Question to Polynesian expert

[Ross Clark]

> Date sent:      Tue, 19 Jan 1999 16:11:00 -0500 (EST)
> Send reply to:  rorlina at ic.sunysb.edu
> From:           Roderick G Orlina <rorlina at ic.sunysb.edu>
> To:             " AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS" <AN-LANG at anu.edu.au>
> Subject:        Re: Question to Polynesian expert
> Originally to:  Robert Blust <blust at hawaii.edu>

> Hi.
>
> I'll have to disagree with Bob about the source of our word "tatoo"
> because I believe it derives from the Old Javanese word "tatu", which
> means, "wound, scar" (Zoetmulder).  Southeast Asia definately has a long
> history of "tatoo"-ing, and the borrowing seems to correspond directly to
> the Old Javanese, rather than a Polynesian, source.
>
> Rod Orlina
>


No it doesn't. The word first appears in English in Cook's voyages,
in descriptions of Tahiti and other Polynesian societies. Cook spells
it "tattow"; Bougainville a few years earlier had spelled it "tataou"
(in French). Both of these are clearly attempts to represent the
Polynesian /tatau/. If there is a puzzle here, it is why the final
syllable changed from /taw/ to /tu:/ in English.

Ross Clark