Re: left and right

On Sat, 05 Apr 2008, ROGER MILLS wrote:
> Michael Poxon wrote:
> >I don't know if this is true for the other islands, but on the Big
> > Island of Hawai'i, you don't use compass directions, but "Mauka"
> > (towards the mountain, usually inland) and "Makai" (towards the
> > sea).
>
> ma- either 1. adjective marker or 2. < *mai directional marker
> uka < *qutan, Ml. hutan 'forest'
> kai < *tasik, Ml. id. 'sea'
>
That surprised me enough to get out my proto-polynesian word list
(Biggs, 1979).  A librarian very kindly made me a photocopy of it from
the microfiche some years ago.  I dusted it off and fruitlessly hunted
through it.  It's not in order -- note to self, organise and find a
ring-binder going spare to keep this within for the short term.  I
checked the list I had made from it some years ago on my computer, and
found, without the comparisons that Biggs had:

Ma9uga 'mountain'
9uta 'inland (from shore), shore, land (from sea)'
tahi 'sea'
mai 'toward speaker'

No listing of ma- found.

What puzzled me was I could identify mauka as cognate with maunga in
NZMaori.  Did a split occur between ma9uga and 9uta? so one word has a
velar and the other a dental? or were they always separate words.

Sadly my list does not note where the final consonant has been lost from
the Austronesian parent of Polynesian languages.  Shame that.

- andrew.

--
Andrew Smith  --  hobbit@griffler.co.nz  --
http://hobbit.griffler.co.nz/homepage.html

"If you are gonna rebell you have to wear our uniform."

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