[Lingtyp] Unidirectionality of language naming

[Pun Ho Lui]

Dear All,

Recently I have been working on the etymology of language names with etymons such as ’no’, ‘what’, and commonly place names and community names.

It seems that language names (specifically endonyms, i.e. how the locals call their own language) follow a unidirectional change of derivation or semantic extension (e.g using the community name as language name without any formal word formation):

place name> community name> language name

I am wondering if there is any language name that violates the above unidirectional cline.

Thanks.

Warmest,
Pun Ho Lui Joe