mean America only" -- exact same co-optation as "Anti-Whiteness" instead of "Black, and Black Only".
Just as blacks got jackshit under Biden, despite being the most loyal voters, heritage Euro-Americans are getting jackshit under Trump -- just like his first term. Now both the GOP establishment and activist network / media ecosystem has shifted to pushing for infinite Indians, taxing Boomers even less, printing trillions more / slashing interest rates to drive inflation higher, getting humiliated in yet another lost war (Venezuela, for the umpteenth time there), sacrificing heritage America to Israeli parasites, and whatever else they choose to re-brand from their Reaganite / Bushie foundation.
But what else were heritage Americans (Euro type) supposed to do by the 2010s? They had to try. It failed to reform the party, just as BLM failed to reform the Democrats.
And that's why there's such an endless incurable implosion now -- both parties refused to improve themselves, so now they can't rely on compliance from the population, which means a de facto end to national governance.
As the American Empire enters its de jure fragmentation phase of its lifespan, reformers of the old dead parties will only spring up at the sub-national level, like Newsom becoming the Grand Duke of California and Pacifica.
I'm sure that, by now, "Black Lives Matter" rings as hollow in African-American ears as "Make America Great Again" does in Euro-American ears. Just a bittersweet reminder of a last-ditch effort for survival, getting co-opted and betrayed by your own so-called leaders, and demoted back to the end of the line for provisions and protections by supposed patrons.
ReplyDeleteThat awareness must be part of why African-Americans are way more eager to interact with and get friendly with heritage Euro-Americans in public this past year or so.
"Black Lives Matter" didn't mean "Kill Whitey", it meant "The civil rights cookie jar is for black hands only".
And "They have to go back" didn't mean descendants of slaves going back to Africa, it meant foreigners going back to wherever they can integrate into.
Just as there are tons of African immigrants here now, there are tons of Euro / white immigrants here as well -- not Euros who came over here in the 1600s like my ancestors, but some Yuke-wad who's greedy to earn more money here than back in Kyiyiyiyiyivvvvv.
That's why the "descendants of slaves" phrase was crucial -- to exclude everyone else with African DNA, cuz DNA doesn't determine what ethnic group you belong to. African-Americans are their own ethnic group, incapable of integrating into any other culture or society on Earth, including everywhere in Africa.
Heritage Euro-Americans need to start using phrases like that, "Mayflower Americans" or something.
America should be for, of, and by Mayflower Americans, Descendants of Slaves Americans, and American Indians. Thanksgiving Americans -- no wonder the system is so dedicated to eradicating Thanksgiving, it's too foundational to our history, leaving out Ellis Islanders and Neoliberal immigrants.
Ellis Islanders have always been iffy. By now, the most powerful group among them, Jews, has turned bitterly anti-American (and they were behind the co-optations of both the BLM and MAGA grassroots movements). Probably half of the Italians are following their lead. Probably half the Irish too. Likewise Eastern Euros, especially since Russia re-asserted itself in their homelands -- why give a damn if you're American? Anyone who cares, is not American, but an Eastern Euro-wad still butthurt about the Russian Empire dominating them.
Ellis Islanders at least gave up their non-English languages, but they're starting to de-Americanize in other aspects of culture. Becoming Catholic or Orthodox instead of Mormon or Pentecostal, for example. Abandoning the American musical genre that their ancestors played a key role in -- jazz. Abandoning Christmas music, shitting on suburbia, etc... just go back to wherever your ancestors came from, then. Problem solved.
And many of them will, as America breaks apart and gets much much poorer...
Ellis Islanders were responsible for passing Hart-Celler
DeleteWhat about German Americans, particularly in the Midwest. They are technically the largest ethnic group in the USA with there being more Americans of German descent alone than all Americans of African descent!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/12/06/largest-ethnic-group-germans-english/
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/3lnf5b/counties_where_germanamericans_are_the_largest/
Yet they by and large completely vanished as a distinct ethnic group in the wake of American involvement in WWI due to a massive stigmatization campaign.
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2015/02/05/the-silent-minority
https://www.unz.com/isteve/whatever-happened-to-germa-america/
That's just people who are 1/4 or 1/64 German claiming they're "German-American" rather than their 3/4 "British-American", "French-American", or other founding stock American roots.
ReplyDeleteThere were some Germans here early, but their large numbers are due to Ellis Island immigration -- and like all other Ellis Islanders, they flocked to cities to work in factories. Cities everywhere always are demographic sinks, so their population never expanded -- throw that in with their cultural assimilation, and that's why there's no more German-American identity.
Their apparent large size is Americans trying to downplay their founding stock origins, like Liz Warren and other Boomers claiming they have Indian blood, which is never true. Or someone with a German surname, but 3/4 of their genes come from Britain and France, or maybe Holland, y'know the people who actually founded the nation and its genepool.
Since the founding stock arrived earliest, they had the largest expansion -- fertility rates through the roof. They had to fight off Indians, but otherwise the land was theirs for the cultivating, which fed a population boom for many generations.
*That* is why there's so many Americans, and why they're mostly of founding stock, until the floodgates were thrown open recently by the neolib Republicans like Reagan, Bushes, and Trump / Vance.
Germans and Scandis did enjoy a bit more of an expansion compared to other Ellis Islanders, cuz they had more farmers among them, and they were given free fertile farmland in the Midwest / Plains. But no, they are not the largest ancestry group in America, they just play up their non-founding stock side like every American does -- including me, I love mentioning my Hokkaido born-and-raised grandmother, cuz it adds to my exotic appeal... but the other 3/4 of my genes trace back to British and French settlers from the 1600s. I think the only Ellis Island ancestors I have are Scotch-Irish, although they could've been here earlier, we're not sure about that.
Non-Americans are always shocked to learn the truth about Thanksgiving Americans, but it's true. Most heritage Americans have ancestors who are referred to in a Wikipedia article on some infamous Indian raid hundreds of years ago. Including me.
I don't have any German blood, but even if I did, I don't think I would play that up -- Germans are too boring. I don't get why 1/4 German-Americans do that -- perhaps it's a relic from the Melting Pot era, where being non-founding stock meant you got civil rights goodies. But being a "white ethnic" gets you less than zero these days, so why bother trying to make yourself look exotically German, when German culture isn't that exciting, and you get no goodies from the state anyway?
I could see if they were hyping up Romantic painters, Baroque fugues (some of them *are* proud of Bach writing their Lutheran sacred music, and that's cool), and so on. But mostly they hype up drinking beer, eating tons of bread, being fat and oafish, and autistic about pesky labyrinthine rule systems, and being "Midwestern nice" AKA false politeness.
Strange people...
That's another mechanism for ethnic "purification" during imperial collapse -- the fact that most foreigners are greedy opportunists flocking to cities, cuz that's where the wealth is concentrated, not hardscrabble farm cultivation, nomadic pastoralism, and so on in a rural setting.
ReplyDeleteSince cities are demographic sinks, they are only replenished by new arrivals from non-urban surroundings.
When there's tons of wealth concentrated in imperial cities, foreigners can be replenished by wave after wave of greedy immigrants. But when the empire collapses, there's no more sky-high wealth to go around, in the cities or elsewhere. So new arrivals of foreigners cease, and many of the existing foreigners will return to where they came from -- the only goal of immigrations is to get rich quick.
"But what about those who stay? They'll form a permanent sub-group that keeps reproducing itself, and they'll be an enduring minority. And put all such foreign remnants together, and that means even the post-collapse landscape is largely foreigners."
Wrong -- urbanites don't reproduce themselves. So if the foreign population is mostly / entirely urban, they will undergo population contraction until they no longer exist.
That will happen to native urbanites, of course -- but native urbanites can be replenished by native ruralites, if they choose to urbanize. Or the ruralites will stay in the rural area, and have higher fertility than if they urbanized.
Either way, the native population reproduces itself thanks to the rural population being mostly / entirely native. The foreign population shrinks itself into oblivion cuz they're mostly / entirely urban.
That's why there was no more Eastern Med DNA in Italy after the Crisis of the Third Century, when the Roman Empire bit the dust, especially in Italy vs. Anatolia. There was no more piles of wealth to attract new immigrants from Syria, existing Syrians in Rome said "this place sucks now, let's go back where it's better for us," and the Syrians who decided to stay in Rome, the city, failed to reproduce themselves, like all urbanites -- and with no Syrians from rural Italy to replenish their numbers, they ceased to exist in the Italian genepool.
Same will happen with all foreign ethnicities in the collapsing American Empire.
Do the suburbs count as rural or urban in this analysis?
DeleteThe blacks are also returning back to the South, another example of a foreign ethnicity moving back to their homelands when the empire collapses.
DeleteIn case any fans of Kanata need some help dealing with her graduation, and have moved past the denial stage, some classic songs to play on loop from the Sad Seventies... perfect for channeling the winter blues as well, if you're in the Northern Hemisphere.
ReplyDelete"I'd Rather Leave While I'm in Love" by Rita Coolidge
"All Out of Love" by Air Supply (1980, but close enough)
"Mandy" by Barry Manilow
"Yesterday Once More" by the Carpenters
"Can't Smile Without You" by the Carpenters
Suburbanites being like urbanites or ruralites depends on what their fertility is like.
ReplyDelete"Suburbs" encompasses a very wide range of ecological niches in America. Some are appendages of the city -- as dense, as status-striving, as wealthy. Therefore, more like urbanites, not high fertility, only replenished by newcomers from outside the "urban core + suburban annex" metropolis. They're metropolitan.
Then there are the further distant rings of suburbs, including exurbs, where it's more sprawling than dense, lower-status, not very wealthy (some are wealthy, of course). More country than town. That's where people go to have 3, 4, 5 kids these days -- and their McMansion homes with enough rooms to fit all those people, reflect that higher fertility.
It's unlikely that those people are former urbanites changing to rural-ish living. They likely grew up in a similar niche themselves, not necessarily the same exurb -- but moving from one exurb to another. From one outer-ring suburb to another.
Metropolitans don't reproduce themselves, though -- they're way more likely to represent a change of niche by degree of urbanization.
Nonstop Nihongo New Year! After Nonstop Nihongo November and Nonstop Nihongo Noel, we keep it going right through the New Year!
ReplyDeleteToday's discovery was inspired by watching Vivi's recent stream where she played the original Super Mario Bros for the first time ever! She said it's the first retro game of any kind, that she's ever played. And she thought it was fun! She played it for 4 hours, and had great reactions all along. Very entertaining. ^_^
Playing retro games is like learning kanji -- a rite of passage that transforms you from a Japanese child into a Japanese adult. ^_^
OK, at one point she jumped on a koopa troopa, and kicked its shell forward. One of the funnest things to do in Mario games. She called it "kame de sakkaa" -- "soccer with turtles".
This word "kame" really caught my attention, cuz the accent is on the 2nd syllable -- "ka-ME", not "KA-me". That usually means that, earlier, that accented syllable was really 2 separate syllables, and the heavy weight of 2 syllables has been preserved in the form of the pitch accent on the single syllable that survives.
Wiktionary has no etymology for it whatsoever, but the cliff-dwelling sage has figured it out!
First I looked through other languages' word for "turtle" -- and bingo, in Middle Korean it was "kepwup", which Wiktionary notes has the same element "kep" as the words for "skin, bark" and "shell".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%EA%B1%B0%EB%B6%81#Korean
That sounds very familiar -- it's "kapa" in Proto-Japonic, and it also means "skin, hide, bark", "leather", and "side, surface / covering of something". In this case, it must mean "shell":
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/kapa
That's the first half of the compound, now onto the second. Wiktionary notes that the OJ form must have derived from a P-J form "kamaCi", where C is some consonant -- the consonant that weakened and deleted, leaving 1 syllable ("ai") instead of 2 ("aCi").
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%8B%E3%82%81#Old_Japanese
The only consonant to reliably weaken and delete, especially between vowels, is "w". It could have been "w" originally, or it could have been "p", which softened into "w" between vowels. In this case, it is "p" -- and the P-J word it comes from is "upai", meaning "top":
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/upai
The Korean variant is telling, cuz it shows that the 2nd consonant was not originally "m" -- it was a labial stop, "p". Well, over time in Japanese, "b" has softened to "m", e.g. "keburi" -> "kemuri" ("smoke"). And that includes "p" softening to "m", as in P-J "naynpuru" -> OJ "neburu" -> MJ "nemuru" ("to sleep").
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/naynpuru
Putting this all together, that means the original word was a compound, "kapa + upai", meaning "shell + top" -- a creature whose top is a shell.
So how did "kapa + upai" become "kame"? The final "ai" contracts to "e2" in OJ. Vowel sequences are not allowed, and usually the 2nd replaces the 1st, so at the morpheme boundary "a + u" becomes "u". This yields "kapupe2".
ReplyDeleteThe 2nd "p" softens to "w" then deletes, yielding "kapue2".
Notice those other cases where "p" / "b" softens to "m" -- they were followed by "u". The "p" here is followed by "u", softening it to "m", yielding "kamue2".
The ban on vowel sequences, and the 2nd one replacing the 1st, deletes the "u", yielding "kame2" -- QED!
I am very grateful to Vivi for sparking my curiosity about this word, and for enjoying her first experience with retro games! I hope she plays more in the future. ^_^
More on the relationship between Japonic and Koreanic. Related to the topic of the main post, how "r" is by far the preferred final consonant in Japonic verb stems, the same thing was true in Koreanic. Both families only have one liquid consonant, which is transcribed as "r" for Japonic but "l" for Koreanic. From "A History of the Korean Language" by Lee & Ramsey (2011):
ReplyDelete"Old Korean reflexes of syllable-final liquids merit particularly close examination, because in Middle Korean, syllable-final /l/ appears to have been the result of an earlier consonant merger. One such indication is that Middle Korean verb stems ending in -l- were at least four times greater in number than stems ending in any other consonant. Second, these stems were differentiated by tone in ways that other stems were not: in Middle Korean texts, (monosyllabic) l-stems were either marked with a low, high, or long rising tone, or they belonged to a class of stems whose pitch alternated between low and rising. This kind of distribution across the tone classes was true of no other stem-final consonant. There were other morphophonemic oddities as well."
I attributed the preference for "r" as the default final consonant for Japonic verb stems, to avoiding homophones with other common suffixes and particles. IDK if the same variation in pitch accent patterns is prevalent in Japonic verbs ending in "r", as opposed to other consonants.
But it's possible that final "r" in Japonic verb stems represents a consonant merger of a kind -- namely, Yeniseian final consonants, which themselves seem to have had a dummy status. Yeniseian has tons more consonants than Japonic (or Koreanic), like velar fricatives, uvulars, labialized velars, and so on. So when carrying over Yeniseian verbs into Japonic, a lot of those exotic consonants in Yeniseian will get "merged" into "r" in Japonic.
It's not really a "merger", which usually means closely related sounds -- like "t" and "d" getting merged into just "t" (or just "d"). The Japonic verb stems ending in "r" are more like a "catch-all" container for a wide variety of consonants that are present in Yeniseian but absent in Japonic -- not a merger of similar sounds.
If Koreanic speakers also used to be Yeniseian speakers -- and I haven't looked into that at all -- then the same process may be happening in Koreanic. In fact, it doesn't matter which language was their former language -- it could've been Nivkh, which also has tons of exotic consonants, like uvulars, velar fricatives, etc.
Proto-Koreanic has a small phoneme inventory, much like P-J. So when P-K speakers are carrying over words from their previous language, a lot of those exotic consonants will get lumped into a catch-all container.
The interesting question then is "Why do Koreanic and Japonic use the same consonant for their catch-all container at the end of verb stems" -- the liquid consonant? That makes it look more like a shibboleth, and therefore a cognate, going back to a time when these speakers were part of the same speech community.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe Koreanic and Japonic coincidentally have a similar set of suffixes and particles that are avoided due to homophony, and the only remaining consonant is the liquid.
But even that seems to be due to shared phonotactics, and hence a shared origin of a sort.
Namely, the liquid consonant is banned in initial position in native Koreanic words, exactly like in Japonic. Therefore, there's no way to confuse final "l" in a verb stem, with initial "l" in a particle, suffix, etc. Exact same reason why Japonic chose the liquid consonant as its catch-all final consonant in verb stems.
Yeah yeah yeah, banning initial liquids could be an "areal feature", not necessarily a shared origin. But that's a cope, I think "areal features" are still mostly artifacts of language expansion and switching, and two supposedly unrelated languages continue to share some areal feature cuz their ancestors used to speak a single language, before one or both of them switched languages in the meantime.
Or they're both incorporating speakers of a 3rd language, like Ainu in the case of Koreanic and Japonic, and the preferences of that 3rd language are being inherited into both of the families that are supposedly not related in origin.
That's the whole problem -- looking at "language origin" as a uni-parental process, rather than bi-parental or multi-parental. If it's an isolated group of hunter-gatherers, maybe uni-parental works. But when cultures are expanding, incorporating speakers of other language families, then all bets are off -- it's at least a bi-parental synthesis, not just the latest generation of a uni-parental descent.
And languages and cultures have been expanding like CRAZY in Northeast Asia, since prehistory. Yukaghir feeding into Uralic, Uralic expanding all the way to Scandinavia, Yeniseian spreading into the Xiongnu steppe confederation, the Wa people entering the Korean Peninsula and then Japanese islands where they incorporated the Emishi / Ainu speakers, and so on and so forth.
So Koreanic and Japonic may share one out of two parents. Or if they have 3 parents, they share 2 or 1 and a half parents. But they're clearly related to some degree by a shared origin.
Yeniseian origin of Japonic "upai" = "above, over, upper, top, etc."? Speaking of this word, I notice a potential origin in the Proto-Yeniseian list -- "ugʷ" = "long". The labialized velar, as I've shown before, turns into a labial stop, "p". Then it needs a dummy vowel at the end to avoid coda consonants, and in OJ "pa" is by far the most common "p" syllable (and "pi" is next).
ReplyDeleteThat yields "upa" or an alternate form "upi", which may account for the "upai" vowel variation. QED on the phonetics.
As for the semantics, there is no word for "above, upper, top" etc. in P-Y, although there does seem to be one for "lower" ("wod"). So there was nothing to carry over into P-J. However, there is a word about spatial dimensions, "long", and that refers to a higher value on the scale, as opposed to "short", so that would seem to match better with "upper, top" as opposed to "lower, below, bottom", which would want the smaller scale word "short".
When you stand something "long" on its end, it's "tall", with a prominent "upper" area or "top". It was something of an extension, as it were, of the spatial dimension word from P-Y, but it was the best they could do since there was no existing P-Y word for "upper, top, above".
BTW, P-J words for "bottom, lower" ("sita" and "simo"), do *not* come from the P-Y word for "lower" ("wod"). I don't see any convincing close phonetic matches either...
ReplyDeleteYeniseian origin for P-J "sawo" = "pole" (later, "neck" of an instrument, "rod", "stick", etc.). In P-Y "ɬa" is a common element in words relating to "protrusion" or "extension". The verb for "to extend" is "ɬaw". The noun ("protrusion, extension") adds a generic nominalizer suffix "ja" onto that verb, "ɬawja".
ReplyDeleteAs before, I don't think morphologically complex words carried over, but some smaller meaningful morpheme, so definitely not the complex noun "ɬawja".
But even sticking with the verb "ɬaw", running that through P-J phonotactics would make the "ɬ" (a voiceless coronal fricative) into "s", and sticking a dummy vowel on the end would yield "sawo" since "wo" is the most common "w" syllable in OJ. QED.
Other P-J words beginning with "sa" and having to do with a protrusion or extension --
"Saki" = "point, tip" and "cape, peninsula" (with "ki" as a dummy nominal suffix)
"Sanki" = "heron" with its prominent protruding bill. As usual, no evidence for the nasal, probably re-analyzed as a two-word compound and rendaku applied. Same dummy nominal suffix as in "saki" above.
"Sasa" = Japanese bamboo, alluding to its shoots or trunk looking like a protruding pole. Total reduplication of "sa".
"Saya" = "sheath, scabbard", where "ya" may be the P-J word for "house", i.e. a house or case for a protruding object like a sword, rod, etc.
"Sawo" may also be "sa" = "prefix related to protrusion" + "wo" = "tail, end of an object" from P-J (which as I showed earlier, is itself from P-Y origins).
ReplyDelete"Sawo" refers to the entire rod, not just the end or tail of it, but "wo" does have to do with an object's length, and rods are more lengthy than wide.
"Wo" is an odd dummy syllable to choose, so either it's meaningful and means "tail, end", or the "w" belongs to the root as in the P-Y verb "ɬaw".
Lest I be accused of cherry-picking or "random chance", there are only 9 P-J words beginning with "sa" in Wiktionary. So that's 5 of 9 that have to do with protrusion, extension -- not a coincidence, but stemming from a shared origin in Yeniseian "ɬa".
ReplyDeleteAlso, in "saya" = "scabbard", perhaps the "sa" refers to the fact that the scabbard is protruding out from the wearer's body. It is still a kind of case or "house" for something. It's a "protruding case" worn on the body.
ReplyDeleteIn "sasa" = "Japanese bamboo", total reduplication is used to convey a collective sense, as in "yama yama" = "lots of mountains", "ie ie" = "every household", "iro iro" = "every color" i.e. "wide variety".
ReplyDeleteSo, "sasa" = "lots of poles", "collection of rods", "trunks everywhere," "shoots upon shoots", and so on. Cuz running bamboo species like that erupt in dense impenetrable forests, not isolated trees.
More Japanese "sa" words of Yeniseian "ɬa" origin. "Sasu" has a whole bunch of meanings, and they fall into two groups.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%95%E3%81%99#Etymology_1
One is "sandbar, shoal", which is an extension or protrusion of sand from the main beach or shoreline out into the open water, sometimes forming a peninsula of sand and sometimes stretching out all the way to connect to another land area, forming a sand-bridge.
The second syllable "su" may be of Chinese origin, also meaning "sandbar", but at any rate the first syllable is of Japonic origin, and ultimately Yeniseian, having to do with "extension, protrusion".
Second, a series of cognate words that all involve extending a bodily appendage -- "pierce, stab, stick, thrust, (insect) sting / bite," "to point at", "to raise one's hand", "to shine into", and "to insert". The second syllable is a dummy verb ending -- a rare ending, "-su", but the preferred endings are already taken by "saru" ("to leave") and "saku" ("to bloom").
The verbs under "sasu" include references to "hand", which is part of the polysemy of the Yeniseian and Athabaskan forms. Another connection between them and Japonic.
ReplyDeleteI don't discount "saru" = "to leave" and "saku" = "to bloom" from connecting to "sa-" = "extension, protrusion". The most common physical gesture for "leave" is extending the hand / pointer finger to point outward from the place where you are. And the blossoming of a plant involves little protrusions or extensions growing outward from the branch.
ReplyDeleteNext is the P-Y suffix "-ɬaw", also reconstructed as "-ɬa", and deriving from the prefix meaning "extension".
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Yeniseian/-%C9%ACaw
One meaning is an emphatic suffix, perhaps deriving from the gesture of using the arm / hand / pointer finger to point or stab into the air for emphasis.
This has two related descendants in Japonic, "sa" and "zo" (from earlier "so"). Phonetically, "sa" is the straightforward carry-over of "ɬa", while "so" -> "zo" is the carry-over of "ɬaw", where codas are not allowed, turn into vowels, and replace the nuclear vowel. "W" turns into a back rounded vowel, but sometimes it's "u" and sometimes it's "o". Here, it's "o".
I haven't kept track, but I think "w" changes to "o" after nuclear "a", and changes to "u" after "e", "i", "o", and of course "u". So, it's the relatively higher vowel "u" after the non-low vowels, and the relatively lower vowel "o" after the low vowel "a", an assimilation for height.
Semantically, "sa" in Japanese is a sentence-final emphatic particle, and "zo" (from "so") is a vowel-alternated form of it as well. "Zo" is stronger than "sa", and can be used after a word for emphasis, not only at the end of a sentence. There's also "ze", derived from "zo" with a softening suffix "-e". All ultimately trace back to the Yeniseian emphatic suffix.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%95#Etymology_4
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%9E#Etymology_2
The other meaning of the P-Y suffix is diminuitive, and the example cited is a suffix used to derive "dew, dewy" ("xurɬaw") from "wet, moist" ("xur"). This seems like a more concrete form of the root it's attached to -- although "wet" is physical, it's a bit more abstract than "dew", a concrete example rather than a broad category.
Another role of the "-sa" suffix in Japanese is "-ness", e.g. "sadness" ("kanashii + sa") from "sad" ("kanashii"). It's contrasted with a similar suffix "-mi" in that "-sa" is more concrete and objective while "-mi" is more abstract and subjective. Nice match to the Yeniseian usage.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%95#Etymology_3
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%BF#Etymology_4
Reminder from earlier, I showed that P-J "supa" (later "suba") = "lip, tongue" is a carry-over of P-Y "ɬVb" = "tongue". As usual, no evidence for a medial nasal in the Japonic word (contra its listing as "sunpa" in Wiktionary), probably re-analyzed later as a compound and rendaku applied to the "p".
ReplyDeleteThis may or may not relate to the protrusion root in Yeniseian, since the vowels aren't always "a" in the descendants -- they're also "u" and "e", all over the place. And in the Japonic carry-over, it's "u" rather than "a". Semantically, the tongue can be extended, but the lips not really (unless you consider "pucker" or "purse" a protrusion, but it's far weaker than sticking out the tongue).
This further establishes the sound correspondence between P-Y "ɬ" and P-J "s", not only relating to that one productive root about "extension".
Now for some body and gender words, beginning with "i" in Japonic. First up, P-Y "ɢojq" = "bile, gall", and P-J "i" = "gallbladder". Very close semantic match.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Yeniseian/%C9%A2ojq
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/i
Phonetically, this is another case of "ɢ" being deleted altogether rather than altered when carrying over into Japonic. The "j" changes into "i" and replaces the nuclear "o".
So far, we've seen "q" become "y" in Japonic, although that was only initially. Here, it would be a coda and need a dummy vowel after it, yielding "iyV".
However, it seems like this form was avoided for the same reason that "yi" was illegal from the start -- dissimilating "y" from "i". There are no native Japonic words, that have 2 moras a la the canonical word shape, of the form "iyV". The closest one is "iya" as an onomatopoeia for disgust or disbelief, like "yuck" in English. Perhaps even this Japanese exclamation comes from "i" = "gallbladder", a gross internal organ.
Aside from the exclamation, the only word of the form "iyV" is where there is no vowel, and therefore the "y" was dropped as well to prevent coda consonants -- the very word "i" = "gallbladder".
This word is highly unusual since it's a standalone word, and not from a closed class category like personal pronouns, that is a bare vowel in Japonic. It's rare enough for a word to begin with a bare vowel, but just about impossible for the entire word to be a bare vowel, except for personal pronouns.
Examining its Yeniseian lineage, though, we see that it did not always begin with a vowel -- it began with "ɢ" -- and it did not always consist of one mora, it probably tried to keep the "y" (from P-Y coda "q") and append a dummy vowel, but that just sounded wrong since "i" was followed by "y", violating the dissimilation of those two sounds in Japonic.
So, it remained as simply "i" in Japonic.
Japanese also uses a gross internal organ for an exclamation meaning "gross, disgusting, yuck" -- "kimoi", from "kimo" = "liver". So perhaps "iya" derives from "i" = "gallbladder" in the same way. Still, more of an exlamation than a productive root word like "i".
ReplyDeletePotential Yeniseian origin of Japonic word for "placenta", although it's "egg" in Yeniseian. The word for "egg" in Japanese is much later and morphologically complex ("tamago", from earlier "tama + ko"), which seems strange -- why wouldn't such a basic word like "egg" carry over? Well, maybe it did but applied in a slightly different way, to mean "placenta", still referring to female reproductive organs and materials.
ReplyDeleteThere are 2 words for "egg" in P-Y, the common "ej" and the less common "ɢajnč".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Yeniseian/ej#Etymology_2
"Ej" should turn "j" to "i", which replaces nuclear "e", yielding "i". However, some of the personal pronouns showed that for Yeniseian words with no onset, just a nuclear vowel and a single coda, sometimes just the nuclear vowel carried over into Japonic and the coda was simply deleted. So that also allows for simply "e". Hard to distinguish these two -- a bare high/front vowel.
I actually think "i" could be the result of "ɢajnč" as well -- "ɢ" deletes, "j" -> "i" which replaces "a", and the complex coda cluster is simply thrown out. It would require 2 dummy vowels to break it up and avoid codas, yielding a 3-vowel / 3-mora word in Japonic, when they prefer 2-mora words. But I don't think this happened -- this harder-to-pronounce word just failed to carry over, and only "ej" did, as either "e" or "i".
And indeed that's what Frellesvig posits as the P-J word for "placenta" -- "e", later raised to "i".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%83%9E#Old_Japanese
The "i" form serves as a base for the related P-J terms "iro" and "ira", both meaning "shared kinship through the same mother". So, it was not a technical anatomy term, like "Um, ackshually, the placenta is distinct from the egg that it supports and nourishes..." It was used as a part-for-the-whole figure of speech to refer to the womb and pregnancy and gestation.
Is it any less accurate to say that two people share kinship through the same mother due to coming from the same "egg" vs. the same "placenta"? Both are figures of speech to refer to the "womb".
The phonetics are a little unclear on how the P-Y -> P-J carry-over would work, but then the phonetic nature of the target word in P-J is also unclear in the exact same way, "e" vs. "i".
And the semantics are not perfect, but a fairly transparent shift from one salient part or piece of the womb to another salient part or piece of it.
Japonic words with "-m-" meaning "female" are Yeniseian in origin, from "-m". I missed this generalization when I looked at gender and kin terms during the comment thread of the August post, cuz P-Y "pun" = "daughter" threw me off, since it ends in "-n". But supposedly this used to be "-m", which is shared with "am" = "mother" (whose carry-over into Japonic I explained in that earlier thread), and "ɢejm" = "woman".
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Yeniseian/-m
I'll look at a new female word in Japonic which has this "-m-", "imo" = "close female companion, sister". Its entry at Wiktionary lists some of the other "-m-" female words, like "me", "mi", "mo", that appear in various contexts.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%A6%B9#Japanese
This is a phonetic and semantic match, with the only difference being the presence of a dummy vowel in Japonic to avoid coda consonants. QED.
Now onto the new discovery, that OJ "imo" (and in P-J as well?) is carried over from Yeniseian. It comes from P-Y "ɢejm" = "woman". The "ɢ" deletes, "j" -> "i" which replaces the nuclear vowel, and this time the coda consonant is preserved, with a dummy vowel after it. The most common "m" syllable in OJ is "mo", so that's what was chosen, yielding "imo". QED.
Similar to the carry-over of P-Y "am" -> P-J "amo" (both "mother"), including the preservation of the P-Y coda consonant.
I've said that morphologically complex words from P-Y don't carry over into P-J -- only single morphemes. These two and other simple kin and personal pronouns seem to be an exception. P-Y "am" breaks down into "a + m", and "ɢejm" breaks down into "ɢej + m". I've shown that all 3 of those separate morphemes, "a" = "kin term root", "ɢej" = "big", and "-m" = "female", carried over from Yeniseian into Japonic.
But now there are examples of a complex P-Y word carrying over!
I think the solution is primarily phonological rather than morphological. These words carried over in complex form due to their phonological shape of having an optional onset, 1 nuclear vowel, optional coda glide, and coda consonant.
That is, they don't have 2 nuclear vowels, since one of the morphemes is a bare consonant, "-m". When it combines with a standard 1-vowel word, the complex result still has only 1 vowel, 1 syllable (the bare consonant morpheme is not syllabic). So it's still shaped like a standard standalone word in Yeniseian.
If you just looked at "am" or "ɢejm", would you guess that they're complex? They look pretty simple to me -- and they must have to speakers during the Yeniseian-to-Japonic transition stage. If they're complex, where's the 2nd vowel? Doesn't every morpheme have to have a vowel? No, not every one, but most do. So when a morpheme *doesn't* have a vowel, and it attaches to another morpheme that does have 1 vowel, the complex combination sneaks through the detector as a "single" word.
Neat!
Finally for now, Japonic words for "male" with "wo" are Yeniseian, from "-b" (male noun class marker, akin to "-m" for female).
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Yeniseian/-b
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/wo
You'd think the "b" would devoice to "p", but in this case it preserved voicing and bilabial place and softened its manner into "w". The most common "w" syllable in OJ is "wo", and that's what was chosen. QED.
I gave another example earlier where P-Y "b" became P-J "w" instead of "p" -- "tail". In P-Y, there's a root "bu-" shared among words relating to lower-body appendages. It softened "b" into "w", although retaining the "u" would result in an illegal "wu" syllable in Japonic, so it was altered to the nearest vowel, yielding "wo", which is the P-J / OJ word for "tail".
So the "b" -> "w" instead of "p" for "male" is not unprecedented.
Just want to say, how grateful I am to Japanese vtubers, not only for sparking my curiosity about a specific word to investigate, but for being so full of energy, eagerness, and devotion to their calling. It's not just a job or source of money for them -- they're really committed to it, and enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteThat motivates me to do my best in my own efforts of discovering and exploring secret passageways and sharing buried treasure with the world. It's obviously not a source of money for me, it's a devotion to a higher cause -- and being in the (online) presence of Japanese vtubers helps to keep me inspired about pursuing higher causes, giving your best effort, and so on, as an end in itself, not just to make money or chase clout.
Clueless non-Japanese people think it's due to a pathological Japanese workaholic materialist status contest. It's not "workaholic" if you're full of energy and need to spend it in some productive or creative way! It's certainly not materialist if you're not earning big bucks from it, and only the top streamers make lots of money. Japanese vtubers who are not in the super-duper top-tier are doing it *despite* not making tons of money -- devotion to a higher cultural cause.
They are shrine maidens of the modern era, just like I am a cliff-dwelling sage of the modern era. We're not so different! ^_^
The Japanese phrase "ganbatte!" meaning "do your best!" is not a workaholic or materialist slogan. It means don't waste your energy, use it productively and creatively. And use it to benefit some group you belong to, share it with others -- rather than to benefit only yourself.
ReplyDeleteIt's the opposite of the American slogans of today like "rise and grind," "hustle", etc. Those are all begging you to use your energy in wasteful and parasitic ways, just to benefit yourself in terms of money and status.
"Ganbatte!" used to have an American counterpart back in the good ol' days. In fact, one of them was "let's hustle!" or "all right, men, let's show some hustle!" But it was used by the gym coach meaning, "use your energy to help out the team, so they can achieve their goal", not "find a way to cheat and score an easy win for yourself". It's sick how that word has flipped its meaning within my lifetime.
As social cohesion has come unglued in America, but remained fairly strong in Japan, only one of our cultures today uses a phrase meaning "work hard" in a pro-social way, while the other culture has debased it into a parasite striver slogan.
It's really refreshing, and encouraging, to see the energetic team spirit still alive in Glorious Nippon, no matter where you look -- yes, even vtubers! ^_^
That's not to say that every team is always working at 100% in Japan, but they're far more cohesive and group-oriented than we are in America these days.
This has nothing to do with Japan per se or America per se -- during the civil wars of the Yamato era, or of the Sengoku era, Japanese people were far more selfish and stingy with their personal energy. And as recently as the New Deal era in America, we were VERY energetic and team-spirited. We were a comical extreme of the "Rah-rah! Sis, boom, bah!" super-organism.
Now no one here gives a shit about anything, and that is a negative feedback to those remaining few who of us who *do* give a shit.
It's necessary to find some external source of inspiration, in that case, when it's so lacking and outright hostile toward "giving a shit" in your once-glorious homeland...
Let Kami-sama bless the modern shrine maidens who have become Japanese vtubers! ^_^
Quick Yeniseian - Japonic etymology for today, to keep up the pace for Nonstop Nihongo New Year's. ^_^
ReplyDeleteI think I found a doublet -- two Japonic words from the same Yeniseian source, but which have different sounds and have diverged somewhat in meaning.
P-Y "quwç" means "birch bark tent," what Americans would call "wigwam".
P-J "ya" meant "house" in a physical sense, like the roof over people's heads, the building or structure, and has shifted to refer to an establishment of a certain type -- like "shop", as in "cake shop", a building where cakes are made, and from there, the occupation of someone who works in such a shop, like "-er" in English ("baker" from "bake + -r").
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/ya#Etymology_2
P-J "utui" meant "interior" of a building, not the structure itself, and has shifted to be a more abstract word for "within" or "among" or "during". It's even become a (female) personal pronoun, like referring to oneself by way of the household or domestic interior.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/utui
"Ya" is more concrete, "utui" (modern "uchi") is more abstract, one about the structure and the other about the interior. But they're clearly related semantically.
But are they related phonetically, and from the same source? That would make them a doublet. I think so -- both are attempts to render P-Y "quwç" in P-J phonotactics.
Usually P-Y "q" becomes "y" in P-J, so "ya" is the attempt to preserve the consonant, albeit in altered form, while not worrying about the original vowel. It gets a dummy vowel, and the most common "y" syllable in OJ is "ya", so it's "ya".
Since "q" is a difficult consonant, another solution is to drop it and preserve what else you can. The nuclear "u", as well as the coda "w" becoming "u" and replacing the nuclear vowel, both yield "u" as the initial vowel in this solution.
The coda "ç" should want to become "s", but that would result in homophony with "usi" (since "si" is the most common "s" syllable in OJ), an existing P-J word meaning "cow". And given the importance of cows to Steppe cultures, that would be a big no-no.
So the other consonant that is voiceless and coronal, albeit not a fricative or continuant, is "t". That root is already taken by a verb "ut-" meaning "hit, beat, strike", but since it's a different part of speech, this homophony is not so bad -- and it's not homophony with a sacred animal like the cow.
As for the dummy vowel it receives, the most common "t" syllable in OJ is "ta", yielding "uta" -- but that would conflict with "uta" = "song". Supposedly in P-J "song" was "ota", and saw vowel-raising to make it "uta". Perhaps that raising was already occurring, and that blocked "uta" = "interior". The next most common "t" syllable is "to", yielding "uto" -- and in the Yamagata dialect today (in the East / North of Honshu), it is indeed "uto":
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%86%E3%81%A8
The next most common after that is "utu", which is what was chosen -- or perhaps there was some earlier stage where it was "uto", which survived in the Yamagata dialect, and then saw vowel raising on the 2nd syllable to make it "utu". The final "i" in P-J is the typical vowel-alternating 2nd element (in this case, the 2nd "u" is the main element in the alternating pair).
I expect quite a bit of these doublets, since much of the Yeniseian phoneme inventory, and syllable structure, is problematic for Japonic -- so there could have been multiple attempts to render the source when carrying it over into Japonic. That would be most notable for the really exotic consonants like "q", "χ", "kʷ", etc.
ReplyDeleteSaved from alienation by the Brothaman again! I'm telling you, this keeps happening more and more frequently -- major vibe shift among African-Americans (descendants of slaves, not "any ol' melanated body with African DNA").
ReplyDeleteI had to go out for a few things tonight, and during an otherwise alienating trip, an African-American guy stopped me in the supermarket to say, "I have that *exact same* coat!" He had a surprised look, and gave a little friendly smile and chuckle.
It was a tan duffle coat by Gloverall (made in England), all wool including the wool liner, heavy and roomy, hooded, with leather and horn toggles (as in, cone-shaped full horns). Although British in origin, it's still an iconic look for American culture -- some of the really cool stuff from the Olde Worlde, we preserved. And duffle coats are one of them.
He was not gay, not a fashion victim, not a Talented Tenth yuppie striver. Just an ordinary Gen-X black guy. They've been assimilating to heritage American norms for generations, with some exceptions (mainly their given names, which sharply diverged starting IIRC with Gen X). So of course he has a standard piece of American drip.
Non-Americans will never come up and exclaim things like this to me -- cuz they don't dress like me, cuz they're foreigners. They wouldn't even recognize it as iconic Americana. It's just some random thing they don't understand, not that they hate it, it just doesn't register and resonate with them.
But this stuff MOST DEFINITELY resonates with the other big heritage American demo.
It's an in-group sartorial shibboleth. Just like the language we're speaking -- another reason why foreigners would never approach me all friendly-like and say, "Hey, I have that too!" They literally don't speak our language, and I don't speak theirs.
But good ol' African-Americans speak nothing but American English, so he didn't even hesitate, like "Hmmm, does this guy speak my language or not...?"
It's the most refreshing and reassuring thing in the world to just be able to interact spontaneously with supposed strangers in a friendly way in public spaces. It's nearly impossible anymore!
And like I said before, white Gen-X Americans have burrowed into their little domestic cocoons, whether they're married and have kids or not, since at least the 2000s. I never seem them out and about. I'm one of the very few from my demo who does -- and even though they're a minority, the only generation-mates I ever run into, let alone have friendly interactions with among strangers, are African-American.
In a nation increasingly flooded with foreigners, we can both look at each other like Riggs and Murtaugh, and sigh, "...I'm gettin' too old fo' dis shiiiit..." If you're not American, look up that reference, and watch it -- it's an American classic! ^_^
Now looking to Tlingit, from the Na-Dene family, instead of Yeniseian, for Japonic connections. Yeniseian and Na-Dene are distantly related, and some words from their common ancestor will be in Na-Dene but not Yeniseian -- but Japonic, at least the Wa people's language, traces back to that common ancestor as well (in part). So, there will be Japonic words that are not easily traced to Yeniseian, but are traced to Na-Dene -- ultimately from the Dene-Yeniseian ancestor.
ReplyDeleteThe name of Japan's capital, Tokyo, used to be Edo -- but it was really Yedo, and it breaks down into "ye + to" meaning "bay + portal". "Bay" in OJ was "ye", although eventually the "y" was lost before "e", so now it's just "e".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%B1%9F#Japanese
We've seen P-Y "q" becoming P-J "y", likewise "q" from the Na-Dene or Athabaskan side of the Pacific Ocean. So, "ye" would have come from something like "qe"...
Whaddaya know? Tlingit "g̱eey", where the initial consonant is "q" but written as "g" with an underline, since in Tlingit the consonant series contrasts plain, aspirated, and ejective -- not voiced and voiceless.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/g%CC%B1eey
I didn't find any close phonetic or semantic matches in the P-Y list, probably cuz Yeniseian speakers were not near the ocean, and so didn't have need for a large body of inland water. Perhaps the same reason why there are seemingly no other good matches on the Na-Dene side, like Eyak. But Tlingit is spoken in Southeastern Alaska, so they have a big need for words like "bay".
And so does Glorious Nippon -- at least, the major islands that speak Japanese. I couldn't find a Ryukyuan word for "bay".
Nevertheless, a perfect semantic match, and a close phonetic match -- with the only alteration being a fairly widely demonstrated one between Yeniseian / Na-Dene and Japonic, with "q" -> "y" (at least initially).
I do feel bad as an American, always studying Olde Worlde cultures, neglecting the ones in the land where I actually live. So it's nice to have a way to branch out and connect the two -- and just as the Japanese are the cool Asians, the Na-Dene are the cool Indians. I wouldn't expect any less of a connection. ^_^
To clarify the relationship between Japonic, Yeniseian, and Na-Dene, it seems like there was a common ancestor between Japonic and Yeniseian in the 1st or 2nd millennium BC. Japonic split off from it sometime in the late 1st millennium BC, as they joined the Xiongnu confederation and then headed off into the Korean peninsula and then the Japanese islands, absorbing speakers of Emishi / Ainu, during Japan's Yayoi era.
ReplyDeleteNa-Dene speakers left the Olde Worlde several millennia earlier.
So when I say Japonic carried over something from Yeniseian, maybe I should say it's carrying over from the common ancestor that Japonic shares with Yeniseian. Call that ancestor Wa-Yeniseian, since the Wa people brought their language into Japan, where it synthesized with Emishi to yield Japonic.
Or maybe we can talk about "Para"-Yeniseian languages, like Para-Mongolic. Proto-Mongolic only goes back to the times of Genghiz Khan, more or less, but there were languages related to it going further back into the 1st millennium BC, like Xianbei. Those are labelled Para-Mongolic.
If Proto-Yeniseian only goes back to the 1st millennium AD, or a bit before then, then Para-Yeniseian languages go back even earlier into the 1st and 2nd millennia BC. That's where the Steppe ancestor to Japonic lies (and the Emishi ancestor lies in Southern Korea and Japan).
That Para-Yeniseian language was clearly similar to Yeniseian, but in some ways it would have resembled Na-Dene more than Yeniseian. That's where Japonic gets its features that are more Na-Dene-like than Yeniseian-like.
For example, while browsing the P-Y list, I sometimes find a correspondence of P-Y "q" and P-J "p" -- but I've already said the main correspondence there is "q" and "y". How could "q" correspond to "p"?
Well, like the labialized velars in P-Y becoming labials in P-J -- except "q" isn't labialized, so how could that feature resolve into a primarily labial consonant? If P-Y "q" isn't the end of the line of ancestry -- and it used to be a labialized uvular, during the Para-Yeniseian era. In fact, Na-Dene languages have labialized uvulars, not just velars.
So by examining the Na-Dene side, we can triangulate. If P-ND "qʷ" reflects P-Dene-Wa-Yeniseian "qʷ", the labialization has clearly been lost in P-Y. But not necessarily in P-Wa-Yeniseian. If Japonic is carrying over / resolving problems from that Para-Yeniseian stage, then it may very well have been dealing with labialized uvulars, not only velars.
And that would result in a correspondence between P-Y "q" and P-J "p" -- despite the expected correspondences being "q" and "y", and "velar ʷ" and "p". That's cuz P-Y "q" forks back to two distinct consonants in Para-Yeniseian, and further back into Dene-Wa-Yeniseian -- it could reflect earlier "q" or "qʷ".
Obviously the best way to show that would be not only finding correspondences between P-Y "q" and P-J "p", but also "qʷ" somewhere in the Na-Dene family. That would clinch the connection between a primary vs. secondary labial consonant, whereas the "q" and "p" connection is not so motivated on its own.
2026 is gonna be another busy but exciting year for my revived interest in linguistics, which I majored in during undergrad... nice to see it being put to some productive and original, insightful use. ^_^
Japonic "ya" and "utui" may not be doublets, if "utui" is missing an initial consonant cuz it used to be "G" -- which simply gets deleted in Japonic, not altered into "y" or anything else. The initial consonant is "q" in P-Y, but this may be a case where the Japonic form is descended from the Para-Yeniseian stage, where it was "G", not the Yeniseian stage, where it devoiced / merged into "q".
ReplyDeleteIf that's the case, then "ya" is from some other source, not an attempt to preserve the initial consonant of P-Y "quwç".
So now we see a new form of triangulation -- not just using Na-Dene to inform Japonic, but using Japonic to inform Yeniseian history.
Ideally, there would be a Na-Dene word similar to P-Y "quwç", but with initial "G" instead, and with a related meaning. I couldn't quickly find an example, though, among P-ND or P-Athabaskan or Eyak or Tlingit...
BTW, needless to say, there are no other potential candidates for the Japanese word for "bay" ("ye"), among other language families. Not Chinese, Korean, Austronesian (lol), or whatever else. It has no etymology listed at Wiktionary.
ReplyDeleteSo far, Tlingit "g̱eey" is the only plausible candidate. As a single etymology, it's not super-convincing, but in the broader context of the correspondence between Japonic "y" and Yeniseian or Na-Dene "q", it's believable.
So many Japanese traditions flourishing during New Year's! Vivi began her Medieval fantasy journey by playing Dragon Quest I! She's not a video game addict, she just likes being part of Japanese cultural traditions, and that includes JRPGs that have been recommended to her by Peko-chan. ^_^
ReplyDeleteThe official Hololive New Year Countdown had an IRL video featuring milking cows and eating horse meat -- just like their glorious Steppe ancestors! ^_^
Raden took her audience on another IRL tour of Japanese art!
And Guutara dressed up in traditional Chinese clothing and accessories! Not Japanese, but there was one item that was VERY Steppe-looking to my eyes... I'll have to save that for a later post! I had been thinking this matter over for awhile, but seeing that object gave me an epiphany today! It finally explains the origin of canvas paintings in Europe! Yep, that didn't come from nowhere... it must have come from the Orient, ultimately the Steppe. But that will have to wait until later, with lots more details to put together.
I really luv Guu-chan's vlogs, they always shine a light on some important part of Japanese cultural origins coming from the Steppe. Like when she went on a casual stroll while holding a large bird of prey on her arm, wearing a falconry gauntlet. ^_^
Traditions are important to keep alive -- not only to fulfill your duty, but because they're FUN and EXCITING!
Also, I saw Kson post a picture of a pot of soba noodle stew that her dad made for her on New Year's -- such a daddy's girl, very adorable moment. ^_^
P-J "kati" = "walking, on foot" has an Eastern OJ variant "kasi". The subtle variation in the 2nd C suggests two attempts to resolve a consonant that was not present in P-J's phoneme inventory, like "ts" or "c" (English "ch").
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/kati
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%BE%92#Japanese
Pretty close -- P-Y "kajš" = "foot, leg", with cognates in the Na-Dene family as well (and whose final consonant is also "š" -- Eyak "kˀahš" and Tlingit "xʼaash").
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Yeniseian/kaj%C5%A1
The Eastern OJ variant is closer to the Yeniseian / Dene original, with the sibilant, and then getting the expected dummy vowel (since "si" is the most common "s" syllable in OJ).
The Western OJ variant, which became the standard, hardened that consonant into "t", and even then chose an unusual dummy vowel -- "ti" is the *least* common "t" syllable in OJ. That suggests that it derived from the Eastern OJ variant, whose dummy vowel is expected and whose consonant alteration is the most transparent.
So, in Western OJ, altering the 2nd C from Eastern OJ didn't involve altering the dummy 2nd vowel along with it. The creation of the word-final dummy vowel slot, and the choice of which dummy vowel to use there, was made during the P-J stage.
That's why there's a totally unexpected dummy vowel for the Western OJ form -- it derived from an earlier form where the dummy vowel *was* expected, but the 2nd C was different.
And given the cognates with Yeniseian and Na-Dene, that means the P-J form is not actually "kati" but "kasi".
Wiktionary lists "kati" as the P-Ryukyuan form as well -- but that has a totally unrelated meaning, "to win", from P-J "katu". If it also meant "walking, on foot", then that would place more weight on the P-J form being "kati", but since its meaning is unrelated, the only relevant forms are Western OJ "kati", Eastern OJ "kasi", and the P-Y and P-ND forms, which also have a sibilant in the 2nd C slot.
So, P-J must've been "kasi", and Western OJ / modern standard Japanese innovated the "t" in place of "s".
The only wrinkle is the 1st vowel, which is "a" in P-J, but "a" followed by "j" in P-Y. Normally, we expect "j" -> "i" and replace the nuclear vowel, yielding "kisi". Even if we allow for the low "a" to affect the height of its replacement glide, that would still yield "kesi". But it stayed "a".
ReplyDeletePossibly, "a" is just more resistant to alteration compared to the non-low vowels. We've already seen that it affects its replacement by "w" -- it's "o" instead of "u" for non-low vowels. P-J doesn't like "e" in general, especially in 1st V position -- almost no words of an open class begin with "e" in P-J. So instead of pulling down the height from expected "i" to "e", it's pulled all the way down to "a".
This doesn't happen across the board -- the very first clue I had of the Yeniseian origins of Japonic was P-Y "xʷaj" = "sun, day, sun goddess" = P-J "pi". Maybe it varies based on there being a coda consonant after the glide, which "xʷaj" does not have, but "kajš" does have. This is an open question to be solved later after further exploration.
In any case, the southern branch of Yeniseian has the "a" vowel instead of "i", so perhaps Wa / Japonic specifically branched off from a Pumpokolic dialect, which is where the Xiongnu confederation was based -- not way up in the north.
Also, the Na-Dene forms don't have an "i" or "j", just "ah" and "aa". So perhaps the Para-Yeniseian ancestor of the P-J form simply had "a" like the P-ND form, and P-Y innovated by sticking a "j" after the "a".
Whatever the reason turns out to be, there are several plausible explanations for the P-J form having "a" instead of expected "i". That vowel difference isn't enough to discount the otherwise major phonetic match -- including the coda consonant, which we're not always lucky enough to find -- and perfect semantic match, and the broad geographic / temporal range of the cognates. Not just Yeniseian, but Na-Dene as well. ^_^
Correction: Wiktionary does list severarl Ryukyuan cognates of Western OJ "kati" = "walking, on foot", not just "to win", on the hiragana page for "kati", though not on their P-R reconstruction of "kati".
ReplyDeleteSo it's possible the P-J form is "kati"... but I still doubt it, based on that least-common dummy vowel, which is there in all the Ryukyuan forms as well. All else equal, 2 independent innovations is less believable than 1, but in this case the rest of the picture justifies it. Or the P-R form is borrowed from Western OJ, which was the sole innovation from the Proto form.
In either case, the variation in the 2nd C still suggests an attempt to resolve a consonant that isn't present in P-J, but was in the source. And the "š" in the P-Y and P-ND forms works for that purpose.
Major revelation on Japonic phonotactics -- why is there a ban on coda consonants, why is there an obligatory 2-mora / 2-vowel morpheme structure, etc.?
ReplyDeleteIt's not so much that coda consonants were banned -- it's that there was an obligatory creation of a 2nd vowel slot, which changed the nature of the previous 2nd C, from coda to onset.
But it's the creation of that 2nd V slot that is fundamental, the ban on coda consonants merely follows from an obligatory 2nd V.
If a ban on coda consonants was fundamental, then the default morpheme shape could just as easily have been CV from earlier CVC. But it went the other way -- CVCV from earlier CVC.
It finally hit me today -- the creation of that dummy vowel slot was meant to accomodate the profound loss of information from the 2nd C, which resulted from the Yeniseian -> Japonic transition. Yeniseian, and Na-Dene even more so, are RICH in consonants, including in coda position. P-J is IMPOVERISHED in consonants -- maybe only 1/2 as many, at best.
Lost information from consonants wants to be reincarnated onto surviving adjacent vowels. This is what happened with tonogenesis throughout Southeast Asia during the Dark Ages, and the related phenomenon of diphthongization in Khmer, all of which was triggered by loss of coda consonants. Info about those lost consonants reincarnated in the form of tones (or diphthongs) on the preceding surviving vowel.
Also the loss of Latin nasal coda consonants in some Romance languages (French, Portuguese), which was reincarnated onto the preceding vowel, which became a nasalized vowel, contrasting with non-nasalized vowels.
OK, during the Yeniseian -> Japonic transition, coda consonants are not dropping out altogether, but their variety is, which requires mergers or catch-all containers, severly reducing the number of consonants that appear in coda position, creating the homophony from hell problem.
So why didn't Japonic just reincarnate that lost info about consonants onto the preceding surviving vowel, a la the other families just discussed? Why did they create an entirely new vowel position *after* the coda consonant, where the lost consonantal info could be reincarnated?
ReplyDeleteAha! Cuz the exact same major reduction in consonants was also happening in the onset consonant position! That was not the case in Southeast Asian or Romance languages -- their onsets stayed more or less the same. Maybe they altered from one consonant to another, but the entire position of "onset consonant" did not vanish, nor was their number slashed in half. In those cases, only 1 consonant slot was getting the axe, and therefore only 1 vowel slot was needed to accomodate that lost information.
However, in Japonic, both the onset and coda consonants were getting slashed in half, and with only 1 nuclear vowel to accomodate the "refugees" from both sides, it was not enough territory. That 1 vowel would've needed to come in 47 different flavors -- too complicated, based on where they already were, at around 5 or so.
So instead, the solution was to open up an entirely new expanse of vowel territory, not by enriching the vowel inventory (with tones, diphthongs, nasality, etc.), but by creating an obligatory 2nd V slot after the former coda consonant.
In this way, the vowel inventory can stay mostly the same (maybe adding 1 or 2 new ones compatible with the existing feature set, but not a whole new feature like tone, nasality, etc.). And now, the lost info from the 1st C will get reincarnated onto the 1st V, while the lost info from the 2nd C will get reincarnated onto the new 2nd V. The 2 consonant slots are no longer fighting over the same vowel slot to reincarnate in!
Now, that doesn't mean that the lost info from the consonants will be completely phonetically motivated. Maybe the phonetic "motivation" is arbitrary. But that doesn't matter -- as long as there is something close to a 1-to-1 mapping from the old and new forms, it makes the transition transparent to both the native speakers and new speakers.
It's *ideal* if the mapping is phonetically motivated. But even if it's not, at least a 1-to-1 mapping that's arbitrary will still preserve all the lost info -- just not in the most sensorily natural way.
But preservation of lost info, and avoiding homophony / confusion, is the most important goal. Smooth sensory transition comes second.
Of course, I haven't totally mapped out the results of this transition, as scholars of Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Romance, etc. have done for those transitions.
ReplyDeleteBut I just KNOW this is what happened, and why there's such an obsession with 2 vowels / 2 moras in Japonic. It was attempting to preserve lost info from CVC in Yeniseian (and/or Na-Dene), but since both C's were being reduced in number, they couldn't both fight over a single V -- so open up a whole new world with obligatory CVCV shape.
Jaan! ^_^
Somehow, nature always finds a way...
Let me say how grateful I am that I focused on (morpho-)phonology, rather than syntax and semantics during my undergrad major! Syntax is such a major waste of time, it's gone nowhere, and so much of it may be a real-time processing matter anyway, not a matter of tree-structure rules per se.
ReplyDeleteThe only good part of semantics was lexical semantics, which gets at morphology anyway -- decomposing the meaning of the whole from the meaning of the parts and their arrangement.
How semantics interfaces with syntax was also super-boring and pointless.
And only (morpho-)phonology has any broader range of applications, like historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, orthography, deciphering scripts, learning new languages without an accent, poetry / songs, and so on.
It's not like I was steered toward phonology, I just naturally liked it more than syntax. It's more corporeal, less cerebral. And more social-cultural than autistic in its applications.
And my syntax / semantics professor was more into lexical semantics anyway, so I didn't have to suffer through those topics.
It was a pretty sweet subject to major in, looking back on it. ^_^
Plenty more to come for Non-stop Nihongo New Year, just gotta catch my breath for a bit! And from outside language / linguistics, inspired by the New Year rituals in Glorious Nippon... and elsewhere. ^_^
ReplyDeleteAnd of course that thing about where canvas paintings come from -- the Steppe! Siberia, at any rate. And appearing on the other side of the Northern Pacific, with our good ol' cousins the Na-Dene people. ^_^
I'm excited for the New Year! ^_^
Addendum on "kati" ending in "i" -- the P-Y and P-ND forms are nouns, "leg, foot". But the P-J form is more like an adverb, "walking, on foot", judging from the two quotations from OJ that Wiktionary cites.
ReplyDeleteThat makes an "i" ending more plausible, if it's the stem / continuative form of a verb "katu" = "to travel on foot". That is exactly the case for "katu" = "to win" and "kati" = "winning, victory". But the verb is not attested for "to travel on foot".
Well, maybe it's more like the "-i" suffix for adjectives, describing a form of travel -- akin to "walk-y" in English. If it were added onto a noun, "katV", no matter what that dummy vowel is, adding "-i" would result in "kati" since vowel sequences are not allowed, and the 2nd replaces the 1st.
Or perhaps the "i" was chosen at the time of coinage, to make it sound more like an adjective or continuative form, without also coining the verb "katu". Again, that verb is not attested with the meaning "to travel on foot", only this "kati" form that is possibly a noun but used more like an adverb.
That explains why the highly unusual vowel was chosen -- it was not a pure dummy vowel, and therefore not chosen based on frequency. It was meant to carry meaning, namely and "-i" adjective or continuative verb stem.
Another possibility, getting back to the function of the 2nd vowel being to reincarnate lost info from the coda consonant -- maybe "i" was chosen as a reincarnation of the place of articulation of the coda.
ReplyDeleteIn P-Y and P-ND, the coda is "š", which is post-alveolar, not dental or alveolar like "t". How could that be re-encoded? Maybe a segment to suggest a palatal place of articulation, like "y" ("j"). Except that's a consonant or 2nd-dary feature, and that's not allowed in Japonic.
OK, turn it into a vowel instead -- "y" ("j") becomes "i".
That is, "kati" is signaling that the P-Y source was something like "kat", but the coda was not exactly "t" -- it was more "i"-like, i.e. further toward the palate, like "š" or "c" or "ts".
If the P-Y source truly had a "t" (or "d", since P-J is also devoicing voiced obstruents), then this "kat" would get an expected default dummy vowel, either "o2" or "a" to follow "t" -- "kato2" or "kata".
There are other P-J words beginning with "kat" that *do* have expected vowels afterward -- "katu" has the standard verb ending, meaning "to win". We can't infer if "t" was the true consonant in P-Y cuz all verbs end in "u" in Japonic, so this is not really an open dummy vowel that can reincarnate lost info about the coda consonant.
There's no "kato2", but there are two separate "kata" words -- an adjective meaning "hard, diffucult", and a prefix meaning "one side or half of a pair" (as in "katana" = "kata + na" = "one-side + edge / blade").
I'm more inclined to think those words have a "t" (or "d") in P-Y, since getting the expected vowel means it's ordinary, nothing special to note -- no lost info from the coda being reincarnated in the dummy vowel.
That doesn't mean the P-Y word is "kat" -- the vowel could be a bit different, and the onset could have altered / merged from the P-Y source. Just talking about the coda in P-Y.
Expected dummy vowel in Japonic = 2nd C is in the P-Y source.
Unusual dummy vowel in Japonic = 2nd C is not in the P-Y source, and the dummy vowel is giving a hint as to where to look for the P-Y source. E.g., unusual "i" = more toward the palatal place, unusual "u" or "o" = more toward the velar / uvular place.
That is, *if* the reincarnation mapping is phonetically motivated! It might not be. Just saying, if it is, it would be something like that, and that's presumably what they tried at the beginning. They would only turn to an arbitrary mapping if the motivated way didn't yield a clear 1-to-1 mapping.
Japonic words for "fire", "light", and "to shine, glitter" are all of Yeniseian / Na-Dene origin. The P-Y form is "beg" = "fire, light", although it's also reconstructed "boˀk" and "bowgʷ", and one of the related forms from Na-Dene is "ʔùg" (Tlingit). The other Na-Dene form, P-Athabaskan, has "e". So the vowel is uncertain -- probably high-front, but with shades of high-back.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Yeniseian/beg
Running "beg" through P-J phonology would devoice "b" to "p", and "g" to "k", and sticking a dummy vowel on the end, which should be "a" after "k" in OJ. That yields "peka", but P-J doesn't like "e", including after initial "p" (P-J words beginning with "pi" are far more common than "pe"). So it raises to "i", yielding "pika".
This provides the base for the total reduplication phrase "pika pika", meaning "shiny, glittery". That's an Early Modern phrase, and derives from the P-J verb "pikaru", whose ending "-ru" is the default verb ending, and so whose meaningful root is "pika". This verb means "to shine, glitter":
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/pikaru
But wait, there's more! The infinitive / nominal form of that verb is "pikari", which is a P-J noun meaning "light":
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/pikari
And finally, what about those high-ish back vowels? Well, we can't leave them out of this Trans-Pacific cook-out and laser-light show. There's the P-J word "poi" = "fire", whose realized vowels can be either "o" or "i" in Western OJ, but "u" in Eastern OJ.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/poi
This form has deleted the coda consonant from P-Y / P-ND, perhaps cuz that would entail a 3-mora word, "poiCV", against the preference for 2-moras only. The "pika" form kept the coda by keeping just 1 vowel before it, rather than trying to preserve 2 alternating vowels there as "poi" did.
Wiktionary speculates that the "pi" in "pika" may be cognate with "pi" = "sun, day, sun goddess", but in my view those are false cognates, since the word for sun derives from P-Y "xʷaj". But the "pi" in "pika" *is* cognate with another word, namely "poi" = "fire", all of which derive from P-Y "beg", and some older form still that is the bridge to the Na-Dene forms.
To clarify about the 2nd V slot in Japonic being a place for reincarnated info from the coda consonant in (Para-)Yeniseian -- I think this is mainly about the creation of the 2nd V slot in the Japonic word-shape paradigm, changing a typical CVC shape to a typical CVCV shape.
ReplyDeleteIt was about opening up new territory to be settled and cultivated -- to what extent, who knows? In what ways, who knows? It was a solution that came when the consonant inventory was being slashed, and they said:
"You know what? We really need some more space to re-settle the lost info from the 1st and 2nd consonants. We've already got the 1st vowel to accomodate the 1st C's info, but that means we really need a 2nd V to accomodate the 2nd C's info."
Merely opening up a new vowel slot doesn't mean it will be fully and efficiently settled by the lost info from the 2nd C. Some lost info might not make it. Some info that does make it, may not make the transition in the most sensorily efficient way.
And of course, new words (with no Yeniseian or other older lineage) will not show lost info in their 2nd V.
So, the transition will not look as neat and organized as the tonogenesis of Southeast Asian languages. It's more about the creation of the 2nd V slot itself, allowing the slashed consonant inventory to be more expressive by giving each C a vowel for modification.
And that's why Japonic phonology and orthography has always focused on moras, usually of the form CV (optionally just V), rather than separating C's from V's.
In the historical path that Japonic took, from Para-Yeniseian, linking C's and following V's made sense -- these evolved from earlier single consonants in Para-Yeniseian.
Just making it up for example, and only somewhat phonetically motivated. I don't actually believe this particular mapping, just to demonstrate the principle.
k -> ka
c -> ki
q -> ku
g -> ke
G -> ko
If there is *some kind* of mapping like this back through the history of Japonic, regardless of what that further-back source is (Yeniseian or otherwise), then of course it makes sense to focus on CV moras instead of separating C's from V's.
The CV pair preserves the 1-to-1 mapping to its earlier origin, while severing C's from V's and treating all instances of a given C as the same, and all instances of a given V as the same, totally obscures this historical mapping.
I trust the intuition of Japanese monks who created their orthography -- it wasn't by some autistic "intelligent design" universal Reddit dictator. It was based on the needs and patterns of the Japanese language, not some other language. There must have been a reason they focused on V and CV moras. I just gave one compelling reason.
Similar to the orthography for Saharo-Arabian languages, which tend not to write vowels in the same row as consonants, unless they're long vowels. If anything, they add the vowels in their own row(s) separate from the consonant row -- just like their morphology behaves, with the 2 or 3-consonant (or long vowel) root, zippering with a separate 2 or 3-vowel pattern. That was done for some compelling reason.
Here's a striking numerical similarity -- Japonic has a CV *mora* inventory of about 40 (a bit more in the past, when more "w" and "y" syllables existed). That is the size of a syllabary table, whether hiragana or katakana -- 9 consonant bases, each modified by 5 vowels (with some absences).
ReplyDeleteThe size of the Proto-Yeniseian *single* consonant inventory is 32 (could be a little more or less, depending on the reconstructor). That seemingly DWARFS the puny 9 consonant inventory of P-J -- talk about the consonant merger marathon! Talk about the homophone problem from hell!
However, if those 30-some consonants in P-Y are not mapping onto single consonants in P-J, but onto CV moras, then P-J can easily handle this mapping in a 1-to-1 way. No lost info, no homophone problem from hell. The mapping may not be the most phonetically straightforward -- but transparency and continuity is more important than the sensory motivation of the alterations.
Tellingly, the single vowel inventories for both proto-languages are the same size and same distribution in the vowel space -- 5 for P-Y ("a", "i", "u", "e", "o"), and 6 for P-J, the same 5 as in P-Y plus "o2". So that mapping can be handled 1-to-1 as well.
P-Y also has a variety of vowel + glide pairs, and that's the only tricky part for mapping onto P-J, where vowel sequences are not allowed, coda consonants are not allowed, and where I've made all that fuss out of the glide turning into its vocalic counterpart and replacing the preceding single vowel (with "a" being more resistant to that process, and so where the glide is simply deleted).
There was no massive reduction in the vowel inventory between P-Y and P-J, therefore no need to add extra slots to the word-shape paradigm to accomodate lost info from vowels. The size and membership of the vowel inventory stayed basically the same!
The massive reduction in the single consonant inventory was followed by the creation of the 2nd V slot, as well as the appearance of a 2-dimensional 9x5 CV mora table for their (consonant-initial) syllabary, rather than a 1-dimensional list of 9 consonants.
That really says that single C's from (Para-)Yeniseian became CV moras in Japonic.
Nobody has ever thought of this before, cuz they have no clue where Japonic comes from, so why would they ever suspect that the 45 CV moras of the Japonic syllabary came from an earlier single consonant inventory. Why, that would have to be one of those languages with a HUGE number of consonants! And "everybody knows" that Japonic has no earlier ancestors, it was just mysteriously dropped onto the Japanese islands in 300 BC by the Pacific Island Language Stork!
But the cliff-dwelling sage in the ruins of the blogosphere has uncovered the answer! ^_^
The mapping isn't totally 1-to-1, cuz some of the V's in Japonic reflect V's in Yeniseian, but some are dummy modifiers of the preceding C. And even the 1st V in Japonic is both trying to reflect the V from Yeniseian, but may also be colored by the 1st C from Yeniseian as well, as the consonant inventory is being slashed and its lost info wants to show up on the 1st V somehow.
ReplyDeleteThe second CV in a typical CVCV shape in Japonic, is likely to reflect a single coda consonant in Yeniseian.
Bu the first CV is reflecting both the single onset consonant in Yeniseian, as well as the single nuclear vowel -- and potentially colored / replaced by the optional coda glide -- from Yeniseian.
So in Japonic, single consonants do not map back onto Yeniseian. Single vowels don't either.
The 2nd CV mora is likely to map back onto Yeniseian, although the 1st CV mora is not part of a 1-to-1 mapping, since there's interference from the onset consonant and nuclear vowel of the P-Y source.
And yet, just cuz it's not a perfect 1-to-1 mapping in both directions, doesn't make it a bad, opaque, confusing mapping. They did the best they could, especially in the 2nd CV mora.
I also haven't looked into the distribution of P-Y consonants by position in the word, so this mapping might be even better, if not all 32 consonants commonly appeared in both onset and coda position. That's a later wrinkle to iron out.
The big picture is that they handled the reduction in consonants by mapping them to CV moras, and that mostly solved the problem of preserving the information from their source / ancestor.
What a happy ending to what seemed like a Biblical Flood story! All those exotic consonants from Yeniseian were not exactly lost to history -- they just evolved and adapted into CV moras when they washed up on the shores of their new Japanese utopian refuge.
Awwww... ^_^
Attila the Hun himself shows up in this Japonic etymology! More proof of Japanese origins in the Eastern Steppe.
ReplyDeleteP-Y "ajt" = "quick, swift" and "alive". The connection seems to be energetic -- allowing the body to be swift, and giving the body a sensation of liveliness.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Yeniseian/ajt
P-J "ati" (listed as "anti" at Wiktionary, though as usual, no evidence for the nasal, probably re-analyzed later as a compound, and rendaku applied to the "t", making it "d" and later "j").
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/anti
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%91%B3#Japanese
It means "flavor, taste", but later (or at the same time?) took on an adjective meaning "clever, smart, witty", along with "mysterious, strange". The noun extended from "flavor" to include "sensation", "experience", and "charm".
That sounds like the same 2-fold meaning having to do with "energetic" from Yeniseian. Clever, smart, and witty is about quick brain activity. And sensation, flavor, experience is like the "liveliness" meaning of the Yeniseian word -- full of sensory activity or energy.
Pretty good semantic match.
Phonetically, the P-Y "a" again resists being replaced by the vocalic counterpart of the glide, remaining "a". The "t" is no problem to carry over.
Its dummy vowel is not the default one, though not reflecting an unusual coda consonant in P-Y -- due to avoiding homophony in P-J. From most to least common, the "t" syllables in OJ are "to", "ta", "tu", "te", "ti". "Ato" is already taken by "footprint" ("ato") and "heel" ("anto"). "Ata" is the base of "ata ata" = "warm", and related "atu" is taken by "hot". "Ate" was not taken, but the "e" vowels resulted from earlier vowel sequences, both starting with "i", which would imply "ati(a,o2)" anyway at an earlier stage.
Now onto Attila. As cited in the Wiktionary entry for P-Y "ajt", his name is suspected to derive from P-Y "ajt + -ɬaw" = "swift + emphatic suffix" = "very swift".
ReplyDeleteWait a minute, we saw that suffix just a few days ago -- it's "sa", "so", etc., in Japonic, with the same meaning.
So the cognate name of Attila in Japonic would be "ati + sa". We'll look for that in a second. First, other names potentially deriving from P-J "ati", modern "aji".
Well, there's just plain ol' Aji.
Interestingly, there's Ajio, from earlier "ati + wo", meaning "quick-witted man". And unlike most names in Modern Japanese, whose kanji don't always relate to the original meaning but are more for phonetic value and new impressionistic meanings, Ajio does use the original kanji for P-J "ati" and "wo" -- 味夫.
Now, what about that "ati + sa" name? Pretty close, there's modern Ajisai, which is also the word for "hydrangea". Which came first, the personal name or the flower name? IDK, but this word is the cognate of Yeniseian Attila!
In OJ of the 8th C., it was "adisawi", and one theory of its origin points to the P-J "ati" = "flavor".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%B4%AB%E9%99%BD%E8%8A%B1#Japanese
The only question is where "sawi" comes from. If it's cognate with Yeniseian, "sa" is an emphatic particle / suffix -- in the case of a hydrangea, meaning "very stimulating" due to its vivid color, the way we'd describe a woman as "lively".
In the case of a man's name, it means "very quick-witted", "very charming", "very lively, full of vim and vigorous, etc."
As for the final "wi", I can only speculate that this is trying to preserve the coda glide from the Yeniseian form, with the dummy vowel "i" suggesting and adjective or a continuative / noun form of a verb, since it has both and adjective and noun meaning.
There's another Hunnic name with the same root, "Atakam", suspected to derive from "ajt + ɢejm" = "lively + woman". We just saw "ɢejm", too -- it's "imo" in P-J, and means "close female companion, sister".
ReplyDeleteSo the Japonic cognate name would be "ati + imo", with mostly the same meaning as the Hunnic name. Phonetically, the two "i" vowels would contract, and the modern reflex of P-Y "ti" in this word would be "ji", yielding Ajimo -- which is listed as a surname, but not a given name. Still there, though.
And it does indeed use the kanji for "flavor, quick-witted" to represent "aji", although for "mo" it uses the kanji for "cotton, wool" -- 味も.
But that's to be expected, since "imo" losing its 1st vowel during the contraction, would erase the awareness of the "mo" coming from "imo" = "woman, sister", so they just assumed "mo" was the original form and gave it the symbol for "cotton, wool".
But way back when, this name was cognate with the Yeniseian Hunnic name Atakam, and meant "quick-witted woman" or "lively woman" -- they were proud of their va-va-va-voom baddies in the Eastern Steppe!
Like I said, the Amazons were from the Eastern Steppe, and that heritage continues even through the contemporary culture of Glorious Nippon! ^_^
Note / reminder on Hunnic names, from the August post of last year, during my lectures on the Uralic nature and origins of the Scythians and related neighbors --
ReplyDeleteThe Huns were a multi-ethnic confederation, so their names could come from all sorts of different sources. Just cuz Attila and Atakam may have Yeniseian names doesn't mean they were Yeniseian culturally -- these names could have been loaned into neighboring tribes who spoke some other language, especially if the Yeniseian speakers were a prestige group within the confederation (like the Yeniseian elite of the Xiongnu before them).
Clearly, Bleda -- Attila's brother, so not even from a totally different tribe -- cannot be Yeniseian, since it has an initial consonant cluster. It can't be Turkic, Mongolic, or Tungusic either, for the same reason -- not Koreanic or Japonic either, same reason. Not Uralic either.
Could be Indo-European, but more likely one of the three Caucasian families. Likely NW or NE Caucasian since Georgians have never set foot on the Steppe (wrong side of the obstacle of the Caucasus Mountains).
Then there's their father, Mundzuk, which also cannot be Yeniseian -- initial nasal consonant, which also rules out Turkic and Mongolic (which has initial "n" but almost never "m"). The Wiki article on him is clueless about his name, but I easily figured it out -- it means "hare" in Proto-Tungusic (which likes initial "m"), with related forms (but farther from the "Mundzuk" form) in nearby families like Mongolic and even Chukotko-Kamchatkan.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Tungusic/munduk%C4%81n
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%BB%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B3%D1%87%D0%B8%D0%BD#Mongolian
So even among the names within a single nuclear family, there are representatives -- likely loans -- from multiple language families, Yeniseian, NW or NE Caucasian, and Tungusic. Obviously names do not tell us the ethnicity of the bearer in such a scenario -- one nuclear family came from one ethnicity, not 3+.
But it does say which ethnicities were valued enough to borrow names from. And it does shed light on the nature of Yeniseian names, whether they were borne by Yeniseian speakers or non-Yeniseian neighbors in their motley crew Steppe biker gang.
One big puzzle about Japonic phonotactics is solved by the Yeniseian connection -- why approximants "w" and "y" are rarer than other consonants, especially in the 2nd C rather than 1st C position.
ReplyDeleteIn P-Y, approximants were optional before yet another consonant or two in the coda. And some approximants were the sole coda consonant.
If there's only 1 coda, then you can just stick a dummy vowel after it, and get CVCV. But if there are 2+ coda consonants, you cannot, and breaking them up with vowels would yield 3+ moras, which Japonic did not want. So, if there are some that can be transformed into something other than consonants, do that first.
And that's just what they did with approximants, which naturally change into vocalic counterparts "u" and "i".
It's a separate question what happened to these new vowels that came from coda approximants -- did they replace the preceding 1st V? Did they color or alter it? Did they get deleted, and the 1st V remained unaffected? That has to do with the Japonic ban on vowel sequences, which is a separate question.
The point is: approximants were removed from 2nd C position, and were changed to vocalic counterparts. That removes half of the positions in the word they can occur in! Of course that makes them rarer than consonants that were not changed into vowels.
The prediction is that approximants should be far more common in 1st C than 2nd C position, and on an absolute level, should be nearly non-existent in 2nd C position. This is in P-J, not MJ, where many instances of "w" in 2nd C position resulted from weakening "p" to bilabial "f" and then to "w", between vowels.
Sure enough, P-J has plenty of words with initial "w" and "y" -- not as common as the other consonants, but not uncommon either. I didn't count exactly, but the number of each one appearing in 2nd C position can be counted on one hand. And several of those cases are not really 2nd C position, but "C after the 1st V" -- cuz they're VCV shape, not CVCV. E.g., "iwo" ("fish").
If the VCV is complex, "V + CV", then the approximant C is not an exception -- it's an initial consonant, but appearing medially due to complex morphology.
If VCV is not complex, then the approximant not becoming a vowel and replacing the 1st V, was probably due to the homophone problem. If the Yeniseian source was VC (C approximant), then replacing V with a vocalic counterpart of C leaves only 2 outcomes -- "u" (if C is "w") and "i" (if C is "y"). That's way too narrow of a bottleneck to pass through, so they might have opted to treat the approximant as a consonant and stick a dummy vowel on the end, to maintain variety and avoid homophony.
When the Yeniseian source is CVC, where 2nd C is approximant, replacing the V with a vocalic counterpart of the 2nd C still leaves lots of variety in the outcomes -- cuz the initial C has been preserved. The vowel is reduced to either "u" or "i", but each of those can be preceded by a variety of C's. So it's not such a homophony problem, go ahead and change 2nd C to a vowel and replace / color the nuclear V.
The only real exception to this rule would be where the Yeniseian source was CVC, but the 1st C was deleted in P-J (like a uvular). If the 2nd C was an approximant, it could remain consonantal in P-J and be treated in the atomic VCV case discussed before.
That is why approximants are comparatively rare in Japonic -- they're fine initially, but rare in 2nd C, since they were changed into vowels during the P-Y to P-J transition. Even the handful that remain, do so for reasons related to the P-Y to P-J transition, like avoiding homophony if they changed approximants to vowels in the case of Yeniseian VC. Either way, it's all about the transition from Yeniseian.
Some of the CVCV cases of 2nd C being approximant, may also be morphologically complex, and therefore the approximant is really initial, but appearing medially due to complex morphology.
ReplyDeleteE.g., "sawo" = "pole, rod", which we saw earlier as one of many P-J words beginning with "sa" and having to do with "extension, protrusion", which comes from P-Y "ɬa". That means it likely breaks down into "sa + wo", making "w" the reflex of a Yeniseian onset rather than coda.
And 2 of the rare cases of CV-"yu", "puyu" = "winter" and "tuyu" = "dew", are related by having to do with weather, and precipitation or small forms of water (snowflakes for winter, moisture drops for dew). Tellingly, atomic "yu" means "hot water" in P-J. So these may both break down into "CV + yu", making "y" the reflex of a Yeniseian onset rather than coda.
Yeniseian / Na-Dene -- and Uralic -- origin of Japonic words relating to "to blow". In P-Y it's "bej" and means "wind", and is compared to P-ND "kˀʷejx" = "wind" but also "blow" based on the descendants.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Yeniseian/bej
Some descendants have a high-back rounded vowel, which must be the motivation for reconstructing a 2nd-dary labialization on the P-ND onset. The vowel being high-ish front is to account for the P-Y form.
The link between them is the labialization on the P-ND velar onset being a labial stop in P-Y -- exact same correspondence that first clued me into the Yeniseian origins of Japonic. Great minds think alike! Well, this may be happening even in languages that have labialized velars, like Yeniseian. Anyway...
There are a host of Japonic words that have to do with "blow", "breathe", "expelling gas", etc., that are related to the Yeniseian and Na-Dene words. But Werner has also noted related forms in Uralic, namely Nganasan "biə" ("wind") and Tundra Nenets "piw" ("dry wind"). We'll see a connection to these as well.
The P-Y -> P-J conversion should be devoice "b" to "p", change coda "j" to "i" and replace preceding V, yielding "pi". The V is "e", so if somehow the "i" was avoided, the result is "pe".
The Ngansan -> P-J conversion should devoice "b" and replace the 1st V with the 2nd, yielding "pə".
The Tundra Nenets -> P-J conversion should change "w" to "u" and replace preceding V, yielding "pu".
Crucially, the Japonic forms with a back rounded vowel can't come from Dene-Yeniseian, since there's only 1 labial element in P-ND and P-Y -- the labialized velar and the labial stop. Japonic having a labial stop *and* a back rounded vowel would require such a vowel in the ancestor, which cannot be Dene or Yeniseian -- but could be Uralic, the coda "w" / 2nd V "ə".
Wiktionary notes that the connection between the Uralic and Yeniseian forms is unclear but suggestive. Likewise in Japonic, some of these words could come from Dene-Yeniseian, and others from Uralic, all looking similar.
First up is the P-J word for "fart", "pe", a form of expelling gas from the body, just not from the lungs. It's alternately reconstructed as "pai", very much like the alternate reconstruction of P-Y "wind" = "baj".
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/pe
Likely the expected P-J "pi" was avoided due to homophony with "pi" = "sun, day, sun goddess" -- and not wanting to despoil the sanctity of their main deity with the yucky taboo connotation of "fart". So either the P-Y coda or its vocalic counterpart was deleted during the transition, or it was allowed through as "pi" but afterward underwent a taboo deformation to nearby "pe".
Next, the P-J word for "to dry", "poiru", where "-ru" is the standard verb suffix and semantically vacuous, leaving "poi-" as the root. MJ has "hiru", while OJ was "pu", whose stems came in 2 forms, "pu" and "pi".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/poi-
This word touches on both the Uralic and Dene-Yeniseian forms, phonetically and semantically, so it's unclear which side contributed, or maybe both did. It has both the back-rounded vowel as well as the high-front vowel, and although it's semantically closer to the Uralic source about "dry" wind, it still relates to the Dene-Yeniseian sources about "blow, wind" -- since the main way that you dry something is by exposing it to the wind or using your lips or a device to blow on it.
Finally, the Japanese verb for "to blow" is MJ "fuku", from earlier "puku", where "-ku" is the 2nd most common verb suffix, and "pu-" is the root. Unclear how far back this verb goes.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/吹く
This was adapted into the base of a total reduplication, "fuu fuu" = "sound of blowing on something" and "breathing heavily". The vowel was lengthened in order to make the base 2 moras.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%B5%E3%81%86%E3%81%B5%E3%81%86#Japanese
There's even a Modern revival of the bilabial stop form, "puu puu" = "puffing, blowing".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%B7%E3%81%86%E3%81%B7%E3%81%86
Since the P-Y form itself is suspected to be influenced from both Uralic and Na-Dene, a one-way transition from P-Y to P-J would yield both influences in Japonic as well, without direct contact with the Uralic or Na-Dene forms.
So even if there is a Uralic influence on these Japonic forms, it's likely mediated via Yeniseian.
Any single one of them could be written off as onomatopoeia, but not the entirety of them, especially since one of them is more abstract about "to dry" rather than a corporeal act of blowing air or farting gas.
To clarify, since the P-Y reconstruction "bej" only has 1 labial element, not 2 as in Uralic, the Japonic forms with 2 labial elements (like "pu") could have descended from contact with the Uralic forms (back when Wa ancestors lived on the Eastern Steppe), or there could have been some variation in the Yeniseian forms, with "bej" stemming from the common ancestor with Na-Dene, and some possibly unattested or unnoticed forms with a labial consonant and a back-rounded vowel descending from the Uralic contact.
ReplyDeleteIf there's no Yeniseian mediation of the "pu"-like Japonic forms, then they owe to direct contact with Uralic on the Steppe. But that still leaves the "pe" and "pi"-like Japonic forms that must owe to (Dene-)Yeniseian inheritance / carry-over.
About the cognate of Attila's name in Japonic, P-J "ati" coming from P-Y "ajt" shows yet again that the "a" vowel is more resistant to being replaced during the P-Y -> P-J transition.
ReplyDeleteI think this is due to them wanting to preserve variety in the vowel space. If they allow "a" to be replaced by "i" and "u", that reduces the vowel space to 1 dimension -- high vowels, which only differ in being front vs. back.
If the "a" remains, that provides a critical 2-dimensional space, with a low vs. high contrast. And perhaps Yeniseian "aw" becoming "o" in Japonic, gives it even more variety in the height dimension. Seemingly "aj" doesn't become "e" in the same way as "aw" -> "o", cuz Japonic doesn't like that "e" vowel at all. So "aj" remains "a", to provide the height contrast.
In vowel systems with only 3 vowels, "a, i, u" is the most common type -- just like Arabic. The "o", and especially the "e", are of secondary importance to Japonic -- perhaps why their orthography matrix proceeds with "a, i, u" and then "e, o"...
And the reason why there are 3 primary vowels in P-J is due to the replacement of P-Y vowels by the vocalic counterparts of coda approximants.
Unlike the low vowel "a", "e" and "o" don't provide much contrast for height against "i" and "u". And "i" and "u" already provide the front vs. back contrast. So "e" and "o" getting swallowed into "i" and "o" is not the greatest loss of variety. It's all in the service of the greater good of avoiding coda consonants, especially coda clusters, and avoiding vowel sequences.
But, some critical mass of variety needs to be preserved, so "a" remains "a" or at most gets replaced with "o", when followed by a coda approximant, during the transition. That still avoids a coda consonant, let alone coda cluster, and it still avoids vowel sequences. Info about the coda approximant is preserved if it was "w", with "aw" -> "o", but lost if it was "j", as "ajC" -> "aC".
However, if the approximant is the only coda consonant, that may replace preceding "a", as we saw with P-Y "xʷaj" -> P-J "pi".
Quick addendum on P-J "puyu" = "winter": that may also contain the "pu" word relating to "blow, wind" from Uralic or a Yeniseian intermediary. Since "yu" relates to moisture, especially "tuyu" = "dew" referring to small drops of moisture, then perhaps "puyu" is meant to suggest the season when little moisture drops are blowing through the air. They're solid snowflakes, not liquid water droplets, but still, little balls of water.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think snowflakes are easier to think of as "blowing" in the air, during wintertime, than rain drops flying through the air during typhoon season or something. In English, too, we don't talk about rain or water "blowing" through the air -- but snow, snowflakes, flurries, etc., can "blow" through the air, or be carried by the wind.
We don't talk about rain drops being carried by the wind -- they're too liquid, making it difficult to conceive of it floating suspended in the air. But a small lightweight solid particle, like a snowflake, is like a leaf blowing in the wind, or a dandelion seed, etc.
Liquid particles, even if they're small, seem too dense and heavy to be suspended in the air, blowing in the wind.
When have you ever seen rain drops flying on a trajectory that goes all over the place, like a rollercoaster? That's the trajectory of snowflakes, leaves, and dandelion seeds -- they get blown this way and that, up high, tumbling down low, whisked back up and around again. They are clearly being acted upon by the wind, directed by the wind. Due to their light weight, and unable to push back or maintain their own inertia or momentum with heavy weight.
Rain drops either fall straight down or are driven sideways by the wind -- they never turn or arc or make loop-the-loops, cuz they're too dense and heavy. So they're not the kind of matter than can be "blown" by air currents, unlike snowflakes, leaves, and dandelion seeds, or soap bubbles -- even the human mouth can expel a little breath and make dandelion seeds, snowflakes, powder particles, dust particles, etc. go floating in the air. You can't just blow on water drops and send them off floating into the air.
So I think P-J "puyu" = the season of "wind-blown moisture drops", i.e. "snowflake" season, makes sense, and puts this word in the same class as others relating to "blow, wind" that have "pu".
^_^
As for "tuyu" = "dew", let's see where that "tu" comes from. In P-J, there are tons of words with "tu" relating to fishing, hooks (or similar curved sharp objects, like horns and claws), lines / string, etc. I will try to figure out the origin of this morpheme later, but it has nothing to do with "dew".
ReplyDeleteHowever, there's the word "tuyə" = "strong". Interestingly, it's also one of the very few P-J words with "y" in 2nd C position. It only differs from "tuyu" in the final vowel being a bit lower.
Dew is moisture that has condensed out of thin air -- from weak to strong moisture. Moisture that was so thin and weak you couldn't see it at all, suddenly has hardened, solidified (liquid, but still more solid than an aerosol), and strengthened into visible drops.
It hasn't fallen from above like rain, it hasn't been driven or blown from anywhere else. It just solidified out of thin air.
So, "tuyu" = "tu + yu" = "solid / dense moisture", the kind that hardens out of thin air. And "tuyə" = "tu + yə" = "solid / dense + emphatic final particle". The emphatic final particle "yo" is used as a suffix in this case. So, "quite solid, so dense" to mean "strong".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%82%88#Etymology_2
Related is the OJ word for "thick", "atu", the root of the MJ adjective "atsui":
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%82%E3%81%A4%E3%81%84#Etymology_2
This word is not cognate with P-J "atu" = "hot" since thick and hot have nothing to do with each other.
So either "atu" is derived from "tu" with a prefix "a", or "tu" is derived from the clipped version of "atu". I think "atu" = "a + tu", where "tu" = "strong", and "a" was actually the prefix "ka", an emphatic prefix in OJ:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%8B#Etymology_3
The "k" got clipped, yielding "a", still with the emphatic meaning.
This exact same clipping of prefix "ka" happened with the distal demonstrative "ka", which later became "a" with the same meaning.
Then "a + tu", from earlier "ka + tu", means "very solid / dense", i.e. "so solid and dense" that it takes up greater space.
IDK where this P-J "tu" = "solid / dense" comes from -- Yeniseian, somewhere else? Just looking at internal Japonic etymologies right now.
I found the source of P-J "tu" = "solid / dense"! It's P-Y "tuw" = "clay", specifically the hard and solid kind of clay, not wet clay, which has its own word ("tɬeq").
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Yeniseian/tuw
The phonetic transition is totally natural, where "w" -> "u" and "replaces" / contracts with nuclear "u", and since "t" is fine, this yields "tu". In fact, the Yeniseian descendants are mostly "tu" as well.
Semantically, "hard clay" was chosen as the prototypical "solid, dense, hard" example of matter in the everyday natural environment. Most cultures distinguish phases of matter as air for the thin / lightweight phase, water for the semi-solid phase, and earth for the solid / dense / heavy phase.\
Stone or rock is also good for the solid phase, but it's not as salient in the environment, since not everywhere has large rock formations, whereas "solid ground" is all around us.
The P-Y word is a noun, while in Japonic it's used as a modifier, the 1st element in a compound formation, never on its own. So, with the meaning of "clay-like", without needing an adjectival suffix cuz it only ever appears as a modifier noun in a compound, where it plays the role of an adjective (modifier noun).
The Yeniseian skeleton key unlocks yet another mystery of the supposed ancestor-less language of Nihongo...
^_^
Couple extra thoughts on "tu" coming from "tuw". There's another potential Uralic connection as noted in Wiktionary, but again this could be a Uralic word mediated by Yeniseian into Japonic.
ReplyDeleteAlso, this analysis of P-J "tuyu" and "tuyə" as morphologically complex, eliminates them from the list of P-J words with an approximant in 2nd C position. This was already obvious for the "yu" in "tuyu", since "yu" = "hot water" is a standalone word having to do with water or moisture.
But now we can also see that the "yə" in "tuyə" is also its own morpheme, probably related to the emphatic final particle. But regardless of what the "yə" means, the "tu" in "tuyə" is definitely its own morpheme, meaning "solid, dense", which puts a morpheme boundary between "tu" and "yə". So the "y" in "tuyə" is also not derived from a P-Y coda approximant, but from a Japonic onset.
And who knows whether emphatic particle "yo" comes from a Yeniseian source with onset "y" or "q" -> "y". The point is, "tuyə" does not count as having "y" in 2nd C position for a standalone word.
Almost all of the 2nd C approximants were wiped out during the Yeniseian to Japonic transition, as they were changed into vowels.
The list of exceptions was already tiny, but now we can see it getting smaller and smaller, with perhaps no bona fide exceptions at all...
There are other potential P-Y sources of "tu" = "solid, dense", but are phonetically more complicated than "tuw", though some are closer matches semantically.
ReplyDeleteI discount "suk" in the complex word "sukVŋʷ" = "thick in diameter", since "s" -> "t" is more of a stretch than "t" -> "t". The coda doesn't show up either.
And "thick in diameter" is not the meaning of "solid, dense", which is about a phase of matter -- solid dew-drops condensing out of wispy air, and strength coming from how solid and dense an object is, not flimsy like a fluid or air which is so weak that any ol' object can pass right through it. It's not really about the spatial dimension that goes along with height and depth for 3D volume, but about density of matter.
There's also "šewgVŋʷ" = "heavy", whose root is "šewg". Again, a bit of a stretch to map a sibilant onto a stop, although "ew" would result in "u", however the coda's fate remains unexplained. And as with "thick in diameter", "heavy" is close but not quite there -- it doesn't mean solid vs. semi-solid vs. airy. Very dense solid things can still be light (if they're small in volume), while heavy things can be semi-solid or airy (if large in volume).
Finally, "čawg" = "hard", which is a closer semantic match to toughness, density, the opposition to flimy semi-solid or airy phases of matter. Phonetically, it's not much of a stretch -- "č" -> "t" only involves moving the place to the nearest location available in P-J, "aw" -> "u" is not unexpected (though I'd really expect "o", but "w" -> "u" which replaces the preceding vowel, also works). Still, the fate of the coda remains unexplained.
Perhaps the ancient Japanese were doing something similar to their modern descendants -- clipping a target word, in order to place it in a compound phrase. Who knows? Just exploring how P-J "tu" = "solid, dense" might descend from P-Y "čawg" = "hard", by phonologically motivating the deletion of the coda "g" (and doing the usual transforming of the coda approximant into a vowel, which replaces / colors the preceding nuclear vowel).
ReplyDeleteIn MJ, they take 2 moras from each target word, yielding a compound with 4, 6, 8, etc. moras. E.g., "kosu + pure" = "cosplay", clipped from "costume" and "play".
Well, way back in the P-J era, they were just coining the foundation of their lexicon. So they didn't already have a bunch of CVCV words to combine into CVCVCVCV compounds. And the main source of target words was Yeniseian, whose typical word shape is CVC -- so clipping a P-Y word might only involve taking the first CV, leaving out the coda.
Then, combine CV + CV from two different targets, to yield a compound CVCV in P-J. At first, it's a compound, and maybe the speakers understand it that way. Over time, it will lexicalize since it's in the canonical morpheme shape for Japonic -- CVCV.
If they were doing this, then it's possible that P-Y words may show up in "compound" form only, not as standalone words, i.e., as CV within a CVCV(+), preserving in some form the onset and nuclear vowel (perhaps replaced by the optional coda approximant's vocalic counterpart), but leaving out the coda consonant.
IDK if that's what happened, just laying it out there as a possibility, given the very productive use of this strategy in Modern Japanese, and projecting it back into the ancient past, assuming it didn't come out of nowhere, but was a longstanding linguistic inclination of theirs.
Japanese people LOVE clipping multiple target words and assembling the pieces into a new compound, which becomes lexicalized. Who says their ancestors didn't share this charmingly quirky preference? ^_^
I still favor P-Y "tuw" as the source of P-J compound element "tu", but we have to consider a viable alternative sometimes...
ReplyDeleteJapanese people also LOVE total reduplication, and that has indeed been a productive way of coining new words in Japonic since the ancient era. It's became far more common over time, but it was still there in the ancient past -- part of the Emishi / Ainu inheritance into Japonic. Emishi / Ainu is one of the few languages that does total reduplication, and Japonic is the only major other one, in Asia at least.
ReplyDeleteIf one charmingly quirky preference of Modern Japanese morphology has ancient roots, then maybe so does another, clipping target words and agglutinating them into new words...
Yeniseian animal names with gender markers at the end. Animal names across languages frequently come in two different versions depending on the gender. Sometimes they sound entirely different, like "hen" vs. "rooster" in English. Sometimes they're closely related, with one or both having a gender marker to distinguish -- like "fox" (male, neutral) vs. "vixen" (female) in English. Something important to look out for.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking into Yeniseian -> Japonic animal names, and something I've noticed is that quite a few of the P-Y words end in "b", "m", and "n" -- the male class marker, and the female marker (mainly "m", sometimes "n").
For example, in the P-Y word list, there are only 6 words that are not obviously complex, which end in "b". However, 1 is "ab" = "father", and 1 is "pub" = "son", both having the "-b" male class suffix. "ɬVb" = "tongue", "Gab" = "back", and "Gajb" = "boat" don't seem to be gendered words.
But "cajb" = "dog" could be "caj + -b". From the descendants, it doesn't alternate with a version bearing the female marker ("cajm" or "cajn"). So perhaps the male marker fossilized into the species name by 500 AD or so in Yeniseian. But its further ancestor might have been simply "caj", and the "-b" was added to make it conform better to Yeniseian phonotactics, which prefer a coda obstruent, and if an approximant is in the coda, that it come before the obstruent.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Yeniseian/cajb
Indeed, this seems to solve a major problem with the link to the Na-Dene family's word for it, e.g. P-Athabaskan "ɬəŋʸ" or perhaps "ɬəỹ" -- there's no coda obstruent, let alone with a labial feature. There's no such coda in the descendants either.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Athabaskan/%C9%AC%C9%99%C5%8B%CA%B8
Well, if the P-A and P-Y forms share an ancestor before the "-b" fossilized into the Yeniseian form, that means only "caj" must be related to "ɬəỹ" / "ɬəŋʸ" -- a far more plausible link.
I'll be making use of this more likely scenario later, in exploring Japonic animal words of Dene-Yeniseian origin. Just putting it out there for now, since it's important for the Dene-Yeniseian connection itself, leaving aside Japonic.
As for animals with the female marker, there's "cam" = "goose", which may be simply "ca" for the species root. English also has gendered words for "goose" and "gander".
ReplyDeleteThe coda "m" is not common, only 7 nouns total. Another of them is "am" = "mother", which does have the female marker. Perhaps "ɬam" = "little one, minuscule" also has it, since "ɬa" has a diminuitive meaning, and diminuitive things are more cute and female-like.
I don't see a gendered meaning for "ijm" = "pine nuts", "towm" = "water, river", "kawm" = "belly", or "Gajm" / "ǰajm" = "arrow".
Coda "n" is fairly common, so it's not suspicious to find it. And it only appears in "pun" = "daughter" for obvious gendered words. But it also appears in "ban" = "duck" and "kun" = "wolverine", which may be "ba" and "ku".
At Wiktionary, there were no links to Na-Dene for "cam", "ban", or "kun". But if that avenue is explored, it's worth keeping in mind that they don't need to have the coda.
To support the idea that P-J may have done the "cosplay" type of clip assembly, let's look at what they definitely did -- total reduplication. MJ does this even today, where the base is 2 moras, (C)VCV, and the result is 4 moras, (C)VCV(C)VCV.
ReplyDeleteIn P-J, though, the result is 2 moras, CVCV, and the base is 1 mora, CV. Here are the examples of CVCV, where the first mora is the same as the second. That doesn't prove it was due to reduplication, just laying out all the potential examples of the process.
* * *
"kaka" in "kakapu" ("rag")
"kaka" in "kakai" ? ("shade, shadow" reanalyzed / rendaku-fied as "kaga" / "kage")
"kuku" in "kukur-" ("to bind")
"kuku" in "kukui" ("stalk, stem")
"kəkə" in "kəkənə" ("nine")
"kəkə" in "kəkərə" ("heart")
"mama" in "mamai" ("bean")
"meme" in "memesu" ("earthworm", reanalyzed as "memezu")
"mimi" ("ear")
"momo" ("peach")
"nana" ("seven")
"nono" ("cloth")
"papa" ("mother")
"papa" in "papakar-" ? ("to be hampered", reanalyzed as "pabakaru")
"papa" in "papai" ("fly" insect)
"sasa" ("Japanese bamboo")
"sisi" ("beast", "animal meat")
"susu" in "sususi" ("cool")
"titi" ("father", "breast")
"toto" in "totok-" ? ("to reach", reanalyzed as "todoku")
"tutu" in "tutumi" ("drum", reanalyzed as "tudumi")
* * *
Tellingly, there are no examples where C is "w" or "y".
This was clearly a productive way of coining new words. The base doesn't necessarily have to be a meaningful word on its own, although there are some where I think it was -- like "sisi", but I'll get to that later on animal names.
ReplyDeleteThey needed words of shape CVCV, they already had total reduplication in their language thanks to Emishi / Ainu, so why not use it to coin new words? Even if the base is meaningless, just take any CV, reduplicate it, and presto, there's your new word that's CVCV.
The relevance for clip assembly (like "cosplay") is that clip assembly is another way of coining words. In MJ, the output is 4 moras, and each building block is 2 moras, clipped from the first 2 moras of 2 separate words.
Back in P-J times, this same process would have taken 2 clips, each 1 mora from 2 separate words, and combined them into a 2-mora word.
We don't see examples like "kosupure" in P-J cuz they were just getting started on coining new words. They didn't already have a very packed lexicon, didn't have tons of homophones, etc. So they could take the simplest building blocks -- 1 mora -- and construct new words by sticking them together, resulting in 2-mora words.
With reduplication, it's easy to see it operating in P-J since the pattern is hard to miss -- CV and a copy of CV.
With clip assembly, it's more opaque to us, since we'd have to know which words were clipped, and whether they were native Japonic words, Chinese, Yeniseian, Uralic, or whatever else. It doesn't immediately jump out like reduplication does.
Reduplication requires no knowledge of the meaning of the reduplicated element -- it just looks suspicious, an element followed by an exact copy of itself.
Clip assembly requires knowledge of the meaning of the elements, so it doesn't jump out as suspicious.
But if one MJ process was operating in P-J, then maybe another one was too. It's just that the output of these processes was not 4 moras like in MJ, and the building blocks were not 2 moras like in MJ. The elements were 1 mora, and the output 2 moras, looking like a typical word of its time, but built from smaller blocks.
Why doesn't P-J reduplication allow "w" or "y" for the C? Every other C is allowed. Cuz that would result in an approximant in 2nd C position. In 1st C position, it's OK. But when you reduplicate it, now it's in 2nd C position as well. That's a big no-no.
ReplyDeleteIn the words carrying over from Dene-Yeniseian origin, the reason there are no approximants in 2nd C position is that they were altered into vowels, and usually replaced / colored the preceding sole nuclear vowel.
But when you're coining reduplicated words in P-J, rather than carrying over ancestral forms, why bother with this dislike of approximants in 2nd C position? They don't come from Yeniseian codas -- they're being coined right here and now!
I guess that after the Yeniseian -> Japonic transition was made, its results were made normative rather than utilitarian. At first, they just wanted to eliminate approximants in 2nd C position in order to make the output fit into a CVCV shape. It was out of utilitarian necessity.
But then, after generations and centuries of hearing words in your new native language that never have approximants in 2nd C position, it will sound harsh or funny or just flat-out WRONG to hear them in the position, when coining new words.
Therefore, all words beginning with "w" or "y" were skipped over during the coining of new words in P-J through reduplication. It simply wouldn't sound Japonic at all to hear words like "wawa" or "wowo", or "yaya" or "yoyo" or "yuyu"!
Even today, MJ doesn't like sound-symbolic blocks with "w" or "y" in 2nd C position. One of the few exceptions that comes to mind is "fuwa" in "fuwa fuwa" ("fluffy"). And by this time, "w" has become more common medially, after "p" weakened to "f" and then "w" between vowels. So it doesn't sound as bizarre as in P-J -- and yet, it's still not preferred, cuz it just goes against that deep-seated antipathy to approximants in 2nd C position, from the earliest times when they were shifting from Yeniseian to Japonic.
Reminder that "r" is banned initially in Japonic, so that's why there are no reduplicated forms with it as the C -- it's OK as 2nd C, but to get there through reduplication, it would have to be 1st C as well, and that's banned.
ReplyDeleteFun fact: in Hololive, Chihaya is the only girl whose name has "w" or "y" in 2nd C (or later) position, and which was in that position way back in Proto-Japonic.
ReplyDeleteIt's from P-J "paya", meaning "quick, early", and is the source of MJ "hayaku!", which you hear a lot in vtuber streams and anime.
The "y" in "Okayu" comes from "kayu" ("rice porridge"), which likely breaks down into "ka + yu", where "yu" = "hot water". Another example of an OJ word with "yu" as the 2nd mora, but has to do with water or moisture.
The "y" in "Tokoyami" comes from "yami" ("darkness"), and the "w" in "Towa" used to be "p" in OJ -- "topa" ("everlasting").
The "y" in "Mizumiya" comes from "ya" ("building, establishment").
"Koyori" is a loan of "coyote", not Japonic. It sounds exotic to Japanese ears cuz it has "y" in 2nd C position, and is not obviously a compound. Well, of course it sounds exotic -- it's an animal native to America. ^_^
By far the most exotic name is Vivi -- the Japonic family doesn't have "v", and neither do most of the world's languages, outside of Indo-European and Caucasian languages. It's one of our most distinctive sounds! And she has 2 "v"s in her name, double the exotic factor! ^_^
This is somewhat related to "w" and "y", since "v" is written in Japanese as a "w" with a special mark on it. Seeing it in 1st C position isn't so exotic, but seeing it in 2nd C position is. And in Japonic, "wi" has always been a rare syllable, which has vanished in MJ. So, seeing a "w"-like sound followed by "i" is also very exotic to Japanese ears.
And speaking of reduplication, she has the original form of reduplication in Japanese -- where the base is 1 mora and the output is 2 moras. Her whole name is like that, 3 times -- Kikirara Vivi. Ancient and modern, familiar and exotic, at the same time. Her name is just as fascinating as her personality. ^_^
I forgot to mention, Vivi's name is also exotic for having a reduplication that uses "r", which is banned in initial position for native Japonic words. "Kiki" sounds Japonic, but "rara" sounds exotic.
ReplyDeleteRoboco also has initial "r", but that's a loan from "robot" in English. It gives her the exotic factor, too. ^_^ Usually, initial "r" in Japanese only comes from Chinese loans. But this one is English, and even that is a loan from Slavic. Very exotic!
Nene's name has the same structure as Vivi's -- Momosuzu Nene, where "suzu" was originally "susu" before rendaku. Three instances of a 2-mora reduplication -- momo, susu, nene.
ReplyDeletePeko-chan is very fond of Nenechi, just like she is with Vivi. Maybe there's something trustful about their name structure...
If you want to befriend Pekora, just make sure to give yourself an alias with the same structure!
Totojiji Dada...
"Oh no, another unsolicited game recommendation from the chat... but wait, his name is Totojiji Dada... Well, he can't possibly have selfish or sinister motives with a name like that... maybe I'll give his recommendation a try!"
^_^
Vivi beat the original Super Mario Bros! Congratulations! ^_^
ReplyDeleteShe has never played retro games in her life, before this one and the Dragon Quest I remake for the Switch. She said they're difficult, but she had fun the whole time, and it was totally worth it!
She progressed very quickly, for someone who has never played a retro video game (that is, a real video game) in her life. When these games came out, we used to play them for months and months before beating them! She has good gamer instincts. ^_^
It's funny to see such dedication from someone who was never obsessed with video games, and is more into music and dancing and fashion and make-up.
She's like Okayu's childhood friend, a fashionable teenage girl who had a Famicom -- an otaku-friendly gyaru. ^_^
In addition to her personal improvement after practicing and practicing, she's also serving the Japanese nation in her role as a performer and entertainer -- keeping alive the iconic classics, like Super Mario Bros.
If she just plays the game with no one watching, well, at least she gets some personal enjoyment from it. But by playing it in front of a huge national, and international, audience, she increases awareness of the game, makes people see it and appreciate it, who might not have heard about it before.
Traditions don't keep themselves alive -- they need to be practiced by culture leaders and followers, like the vtubers at Hololive and their audience! ^_^
Also, thanks to Pekora, who encouraged her to play these densetsu no retoroge! She's a very good senpai to Vivi. ^_^
Returning to Proto-Japonic word shape, they were clearly trying to keep down the syllable weight of a word. Instead of using a 2-mora base to produce a 4-mora reduplication, they used a 1-mora base to produce a 2-mora reduplication. If they used clip assembly, they clipped no more than 3 moras to stick together.
ReplyDeleteIn general, P-J has almost no words -- not even a compound -- that's 4 moras long in its realization.
And none of the few exceptions are nouns -- they are verbs or adjectives, which have bound derivational suffixes, like "Cu" for verbs or "si" for adjectives. The only exceptions are "atarasi" = "regrettable", "patukasi" = "shameful", and "papakaru" = "to be hindered". The core meaning of those words is borne by only 3 moras (excluding the part-of-speech suffix).
The ones transcribed as having vowel sequences were not realized as sequences or diphthongs, they just alternated between which single vowel was used -- like "mai" being realized as "ma" or "me", both just 1 mora.
I reject "yapeyama" being P-J or OJ -- it's a proper name for a place in the southern Ryukyu islands, and is not attested as having 4 consonants, only 2 or 3. It was coined sometime after the "p" was lost, for both Japanese and Ryukyuan. And the Ryukyuan descendants -- where the word was actually coined -- all have 3 moras, a long vowel / diphthong and a short vowel, no coda consonants. "Yapeyama" is merely the OJ or P-J imaginary form, if it had been used back then -- but it was not, and we see why, it had 4 moras, a major phonotactic no-no.
This rule against more than 3 moras is a testament to how young the language was back then. They were transitioning from a Yeniseian word shape of CVC, to one with a dummy vowel on the end, or where the coda C was mapped to a CV mora. So their ideal word shape was CVCV -- any compounding would require building blocks of just 1 mora apiece, and only 2 blocks.
ReplyDeleteSooner than later, the limit was reached for 2-mora words, so they started coining 3-mora words. There are plenty of those in P-J. I didn't see many or any that are from 3 blocks of 1 mora apiece, but 1 block of 1 mora and 1 other block of 2 moras. So that's also a rule against complexity -- just 1 gluing event, not 2+.
And a handful of exceptions, where the extra mora is a bound derivational morpheme, not semantically relevant.
Nowadays, we think of Japanese as having a typically LONG word shape of 4 moras or more -- "arigatou", "konnichiwa", "omedetou", "Kawasaki", "Yamaguchi", "kosupure", "mogu mogu", "ikebana", and so on and so forth.
That's cuz they've hit the reasonable limit on 2-mora words, and even 3-mora words. Now, instead of coining new words from 2 blocks of 1 mora apiece, they have all these 2-mora words to choose from as their blocks. Just 2 of those blocks produces 2 + 2 = 4 moras.
This is relevant to reconstructing P-J forms, as well as understanding the origins of some P-J words, whose source may have had 4+ moras. If it did, it could not be assimilated into Japonic phonotactics without axing some of those moras.
I know just such a word! But I'm getting ready to make dinner and watch the seiso nephilim princess, so it'll have to wait until later tonight.
A little hint, though... I've been investigating animal names... and watching Pekora... so... ^_^
Japonic word for "rabbit" is of Tungusic origin. In P-T it's "tuksakī", while in P-J it's "wosaki" (later reanalyzed / rendaku-fied as "wosagi", with some branches dropping the initial "w" and raising the 1st vowel to "u", yielding "usagi").
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Tungusic/tuksak%C4%AB
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/wosanki
This one was tricky to figure out cuz the 1st syllable of the source has lost quite a bit, but that's for phonotactic reasons.
First, though, note that Koreanic has also borrowed the Tungusic word. The Middle Korean form is "tʰóski", which has deleted the vowel between "s" and "k", left the final vowel alone (other than shortening its length), treated the 1st vowel as "o" instead of "u", kept initial "t" but deleted the coda of the 1st syllable, "k".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%ED%86%B3%EA%B8%B0#Middle_Korean
So, in roughly the same region as Japonic, Koreanic has borrowed the Tungusic word for "rabbit" -- it must have been a popular word outside its speech group, or maybe Tungusic speakers entered the Koreanic and Japonic groups, bringing this word with them.
The Japonic rendition of the Tungusic form is less transparent, but still must be true. No other language's word for "rabbit", in that area or elsewhere, comes close to matching "wosaki". Actually, Goguryeo has a very similar word, "osegam", but that may be in the Japonic family anyway, rather than Koreanic.
The syllables "sa" and "ki" are both fine in Japonic, other than the long vowel in "kī", but shortening a long vowel is easy. Like Koreanic, Japonic subtly altered the "u" to "o" (although it will end up raising it back to "u" later). That preserves all 3 vowels from the source -- "toksaki", so far.
The crucial insight is the word length of 3 moras maximum, which I detailed earlier. No word in P-J, not even a compound, is 4+ moras. There are only 3 exceptions, and all involve a semantically vacuous part-of-speech suffix. The meaningful pieces of a word in P-J cannot amount to more than 3 moras.
Well, "toksaki" is 4 moras due to the coda "k" in the 1st syllable. Koreanic may have had a similar rule against 4+ moras for meaning-bearing morphemes in a word -- they deleted enough of the P-T source to wind up with 3 moras (2 vowels and 1 coda consonant). But I haven't examined Old Korean or Middle Korean to know if that is a general rule, like it is in P-J.
The standard way to convert "toksaki" into P-J, which bans coda consonants, is to insert a vowel after the 1st "k", so it's no longer a coda -- "tokasaki". But wait -- that results in a word with 4 moras! This conversion is blocked as a result.
Well, the other way is to simply delete the coda consonant -- and that's exactly what they did. Generally, this is worse than inserting a vowel, since inserting a vowel preserves the original consonant, while deleting the original consonant is erasing info from the source and therefore more opaque than transparent. But there was evidently an extreme rule against 4+ moras in P-J, so if they had to erase some info from the source, so be it.
That yields "tosaki". We're almost there...
Why did P-J alter initial "t" into "w"? It's not like it adds to the syllabic weight, since it's an onset. And it's not being deleted anyway -- there's still a consonant there, with however much weight you think an onset has. It's merely altered from "t" to "w". So it's not about the number of moras anymore.
ReplyDeleteNow it's about some kind of euphonic rule, where initial "to1" doesn't sound good to P-J ears. It has to be "o1" rather than "o2", cuz it's going to get raised to "u" during OJ vowel raising, and that only raised "o1" to "u", while the lower vowel "o2" raised to "o".
In P-J, there are very few words that begin with "to1", and even fewer that begin with "to1" and are not a compound, which removes "to1nari", "to1ku" (later "togu"), and "to1to1ku" (later "todoku"). Aside from "to1" itself ("door", "place"), there's only "tora" ("tiger"), an animal not native to Japan or Korea, hence a loanword from somewhere in mainland Asia, not a native Japonic word.
If a P-J word begins with "t", it wants to be followed by "o2", not "o1" -- there's "tə", "təki", "təkərə", "təmə", "təpə", "təri", "təsi", and "təwə", none of which were later rendaku-fied, and hence probably not treated as compounds (unlike "to1to1ku").
Because "t" and "o1" don't sound good together, the "t" had to be altered to an initial consonant that *does* like being followed by "o1" rather than "o2" -- and that's "w". There are 7 P-J words beginning with "wo1", some compounds, but only 1 beginning with "wo2" and it's a compound ("wətəru" = "to dance", later "wodəru" and then "odoru").
Also, one of the "wo1" words is followed by "s" and "a", "wo1samu" ("to control"). So that sets the euphonic precedent for the first 2 moras of "wosaki", and "saki" also exists in P-J, so the second 2 moras of "wosaki" are euphonic as well. Overall, then, "wosaki" sound more typically Japonic than the more transparent "tokasaki" or "to1saki", which did not materialize.
Could other consonants have worked? Not "y" -- it's happy with both "o1" and "o2", and there are no precedents for "yo1s-".
Not "s" -- it doesn't like to be followed by "o1" or "o2", only "u" for back vowels.
Not "p" -- it likes "o1" more than "o2", but it's not as extreme of a difference as with "w". And there's no precedent for "po1s-".
Not "n" -- it equally favors "o1" and "o2". It has "no1s-", but not "no1sa-".
Not "m" -- it slightly favors "o2" over "o1". It has "mo1s-", but not "mo1sa".
DEFINITELY NOT "k" -- it strongly favors "o2" over "o1". And there's no "ko1s-".
Although not the most transparent alteration, that makes initial "w" the best choice, for native euphony, when followed by "osaki".
So, yet again, we see this is more about incorporating the foreign word into native phonotactics and native euphony -- not so much about preserving the original, transparency, etc. Preserving the original is more important for carry-overs during language shift, so you don't lose your old lexicon entirely.
ReplyDeleteBut what is there to lose when borrowing a loanword? Nothing, it was never yours to begin with, and by altering it to make it sound like your own language, you aren't severing the understanding of what it means.
Carefully preserve the in-group's heritage, mangle the foreigners' heritage to suit your needs! ^_^
Most people throughout history were not American libtards who apologize about, "I know I'm probably butchering the pronunciation of your language..."
Hey, you don't speak our language natively -- it's only expected that you will fit it to your own preferences! Nothing to apologize for! If anything, it gives it an exotic accent... like when the Japanese vtubers speak English... I'm glad they don't sound 100% like a native English speaker. By pronouncing it with a foreign accent, their voice gets the "sexy exotic" buff! ^_^
Addendum: there's no precedent for "to1s-", even among the few words that begin with "to1-".
ReplyDeleteThe fact that "w" is labial, voiced, with some back articulation as well, makes it assimilate to the following "o", better than any other consonant would. So that reinforces the choice of "w" for the replacement.
ReplyDeleteBut I doubt that was the main factor -- all sorts of words get borrowed with "o1", that doesn't mean the preceding consonant gets altered to "w" as a result. It was more about the consonant-vowel co-occurrence patterns I detailed above.
I doubt that Japonic borrowed "wosagi" from Koreanic "tʰóski", since the vowel between "s" and "k" has been deleted in Koreanic. It is preserved in Japonic, as "a".
ReplyDeleteCould Japonic "a" have come from inserting a dummy vowel to break up the "sk" sequence in the Koreanic form? Not likely -- the preferred dummy vowel after "s" in OJ is "i", yielding "tosiki" instead of "tosaki".
The 2nd-most common "s" syllable is "sa", so it's not out of the question, but it's much less likely than "si". "To1si-" would not be ruled out due to avoiding homophony, so the "i" dummy vowel should have gone through, if it was derived from the Koreanic form.
The view that Japonic borrowed directly from Tungusic makes fewer changes, let alone less-likely changes. It straightforwardly preserved "a" from the P-T source.
Also, Koreanic is a much younger family than Japonic, and this word is present in P-J, so it's unlikely to have come from Koreanic based on the time-depth of the two families.
As for the Goguryeo form, though, perhaps that was an attempt to break up the "sk" sequence, by means of a high-front vowel "e". But then it also altered the final vowel from "i" to "a", and even worse, stuck on a dummy coda consonant "m". And also deleted the initial consonant altogether.
Then again, maybe the transcription of the Goguryeo form is imprecise, and it was closer to "wosaki". Hard to tell.
The ban on 4+ moras in P-J applies to the surface form, not the underlying form. We can see this from another animal name, "pitusi" = "sheep, goat" (later reanalyzed / rendaku-fied as "pituzi", leading to Modern "hitsuji").
ReplyDeleteAs I discussed earlier, this is a compound word from "pito + usi" = "person + cow". Wiktionary has also noticed this explanation, although they say its meaning is "the people's cattle". I said it was more about the physical appearance of sheep and goats -- they're livestock like cattle, but they look more like a person in the head / face. Their eyes point forward rather than toward the side, they don't have a long snout, and they have what look like human lips.
Regardless of the precise meaning, the building blocks are "pito" and "usi", each with 2 moras. So if the ban on 4+ moras applied to the underlying form, this compound would have been banned -- and yet it was allowed.
So it must apply to the surface form, where the "ou" sequence, like all vowel sequences, is banned, resulting in the "u" replacing the "o". That yields "pitusi", with only 3 moras -- perfectly fine!
This insight can be generalized -- there are likely to be more 3-mora words in P-J that, underlyingly, are 4 moras drawn from 2 elements of 2 moras apiece, but the 2nd element begins with a vowel. Like all words, the 1st element ends in a vowel (no codas allowed). But words can begin with a vowel or consonant, so that's where the variation happens.
If the 2nd element does begin with a vowel, then the resulting medial vowel sequence will be resolved into a single vowel, and the surface form of the compound will have only 3 vowels, which is allowed.
But this derivation will be confusing, since info has been erased -- the 1st vowel of the 2nd element. In fact, with "pito + usi" = "pitusi", this led to the reanalysis of there being a word boundary between "u" and "si", which caused rendaku to apply, yielding "pituzi".
And yet, in the underlying form, there is no word boundary between "u" and "si" -- it's one word, "usi" = "cattle".
In the case of "pitusi", it's easy to see that it's a compound, and what the 2 elements are -- a sheep or goat is a person-like cow.
But there must be other 3-mora words in P-J where the fact that it's a compound is not so obvious, let alone what the 2 elements must be. Now we see that it would pay to go through them one by one, and assume that the 2nd vowel used to be a vowel sequence, and speculate what vowels these could have been, leading to the discovery of the 2 elements in a compound, where the 2nd element begins with a vowel.
The only constraint is that the 2 vowels must result in the precise single vowel that is present in the surface form. E.g., there cannot be a compound of the shape "CVCa aCV" that results in a surface form with any vowel other than "a" as the 2nd vowel.
It's worth investigating, though!
A crucial signal that the word was compounded from "CVCV + VCV" is if rendaku applied to the 3rd C rather than the 2nd C.
ReplyDeleteWhen "CVCV + VCV" yields "CVCVCV", the 1st vowel of the 2nd element is necessarily re-interpreted as the 2nd vowel of the 1st element. That is because it cannot be interpreted as "CVC VCV", where the medial vowel is still attached to the 3rd consonant and the final vowel. This interpretation has a coda consonant (the medial C), and that's banned.
So, the only legal interpretation is "CVCV CV", or perhaps "CV CV CV" -- but this latter one is not preferred due to the ban on complexity. Assume it's composed of fewer elements, not more elements.
Rendaku does not always apply. But if it does, in this case it will affect the 3rd C, not the 2nd C.
Rendaku affecting the 2nd C of a 3-mora word comes from a shape of "CV CVCV" (or "CV CV CV", but again this is not preferred due to being more complex). The only way this shape could result from a compound where the 2nd element is a vowel, is for the underlying form to be "CV VCVCV".
While that is technically possible, it seems far less likely, since the 2nd element, having 3 moras, would itself be a compound. And so joining it with the 1st element "CV" would violate the ban on complexity, having 3 distinct elements rather than just 2.
Maybe this happened later in OJ or Classical / Middle Japanese, after they ran out of 1-mora words to join in a compound, or even 2-mora words to join in a compound. Having a 3-mora word in a compound is a desperate move that would only happen later.
In all likelihood, a P-J word with 3 moras, where rendaku affected the 2nd C instead of the 3rd C in OJ, was of the form "CV CVCV". This is a far more transparent compound process, since no info from either element has been lost -- the 1st element was always "CV", and the 2nd element was always "CVCV".
...Unless the clip assembly process was at work! The 1st element could be clipped from another word of shape "CVCV". But that's not the obvious way to get "CV CVCV", so it should be ruled out unless it's the only viable explanation.
And of course the 1st element of a compound could begin with a vowel, unlike a bare vowel "V", but possibly "VCV". If the 2nd element is also "VCV", the result after banning the medial vowel sequence, is "VCVCV". Now the telltale sign is rendaku affecting the 2nd C rather than the 1st C.
ReplyDeleteSo to be as accurate as possible, this compound process is identified by rendaku affecting the final consonant in a 3-mora word, rather than the non-final consonants.
I should say, this compound process should be investigated, if there's rendaku on the final C of a 3-mora word. This sign isn't 1-to-1 -- it could also result from a compound that was underlyingly "(C)VCV + CV".
ReplyDeleteJust saying that when rendaku affects the final C of a 3-mora compound, it's worth investigating to see if it's the straightforward "(C)VCV + CV", or the unexpected opaque mystery of "(C)VCV + VCV", where the 2nd element begins with a vowel that was "lost" during compounding.
The vowel may not have been "lost" in the sense of not appearing in the compound, but "lost" in the sense of no longer being interpreted as belonging to the final "CV", but instead grouped with the "(C)VCV", where it did not actually originate.
Roboco sang "Momen no Handkerchief", the iconic love song from 1975, that's bittersweet with a bouncy-beat! It's so '70s... ^_^ It reminds me of the Carpenters' cover of "Please Mr. Postman" from the same year, the emotional tone and the instrumental arrangement.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kavnmW3EqA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGmgHjSX0wY
Well, she started singing it, before getting too sleepy during midnight karaoke... but I searched YouTube and saw that she sung it before, several years ago. So did Marine (several times), the Koronator (several times), Matsuri (several times), Koyori, Mio, Polka, and Pekora!
Peko-chan has a very romantic yearning side, that she doesn't always show, but really comes out when she sings. During that same performance, she sang "Koi ni Ochite (Fall in Love)" from good ol' 1985. Such a romantic nostalgic spirit... ^_^
Irys should add "Momen no Handerchief" to her set list, too! It's right up her alley. ^_^
Roboco also sang part of "Whisky ga Osuki Desho?" from 1990, a few karaoke streams ago. That's by Sayuri Ishikawa, the larger-than-life queen of epic enka power ballads -- but it's a very subdued smooth lounge jazz song, unlike her usual style. I think that fits Roboco's chill personality very well!
Roboco and Choco have great chemistry together, and they're wondering what kind of ChoRobo streams they can do in the new year. How about an off-collab karaoke stream, where they sing natsumero songs? Let's say, before the year 2000... a little change of pace, since they usually don't do Showa-themed streams. But I think they would have a lot of fun singing nostalgic songs!
Here's a cool one-person duet of "Momen no Handkerchief", by actress-singer Shoko Haida. This would make a great duet opportunity for ChoRobo, since the lyrics are a back-and-forth between two parts. Roboco could take the male part, and Choco the female part. ^_^
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGa6QcRveVU
BTW, Haida was born in 1979, and that video is from 2020 -- oh, no big deal, just the typical Japanese woman in her 40s... They age very well. ^_^
Not just physically, but personality as well. Here she is recently, later into her 40s, excitedly visiting a Showa-era candy shop, and playing retro pachinko / pinball games! She still has a charming, child-like free spirit. ^_^
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9Zdo3JLQvQ
Most Asian cultures beat the quirkiness out of their children. But in Glorious Nippon, free spirits are not only tolerated, but celebrated. ^_^ That's cuz Japan isn't in Asia -- they left the Eurasian continent several thousand years ago, and created their own unique culture in the Japanese islands.
And to tie it back into the ongoing anthropological history here, even when the "Japanese" (their Wa ancestors) did live in Eurasia, it was in the wide-open free-wheeling nomad-roaming horse-riding Steppe, not an over-crowded hive of rice paddies where drudgery is the only way of life.
Shoko has very Steppe-like facial features, too. Prominent nose, forward-pointing rows of teeth (not wide or flat), high-relief face. Not a flat face at all.
Very much like a cute bunny rabbit... in fact, I imagine Peko-chan has facial features like this. Not only because she's a bunny vtuber, but she drinks lots of milk everyday, and she included horse meat in the recent New Year's cooking stream. Her genes come from the Eastern Steppe, 100%. ^_^
During their vacation, Kson and Kanata should sing a duet of "Momen no Handkerchief"! Kanata taking the male part, Kson the female part. It's right up their alley, and Kson enjoys the bittersweet love songs from the '70s like "The Rose".
ReplyDeleteI don't mean sing it on stream, but finding a karaoke booth somewhere and singing it to re-kindle their friendship. ^_^
Maybe Roboco and Choco could do a singing stream of entirely duets! Or, as many as they can find, and then sing the other songs together...
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of nostalgia, how about "Tokyo Night Club" from way back in 1959? It's a classic! And it would fit the chiru chiru personalities of both Choco and Roboco. And Roboco loves to sing at midnight, so this song would fit that evening atmosphere as well!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiktI_tON_Y
Maybe they could slightly alter the lyrics to fit their own performance...
"Night" can stay.
"Club" in Japanese is "kurabu" -- this could be changed to "korabo" (collab). So, instead of "night club", it's "night collab". ^_^
And instead of Tokyo, maybe "Holo"? With long "o", to match the long "o" of "tou" and "kyou".
"Hourou Naito Korabo"
Something to think about... ^_^
During the PekoMari Pekomami collab, as expected Marine created a yin-yang dynamic, with herself as the etchi one, and Pekomami as the seiso one.
ReplyDeleteBut there was a brief moment where the two of them connected over Showa-era music. Both of them really like Pink Lady... and probably many other groups as well! ^_^
This would be a great idea for future collabs with Marine and Pekomami. Pekomami could write a list of her favorite natsumero songs, and Marine could perform them, and dedicate the performance to Pekomami.
Pekomami said the trait she associates most with Marine is "great singer" -- so I'm sure she'd LOVE to hear Marine sing these songs! ^_^
That's the trait I associate most with Marine, too -- great singer, and shrine maiden of Japanese culture. She has always been one of the top natsumero set-list singers in Hololive. Traditions don't keep themselves alive, they need to be re-enacted by every generation, or they die and only an empty vacuum is left.
Pekomami could participate in the singing stream by offering commentary -- her personal memories of those songs, when they first came out, or about the Showa era in general, in between Marine's singing sections.
ReplyDeleteThat would also let Marine catch her breath, get water, etc., between songs. But instead of dead air or Marine having to also do a zatsudan between songs, she could rest a bit while Pekomami chatted about the songs, Showa era, and so on.
It would be a great back-and-forth dynamic! ^_^
Yeniseian origin of Japonic word for "hard" (as in a material) / "to freeze". The fact that both families have similar-sounding words for both "hard" and "to freeze" is telling, since it's not guaranteed.
ReplyDeleteIn P-Y there are 3 related words: "čawg" ("hard"), "čaɬ" ("cold", with derived "čaɬVŋʷ" = "freezing"), and "čewtɬ" ("to freeze").
This pattern is common in Yeniseian, where the onset and vowel form a semantic field, and the coda narrows it down -- either as dummy consonants to arbitrarily distinguish member 1 from member 2 in the field, or as productive consonant-only suffixes (like the gender markers "-b" and "-m").
So when carrying over from P-Y to P-J, at least the field morpheme will make it, and maybe or maybe not the coda specifier. That's why some cognates only share the initial CV, rather than the next C.
For Japonic is like this too, where a single CV mora has to do with some semantic field, although due to the agglutinative morphology (unlike Yeniseian), it can appear as the 1st mora of a word, 2nd, 3rd, or anywhere else. But including as the 1st mora, and the 2nd CV mora is a kind of dummy specifier mora or a productive affix.
As a sidebar -- that reminds me of the Germanic sound-symbolic pattern, inherited from the language of the Funnel Beaker Culture, which was not Indo-Euro. For example, onset "gl-" having to do with light, and various rhymes filling out the word as dummy specifiers (or sometimes as meaningful productive rhyme). "Glint", "glimmer", "glisten", "glare", and so on and so forth.
Perhaps this was some popular morphological process in Paleo Northern Eurasia. Anyway...
In 2 of 3 P-Y words about "hard" / "freeze", there's a coda "w", which ought to turn into "u" and replace the preceding vowel -- but that vowel is "a" in 1 case, which is more resistant to altering, so could become "o" instead of "u". So the prediction is for "a", "o", or "u" -- in the low-back region.
The coda obstruents won't carry over cuz they're not meaningful in this case.
The only open question is the onset -- it's post-alveolar, similar to "ch" in English. There's no such phoneme in P-J, but there's nearby aveolar stop "t", velar "k", tap "r" is banned initially, nearby palatal "y", and nearby alveolar fricative "s".
Despite "t" and "s" being close in place to "č", this actually became "k" in P-J, further away and in the back direction. It's "kə" (or "ko2"), and is common to several words having to do with "hard" and "freeze".
ReplyDeleteThere's P-J "kəpa" ("hard"), which evolved into Modern "kowai" ("scary", i.e. something that would freeze you stiff). And "kəyu" ("to freeze", leading to Modern "kogoeru"), "kəru" ("to stiffen"), "kərəsu" ("to kill", a causative derived from "kəru" = "to stiffen", i.e. to cause someone to become stiff, i.e. dead, same euphemism as the English "stiff" = "corpse").
There's also "kəmai" ("rice"), which seems to contrast with "mamai" ("bean, pulse, pea, legume"), where "ma" has to do with softer more pliable materials and shapes (e.g., "makura" = "pillow", "maku" = "to wrap around", "mara" = "penis", likely in the sense of hanging flaccid, "mari" = "ball" and "maro" = "round"). Rice grains are (relatively) harder than peas, legumes, and pulses.
I attribute this unexpected regression of "č" -> "k" to assimilation for place of the following vowel, "o2", which is back instead of front. Technically it's more of a central vowel, so perhaps the assimilation is to "non-back" location, as opposed to front "e" and "i".
This is unlike Arisaka's Law, where "o2" does not belong to the same vowel class as "a", "o1", and "u", which are low / back.
But then, this consonant-vowel assimilation process is not about which vowels can appear within a morpheme, like Arisaka's Law. It's just about how an unpronounceable phoneme from P-Y gets resolved when carried over into P-J. For this purpose, "o2" is grouped with "u" as "non-front".
This led me to a related consonant-vowel co-occurence pattern in P-J, to test whether or not "o2" really is treated like a back vowel, or non-front vowel, in the context of which consonants can appear before it.
ReplyDeleteSure enough, it is. I may write this up into a separate post with the exact numbers and distributions, but for now, just to summarize the overall pattern, for initial CV in P-J words.
The first clue is that "a" is very common after any C, rather than join the same club as "o1" and "u" a la Arisaka's Law. The truly central vowel in P-J is "a", while "o2" is evidently a bit further back -- maybe not as far back as "o1," certainly not as high as "o1", but back rather than truly central.
So really, we're looking at "e" and "i" vs. "o1" and "u", which are uncontroversially front vs. back vowels. Both "e" and "o1" are uncommon, especially as 1st V, so it's hard to distinguish their frequencies. But "i" and "u" are popular overall, so it will be easier to distinguish front vs. back with them. Where does "o2" fit, and what's the CV co-occurence pattern?
For "k", "i" is uncommon while "u" is super-common. Sure enough, "o2" is about as common as "u". Since "k" is back, this shows CV place assimilation.
For "t", "i" is uncommon, while "u" and "o2" are both common. This establishes that "o2" belongs to the same group as "u" rather than "i" -- but it's unexpected since "t" is fairly front. Maybe it's just about fully front, i.e. labial, vs. not-front, i.e. alveolar and further back. But what I really think is that this shows P-J onset "t" came from some further-back place in P-Y, like palatal or retroflex, and is reflecting the CV co-occurence pattern of that earlier stage, not P-J itself.
For "p", "e" and "i" are about as common as "o1" and "u". So labial consonants are not treated as front -- or some of them are, and others reflect P-Y labialized velars (like "pi" relating to "xʷaj"). Here, "o2" is rare, suggesting that "p" is in fact behaving like a front consonant. The conversion of P-Y labialized velars into P-J labial stops muddies the waters here, but the P-J "p" that comes from P-Y "p" (or other front consonant like "b") likely has more "i" than "u" following it.
Instead, "s" is the consonant that really shows CV place assimilation for front vowels. There are twice as many "si" as "su" words, and sure enough only 1 "so2" word. So again "o2" joins "u", but now in the expected place assimilation, where front "s" prefers front "i". Because it's so strong, it's likely that some of these onset "s"s were actually further back in P-Y, and assimilated forward to "i" during the shift to P-J, just as "č" -> "k" before back vowels seems to have taken place between P-Y and P-J.
For "w", "e" is rare and "i" absent, while "u" is banned but seems to have been re-routed to nearby "o1", which is common. Then again, maybe rare front "e" was re-routed back to "o1", since "we" ("man" in the Ryukyuan branch) and "wo" ("man", "male" in Japanese branch) are related. The other problem is that the overall numbers are small, and several of the "wo-" words are all derived from "wo" = "man, male". It's hard to make heads or tails of whether place assimilation is present. But in any case, "o2" is less common, like the front vowels, suggesting that "w" is behaving like a front consonant with place assimilation, where labials are front.
ReplyDeleteFor "y", "i" is banned and "e" is also absent, while "o" and "u" are both common, and so is "o2". This shows that "o2" once again joins "u", however "y" is behaving like a back vowel rather than the expected front vowel. But for those who forgot, I think P-J "y" comes from "q" or perhaps "G" in P-Y or P-Na-Dene. This CV co-occurence pattern supports that. It was the expected place assimilation in Dene-Yeniseian, then during the shift to Japonic, the uvular was fronted to "y" (no real phonetic reason, just had an open space there), while the vowel remained mostly the same, breaking the place assimilation in P-J.
For "m", "e" and "i" are less common than "o1" and "u", and "o2" is fairly common, so it joins "o1" and "u". However, "m" is behaving like a back consonant, regarding place assimilation. Interestingly, P-Y and P-ND both lack initial "m", so there's no way that initial "m" in P-J derives from the same sound earlier -- it must be an overflow container from some exotic sound in the earlier stage.
ReplyDeleteJudging from the CV co-occurrence, it must have been back -- and what consonant is back and has a labial feature? Why, our good ol' friends the labialized velars -- or labialized uvulars. They would get turned into primary labial consonants in P-J, while the following vowels would remain the same, breaking the place assimilation that was present in Dene-Yeniseian.
Initial "m" is allowed in Emishi / Ainu, BTW, so that's where this phonotactic tolerance for it came from. That's not to say the Japonic words trace back to Emishi words, since very few do -- but that the influence of Emishi phonotactics on the synthesis of Dene-Yeniseian x Emishi = Japonic, means P-J suddenly has an open overflow container of initial "m" to accomodate Dene-Yeniseian refugee consonants from further back.
For "n", "e" and "i" are slightly more common than "o1" and "u", though both sides have low numbers, so it's hard to know for sure. And "o2" has 4 entries, similar to both sides, so it's hard to tell if it's joining the front or back group. Also, hard to tell if there's CV place assimilation.
P-Y also bans initial "n", although P-ND does not. So initial "n" in P-J cannot trace back to the same sound in Yeniseian -- although it could reflect P-Dene-Yeniseian "n", which was only removed in the P-Y branch itself, not the Para-Yeniseian ancestor of P-J. Difficult to tell without seeing if it corresponds to initial "n" in the Na-Dene side.
Emishi / Ainu also allows initial "n", just like "m". So if the lineage was strictly from P-Y to P-J, then initial "n" is another overflow container from P-Y exotic consonants that suddenly had an open space to colonize. Since "n" is not labial, it couldn't have been the labialized velars / uvulars... but maybe a retroflex or palatal? That would also explain why it doesn't behave like a truly front or back consonant, regarding CV co-occurence. Retroflex and palatal is smack dab in the middle of the oral tract.
Lack of initial nasals is weird, and characterizes only 3 families in the region -- Yeniseian, Turkic, and Mongolic, crucially *not* Tungusic. Everyone else in East Eurasia and North America has them, which means you can't judge relatedness by presence of initial nasals -- but their absence is very revealing.
ReplyDeleteThis means that Yeniseian fed directly into Turkic and Mongolic, or Para-Mongolic, which are in the same location (Altai-Sayan Mountains, Yenisei River, Lake Baikal), and where Turkic and Para-Mongolic followed after Yeniseian in time. Pretty clear-cut.
What *other* parents these new synthesis languages had, remains open. Presumably Uralic for both -- highly agglutinative morphology, plus vowel harmony, plus Uralic was the only expansionist family in Eastern Eurasia before the Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic expansion.
Just cuz Japonic has initial nasals, doesn't mean it doesn't have Yeniseian as a parent -- initial nasals comes from the Emishi parent, not the Yeniseian parent.
IDK about Tungusic -- its initial nasals could reflect a non-Yeniseian parent that had the normal pattern, or it simply didn't have Yeniseian as a parent since it came from further to the north and east, where perhaps Nivkh was its Paleosiberian parent instead. You'd have to look for the relationships between it and Yeniseian, which I've extensively shown for Japonic and Yeniseian.
I doubt it, though -- the first non-linguistic thing that tipped me off to the Yeniseian origins of the Wa ancestors of the Japanese, was their highly unusual and distinctive creation myth, shared only between the Japanese and "people in Northwest Mongolia" (who by the time the myth was recorded in the Early Modern era, had mostly switched to Turkic, but earlier were probably Yeniseian speakers).
This myth, and all sorts of other cultural shibboleths, don't extend up into Tungusic territory. So I don't think they have Yeniseian as a parent, probably Nivkh or Chukotko-Kamchatkan or whatever else -- and Uralic, of course, the language family that got around Eurasia more than even Indo-European. Highly agglutinative, vowel harmony, yeah they had Uralic as a parent.
And therefore, I don't think there will be as strong of a Yeniseian presence in Koreanic -- it's later, more like Tungusic than Mongolic, having more affinity to Nivkh than Yeniseian, due to lots of migrants coming from the Amur region into Korea. Whereas the Wa came straight eastward across the Steppe.
The Korean founding myth is also patently part of the Northern Eurasian bear cult, unlike Japan's.
Of course Emishi / Ainu was a parent to Koreanic as well -- same stripping away of voiced obstruents, only 1 liquid and it's banned initially, geographical proximity to the Emishi homeland.
But when Koreanic recovered a consonant series, it was plain vs. aspirated vs. ejective -- more like Nivkh and others in far NE Asia. Or Na-Dene for that matter.
Yeniseian, innovating from Dene-Yeniseian, got rid of that 3-way distinction and simply had voiced vs. voiceless -- and that's exactly what Japonic got, once it received an obstruent contrast.
So it's like both Koreanic and Japonic were put through a temporary Emishi filter, since the Emishi had a palatalized vs. plain consonant series (according to Alonso de la Fuente), and couldn't do either the Yeniseian or the Nivkh distinctions.
But once that learning process was over, both families reverted or recovered their earlier consonant series -- which were different from each other. Another sign that Japonic had Yeniseian as a parent, recovering the voiced vs. voiceless distinction, while Koreanic had Nivkh (or some other one) as its parent and recovered the plain vs. aspirated vs. ejective distinction.
And of course Turkic and Mongolic have voiced vs. voiceless as their consonant contrast, not involving aspiration or ejection. Just like their Yeniseian parent, and their Japonic cousin, but unlike Koreanic or most others of NE Asia.
ReplyDeleteTungusic is like Turkic, Mongolic, Yeniseian, and Japonic for consonant contrast -- voiced vs. voiceless. They were never put through the Emishi filter like Koreanic and Japonic were, they got this contrast from one of their parents.
So maybe Tungusic had Yeniseian as a parent after all, reflected in their consonant contrast...
Or they had Yukaghir as a parent, whose contrast is also voiced vs. voiceless, and unusually so for NE Asia.
I just know that Koreanic has much less Yeniseian influence than Turkic, Mongolic, or Japonic, and owes more to the Amur region or further to the NE.
BTW, the consonant contrast in Uralic is plain vs. palatalized, just like in Emishi / Ainu. No language with either Uralic or Emishi as a parent received this contrast, though. It must not be very contrastive phonetically, so is rare around the world and less likely to be passed on when there's a synthesis event.
The fact that only Emishi / Ainu has a palatalization contrast, aside from Uralic, means maybe the Emishi found their way into the Japanese islands from former Uralic territory, to the east of Lake Baikal. And perhaps long before Uralic acquired its agglutinative morphology and vowel harmony -- both of which Ainu lacks. Pre-Proto-Uralic.
Or the Emishi were just 1 of the very few languages that had a palatalization contrast. But it's worth looking into. Human beings are not native to the Japanese islands -- they came from the East Eurasian mainland *somewhere*.
Not surprisingly, it seems like it was from Northern Eurasia, not the deluded view that Southeast Asians settled Japan a long time ago, just cuz Okinawa is tropical?
Both the Emishi and the Wa are clearly from Northern Eurasia. So it's not impossible that the ancestors of the Emishi came from a Uralic-like group, or had a Uralic-like group as one of their parents in a cultural fusion event.
Uralics are definitely part of the North Eurasian bear cult, on steroids. IDK about the rest of their mythology, but it's worth investigating...
One final thing, not about linguistics but skull-measuring for a change. Another key thing about Japanese skulls and faces -- more likely to have an elongated / tall skull. And even if the face is somewhat round, the jaw / chin comes to more of a point in the center, creating a heart shape, not a flat across or shallow angle around the jawline. SEA faces are more compact, round, or square.
ReplyDeleteI was looking at my college yearbook last night, and really noticed how different the international students from SEA are from the Japanese ones, and that facial shape jumped out at me.
There was one girl from Hong Kong, though, who was clearly of glorious Northern Barbarian ancestry, but whose recent striver relatives moved to the soulless gold-digging capital of Asia. She was probably Mongol or Manchu, not Japanese, but very similar looking -- and totally unlike the rest of Hong Kong and SEA.
And relating back to vtubers, I was reminded of Marine's special IRL guest during her birthday concert last summer -- voice actress Chisa Yokoyama, who has a perfectly Japanese face. Large eyes, thick eyebrows, pronounced nose, toothy smile, oval / heart facial shape. She was such an awesome guest... ^_^
If Marine and Pekomami do a collab about Showa-era music, Marine could interact with Pekomami like she did with Yokoyama -- not so much about the etchi vs. seiso dynamic, but finding a bridge across generations, due to shared love of classic music (and other parts of culture).
Everybody loves Marine's etchi side, but with Pekomami, I think Marine's "shrine maiden of Japanese culture" side is a better fit. ^_^
By "pronounced nose", I mean the angle outward from the face. Japanese noses have more of an angle, especially near the nasal bridge (the spot between the eyes). But they're not bulbous or anything, they're narrow in width all the way down, no wide nostrils. More Steppe-looking than SEA-looking.
ReplyDeleteI think there was a group of Manchus in the local Kroger a few weeks ago. Yes, we've got everyone from around the world in this country by now, even Manchus...
ReplyDeleteThere were 2 guys and 2 girls, the guys were over 6 feet, and the girls were at least 5'9 or 5'10. Koreans are supposed to be tall, so I thought maybe they were Korean.
But they were clearly speaking a tonal language like Chinese... but it wasn't the standard Mandarin dialect. It didn't have 47 tones, so it was not from SEA either. It must've been some Manchurian dialect, after the Manchus left their Tungusic language behind and began Sinicizing their culture.
Their faces didn't look typically Chinese either, I'm sure they were from the part of the Steppe that is now controlled by China, either Inner Mongolia or Manchuria.
Quite the sight to see at 10pm in a Kroger, with no one else around.
Worth remembering about "Han Chinese" identity -- it's not necessarily genetic or their historical cultural origins. If they currently speak Chinese and are sedentary, they're considered assimilated into the Han ethnos.
ReplyDeleteDNA maps show tons of people in Northern China who are genetic twins with the neighboring Mongols, Tuvans, etc., and on the other side of a clear line from most of China. But their data points are labeled and counted as "Han Chinese".
These are Sinicized Steppe peoples, a long-running pattern of Steppe people joining the Han culture, not necessarily their genepool though.
This is who I saw a few weeks ago.
Yeniseian, like Japonic, bans "yi" and "wu", dissimilating glides and their vocalic counterparts. Not counting derived words, for P-Y words beginning with "j" ("y" in Japonic), there are 2 followed by "a", 2 by "o", 0 by "u", 2 by "e", and 0 by "i".
ReplyDeleteFor words beginning with "w", there are 2 followed by "a", 2 by "o", 1 by "u" (closed-class word -- 3rd person animate pronoun), 4 or 5 by "e", and 2 by "i". In Japonic, there was a similar trend to drop "w" before "o", which is complete by now.
Ainu doesn't like either glide initially, so it's hard to say whether the absence of "yi" and "wu" in Ainu is the source of the pattern in Japonic. Certainly it reinforces it. But Yeniseian is happy with either glide initially, more like Japonic, so I think the preference for dissimilating them from their vocalic counterparts is more of a Yeniseian shibboleth that was carried over into Japonic.
Finally, P-J words of shape VCV, what's the distribution of the 1st V, and what does that tell us about place assimilation for consonants and vowels? The canonical P-J word is CV or CVCV, so when there's no onset, it's strange -- it could've come from a vowel-initial word in Yeniseian, but it's more likely that there used to be a consonant there at some point, but was lost.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the CV co-occurrence pattern, the dropped consonants should match the following vowels that remained.
Since "a" is the true central vowel, we can't tell if the lost consonant before it was assimilated or not, since "a" is neutral in this process.
Initial "i" and "u" are fairly common, but the trouble is the dissimilation thing -- we expect plenty of these initial vowels, due to loss of earlier initial "y" and "w". Technically that *is* assimilated for place with "i" and "u". But it's not the general CV assimilation I'm talking about. But it certainly supports the claim that lost initial consonants were assimlated for place with the remaining new initial vowel. Just not a smoking gun.
Initial "e" and "o1" are both rare, so it's hard to say if the lost consonant was assimilated to the vowel.
The key vowel is "o2" -- it was not part of a CV dissimilation, so it's not expected to start a VCV word for the same reason that initial "i" and "u" are. And yet it's as common as initial "u"!
ReplyDeleteSince "o2" groups with the back vowels for this process, that suggests that the lost consonants were back.
Recall that the only P-Y consonant I'm fairly sure was simply deleted initially, rather than altered, was "G" -- the voiced uvular stop. Its voiceless counterpart "q" seems to have been altered into "y". Perhaps "G" first became a glottal stop, then nothing at all. Well, you can't get any further back than uvular -- including if some of these were "q" instead of "G".
About half of the initial "o2" words are 2-mora verbs, where the "o2" is the totality of the meaning, and the following C is a dummy consonant for the end of the verb stem, semantically vacuous, then the obligatory final "u". How can so much meaning be borne by a bare vowel? I'm guessing it was preceded by "G" or maybe "q" in Yeniseian or Na-Dene, and whose original vowel was back-ish and low-ish.
I don't see any good candidates beginning with "q" or "G" in P-Y, though... but if I had to guess? I'm looking at P-Athabaskan, and I see initial "ŋ". I have another example of that consonant getting dropped initially, during a Tungusic -> Japonic borrowing, namely for "dog", where P-T "ŋinda" -> P-J "enu". The Tungusic form is the only vaguely similar form in the region.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Tungusic/%C5%8Bindakun
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/enu
As for the P-Athabaskan forms, they are "ŋʸən" = "2nd person singular pronoun", which in P-J is "ə" (coda "n" dropped since all pronouns were originally bare vowels in P-J).
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Athabaskan/%C5%8B%CA%B8%C9%99n
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/%C9%99
And P-Athabaskan "ŋʷəɬ" = "to handle, move plural objects". Drop the initial velar nasal, keep the vowel, make "ɬ" into "s" as usual, obligatory "u" ending for verbs, and that's the P-J verb "əsu" = "to push, to press", which pleasingly includes the Athabaskan coda this time.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Athabaskan/%C5%8B%CA%B7%C9%99%C9%AC
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/%C9%99s-
Although "ŋ" (with whatever 2nd-ary articulations) is not uvular, it is exotic in being velar nasal, which P-J doesn't have and not even Modern Japanese does. Yeniseian had velar nasals, but never allowed them initially, so initial "ŋ" would've sounded strange to P-J ears too. The Athabaskan examples also have 2nd-ary palatalization or labialization, making them even weirder and hard to accomodate. So y'know what? They're one of those weird back consonants -- just delete it.
BTW, those 2 P-A words are the *only* 2 P-A words beginning with "ŋ", and they both have nice matches in P-J when the initial consonant is dropped.
The larger point being, "ŋ" is a back consonant, so if it's co-occuring with "ə" in Pre-P-J (before getting deleted altogether in P-J), that supports the CV co-occurrence pattern, since "ə" is back.
That brings us back to initial "i". It's more common than initial "u", so that might lead you to think there were a bunch of lost front consonants. And yet I haven't proposed any deleted front consonants. But not so fast...
ReplyDeleteInitial "q" becomes "y", and "y" before "i" gets deleted. So for initial "i", a decent chunk of the words would have had initial "y" at an earlier stage. However, *some* of those were always "y", but *some* of them were altered from "q" to "y"! So I think a fair chunk of those lost consonants before now-initial "i", were back -- "q". That swells the number of words with initial "y" in Pre-P-J, which lop off the "y" during P-J, leaving tons of initial "i" words.
So, that is still about the lost consonant being place-assimilated to the surviving vowel. Just explaining why there are so many initial "i" -- these stem from initial "i", initial "y", and initial "q" in P-Y.
Last addendum: P-J "ə" = "2nd person singular pronoun" has "ənə" as the accusative form, and this form evolved into the OJ descendants "ono, unu". After P-J, they wanted even pronouns to have 2 moras, not just 1 as in P-J.
ReplyDeleteNotice the mysterious appearance of "n" after the core of "ə" in "ənə"? The final vowel is a dummy, copied from the core vowel for harmony reasons, or cuz "nə" is by far the most common "n" syllable in OJ.
Perhaps that choice of "n" was not a random draw from a Bingo hopper, but the carry-over of the Pre-P-J ancestor, which is shared with P-Athabaskan "ŋʸən". P-A was fine with coda consonants, so they didn't need a dummy vowel after their pronoun, and they were fine with velar nasals including in initial position. That's the only difference from the Japonic form.
Also, there's a cognate in P-Y, either "aw" or perhaps "xʷa-w". This was one of the first smoking gun connections that I drew between Yeniseian and Japonic -- since languages don't borrow pronouns from unrelated families.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Yeniseian/aw
The "aw" relates to P-J "ə", and to P-A "ə". The lack of the initial velar nasal in Yeniseian fits their ban on initial nasals. Its absence in P-J is not due to ban on nasals, but the dropping of the strange back consonants like it, "q", and "G".
Now what about the proposed P-Y reconstruction with initial "xʷ"? Well, there's plainly nothing there in the P-Y form, so why? But if you mean, to gain insight into what was there Pre-P-Y? Might as well assume it was a velar nasal, with or without 2nd-ary articulations, to match the P-Athabaskan form.
P-Y has tons of words with initial "xʷ", so it would be totally unexplained why it lost it in this case. But any initial nasal would do the trick -- and to judge from its trans-Pacific cousin, it was an exotic nasal at that, a velar nasal in initial position. Yikes, *definitely* gotta get that outta there for Yeniseian ears.
IDK if there's a generic pronoun base + specific suffix in P-Y, as "xʷa + -w" is suggesting. Maybe it only appears to be a generic base in Yeniseian cuz in the ancient shared ancestor with Na-Dene, there were various initial consonants that got dropped by the Yeniseian era, including especially nasals. Or some could've been bare vowels. Something to look into...
But at least for the 2nd singular, its lost initial consonant was surely a nasal. And since "x" is already velar, it's not much of a correction to posit "ŋʸ" or "ŋʷ" instead of "xʷ" as the initial C.
I still see P-J "ə" as stemming from "aw", where the "w" wanted to turn into "u" and replace "a", but "a" is more resistant than the other nuclear vowels, so would-be "u" was lowered to "ə". And that's the same vowel in the P-A form, without any "w" or dipthong present.
So I don't see any of the 3 forms as morphologically complex.
Quick Japanese etymology, not Yeniseian related. There's a P-J word meaning "treasure", "takara":
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/takara
Wiktionary notes one theory is that it breaks down into "taka + ra" = "high + plural suffix", but that this is unconvincing since this means "heights", as in a location, and has no clear relation to treasure.
Well, the cliff-dwelling sage instantly came up with a better idea -- "taka + ar- + -a", where the 2 "a" vowels at the 1st morpheme boundary contract into a single "a", yielding "takara".
Here, "taka" is still the P-J adjective meaning "tall, high, maximum, etc."
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/taka-
But now "ara" breaks down into "ar- + -a". Now, "ar-" is the P-J verb stem of "aru", which means "to exist, to be" and "to have". And "-a" is the nominalizing suffix that attaches to verb stems, and denotes the result of the action of the verb.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/ar-
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/-a
So, the noun that results from "to exist, to be" is a "being" or "a thing that exists".
And the noun that results from "to have" is a "having" or an "owning" or a "possession", "a thing that someone has".
So, "ara" means a thing or a possession, and "taka" modifies this as the highest, maximum kind of thing or possession -- treasure, not just any ol' thing that exists, or thing that you have in your possession.
This noun "ara" is not listed as a standalone word in Wiktionary, but in this case it appears as part of a complex word. Rare or obsolete words can survive in compounds, when they've disappeared as standalone words.
Na-Dene / Yeniseian origin of the *real* Japanese word for "wolf", before it was taboo-replaced. A lot of very Japanese things going on in this mystery!
ReplyDeleteIn detailing the Eastern Steppe origins of the Wa ancestors of the Japanese, I pointed out that since the Yayoi era in Japan (c. 300 BC and after), there has been not only a horse-centered culture with horse sacrifices, horse burials, eating of horse meat, and so on -- there has also been a wolf cult, where wolves are revered as sacred protectors and guides, in exactly the same mythological narrative way that they are in Turkic origin myths (like being guided through difficult mountain passes by wolves). In addition to the "lion dogs" that guard Chinese temples, Japan has its own native wolf statues that guard its temples and shrines.
The linguistic aspect of this wolf cut is the use of a taboo word for the animal -- "ookami", from earlier "opokami" = "opo + kami" = "great + god". Tellingly, there is no word for "wolf" in Proto-Japonic... unless...
In fact, it is impossible to find out what the various Ryukyuan languages use for the word "wolf", in trying to reconstruct it. You can find out what they call all sorts of other animals, but not "wolf".
Likewise for various dialects of Japanese within the main islands. This info is secretly locked away somewhere, but I will uncover it...
First, we know that the word attested in Old Japanese as "opokami" cannot go back to P-J cuz it has 4 moras -- violating the rule against 4+ moras, which applies at the surface level, not the underlying level, and applies to the meaning-bearing moras, not vacuous or generic suffixes.
The P-J compound animal name, whose surface form is "pitusi" ("sheep"), from underlying "pito + usi", got around this rule via the ban on vowel sequences. That led to 1 of them being replaced by the other 1 at the morpheme boundary. But "opo + kami" has no vowel sequences in the underlying form, so it cannot delete any of them, and its surface form would violate the rule, hence it did not exist in P-J.
So, this word "opokami" was a taboo replacement word that was coined in the OJ era, and leaves no trace of the earlier P-J word.
With no further Japonic route to pursue, we turn to the Yeniseian and Na-Dene relatives of Japonic... and fortunately, they did not taboo-replace their long-standing cognate words for "wolf". In P-ND it is "ɢuǰ", and in P-Y it is "qowč".
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Na-Dene/%C9%A2u%C7%B0
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Yeniseian/qow%C4%8D
Applying my sound correspondences to the P-J carry-over of these words, the vowel would be "u" -- the P-ND vowel is not problematic, and the P-Y vowel-glide sequence is the same ol' replace "w" with "u" and have that overtake the preceding vowel. The only resistance to that is nuclear "a", but here it's nuclear "o".
Thankfully we have a P-ND form, whose phoneme inventory is richer than for P-Y, which is no slouch in the exotic consonant competition -- but P-ND has even more. I've noted that the only consonants from Dene-Yeniseian that get mapped to nothing in P-J, are the uvulars. At least, uvular stops, almost surely the exotic back nasals, and perhaps the fricatives too. But really, any exotic back consonant, which are historically lost across a whole bunch of unrelated language families.
That loss of very-back consonants applies even to P-Y, which doesn't have labialized uvulars like P-ND, and where many instances of "G" must have been mapped to "q", since initial "q" is quite common in P-Y, and far less so initial "G".
I think this is one such instance, where the ancestral form began with "G", preserved in the richer inventory of P-ND, but merged into "q" in P-Y. Wiktionary cites 2 alternative reconstructions of the P-Y word with initial "G" instead of "q".
Other instances of "q" in P-Y or P-ND seem to be reflected in "y" in P-J. So it's key to remember that these uvulars could result in either nothing, or "y", in Japonic. It depends on what it was way way way back when, in the shared ancestor of P-ND, P-Y, and P-J.
I still think P-J is more closely related to P-Y than to P-ND -- it's just that P-Y has less info in it than P-ND, so it's ideal to have both sides of the Pacific represented. Did P-Y "q" come from earlier "q", and so reflected in P-J "y" -- or did P-Y "q" come from earlier "G", and so reflected in P-J nothing? The P-ND form can shed light on that pre-P-Y lineage.
So, the initial consonant gets mapped to nothing in P-J, resulting in one of the not-so-common vowel-initial words in a language that wants words to begin with a consonant.
The final consonant is a post-alveolar stop in P-Y and P-ND, which does not exist in the P-J inventory. Where is it likely to get shifted to? Well, the Yeniseian descendants of "qowč" uniformly have "t" as the 2nd consonant, it's just that some of them are also followed by a high-front vowel, suggesting there was something palatal about the P-Y ancestor, which is then reconstructed as "č" rather than "t".
Tellingly, the P-J form also has "t" followed by a high-front vowel, nearly identical to some of the Yeniseian forms, except for its initial consonant having been deleted rather than preserved as "q" or "k".
Also tellingly, the P-J choice of "i" for the 2nd vowel, is not a dummy vowel as usual. The most common "t" syllables in OJ are "to", "ta", "tu", "te", with "ti" in last place. This "ti" syllable doesn't represent ancestral "t" plus a dummy vowel, but resolving ancestral "č" by the nearby stop "t" and colored by the high-front vowel "i" so suggest palatal-ish place of the ancestor.
And in a strange twist of fate, Japanese will eventually palatalize "ti" into "chi" anyway, bringing it back full circle...
So, voila! The real Japanese word for "wolf" is "uchi", from P-J "uti"! Now, you may ask what confirmation there is of this reconstruction, since the meaning of "wolf" has been systematically taboo-replaced by "opokami" since the OJ era?
ReplyDeleteGoing from least the most convincing, I'll start with Hololive's wolf vtuber, Ookami Mio, whose epithet is the standard Japanese word for "wolf". However, her greeting catch phrase is "Uchi uchi! Uchi dayo! Ookami Mio dayo!"
The final sentence means "It's Ookami Mio!" Before that, "Uchi dayo!" means "It's me!" There is a homophone, "uchi" from P-J "utui", that is used as a 1st-person singular pronoun, mainly by women. (In P-J, and today, this "utui" -> "uchi" means "interior" or "inside" of a domestic space, and that's the connection to women using it as a pronoun for "I, me".) So far, that's standard Japanese, with nothing about wolves.
But what's that first sentence? "Uchi uchi!" Everyone else in Hololive always enjoys a giggle at that catch phrase, like "What is that supposed to mean, anyway?" It does not mean, "Me me!" or "inside inside!" It's structured more like a sound-symbolic term, with a 2-mora word totally reduplicated. This is also used for onomatopoeia, including animal sounds, like "wan wan" for a dog barking or woofing, or "nyaa nyaa" for a cat meowing.
Well then, "uchi uchi" must be the sound that a wolf makes! She's a wolf after all. I cannot find evidence of this phrase being used broadly in Japan for a wolf's cry, but Mio is a very intuitive / spiritual medium kind of person, as she's the resident tarot card fortune-teller in Hololive. So if her natural instincts tell her that "uchi uchi" is what she should say, to represent a wolf's greeting noise, then I'll trust her!
Perhaps Mio is using a regional phrase that is not listed in online sources of Standard Japanese? She's from Gunma prefecture, if that makes a difference. Even if she created the phrase on her own, I still trust her instincts.
ReplyDeleteMore revealing is the verb "uchiku" = "to wolf down, devour, eat everything". This is from the Kagoshima dialect, from southern Kyushu, almost into the Ryukyu islands.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.jlect.com/entry/5145/uchiku/
The basic verb for "to eat" = "ku" is present here, but it is modified by "uchi". I maintain that this means "to eat in the manner of a wolf", a ravenous predator that doesn't take lots of little bites over a period of hours, but devours its prey.
Alluding to specific animals to describe human eating or other behaviors, is a standard figure of speech across languages, including English -- including "wolf" as in "wolf down"! Or "raven" as in "ravenous". Or "pig" as in "pig out". Aside from eating, "horse around", "look sheepish", "act like a jackass", and so on.
There is one minor complication here, which is that "uchi-" is also a prefix that intensifies a verb, in Standard Japanese, and derives from the verb "utsu" (from earlier "utu") = "to hit", suggesting strength or force.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%89%93%E3%81%A1
So, if you intensify "to eat", doesn't that mean "to wolf down"? And this has nothing to do with wolves, but just the generic intensive prefix?
I don't think so -- that prefix has a special kanji associated with it's "u" sound -- "打" -- which is also used for the verb "utsu" = "to hit", which the prefix is derived from. All the examples cited of this prefix use this kanji.
But the kanji is not used in the spelling of the Kagoshima dialect verb "uchiku", nor is "uchiku" included in Standard Japanese words with the intensive prefix. The Kagoshima word "uchiku" is spelled out entirely in hiragana, with no kanji at all, or with only "ku" given a kanji, the same as the verb "to eat" -- "食". So they aren't against using kanji in this word -- they may use it for "ku", but *not* for "u" or "chi" or the combined "uchi".
This preference for a hiragana spelling of "uchi", when they could have just as easily spelled it with the kanji, suggests that "uchi" in "uchiku" is not the intensive prefix, but something distinct and on its own.
At the same time, they don't spell "uchi" with the kanji for "wolf" -- they are not preserving the awareness that "uchiku" is related to "wolf". But they *are* aware that it's not the intensive prefix -- nor the other "uchi" that has to do with "interior" or the female 1st-person pronoun, which has its own kanji, distinct from the intensive prefix kanji -- "内".
By spelling "uchi" in hiragana, they are simply saying, "We don't know exactly where this comes from... but it isn't the intensive prefix or interior or 1st-person female pronoun."
Although lost to present-day awareness, the connection is actually to the pre-taboo word for "wolf" -- "uchi" -- and is an example of likening human behavior to a salient animal counterpart. Like wolfing down, for eating.
The Kagoshima word is another example of words that have disappeared as standalone words, being preserved in compound words, like extinct species fossilized in amber.
ReplyDeleteBTW, the kanji for "wolf" is "狼". That's not used in "uchiku", but if they were aware of its ultimate derivation, they would spell the word "狼食". ^_^
The final suggestive clue is the P-J word for "clan", which is "uti", the same phonetic form as the P-J carry-over of "wolf" from P-Y and P-ND. As usual, there's no evidence for a nasal in the P-J form, so the fact that it later became "udi" in OJ, and then "uji" in MJ, only means it was re-analyzed as "u + ti" and rendaku applied. The Japanese ancestor began with "u", while the Ryukyuan ancestor began with a high-ish back vowel, not necessarily "o", so including "u".
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/Onti
Notably, this is distinct from P-J "utui" = "interior", which could also be related to "clan" in that the clan is the one on the interior of the domestic sphere, not the out-group. The "utui" = "interior" is probably reinforcing "uti" = "clan", but they're distinct originally.
And although the P-J verb "utu" = "to hit, strike, beat" could provide "uti" in its continuative form, there's no close semantic link between "clan" as a kinship word and beating, hitting, striking, etc. Clan doesn't imply warfare, just who's related to who. And clan doesn't imply beating members into it, like a street gang -- just who's related to who.
However, "clan" does relate to "wolf" in that the wolf is one of the most common totem animals for a clan, especially when we know their mythological culture originated in the Eastern Steppe (shown by the creation of landmasses myth from Japan being shared only with Northwest Mongolia, former Yeniseian speakers).
In fact, the ruling dynasty of the First Turkic Khaganate, the Ashina tribe, used a wolf's head on their tribal banner. Their tribal origin myth relates that their legendary ancestors were half-human half-wolf, descended from a benevolent grey she-wolf who navigated her way through difficult mountain passes, in order to give birth to the Ashina founders on the safe side of the mountain. This is highly similar to a benevolent white wolf guiding the legendary hero-founder of the Japanese, Yamato Takeru, through difficult mountain passes. The Ashina may have a Turkic word for "wolf" in their tribal name, although Yamato does not have "uchi" in it.
So, when the Wa ancestors of the Japanese, needed a word for "clan", they chose the most salient totem animal for clans -- the wolf. Perhaps this was coined as a 2nd meaning of "uti" = "wolf", or perhaps it was only coined to mean "clan" after "wolf" was taboo-replaced by "opokami". At any rate, sometime during the founding of the Japonic language family, "wolf" was the most semantically relevant word to use for the meaning of "clan".
Is using "wolf" to mean "clan" so unbelievable? Indo-European uses plant words for "clan", including English "clan" itself, borrowed from Celtic, but cognate with Italic "plant" -- the off-shoot of a species of flora. Likewise, "root" -- a plant term.
So Japonic used a fauna term rather than a flora term -- still an "animate being" term. Which "wolf" do you belong to? I can see it.
In fact, English uses a similar phrase for team rivalry, not necessarily clans united by blood and marriage, but team rivalries nonetheless -- "I don't have a dog in this fight", as though several exclusive and mutually hostile groups are united around an animal. Technically, derived from the sport of dog fighting, but still using animals as stand-ins for the hostile teams of people who share a fate with their particular animal.
I dedicate this piece of scholarship to Hololive's witchy fortune-telling wolf-girl herself, Ookami Mio. Whether she did so intentionally, or was intuitively channeling a culture-spirit that only a spiritual medium can do, she has forever linked the sounds "uchi" to the meaning of "wolf" in my mind.
ReplyDeleteLong live the female shaman tradition of Glorious Nippon! ^_^
Addendum: another hint that "uchi uchi" is a wolf's noise, is that Hololive's official English translation of her greeting, tries to blend "Hello" and "howl" -- "Hellooowl".
ReplyDeleteCrucial evidence that unlocks ancient mysteries, can show up in the STRANGEST PLACES sometimes... if only there is a cliff-dwelling sage curious enough to wander down the right secret passageway of the mountains... while supervised by a benevolent guide-wolf!
Sometime life imitates myth... ^_^
Also worth noting that this confirms what I said earlier, about Dene-Yeniseian single consonants getting mapped onto CV moras in Japonic, and that's why Japonic linguistics / orthography has always focused on moras rather than separate consonants and vowels. The rich consonant inventory of Dene-Yeniseian can be easily mapped onto the rich syllabary of Japonic, with its 45 cells in the matrix of (C)V combinations. Gotta remember that C is optional (albeit preferred), since uvulars seem to get mapped to nothing.
ReplyDeleteAt least in coda position in the Dene-Yeniseian ancestor, where there's a free space for the following vowel in Japonic. As for initial consonants, well, that's trickier, and they may color the following nuclear vowel or become involved in the resolution of vowel sequences.
In P-Y "qowč", the final single consonant "č" has been mapped to the CV mora "ti" in P-J. It's not a consonant plus a dummy vowel, it's saying that the ancestral form was a consonant like "t" but "i"-like in some way -- that is, more in the palatal direction, such as "č".
No wonder the inventors of the Japanese writing system were more insistent on (C)V moras than separate consonants and vowels! They knew, even if we no longer know now... until revealed by cliff-dwelling sages, that is. ^_^
I mentioned Pekora's name in this explanation about the Tungusic origin of "usagi", but now I will officially dedicate that piece of scholarship to Usagi the Megami. ^_^
ReplyDeletehttps://akinokure.blogspot.com/2025/12/uncovering-prehistory-of-japanese.html?showComment=1767952451861#c1207971428308224959
Etymology of P-J "ikari" = "anchor", now exploring some sea-faring and riverine terminology, instead of animal names. The Yeniseians were very riverine, and the Na-Dene likely traveled to the New World by boat near the coastline, and became very riverine or water-based in the Pacific Northwest as well. And that makes for the perfect group of people to set sail for the Japanese archipelago...
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/ikari
There is no known etymology listed for it at Wiktionary, but it's straightforward.
It breaks down as "ik- + -a + ri".
"ik-" is the stem of the verb "to go, to come". And "-a" is the suffix that attaches to verb stems and denotes the noun that results from the action of the verb -- in this case, the result of "to come" is "arrival". And "ri" is a standard nominalizing suffix meaning "thing".
So, "ikari" is the "arrival thing", the thing you use when you arrive at your destination -- when you drop the anchor so you don't drift away from your destination.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/ik-
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/-a
Technically the anchor is also a "departure thing", since you have to lift it up in order to depart. But this etymology has that covered as well, since "iku" means both "to go, to come", depending on whose perspective it is (the departer or the welcomer).
I think dropping the anchor, rather than raising it up, is the more salient action that you do with it, so it's probably about arriving than departing. But both meanings are covered nonetheless.
What's the original Japanese word for "dog", before it was replaced by "enu / inu"? This will eventually tie into the Dene-Yeniseian origin of the Japonic family, but this one example is a bit involved, so I'm just focusing on the ancient word for "dog" right now. I'll tie it into its cognates in Japonic and Dene-Yeniseian later.
ReplyDeleteBefore beginning, I dedicate this piece of scholarship to the Doggie Goddess herself, Inugami Korone, another shrine maiden of Japanese culture at Hololive. Classic video games, classic anime, classic music, classic movies -- you name it, she is dedicated to preserving it, and making it FUN for the next generation. She was the first Japanese vtuber I began to watch regularly, when she was playing the Transformers kusoge for the Nintendo / Famicom. She is a national treasure of Glorious Nippon, and everybody loves her. ^_^
Well, the P-J word for "dog" that has survived to the present is "enu", whose 1st vowel got raised to "inu" in Japanese.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/enu
Earlier in these lectures, I speculated that this word is borrowed from Tungusic "ŋinda", whose initial velar nasal is highly problematic, and like most problematic back consonants, simply gets deleted rather than altered.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Tungusic/%C5%8Bindakun
It was likely borrowed after Proto-Tungusic, from one of the descendants where the "d" has been deleted, such as Even "ŋi̇n". Perhaps it was borrowed from a form where even that onset nasal was deleted as well, such as Udihe "inˀai".
The P-J vowel at the end being "u" is not expected from the frequency of OJ "n" syllables.
The "i" getting dragged down to "e" may be due to influence from the lost "ŋ", since velar consonants involve retracting the tongue root, and so are also a bit "low" as well as "back".
The presence of "e" is rare overall in P-J, especially word-initially. Wiktionary only lists 5 words total beginning with "e", 2 of which are closed-class wh-words ("e-ku" = "how many" and "entu" = "where"). The only other 2 open-class words, aside from "enu", are "era" = "thorn, jellyfish" and "erə" = "color".
Given the strong preference for CVCV words in Japonic, we should assume all of these used to have an initial consonant, way back when, regardless of where it was from, and what precisely happened to it. It could have been a Dene-Yeniseian uvular, or in this case a Tungusic velar nasal, also a problematic back consonant. Even in some languages that have "ŋ" in their inventory, it is not allowed initially, where it gets mapped to nothing, as in modern Chinese languages.
So, P-J "enu" ought to have an exotic back consonant before the "e", in its ultimate source -- and the Tungusic source with initial "ŋ" is perfect.
This is just explaining where the standard Japanese word for "dog" comes from. But given that it appears to be borrowed from Tungusic, perhaps there was a more Japonic or Wa or Dene-Yeniseian type of source, with different sounds...?
In P-J and OJ, "si" (perhaps from earlier "se") is common to the names of many animals, and animal-related words. Such as P-J "usi" = "cow", "pitusi" = "sheep, goat", "sisi" = "beast" and "meat", perhaps "siru" = "soup" if animal products are included, "mosi" / "musi" = "bug, worm", "wasi" = "eagle", and OJ "seka" / "sika" = "deer".
ReplyDeleteNotably, I only count 2 plant words from P-J with "si" -- "nasi" = "pear" and "təsi" = "year" (originally meaning "grain", particularly "rice", and so the year's harvest). Way more common for fauna than flora.
However, apparently no Japonic word for "dog" with "se" / "si", but let's not get our hopes down. The Dene-Yeniseian side will motivate us to dig deeper, wherever we must, for that hidden treasure...
The Proto-Yeniseian word for "dog" is "cajb", whose final "-b" is probably the male sex marker, and therefore whose root is simply "caj". The Proto-Athabaskan word for "dog" is "ɬəŋʸ". These forms are similar in having their onset be a voiceless palatal stop or fricative, a low-ish central-ish vowel, and a coda that has primary or secondary palatal features.
Running that through the Japonic phonotactic filter, that would replace the coda with "i". That ought to replace the nuclear vowel, but since that vowel could be "a", which is resistant to this process, the "a" could drag "i" down to "e", just as "a" drags down "u" (from coda "w") to "o" during this process. The initial would be "s" (closer to the Athabaskan form, just making the airflow central rather than lateral, since Japonic lacks laterals).
That yields P-J "se" or "si". Probably closer to "se" at first, then raised to "si" over time, as part of the general Japanese vowel-raising trend.
In Athabaskan, this word gets extended to all sorts of other animals, and becomes more of a generic "animal" meaning. The same is true in Japonic, as seen in the broad list of words earlier.
Like "opokami" replacing "uti" for "wolf", the replacement of the earlier Japonic word for "dog" by "enu" has become so thorough that hardly any traces of the earlier word remain.
But that just means we'll have to look in those places where massive social-cultural changes may not have taken place, where linguistic fossils may remain unburied, out in the wide open space -- for those curious enough to explore them, rather than give up at the first sign of bad luck in the standard digging locations...
First is the Okinawan language, from the Ryukyuan branch of Japonic, spoken hundreds of miles and many islands south of mainland Japan. There are two dog-related words in Okinawan that ultimately must come from P-J "sita".
ReplyDeletehttps://www.jlect.com/search.php?r=%E3%81%A1%E3%81%84%E3%81%A1%E3%82%83%E3%81%82&l=all&group=words
The first is "chiichaa", which is the name for "dog" in child-speak in Okinawa. Running this backward to P-J would yield "tita".
How is that related to "sita"? Because when children are acquiring language, in all languages, they get sibilants late, and stops first, among consonants. So if they're unable to say "sita", they will approximate that as "tita". Similar to American English-speaking kids saying "Tanta" if they're too young to have "s", for "Santa".
Also in Okinawan, there's a total reduplication of this word, "chiichaa chiichaa", which is the phrase you use for calling the dog, and is derived from the child-speak word.
At the polar opposite end of Glorious Nippon, there's an Ainu word for "dog" which is "seta" or "sita", depending on the dialect.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%82%BB%E3%82%BF
What's the big deal about Ainu -- that's a totally different family from Japonic. Well, not so fast -- there's already an Ainu word for dog, which is more archaic and now only used in literary contexts, which is "reyep".
There is no etymology given for "seta", but "reyep" has a straightforward Ainu etymology -- it means "the thing that walks on four feet", where "reye" the verb for "to crawl or walk on four feet", and suffix "-p" is a nominalizer meaning "the one who...". So "reyep" = "reye + -p" = "the one who walks on four feet", for "dog".
"Reyep" has a very typically Ainu syllable shape, too, since it has an obstruent at the end of the word -- UNLIKE Japonic, where coda consonants are not allowed generally (only "n", and even then only in Medieval Japanese and after). And it begins with "r", which is banned in initial position in Japonic.
However, "seta" looks more typically Japanese -- CVCV, no coda consonants, no voiced obstruents, no "r" at the beginning, etc. Since there's no Ainu etymology for "seta", as opposed to "reyep", and since "reyep" is the archaic word, we should assume "seta" is a loanword. Where does Ainu borrow most heavily from? Why, Japonic, duh!
In fact, "seta" / "sita" is also the word for "dog" in the dialect of Japanese spoken by the Matagi people of northern Japan, who historically are mountain-dwelling hunters. They speak Japanese, not Ainu, but their dialect has several Ainu loanwords relating to animals and hunting. Supposedly, "seta" is one such Ainu loanword into this local dialect of Japanese.
But that makes no sense -- they would have borrowed "reyep", the archaic and distinctly Ainu word instead, given their very long history of being mountain hunters in northern Japan.
Rather, "seta" in the Matagi dialect of Japanese must be a relic of an older stage of Japanese. The word itself, although not their entire dialect, probably comes from Eastern Old Japanese, which preserved P-J "e" for a longer time, although with the replacement of Eastern OJ by Western OJ / Standard Japanese over time, the "e" may have been raised to "i" for some speakers. But the "e" form is still floating around there, too.
The non-hunter-gatherer Japanese removed this word entirely from their lexicon, but they evidently loaned it into the Matagi people's dialect of Japanese, as well as the Ainu language of the Ainu in Hokkaido and further north, when the Japanese and Emishi / Ainu were encountering each other during the Dark Ages.
So, we have evidence of P-J "seta" = "dog" for the Ryukyuan branch of Japonic, a northern dialect of Japanese, and even a loanword into Ainu.
ReplyDeleteChild-speak, culturally separate people like the Matagi, and the culturally distinct Ainu, are all peripheral speech groups where the mainstream forces of language change in the Japonic family have not wiped out some very old words.
But the cliff-dwelling sage in the ruins of the blogosphere is not afraid to take the road less traveled -- that's what brought me way up here in the first place! ^_^
Some concluding minor details on this whole big journey...
The Okinawan word descends from "sita" rather than "seta", so it was probably from an early stage of mainland Japonic when vowel-raising had begun. Or perhaps there was some dialectal variation in this word already in P-J.
Given the somewhat recent date of divergence between Japanese and Ryukyuan -- the mid-1st millennium AD -- perhaps vowel-raising was already under way, and "chiichaa" comes from a stage closer to Western OJ, where it would have been "sita".
The "seta" form would have survived far longer in Eastern OJ, where it was loaned into the Matagi dialect and into Ainu. But still, Western OJ reventually replaced Eastern OJ in the East and North, so the vowel-raising trend would have had some influence up there, too, accounting for the variation today even in Ainu, where "seta" and "sita" co-exist.
And what's the deal with "ta" in "seta"? The "se" is of Dene-Yeniseian origin, meaning "dog" originally, then extended to all sorts of other animals.
I think the strong preference for words of shape CVCV compelled P-J to fill in another CV after "se", with some dummy mora that sounded more like a noun than other parts of speech. So, avoid "u", which would sound like a verb. Since "a" is the most common bare vowel, and is neutral regarding various processes we've looked at, they decided on it as the vowel.
What consonant to choose? Well, probably not the most common "-a" syllable in OJ, which is "ka", since "seka" is already taken by "deer", whose "ka" seems to be an archaic 1-mora word for "deer" which was later modified by "se / si" to mean "wild deer" or something, just to give it CVCV shape as well.
After "ka", "ta", "pa" and "ma" are about equally popular. Maybe the labials "m" and "p" sounded too soft or wimpy for the mighty dog, so they took the "ta" instead. No major reason, though, just something to fill out a CVCV shape, sounding like a noun, and hopefully more like a dog than other nouns.
But the fact that the Ryukyuan, Matagi dialect of Japanese, and Ainu loan, all have "ta" as the 2nd mora shows it must have been there back in P-J.
And that concludes another whirlwind tour through the dark misty paths of the primeval forests of lingustic history, all the more obscure and dangerous when Paleosiberia is involved... but that's why you follow the right guide, who will never let you down... the cliff-dwelling sage in the ruins of the blogosphere.
I sincerely mean it -- during a time of total imperial collapse in America, it's almost required to find a source of motivation outside of this fracturing shithole of a country. In America, the can-do team spirit is not only dead, it's negative, a hangover after a high, not merely returning to sobriety. We have negative team spirit.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm grateful to those at Hololive who continue to exemplify the Yamato-damashii for the rest of the world, to supply us with a source of can-do team spirit, as members of a nation that still cares about itself and the people care about each other.
I wish the Yamato-damashii were transmitted genetically, so that my grandmother from Hokkaido would have given me an extra boost compared to other Americans. But no element of culture is transmitted genetically -- this is the greatest cope of collapsing empires. "In my veins runs the blood of..." -- people who are dead, from a society that is dead. If they transmitted anything to you, it was by cultural means, not genes.
Language, religion, clothing styles, passtimes, and team spirit.
I can only plug into the Yamato-damashii the same way that every other American can -- by plugging into Japanese culture.
If genes played any role, then Japanese-Americans would be just as team-spirited as the Japanese in Japan. But sadly, every member of the American Empire is subject to its forces, whether turbo-charged team spirit on the way up, or crashing anti-social hangover on the way down.
To drink from the waters of the Yamato-damashii, you have to go straight to the wellspring itself, the culture of the Land of the Rising Sun...
Here are the Wiktionary entries on P-Y "cajb" and P-A "ɬəŋʸ", so you can see how similar some of the descendants are to P-J "se / si", except for the Yeniseian ones having that fossilized male sex marker at the end. Many of the Athabaskan ones are just "ɬi(i)", which is "si" if you don't have laterals or long vowels.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Yeniseian/cajb
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Athabaskan/%C9%AC%C9%99%C5%8B%CA%B8
For those who aren't familiar, "ɬ" is like "s" only instead of air flowing down the center of the tongue, it's pushed off to both sides. It's like when someone wearing a retainer tries to say "s", and the retainer blocks so much space in the center of their mouth, air is forced around the sides of the tongue, where the molar teeth are instead.
In some American cartoon that I can't remember, there's a character who's a typical geek with a retainer, and the way he always says "awesome!" emphasizes the lateral fricative in place of "s". From the late '90s or 2000s, it seems, like Family Guy or something, IDK.
The Japonic root "se / si" is not only phonetically closer to the Athabaskan forms than to the Yeniseian ones, it's also closer to Athabaskan in its semantic extensions, where it began as "dog", but branched out to refer to all sorts of other specific animals, as well as abstract categories like "pet" or "animal". Yeniseian only has 1 derived animal name from "dog", "wolverine".
I don't think P-J "seka" / "sika" = "deer" is cognate with the P-A derived form "ɬəŋʸ-kʼʸeˑ", whose descendants are "łikʼa", "ɬiga", etc. -- which would indeed turn into "sika" after being put through the P-J phonotactic filter.
The Japonic "ka" meaning "deer" is supposed to be an older standalone 1-mora noun, and "se / si" a later modifier. If "seka" / "sika" were the older form, then I'd say it was cognate with the Athabaskan ones like it, and that Japonic "ka" was a later abbreviation of the 2-mora word.
But the 1-mora "ka" is supposed to be older, so the similarity between "seka / sika" and "łikʼa" is half-coincidental. They do share cognates in "se / si" and "łi", but the "ka" and "kʼa" elements after that are not cognate.
Also looking into the broader Na-Dene family, outside of Athabaskan, the Tlingit word for "dog" is "keitl", which does not resemble the Athabaskan form.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the root dealing with "for a dog to start barking", is "√shaa". See 2nd entry for "bark":
https://tlingitlanguage.com/dictionary/English.html
Very few languages in the world use an alveolar or palatal fricative like "s" or "sh" as the first consonant for the sound of a dog barking, woofing, etc. Highly distinctive -- perhaps related to their original word for "dog", which has since been replaced by "keitl".
Tlingit does have the lateral fricative, so why doesn't "bark" use that, but central fricative "sh" instead? IDK, they're just very similar, and it's so unusual to use "sh" for a dog's bark.
The vowel is the long / full "aa", back and low, whereas the Athabaskan vowel was the reduced "ə", central and mid. IDK if these are the expected reflexes from their P-ND ancestor, since vowel correspondences are much harder to figure out for the Na-Dene family.
Just something to think about...
To reinforce my approach of assuming that the Dene-Yeniseian consonants most likely to get deleted entirely are the exotic back ones -- to show that this is a widespread phenomenon across time and geography, let's briefly review some of the major cases of it.
ReplyDeleteThe example everyone has to know from historical linguistics -- the loss of laryngeals from Proto-Indo-European in the daughter languages. There were not 1, not 2, but count 'em, 3 such consonants from some exotic back-of-the-mouth location.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laryngeal_theory
Only the Anatolian branch kept them, to some extent. Otherwise they disappeared, often leaving traces on the surviving sounds, such as the "o-coloring" laryngeal, h3, which altered a neighboring "e" into an "o". Only this vowel alternation is apparent in the (non-Anatolian) daughter languages, not the presence vs. absence of a consonant. But Saussure and like-minded researchers said there had to be *some* consonant there, whose absence left traces or influences on what remained.
Why did they say there must have been a consonant there, and not just assume there was vowel alternation as its own phenomenon? To make it fit P-IE phonotactics. Its sound pattern rules wanted to have words of shape CVC (perhaps more consonants in clusters at the beginning and end). Some of the words appeared to have an initial consonant, but no final consonant, just a long vowel. Well, put a lost consonant at the end, and presto!
And not just any ol' consonant -- one that disappeared entirely in the daugther languages. If it were a consonant that were directly evident from the daughters, then there would be no mystery -- such-and-such word ends in "g".
But what if none of the existing consonants in the inventory made sense there? It must have been a consonant not accounted for already -- something exotic.
That's what the laryngeal consonants were -- 3 consonants pronounced way back in the mouth, although there's still debate about where exactly, and whether they were stops or fricatives, but pretty far back. Some posit glottal location, like "h" and the glottal stop. Others, uvulars like "q" and "qʷ". Perhaps pharyngeals like Semitic "ayin". The point being -- something very far back, exotic, perhaps with exotic secondary features as well, like labialization.
I view my own obsession with Proto-Japonic CVCV word shape, the striking oddity of VCV words or CVV sequences in words, and the Dene-Yeniseian ancestry of the family (where words wanted to be CVC, with optional glide between VC), in just the same way as Indo-Europeanists trying to figure out what the hell was going on with those words that didn't have a final consonant like all good P-IE words ought to have!
There just *had* to have been an initial consonants in words that wind up as VCV in P-J. In an earlier stage, call it Pre-P-J, or maybe Proto-Wa, there absolutely *was* a consonant there. It's up to us (me) to figure out what they were.
But the Dene-Yeniseian consonants that immediately jumped out to me as being mapped to nothing, were the uvulars (particularly "G"). Those exotic back consonants strike again, being mapped to nothing and leaving only indirect traces in the surviving sounds, if at all.
I'm not sure about uvulars with labialization -- that labialization gives P-J speakers something to latch onto, and preserve in an overt consonant. That's what they did with labialized velars -- change it to "p", for example. But if there's no labialization, there's nothing to latch onto. Or if there's no palatalization, which could be converted into a "y", then there's nothing to latch onto. So, just get rid of it altogether.
But labialized uvulars only exist in Na-Dene (some branches), not Yeniseian. And since Na-Dene is further removed from Japonic than is Yeniseian, it makes it harder to find good cognates to see what happened to the super-duper exotic consonants.
I already mentioned the loss of "ŋ" (velar nasal, like "ng" in English "sing"), in initial position in modern Chinese languages. It still hangs out in final position, though.
ReplyDeleteBut it's the furthest-back nasal that can reliably be pronounced (uvular nasal "N" almost doesn't exist in reality), so that's what counts for "exotic" among nasal consonants.
In Tungusic, initial "ŋ" was sometimes lost, sometimes altered to "w" or "g". And sometimes kept.
Proto-Uralic had "ŋ", but it was lost in Proto-Finnic, while preserved in the other proto-daughters of P-U.
If the ancestor of Proto-Japonic had it (as in P-Y), it was clearly lost by the P-J stage, with only "m" and "n" surviving.
Several dialects of Arabic have lost "q", a uvular, including the big one, Egyptian, and also Levantine. In both, it is usually mapped to the glottal stop, so technically more of an alteration than the total loss of the consonant, but glottal stops are so weak, it may as well have disappeared entirely.
ReplyDeleteEspecially at the beginning of a word, where it's typical to have a glottal stop before the first vowel, no matter what language it is.
I first became aware of this while exploring Arabic pop music of the '90s / y2k, back when I was studying the language. A hit song of the time, by Amr Diab, is transcribed as "Amarain" in Roman letters, without initial "q", but as "قمرين" in Arabic letters -- with initial "q". That's orthography preserving what has been lost in speech, so that it's easier to tell which of 2 now-homophones are meant.
This word means "two moons" and refers to the woman's eyes. I link the video cuz it has that '90s / y2k Spanish craze, with flamenco, that everything had back then -- even in the Arabic-speaking world, outside of the American Empire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6RC2T3Q7rs
Many cases of losing "h" altogether, including in English, but also in Greek and Vulgar Latin (and therefore all Romance languages, before recently returning via an alteration from "x", as in New World Spanish "gente", which has more of an "h" than a "x" as in Spain).
ReplyDelete"h" is glottal, so very far back in the mouth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-dropping
Back to vtubers, Subaru uses "h"-dropping in her greeting. "Hajimaru" means "it's starting", and many vtubers say this when their loading sequence is over, and the real part begins. Or they make a variation blending it with their own name, like how Marine says "Hajimarin".
ReplyDeleteBut Subaru drops the "h" and says "Ajimaru". It's like instead of saying "How are you?" she said, "Ow are you?" as in some British dialects.
But this is idiosyncratic to Subaru, not part of her region's dialect or a national trend.
And yet, who knows? It could go viral, and suddenly "h" will become lost from the Japanese language!
It does reinforce the larger linguistic point, though -- of all consonants that a vtuber could drop, "h" was the one to go, not "p" or "t" or something else. Very-far-back consonants are most likely to disappear.
So much retro goodness today at Hololive! Su and Riona sang the high-energy opening theme to "Cutie Honey" during their group karaoke with Roboco and Azki! Roboco should have been dancing in the background, while Su and Riona sang the words -- Cutie Honey is a robot-girl, after all! ^_^
ReplyDeleteLuna played ActRaiser, for its 35th anniversary! Has there ever been another mixture of Sim City-style over-head world-development simulator (as God himself, no less), plus an awesome side-scrolling action platformer???!!! Everything was so creative in mixing genres back in the good ol' days...
And Pekora opened lucky bags containing a treasure trove of retro games -- she must have used all four of her lucky rabbit's feet! ^_^ There was nothing but classics, and the only random element was, *which* classic would she get? No shovelware. I was SHOCKED by how affordable retro games are in Glorious Nippon. Those would easily cost 5-10 times as much, in the collapsing imperial shithole of present-day America. Game Boy games for about $3-4, Super Famicom for $5-10 unboxed and only $15 with the box, case, and manual, PS1 for about $10 with the case, booklet, etc.
Japan truly is the utopia of retro video games -- no surprise, they invented the medium! America only invented simulators, not games. There must be piles upon piles of classic video games over there...
You might think I'm looking forward to her playing a Super Famicom game, but I actually am most interested in the original Biohazard (Resident Evil). That's back when they had stationary cameras, so it looked more cinematic -- the position, angle, etc. was chosen to show a particular scene composition. The walls are over here, the statue is off-center, the angle is high looking down, etc. There's no more scene composition in video games, when the camera merely follows the player, like the horrendous trend of "shaky cam" in 21st-century American movies.
I think the original Silent Hill looks less cinematic than the original Resident Evil / Biohazard, for this reason. The camera follows the player too much in Silent Hill.
In movies, the camera can move around, rather than remain stationary. But if camera movement = character movement, it's not moving in an independent, interesting way. It's just following a character, like it's a journalist documenting a live event, not a creative or cinematic approach to using the camera.
I don't think anyone in Hololive has played the original "tank control" Biohazard. I remember Gab Smolders playing it, and the sequel, and the three-quel. And the Alone in the Dark: New Nightmare, also from the late '90s / y2k, with stationary camera and very cinematic look to it.
Regardless of which ones she chooses to play, it's so cool to see the original cartridges (or cassettes, as the Japanese call them), box art, the hand-drawn illustrations for the manuals... everything had so much care and skill in it back then. It's just a manual -- why isn't it just a single page of boring type-face that merely lists the buttons and what they do, and a bullet-point list of the cast of characters. The manuals were created like a comic book!
We had it so good back in the good ol' days...
I have a great idea for a PekoVivi collab -- a watching party for Pretty Woman (1990). Vivi has mentioned it in some detail, so she must have seen it several times. It's a classic, and it has one of the best Manic Pixie Dream Girl characters... and as fate would have it, her name is Vivian, nearly identical to Hololive's newest Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Kikirara Vivi. ^_^
ReplyDeleteLately, Pekora has been testing Vivi's knowledge of classic anime series and music... but perhaps Vivi should turn the tables on her senpai, and take Peko-chan on a journey through classic romantic comedy movies. Not just any ol' chick-flick -- I mean the classics that everyone loves, like Pretty Woman.
I think Pekora likes Vivi so much due to her spontaneity and honesty -- what Vivi feels, she says or does. Vivi is not calculating, planning, scheming, plotting, etc. She doesn't wear a mask.
Pekora is wary of someone plotting against her, betraying her, manipulating her, etc. I don't know where that comes from, but I sense it. Someone like Vivi could never treat her like that, since it requires a high level of control over one's emotions. A totally spontaneous free spirit like Vivi, cannot contain or conceal how she feels, or what she thinks. She just lets it out for the world to see. ^_^
Pekora is also very fond of Nene and Aqua, and they are also spontaneous personalities.
It's not a moral issue, like some people are honest while others are dishonest. It's more like, some people simply can't hide how they feel, while others can hide it. When you're with someone who can't hide it, you know they're not plotting against you or deceiving you or manipulating you. That's what makes it so reassuring to be with a spontanteous person. ^_^
If they want suggestions from a cliff-dwelling sage... I also suggest L.A. Story (1991), another classic with a Manic Pixie Dream Girl character (SanDeE*).
Or Mannequin (1987), which also uses the Pygmalion myth, a guy who falls in love with a female artistic creation of his.
Hmmmm, I wonder if the illustrators and riggers of vtuber models ever think, "Could my creation really come to life and interact with me? Would we fall in love...?"
I'm not sure how well these movies will work in translation, since a lot of the comedic value, or romantic tension, comes from the actors' unique performances, not voiceover actors, who may not have the same interpersonal chemistry. I hope they can watch them with the original English voices, and Japanese sub-titles. Cuz it's not just the plot, character arcs, etc., it's the performances from the actors that really makes these movies classic.
I know other Hololive girls have done watching parties for action, sci-fi, and fantasy movies, but I don't think they have watched romantic comedies. Perhaps cuz they're mostly chick-flicks. But the ones I suggested are very guy-friendly, every guy has fun watching Pretty Woman or L.A. Story or Mannequin or Weird Science (1985, another classic), or Big (1988) and Splash (1984), both with Tom Hanks, or Xanadu (1980), all of them having a fantastical element to them as well (except for Pretty Woman).
That's 7, I'm sure they would enjoy some of them. ^_^
Dene-Yeniseian origin of Japonic words for "morning" and "tomorrow" (next morning) in P-J, and another OJ form as well. All share the stem "as-" -- "asa", "asita", and "asu".
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/asa
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/asita
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%98%8E%E6%97%A5#Old_Japanese
Wiktionary notes that the accent pattern hints that there may be a missing consonant -- and since this begins with a vowel, when Japonic words want to begin with a consonant, we go looking to its Yeniseian and Na-Dene relatives. And not just any ol' consonant, but one of the exotic back ones that will get deleted rather than merely altered.
Seemingly nothing on the Yeniseian side, but there's something on the P-A side of Na-Dene, "qaˑ", which came from pre-P-A "nʸeʼs". One of its meanings is "to dawn".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Athabaskan/qa%CB%91
In P-A, "nʸ" and the velar-ish version "ŋʸ" are interchangeable. So we're free to assume it was "ŋʸ". This is as far back as nasals get, and it has 2nd-ary articulation as well, which makes it extra-exotic. We've already seen this get deleted in initial position in P-J. So it'll get deleted here as well.
Since velars are also somewhat low as well as back, perhaps the "ŋʸ" colored the following "eʼ" when it was altered into "q" in P-A, resulting in a lower vowel "aˑ". It likely did the same thing in the branch that led to the Japonic ancestor as well. But crucially, the coda "s" from pre-P-A was not lost in the Wa / Japonic lineage, leaving "as-" as the P-J stem relating to "dawn" and "morning".
That only leaves a spot open for a final dummy vowel, which seems to have been supplied by OJ syllable frequencies. I said the final vowel may be hinting at a slightly different consonant before it -- but not here, since even the Na-Dene side has "s", which is already present in P-J, and does not need the final vowel to offer further clarification about what it really used to be.
The most common "s" syllables in OJ are in order "si", "sa", and "su", and each is attested in P-J or OJ. Although not the most common, "sa" was probably given to the standalone word "asa" to avoid homophony with standalone P-J "asi" = "foot, leg".
Deleting a problematic back consonant, but also preserving the coda consonant from Dene-Yeniseian -- and on the Na-Dene side! Pretty neat. Those codas don't always get preserved.
Dene-Yeniseian origin of Japonic word for "to fall", in P-J "ətu", whose final vowel is the obligatory Japonic verb suffix "-u". Lucky for us again, we'll see that consonant being preserved from its ancestor, not a dummy consonant for the end of the verb stem (more likely a dummy if it's "r" or "k", the default choices).
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/%C9%99t-
In the CV co-occurrence pattern, we saw the lost consonant in front of "ə"-initial words acting like a back consonant. And that's what we expect -- exotic back consonants are easily mapped to nothing. Once again we go looking for uvulars or velar nasals, in the Yeniseian and Na-Dene relatives...
Well, whaddaya know, one of the very few Proto-Na-Dene reconstructions! It's listed as "qwiːkʼy" at Wiktionary, but the main descendant is P-Athabaskan "q(w)eːtsʼ".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Na-Dene/qwi%CB%90k%CA%BCy
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Athabaskan/q(w)e%CB%90ts%CA%BC
According to the table of obstruent correspondences for the Na-Dene family, P-A "ts'" may come from either "ts'" or "kʲʼ" in P-ND.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na-Dene_languages#Obstruent_correspondences
There doesn't seem to be any motivation for choosing the "kʲʼ" ancestor in P-ND, as there are no Eyak or Tlingit forms listed. So I'll assume the straightforward derivation, from P-ND "qwiːtsʼ".
Well, there's that problematic uvular consonant, which will get mapped to nothing, although perhaps its labialization will color the following vowel into a rounded one. This is what happens in the Athabaskan descendants, where some of the conjugations have "o" instead of a front vowel as the nuclear vowel, as the labialization was lost on the initial consonant.
Of the 2 "o" vowels in P-J, "o2" = "ə" is by far the most common, especially word-initially. So that's where the P-J vowel will end up, after being colored by the lost labialization on the deleted uvular consonant.
Now, the P-ND coda "tsʼ" -- obviously the ejective manner will get merged into plain in P-J. There's no "ts" in P-J, but there is "t" and "s". Ideally, the following final vowel would clue us in, as the Japonic consonant will not be totally faithful to its ancestor. But that vowel is the obligatory "-u" for verbs, so there's no freedom to do it for verbs.
The "s" is already taken by "əsu" = "to push, to press", which I already showed was of Dene-Yeniseian origin as well, cognate with P-A "ŋʷəɬ" = "to handle, move plural objects" (delete the exotic back onset, keep the vowel, centralize the lateral, add the obligatory verb suffix, and presto, P-J "əsu").
To avoid homophony, "t" was chosen instead, and the obligatory verb suffix "-u", yielding P-J "ətu". QED!
The supermarket before a snowpocalypse is like going to a mall in 1987! I haven't seen so many people, from so many walks of life, of all ages, singles and families, packed into the same location at the same time... since at least the '90s, during Christmas season or something.
ReplyDeleteAs for a regular day being like that, yeah, not since the '80s...
During peak Covid hysteria, it got near that level of concentration, but the mood was way more negative then, even though this weekend is supposed to put a damper on everyone's feelings too. But no, everyone was excited! Customers and cashiers alike!
No rudeness, no fear, no hostility or suspicion, no rushing in-and-out ASAP, just taking their time milling around...
If you live where the snowmageddeon is going to hit, and you haven't been out yet tonight -- GO! This is like Social Haley's Comet, during our imperial collapse stage. There won't be many opportunities to feel such collective effervescence again. It doesn't matter what the occasion is -- as long as you get to feel it.
It was really magical, and I'm grateful to get to feel it again sometime before I die. Poor Zoomers and most Millennials have never felt this way, unless they get out NOW.
Don't blink, or you'll miss it!
I may be a cliff-dwelling sage, but I'm really a frustrated extravert, not a people-hating introvert. ^_^
Programming note: Enshittification of Blogger now results in me being unable to "use Blogger" with my browser. I'm still able to post these comments, which I believe go through Google Accounts, and that very same account is the one I use Blogger with.
ReplyDeleteBut suddenly yesterday, with no warning, going to blogger.com redirects to a page saying "browser not supported" -- a bald-faced lie, they've supported this browser forever (yes, even an old version like mine).
IDK what the 'tards who are running Google into the ground are doing with this little stunt. I can visit the home-pages of Blogger's competitors perfectly fine -- WordPress, Medium, Substack, etc. Blogger refuses to even load the home-page, where they try to sell you on signing up for their site instead of their competitors.
Way to sell your product... it's not just the Blogger dashboard for blog operators that is disabled, the ENTIRE HOME-PAGE at blogger.com straight-up re-directs to a white page saying "browser not supported".
Likewise, going to home-page blogspot.com re-directs to the scare-mongering screen of death, but this particular blog of mine is still perfectly visible and interactable.
Is some downwardly mobile fail-coder falling short of some retarded quarterly quota about "number of browsers updated", and they're trying to force this? IDK, Google's search engine doesn't even work anymore, it's no surprise to see them basically kill Blogger like this.
Well, I mainly do threads in the comments section anyway, and will continue doing so here... as long as that works!
But I do want to start a new post sometime... if Blogger doesn't undo their recent crippling mistake, I'll just find somewhere else, and re-post everything over there.
Over 20 years here... but this is how institutions die. During imperial collapse, any retard in the chain of command can just blow the whole thing up, and nobody cares when it happens. Just like the Library at Alexandria -- after the Roman Empire collapsed, the library was already hollowed out, un-funded, and basically in ruins before the great fire struck it down for good.
So it will be with the blogosphere, or the whatever-sphere, as the American Empire continues its collapse.
Somebody out there somewhere is getting the message, though, so it's not all in vain.
My browser is as up-to-date as my OS allows. So it's not like I'm refusing to update the browser. If it just took a little click, and nothing else changed, I'd do it.
ReplyDeleteSo perhaps what they're really trying to force, and what the quota is targeting, is upgrading your entire operating system -- possibly a desperate attempt by Microsoft to get everyone to fuckup-date to Windows 11, which everybody hates and complains about what trash it is.
And so they're calling in favors with their buddies at Google and the other major members of the Silicon Valley cartel, telling them to do whatever they can to force any user of any of their products to, in effect, buy and use only Windows 11, one of the worst OS's of all time.
IDK, but I'm not buying jackshit just to post to my blog, when it's been running smoothly for over 20 years, across various OS's, various hardware units, various browsers and browser versions.
If you start down that path, they'll own you forever. Don't give an inch, or they'll take a mile.
If it means they want to commit corporate and cultural suicide -- let them. There are other sites to post on, and there will always be new ones in the future.
What a bunch of total fuck-ups...
Spread the news of episodes like this, to counteract the propaganda, which hardly anyone even believes anymore, about "meritocracy" and "elite human capital" and "talent rises to the top" and "why America needs to attract the best minds from around the world".
ReplyDeleteThis purposefully broken slop is what the result of all that is. It's not talent, the people at the steering wheel are less and less elite, it's just fake-work make-work for downwardly mobile failures in America and increasing numbers of visa-Americans.
It would be better for society if they were simply handed piles of cash as a bribe NOT to fuck up what they are in possession of, which they did not create. Simply sit back and let it go on auto-pilot, only fix what is broken.
But it's less about the money and bribes, and more about the status and respect -- they like their $40 per order food-delivery slaves showing up at their door every day. But that's a luxury. What they NEED, is elite status and credibility and respect and esteem.
They're not so craven that they'd just take the money as a bribe and say, "OK, we'll just do nothing and let the wonderful thing keep being wonderful". That would wound their pride, since their self-conception -- and the societal perception of them, based on meritocracy propaganda -- is that they're given that pile of cash cuz they're a wiz-kid, a genius, elite human capital, "gifted and talented", the best minds from around the world, bla bla bla.
No you're not, you're a fail-coder who's very likely to break forever what your superior predecessors created -- not elite whatsoever. Just a flunkie.
But flunkies cannot tolerate honesty about being mere flunkies -- they need the self-esteem boost that comes from saying to themselves, and hearing others praise them, "I'm a high-IQ value-adding knowledge worker, and that's why I'm paid the big bucks".
Adam Smith said so in the Theory of Moral Sentiments -- man wants to be loved, but he also wants to be lovely, i.e. worthy of love. He doesn't want pity-love, he wants to deserve the love that he gets. Otherwise it's fake, and most people aren't so dishonest that they'll take fake praise.
That's the trap we fall into with these over-produced wannabe elites -- they aren't actually talented, not in the slightest. But they scratch and claw their way to the top, and are given big bucks as a result... but sadly, to fit the meritocracy propaganda, they must also be given control and influence over some very fragile yet crucial domain of society.
If they were deprived of such influence, according to their actual merit (they're not talented), then they would protest about being given big bucks, but given a fake "training wheels" job where they have no real influence over the outcomes. True -- you're not talented, and that's all you deserve.
But since they've clawed their way to the top of the pyramid, they can't just say, "I was more anti-socially hyper-competitive than the others, that's why I'm here collecting big bucks". It has to be ego-flattering: "I'm such a talented, smart, hard-working go-getter -- if I had not been here, the domain I'm now influencing, may have actually collapsed!"
No, it's collapsing BECAUSE YOU'RE THERE with real influence, cuz we can't just bribe you to leave it alone, since you don't know what the fuck you're doing, or how anything works.
Live by meritocracy propaganda, collapse by meritocracy propaganda...
Japonic word for "raven" could mean "lineage bird", linking it to the use of the raven as a totem animal for a clan in various Pacific Northwest native cultures, some Na-Dene and others not.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravens_in_Native_American_mythology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganhada
P-J "karasu" = "crow, raven", and could break down into "kara + su", where "kara" = "lineage, origin" and "su" is a suffix for various bird names in Japonic, e.g. "uguisu", "hototogisu", "mozu", etc. Earlier I suggested Japonic "su" = "bird suffix" derived from an extension of the Yeniseian word for "hazel grouse", also "su".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/karasu
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/kara
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Yeniseian/su#Etymology_2
This is not a linguistic connection between Japonic and Na-Dene, but a broader Paleosiberian cultural connection -- where ravens are used as totem animals to indicate a clan's lineage. Not a very common totem animal elsewhere in the world, and once again reveals the Steppe / Siberian origin of the Wa / Japanese, not Greater Southeast Asia (duh).
Dene-Yeniseian origin of numerous Japonic words relating to "day" and "daylight", including "shadow" and "mirror", but also "moonlight". All share the meaning of "light" or "to shine, to reflect light", and where the source of light is up in the sky and beaming down on the outdoor environment, like from the sun or moon.
ReplyDeleteFirst, the Japonic words, then the Na-Dene cognate.
P-J "kankai" = "shade, shadow". Unusually, there is actual evidence of a medial nasal, in the Northern and Southern Ryukyuan branches (Kikai and Yonaguni), so we accept a nasal here. Coda consonants are still banned, so there was likely a vowel after "n", which later reduced / vanished during OJ, bringing the nasal and following voiceless stop into contact, spreading its voicing forward to make the "k" into a "g", yielding OJ "kaga" and "kage" in a bound / free pair.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/kankai
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%99%B0#Japanese
Don't be fooled by the "dark" connotation of "shade, shadow" -- it's really about the outline, enclosing a shape or form, that daylight creates when shining down on an object that gets in its way before hitting the earth.
Just above is the Japanese word that only has to do with "shadow", "gloom", "hidden", etc. There's another version, using a different kanji, that comes in the bound / free pair. And this one primarily means "light", as well as "a shape or form reflected in light", and only after that, "shadow" (another kind of shape created by daylight).
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%BD%B1#Japanese
Derived from this "kaga" is "kagami" = "mirror", where the "mi" is the continuative form of the verb "miru" = "to see". So a mirror is the "shape-created-by-daylight seer", the thing that sees a form or image created by daylight. Nothing to do with darkness, shade, etc.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%8F%A1#Japanese
Also explicitly having nothing to do with darkness or nighttime, is "daylight" = "hikage", where "hi" (from P-J "pi") = "sun, day".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%97%A5%E5%BD%B1#Japanese
Then there's "moonlight" = "tsukikage", where "tsuki" (from P-J "tukui") = "moon". This is not daytime light, or from the sun. But still, light shining down from the sky onto the earth. It shares the theme of "shining light" with all the other words, and does not refer to shadows or shade created by moonlight -- only to the light itself that comes from the moon.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9C%88%E5%BD%B1#Japanese