Reconstruction:Proto-Sino-Tibetan/r/g-na

This Proto-Sino-Tibetan entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

Proto-Sino-Tibetan

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Etymology

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  • Proto-Sino-Tibetan: *r-njəɣ  (Coblin, 1986)
    • Proto-Tibeto-Burman: *r/g-na (Matisoff, STEDT; LaPolla, 1987; French, 1983); *g-na (Benedict, 1972)

Note that Proto-Sino-Tibetan has the same root *na for "ear" and "nose", distinguishing their meanings only with prefixes ("nose": *s-na). A parallelism exists in Chinese (wén < OC *mun, "to smell; to hear").

For Chinese , some modern Northern Min dialects attest the -Ø ~ -ŋ variation in the final (e.g. Jianyang /noiŋ/) as recorded in the historical rhyme book Jiyun. The Hokkien colloquial reading (if not a substrate borrowing) not only suggests an older nasal rhyme, it also appears to point to a proto-initial of *n̥ < *C.n̥.

Noun

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*g-na

  1. ear

Verb

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*g-na

  1. to hear, to listen

Descendants

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  • Old Chinese: (*C.nəʔ (B-S), *njɯʔ (ZS), ear); (èr, cutting off ear as a punishment), (*njɯs (ZS), ear ornament)
    • Middle Chinese: (ȵɨX), (èr), (ȵɨH)
      • Modern Mandarin
        • Beijing: ("ear") (ěr, /ˀɤɻ²¹³/), (èr), (ěr) (èr, /ˀɤɻ⁵¹/)
      • Cantonese
        • Guangzhou: /jiː¹³/
      • Wu
        • Shanghai: (ȵi²³ (colloquial), ɦəɻ²³ (literary))
    • Min
      • Hokkien
        • Taiwan: /çĩ³³, çi³³/ (colloquial), /ni⁵¹/ (literary)
  • Himalayish
    • Tibeto-Kanauri
      • Bodic
        • Tibetan
          • Written Tibetan: རྣ་བ (rna ba, ear)
  • Kamarupan
  • Sal
    • Bodo-Koch
    • Jingpho-Asakian
      • Jingpho: na (ear)
  • Tangut-Qiang
  • Lolo-Burmese-Naxi
    • Lolo-Burmese
      • Burmish
      • Loloish
        • Northern Loloish
          • Yi (Liangshan): (hnep, ear), (hnap, ear (literary)), (hna, to listen actively, to try to hear)
  • Proto-Karen: *naᴮ (Luangthongkum, 2013)

See also

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