[Mihalic] More etymology

[Ross Clark (FOA DALSL)]

Comments on a few of Tom Slone's etymological notes:

 
Kaikai is currently listed as deriving from PPE on the Web site. 
[Ross Clark (FOA LING)] 
Can somebody please post a URL for "the Web site" that everyone keeps
referring to? Somehow I never got to it, and I have not managed to find it
via Google.
 
  The OED has the origin as ultimately from the Maori for food ("kai" or
"kaikai"):
http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/00125073/00125073se1?single=1&query_type
=word&queryword=kaikai
[note: the above link requires subscription, but you can also find it in the
printed version in a library]

[Ross Clark (FOA LING)] Maori is possible, but so are Tongan and Marquesan.
Interestingly, Marquesan is the only one of these languages which regularly
uses the reduplicated form as its basic verb "eat". I would tend to be
cautious and say "Polynesian", though Maori might be the leading contender.
("Kai" for "food" is still current in NZ English.) 

Lanyon-Orgill (1960: 171) lists "kaikai" as meaning "food" or "to eat" in
Kuanua.
[Ross Clark (FOA LING)] 
This is almost certainly a TP loanword. Tolai has ian "eat", n-ian "food". 


Pamuk: The Tongan word for prostitute is "pa?umutu" (where "?" is a glottal
stop) (Tryon, 1995, part 4, p. 586).
[Ross Clark (FOA LING)] 
Samoan also has pa'umutu "promiscuous" (Milner). Samoan must be the
immediate source of this word in TP, not only because of the known
historical connection, but because colloquial Samoan has [k] for written
"t". 
 
The history of this word is a little obscure. The Samoans have a folk
etymology ("broken skin", referring to the hymen) which I don't find
particularly convincing. (I've just noticed Niuean has /paugutu/, which can
be read as "lip-tarnished".) A colleague once suggested a connection with
Pa'umotu, the group of atolls east of Tahiti. Early Tahitian > Samoan
loanwords are certainly not unknown, but I have been unable to confirm
whether women from these islands had such a reputation. The Tongan word is
most likely a borrowing from Samoan, given by Churchward as a synonym of
/muitau/. Sorry, wandering off topic...


Sanda (1): Could this be from "sandalwood", which is an aromatic wood used
for perfume?
[Ross Clark (FOA LING)] 
Compare Bislama senta, senda, sanda. I think we have to recognize a dual
origin here. English "scent" is probably involved (the change of e > a
before nasal is paralleled in planti, banis), but the retention of final -nt
is not normal in either BLM or TP (compare sen 'cent', kan 'cunt' etc.).
Given that sandalwood was central to an early phase of MP development, it's
a pretty plausible input. (Note that Bislama still has wud "tree, wood",
which would make the back-formation possible.) 

Talatala:  Lanyon-Orgill (1960: 380) also says that this is Fijian.  See
also:
http://www.fijimuseum.org.fj/fm-TCOctober2001.htm
[Ross Clark (FOA LING)] 
This seems likely, with the note that it doesn't mean "Protestant" in
Fijian, but "preacher" or "missionary".  

Tambu: This is now listed as possibly deriving from Kuanua.  I think this
may be PPE though.  Here are parallel words:
Solomon Islands Pijin (tambu/abu/apu/ambu/tapu/tabu): Jourdan (2002:
237-238)
Bislama (tabu/tambu): Crowley (1995: 239, 241)
Broken: apparently no cognate (Shnukal, 1988).

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) cites the origin of the English word
"taboo" as deriving from Captain Cook's voyage to Tonga:
http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/00245891?query_type=word&queryword=taboo
[note: the above link requires subscription, but you can also find it in the
printed version in a library]
and the word was widely used in English in the Pacific during the 1800s.

Tryon (1995, part 1, p. 1145) gives *tapu or *tampu as the
proto-Malayo-Polynesian word for "ancestor".  The only cognates of the
ancestor meaning of "tambu" listed among PNG Austronesian languages listed
in Tryon is for Manam, "tubu" and Nyindrou (Manus Island), "tubu-n", and
there are several cognates among other Austronesian languages (Tryon, 1995,
part 2, p. 214-216).

Lanyon-Orgill (1960: 370-371) confirms that "tabu" in Kuanua means
prohibition, sacred or forbidden, as well as traditional shell money.  Note
that this last meaning is currently not on-line even though it was in
Mihalic (1971).
[Ross Clark (FOA LING)] 
Tambu for "forbidden" is certainly PPE and could be from any number of
Oceanic languages, or even from English I guess. 
I don't think the "ancestor" word has anything to do with it, since it is
*tubu in Proto-Oceanic, and in any case this isn't the meaning in TP.  

Ross Clark 


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