Question to Polynesian expert

[Sander Adelaar]

I disagree with everyone! ??... I don't know, just one of those days....

Sander Adelaar



>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