nanguy 'pig' in Akit

[antonia soriente]

I do not work in Sumatra but in Borneo where the word langui means obviously
'to swim' and is not used to refer to boars. But let me point out one
important thing that wildboards do during the fruit season in the jungle,
that is moving in herds and swimming in the rivers to reach the fruit areas.
Have a look at the follow from a book of an anthropologist who studied
animal and human behavior in Borneo.
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=tI477-njXEQC&pg=PA253&lpg=PA253&dq=musim
+babi+berenang&source=bl&ots=oAOvzZSP8M&sig=TM8pw0qKqlFMEc9yB3lOADyCPbQ&hl=e
n&ei=Y5AITJPvJ4qCOPedxAE&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAgQ6AE
wAA#v=onepage&q=musim%20babi%20berenang&f=false

Hope this can help.

 

Antonia Soriente

Indonesian studies

Universita' di Napoli "l'Orientale"

 

 

  _____  

From: an-lang-bounces at anu.edu.au [mailto:an-lang-bounces at anu.edu.au] On
Behalf Of Karl & Kristen Anderbeck
Sent: Thursday, 3 June 2010 9:17 PM
To: an-lang at anu.edu.au
Subject: [An-lang] nanguy 'pig' in Akit

 

Greetings,

 

I'm taking a look at a book on the (Malayic) Akit speech variety (Rupat
Island, Riau Coast, Sumatra, Indonesia).  Although it is a fairly
straightforward Malay variety, not too weird lexically, phonologically or
morphologically, one word really threw me: nanguy 'pig'.  PMP *nanguy 'swim'
comes immediately to mind (cf. also PMP *babuy 'pig').  Now Malayic
innovated all PMP -*uy diphthongs to i, e.g. babi 'pig', etc.  

 

I do not see any phonological innovations in Akit which could have produced
such a diphthong, but neither can I imagine a semantic path from a possibly
pre-Malayic, substratal nanguy 'swim' to 'pig'.  

 

All that comes to me is Flo in the 70's sitcom Mel, saying, "When pigs fly!"

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks,

Karl Anderbeck

National University of Malaysia 

 

Reference: Umar, Said Mahmud, T. Nontel, Pang Cik, Burhan Yunus. 1991.
Struktur Bahasa Akit. Jakarta: Pusat Bahasa.  

 

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