Japanese

[potetjp]

This is for Austronesianists interested in the Austronesian substrate in
Japanese.
Searching through my archives, I have just retrieved Maurice COYAUD's review
of
MURAYAMA, Shichirô (1974)
_Nihongo no gogen_ (Japanese etymologies)
Tôkyô: Kobundo
pp. 93-98 in _Cahiers de Linguistique - Asie Orientale_, # 3, mars 1978
(EHESS, CRLAO, 54 bd. Raspail, 75270 PARIS CEDEX 06. FRANCE. crlao at ehess.fr)
Murayama posits that Japanese is a complex based on an Altaic substrate and
an Austronesian substrate.
Coyaud concludes the Altaic hypothesis might well be a dead-end alley, while
the Austronesian hypothesis requires further research. He wishes the author
had left aside obvious borrowings and expatiated on the major points, such
as the surprising _Izanagi_ "name of  a god in the Shinto genesis < the
first man" < cf. _isa_ "one/first" +  cf. _laki_ "male".
Jean-Paul G. Potet