Re: Japanese from Tungus

On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 10:24:12 -0500, Rob Haden <magwich78@...> wrote:
> On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 10:06:48 +0100, Philip Newton
> <philip.newton@...> wrote:
>
> >Both readings are cognate with Chinese: Ri4ben3, as was previously
> >mentioned in another thread. The first is usually "nichi" or "jitsu",
> >though, when not in the word "Nihon" (and indeed, "Nippon" may be from
> >"nichi" + "hon", since -chi endings can cause following stops to be
> >doubled, and *hh -> pp). Incidentally, there's a difference in
> >meaning: "nichi" usually means "Japan" while "jitsu" usually means
> >"sun" or "day".
>
> What about 'kon nichi wa'?
Good point -- it's "day" here as well.

> Where did the -chi and -tsu endings come from?
Old Chinese final -t, I believe. I think that -chi and -tsu come from
two different waves of borrowings.

> >No. The Chinese cognate is yu3 "language" ("eo" in Sino-Korean). The
> >cognate of Mandarin guó in Japanese in "koku" (also showing the final
> >-k that the word must have had in earlier Chinese.)
>
> Aha.  So where does Japanese 'go' come from?
Eh? Japanese 'go' comes from Chinese yu3 "language". Or what were you asking?

> >"eo", actually, TTBOMK. This is the Sino-Korean word, cognate with
> >Chinese yu3.
>
> TTBOMK?
To the best of my knowledge.

> >gug + mal or gug + eo, not gu + anything.
>
> Right.  'Guk' plus weakening (voicing) of the /-k/?
It's the same Korean letter in each case (kiyeok); which letter you
use in transcription depends on the Romanisation scheme. I think one
common scheme uses |k| syllable-finally but |g| between vowels. Or
maybe I was mixing Romanisation schemes.

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
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