Reconstruction:Proto-Mon-Khmer/()ŋaaj
Proto-Mon-Khmer
editEtymology
edit- Proto-Mon-Khmer: *[]ŋaaj (Shorto, 2006, #1453)
Likely related to what reconstructed as *[m]ŋaaj (“person, human being”) (Shorto, 2006), whence Vietnamese người. Compare English pupil, Latin pupilla (“pupil, orphan”), pupus (“boy, child”), Ancient Greek κόρη (kórē, “pupil, girl”), Japanese 瞳 (hitomi, “pupil”) and 人 (hito, “person, human”), Chinese 瞳 (tóng, “pupil”) and 童 (tóng, “child”), Thao thau (“person, pupil”), Tagalog tao (“human, person”) and balintataw (“pupil”), Persian مردم (mardom, “people, pupil”).
The sense "face" also appears in descendant languages, which is obviously secondary and derived from "eye".
Noun
edit*()ŋaaj