Reconstruction:Proto-Sino-Tibetan/mrəŋ

This Proto-Sino-Tibetan entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

Proto-Sino-Tibetan

Reconstruction

Proto-Sino-Tibetan: *(s-)mrəŋ (Hill, 2019)
- Proto-Tibeto-Burman: (s-)brəŋ (Chou, 1972), *s-b-(r/j)aŋ (STEDT)

Noun

*mrəŋ

bee, fly

Reconstruction notes

The initial *mr- is guaranteed by Chinese, Naish, and with Simon's law (*mr- > br-), Tibetan.

There are at least three velar-nasal-final words related to flying insects attested across Sino-Tibetan:

*mrəŋ "bee, fly", corresponding to Old Chinese 蠅 (OC *ləŋ < *m-ləŋ < *m-rəŋ) (see Schuessler, 2007; Baxter & Sagart, 2014) and cognate to Tibetan སྦྲང (sbrang) and Japhug ɣʑo (Hill, 2019; Zhang, Jacques and Lai, 2019);
*jaŋ (*jəŋ also works), appearing in Burmese ယင် (yang) and other yod-initial cognates; Schuessler attempts to relate those to *jəŋ, another pronunciation which is reconstructed for 蠅 but fails on evidence inside and outside Chinese, however.
Old Chinese 虻 (OC *mˁraŋ).

Attempting to relate these three etyma is phonologically impossible, despite the three etyma being conflated together on STEDT.

The East Bodish forms are also phonologically problematic; they all reflect Simon's law (*mr- > br), which is not supposed to happen in East Bodish. Despite this discrepancy, Bodt derives all Bodish forms from straightforward inheritance from Proto-Bodish *(s)braŋ.

Descendants

Chinese: 蠅 / 蝇 (OC *m-rəŋ (B-S), “fly”) (see there for further descendants)
Proto-Bodish: *(s)braŋ
- Tibetic
  - Tibetan: སྦྲང་བུ (sbrang bu, “fly, bee”)
- Dakpa-Dzala
  - Dzala: པྲང (prang)
- East Bodish
  - Kurtöp: བྲང (brang)
rGyalrongic:
- rGyalrong:
  - Japhug: ɣʑo
Naic:
- Proto-Naish: *mbro lo
  - Naxi: bber'lerl (/⁠bɚ³³ɭɚ⁵⁵⁠/)
  - Narua: bbeu'er (/⁠bɻ̩˧ɻ̩˧⁠/)
  - Laze: [Term?] (/⁠bɔ˧ɭɔ˥⁠/)