[Tibeto-burman-linguistics] Etymology of the ethnonym Hpyen and variants

[Keita Kurabe]

Dear colleagues,

I'm sorry for my late response. I'm now in a remote area in Kachin State,
Burma, for fieldwork and was away from email.

As far as I know, the direction of lexical borrowing between Shan and
Jinghpaw has mostly been from Shan to Jinghpaw, so I'm not sure that the
Jinghpaw word *phyen* "enemy, soldier" entered into Shan. Actually Jinghpaw
borrowed another word for "soldier," i.e., *lùksùk, *from Shan, i.e., *luk3
sʰɯk4*.

In Shan State, where the Pyen people live, there is a large Jinghpaw
community (especially in Kutkai and Nam Hpat Kar in northern area), but
their migration is relatively recent according to the Jinghpaws living
there, as also reflected in the fact that the Jinghpaw dialect spoken there
is very close to those spoken in Bhamo and Myitkyina of Kachin State.

As Stephen suggested, the cognates of *phyen* "enemy, soldier" are shared
by almost all Jinghpaw varieties, e.g., *pheen* in Turung (Assam), *fyên*
in Gauri (eastern Kachin State), *fin* in Dingga (northern Kachin State),
and *phyen* in Jinghpaw spoken in Shan State, so this word should be
relatively old.

Keita








2018年12月3日(月) 8:52 Stephen Morey <S.Morey at latrobe.edu.au>:

> Dear Everyone,
>
>
> I was going to add that in the Turung variety of Singpho there is a word
> pheen (with an initial pʰ, no palatal -y- and a long vowel) meaning war or
> battle, pheen la meaning soldier.
>
>
> Stephen
>
>
> Stephen Morey
> Senior Lecturer in Linguistics
> Department of Languages and Linguistics
> La Trobe University
> Website:
> http://www.latrobe.edu.au/humanities/about/staff/profile?uname=Smorey
> <http://www.latrobe.edu.au/rclt/StaffPages/morey.htm>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Tibeto-burman-linguistics <
> tibeto-burman-linguistics-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of
> Nathan Straub 曹內森 <nstraub at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Monday, 3 December 2018 12:34:08 PM
> *To:* David Bradley
> *Cc:* Tibeto-Burman Linguistics; vaninaboute at gmail.com
> *Subject:* Re: [Tibeto-burman-linguistics] Etymology of the ethnonym
> Hpyen and variants
>
> In Jinghpaw, hpyen /pʰjen/ means 'adversary, enemy, war, battle', and
> hpyen ma /pʰjen mà/ or hpyen măsha /pʰjen măʃà/ means ˈsoldierˈ.
>
> In Rawang, pin /pʰin/ or pyen /pʰjen/ means ˈarmyˈ or ˈsoldierˈ, and pinla
> /pʰinla/ (Matwanɡ dialect) or penla /pʰenla/ (Daru dialect) means ˈsoldierˈ.
>
> I'm not sure how far away the Jinghpaw are from the Pyen, but maybe it's
> an areal loanword from Jinghpaw that entered local spoken Shan but not the
> dictionary.
>
> Nathan
>
> On Mon, Dec 3, 2018, 07:48 David Bradley <D.Bradley at latrobe.edu.au wrote:
>
> Dear colleagues,
>
> I have not yet seen this book, if anyone has a PDF copy I would be most
> interested.
>
>
> The attachment is the Bisoid section of a forthcoming atlas.
>
>
> The Burmese exonym Hpyin(g) and the Chinese exonym 老品 refer to the Bisu in
> Burmese and Chinese respectively. Some Burmese exonyms in this area were
> borrowed from Shan, like the former Burmese exonyms for the Lahu, Akha and
> (southern) Lisu.
>
>
> The Bisu have visited back and forth over the last fifteen or so years
> between Thailand, Burma and China and can communicate in Bisu, despite many
> years of separation. The Bisu in Thailand think that they came (perhaps as
> war captives) from what is now the Eastern Shan State circa 1850; this is
> the area where the Bisu in Burma (and one village nearby in China) still
> live. A Bisu monk from Burma visited the Bisu in Thailand about 60 years
> ago, the Bisu and others in Thailand are helping the Bisu in Burma to
> develop an orthography, and the Bisu in Burma and China are now
> intermarrying. The Bisu have no military tradition that I know of; in this
> they may be unlike the Phunoi, who have served in a variety of armies over
> the last few hundred years.
>
>
> As far as I know, there is no Shan word like [ph(j)in] for 'mercenary' or
> 'soldier'. The closest is Chinese 兵 which is of course unaspirated, unlike
> the Chinese and Burmese exonyms which are both aspirated. The
> aspirated/unaspirated contrast is stable in Bisoid languages.
>
>
> Phunoi and Côông are apparently quite closely related. There is some
> linguistic data on the dialects of Phunoi collected by Sue Wright, and very
> limited Côông data in various Vietnamese sources.  More data on Phunoi
> dialects and Côông would be most welcome!
>
>
> Bisu and Laomian (who live a bit further north) are fairly closely
> related, but not mutually intelligible; there is a lot of Bisu and Laomian
> linguistic data available. Sangkong is documented in one book in Chinese,
> and is distinct from the other two clusters.
>
>
> All these languages have long been in contact with various Tai languages,
> and have many Tai loanwords: Tai Ly, Tai Khyn or Tai Neu, and more recently
> Kham Muang and Thai into Bisu in Thailand.
>
>
> david
>
>
> Prof David Bradley FASSA FAHA
> Linguistics
> La Trobe University VIC 3086
> Australia
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Tibeto-burman-linguistics <
> tibeto-burman-linguistics-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of
> Patrick McCormick <mccormick.yangon at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Sunday, 2 December 2018 3:35:07 PM
> *To:* tibeto-burman-linguistics at listserv.linguistlist.org
> *Subject:* [Tibeto-burman-linguistics] Etymology of the ethnonym Hpyen
> and variants
>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> I've been reading Vanina Bouté's _Mirroring Power: Ethnogenesis among the
> Phunoy of Northern Laos_.
>
> She claims (p 16) that the name Pyen is from Shan; then later (p41) talks
> about Hpyen meaning "mercenary" in Shan. That py- initial doesn't look
> native Shan to me (it seems common in loanwords, however). Cushing's
> Shan-English dictionary lists nothing like it.
>
> My questions:
> 1) is "(H)pyen an exonym?
> 2) Does it have any recoverable meaning in Phunoi or Bisu?
>
> Any leads would be appreciated. My interest is in the idea of some of
> these groups supposedly having their origins in Burma as mercenaries and
> where this idea came from.
>
> Patrick McCormick
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