whale > crocs and sharks

[Danny Long]

potetjp wrote:

> FORMOSA
>
> Even stranger is the Puyuma term - buaya - because it means "crocodile" is
> many other languages.
> To refer to crocodiles, the Puyumas use a Japanese loanword _wani_  (Liste:
> # 262) < Jap. _wani_ (Nelson (1969): _The modern reader's Japanese-English
> character dictionary_: # 5317).
> I suppose Japanese traders bought crododile skins (Jap. _wanigawa_) from the
> Puyumas so that the Japanese term _wani_ was substituted to the native term
> for "crocodile", now lost.
> Incidentally Jap. _wanizame_ "shark" is derived from  _wani_ "crocodile"
> (ibid); _same > -zame_ (Nelson #5294) means "shark".
> _Kodansha's furigana English-Japanese dictionary_ (1994) translates "shark"
> by _same- and _fuka_ (cf. Nelson # 5337), so I conclude _wani_ is now
> obsolete and that the trade I was referring took place when Formosa was
> Japanese, unless ancient and dating back to the Middle-Ages.
> Jean-Paul G. POTET

I am always pleased and intrigued when Japanese comes up on this list.
Keeping in mind that I am saying these things off the top of my head (I'll have
to check them later if people are interested), here are a few things to
consider:

As far as I know there are no crocodiles or similar animals in Japan (including
Okinawa), although (as J-P. Potet pointed out), the term for these foreign
animals is "wani".

Yes, there are three Jap. terms for Eng. "shark".  They are "same", "fuka", and
"wani".

I have always just assumed (but would have to verify) that "wani" (shark) was
the original term, and that the semantic field of the term was expanded to
include these big over-seas lizards when the Japanese learned of their
existence.  I do not what was meant by "obsolete", but "wani" is still used for
both these big lizards (crocodiles, alligators, etc.) as well as some kinds of
sharks (i.e. Sand-tiger sharks are "shiro (white) -wani").

The compound "wani-zame" may not mean "crocodile-shark", so much as
"shark-shark", if you get my drift.

Also, since J-P. mentioned the Nelson Kanji dictionary, let me point out that
the two-syllable open-syllable forms do look like indigenous Japanese, as
opposed to Chinese borrowings (but again I would have to verify that) (as
opposed to Chinese borrowings).

Danny
--
Daniel Long, Associate Professor     tel  +81-426-77-2184
Japanese Language and Literature Dept.    fax  +81-426-77-2140
Tokyo Metropolitan University
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