Question to Polynesian expert

[Roderick G Orlina]

Well, did he have any Malay shiphands on board the ship?

Rod Orlina

On Wed, 20 Jan 1999, Ross Clark wrote:

> > 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
>