Re: Butterflies

Peter Bleackley wrote:
> Staving taliesin the storyteller:
>
>> I came over this text:
>> http://www.trismegistos.com/IconicityInLanguage/Articles/Beeman.html
>> and it made me think: what are the word(s) for "butterfly" in various
>> conlangs? Klingon lacks the word I think, and I have few if any words
>> for insects in my langs and sketches, including a word for butterfly.
>
>
> I read this article some time ago, and noted that words for "butterfly"
> tend to contain bilabials and at least partial reduplication. Hence the
> Khangaþyagon for "butterfly" is "babal".
The modern Japanese word for "butterfly" is _chouchou_ as listed in that
article.  But in earlier Japanese, it was _tefutefu_, via a set of sound
changes that first eliminated intervocalic _f_ before i, e, o, and u
(and changed to _w_ before /a/), creating _teuteu_, and then a sound
change wherein the sequence /eu/ became /jo:/ (written _you_), thus
/teu/ -> /tjo:/, [tSo:]