luav

White Hmong edit

Etymology edit

From Proto-Hmong *ʔljuᴮ (“rabbit”). The "donkey" sense is apparently connected to the "rabbit" sense (perhaps owing to donkeys and rabbits both having similarly-shaped ears), along with Chinese 騾／骡 (luó, “mule”) (and perhaps 驢／驴 (lǘ, “donkey”)), though the internal details are unclear.^[1]

Pronunciation edit

IPA^(key): /luə̯˧˦/

Noun edit

luav (classifier: tus)

a rabbit, hare, bunny
a donkey

Usage notes edit

A rabbit may be referred to as luav nas to disambiguate from a donkey, the latter which may be referred to as luav nees.

References edit

Heimbach, Ernest E. (1979) White Hmong — English Dictionary‎^[1], SEAP Publications, →ISBN, page 122.

^ Ratliff, Martha (2010) Hmong-Mien language history (Studies in Language Change; 8), Camberra, Australia: Pacific Linguistics, →ISBN, page 63; 276.

[1] Ratliff, Martha (2010) Hmong-Mien language history (Studies in Language Change; 8), Camberra, Australia: Pacific Linguistics, →ISBN, page 63; 276.

[1]