Question to Polynesian expert

[Gérard Francillon]

Ross Clark wrote:
>
...
> > 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

Why? I guess it is the Old Javanese form "tatu", not the
Polynesian "tatau", which made its way into our western
langs and usage. It would have come to English, French, et
al., through the Dutch, like many other words from the Dutch
East Indies, "sloop"/"sloep" for one.

Gérard Francillon