Re: Arthropoda
| From: | Roger Mills <romilly@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Saturday, June 3, 2000, 3:03 |
|---|
Jonathan Chang wrote:
>natlang Bahasa Indonesia/Malay:
> _semut_ a kind of fierce lil ant (also the name of anti-Japanese
guerilla
>units organized by Tom Harrisson in Borneo during World War 2)
>
I'd almost forgotten about _semut_. I think it's also the general word .
Can't remember "cockroach", but they have big, flying ones there.
Whacked one in my room one night at bedtime; two hours later an army of tiny
ants had dragged it about 2 feet; by 7AM it had vanished. Terima kasih,
semut (Thanks, ants).
In Tetun (Timor) "scorpion" is _sakunar_; Kisar (island to the E.) is
sayorne-- I believe this is an unknown prefix sak- ~ sai- plus the well
known Austronesian word for shrimp, *qudaN, via **uran (metathesis in
Tetun). There is quite a resemblance, I've always thought.