Reconstruction:Proto-Sino-Tibetan/g-rjum

• Proto-Sino-Tibetan: *gryam (Coblin, 1986), *gyam(ʔ) (Chou, 1972)
  • Proto-Tibeto-Burman: *g-ryum, *gryum (Matisoff, STEDT; Benedict, 1972; Chou, 1972; LaPolla, 1987)

*g-rjum

1. salt; salty, salted; to salt

• Old Chinese: 鹽 / 盐 (*ɴ.rom (B-S), *g.lam (ZS), “salt”); 鹽 / 盐 (*ɴ.rom-s (B-S), *g.lams (ZS), “to salt”); 鹹 / 咸 (*Cə.ɡˁrom (B-S, *grɯːm (ZS), “salty”)

  Note: Vowels of the two above did not match in MC, and some (e.g. Schuessler) have therefore treated them as unrelated. Here that possibility is considered unlikely, hence treated as doublets.

  • Middle Chinese: 鹽 / 盐 (jiᴇm, jiᴇmH, “salt; to salt”), 醃 / 腌 (ʔɨɐm, ʔɣiᴇm, “to salt”), 鹹 / 咸 (ɦɣɛm, “salty”)

    → Japanese: 塩 (えん, ​en)
    Korean: 염 (鹽, yeom)
    Vietnamese: diêm (鹽)

    → Thai: เค็ม (kem, “salted, saline”)
    Lao: ເຄັມ (khem, “salted, saline”)

    • Modern Mandarin
      • Beijing: 鹽 / 盐 (yán, /i̯ɛn³⁵/, "salt"; yàn, /i̯ɛn⁵¹/, "to salt"), 醃 / 腌 (yān), 腌 (ā) (yān, /i̯ɛn⁵⁵/, "to salt"), 鹹 / 咸 (xián) (xián, /ɕi̯ɛn³⁵/, "salty")
• Himalayish
  • Tibeto-Kanauri
    • Bodic
      • Tibetan
        • Tibetan: རྒྱམ་ཚྭ (rgyam tshwa, “a kind of salt, ocean salt”) (Benedict (1972) considered this to be a loanword from Old Chinese)
    • Lepcha: ᰟᰩᰮ (vóm, “salt”)
  • Mahakiranti
    • Kiranti
      • Eastern Kiranti = Rai
        • Limbu: ᤕᤢᤶ (yum, “salt”)
• Jingpho-Asakian
  • Jingpho: jum (“salt”)
• Lolo-Burmese
  • Burmish
    • Burmese: ယမ်း (yam:, “gunpowder, earlier: salt?”) (whence ယမ်းစိမ်း (yam:cim:, “saltpetre”))

• *tsa (“salt”)
• *m-tsji (“salt”)
• *hjam (“salty”)
• *kaʔ (“bitter”)