num "water"

[Lex van der Leeden]

At 14:51 20/11/1999 +0100, Jean-Paul G. Potet wrote:
>[I use the square brackets to indicate stress.]
>1) From the examples below, I have the impression that the monosyllabic root
>*num "(drinking) water"  (as opposed to "brine", a crucial problem for
>navigators) is proof of protohistoric contacts between Austronesian and
>Japanese people.
>Tagalog _i[num] > umi[num] / inu[min]_ "to drink"
>Ilokano _da[num]_ "water"
>Japanese _[no]mu_ "to drink"
>2) A contact during early historical times seems to be evidenced by the
>Tagalog word _[hi]bi_ "dried shrimps/prawns", that looks very much like
>Japanese _e[bi]_ "lobster, prawn, shrimp".
>3) The Japanese term _ka[ta]na_ "sword" was introduced as _ka[ta]na_ (with a
>final glottal stop)  in Tagalog during the Spanish period, but has
>disappeared from today's dictionaries.
>Jean-Paul G. POTET. B. P. 46. 92114 CLICHY CEDEX. FRANCE.
>
Ref. *i[nN]um and *daNum [Waruno Mahdi], or *num, or whatever the
(Proto)Austronesian term is, een u-i shift occurs in Central
Malayo-Polynesian Ma'ya from the Raja Ampat Islands: w-inim 'to drink', in
which w- is a subject prefix.

Regards, Lex van der Leeden