Sila[ ]

[Waruno Mahdi]

> Paul Geraghty and I are looking for possible cognates of Fijian /silaa/
> 'Job's tears, Coix lachryma-jobi', which has also taken on the meaning

The formally PMP form, with numerous attested reflexes in WMP and CMP
languages of Indonesia, seems to be *qa[n]zel[a]i,  but the *z calls for
caution, suggesting possible post-PMP horizontal propagation. In other
words, this is a post-factum reconstruction on the base of what a
somewhat mixed process of inheriting and borrowing has left behind,
and must not necessarily be an accurate representation of the original
form. So, Fiji silaa and Anejom nadej might perhaps well prove to be
ultimately related after all.

The reflexes I have (Mahdi 1994:471 n. 113) are:
WMP:
Malay h at nj@lay, Sundanese hanj at li, Old Javanese jah at li,
Madurese jhAnglE(h), Balinese jali-jali, Ngaju j at lEy.
CMP:
Roti dele, Haruku sale.
(@ = schwa, A = v-rotated, E = epsilon)

That's all I have.

Aloha,  Waruno