Reconstruction:Proto-Sino-Tibetan/s-nəw

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: *njuɣ (Coblin, 1986)
    • Proto-Tibeto-Burman: *s-nəw (Matisoff, STEDT), *nəw, *nuw (Weidert, 1987), *nuw (Benedict, 1972; Michailovsky, 1991), *nuw(*C) (Coblin, 1986)

According to Schuessler (2007), it may be an areal word. Compare for instance Mundari नुनु (nunu, “breast”), Proto-Mon-Khmer *ɲuuʔ (“to drink”) and also Proto-Austronesian *nunuh (“female breast”), whence Tsou nunu and Big Nambas nunu (Handel, 2008; Blust, ACD).

Chinese 乳 (OC *njoʔ, “breast, nipple”) could alternatively be the endoactive derivative of 懦 (OC *njo, “soft”), meaning literally “the one which is soft”.

Noun

*s-nəw

  1. breast, nipple
  2. milk

Descendants

  • Chinese: 乳 (OC *noʔ (B-S), “breast; to give birth; milk; to suckle”) (see there for further descendants)
  • Himalayish
    • Tibeto-Kanauri
      • Bodic
        • Tibetan
          • Tibetan: ནུ་མ (nu ma, “breast, nipple”), ནུ་བ (nu ba, “to suck”), ནུད་པ (nud pa, “to suckle”)
  • Kuki-Chin
    • Central Chin
      • Mizo: hnute (“breast, milk”), hnute, nu (“mother, married woman”)
  • rGyalrongic
    • West rGyalrongic
      • Tangut: 𗨔 (*new¹, “breast”)
    • East rGyalrongic
      • Situ: tənuʔ
  • Lolo-Burmese
    • Burmish
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.