Reconstruction:Proto-Sino-Tibetan/mej

This Proto-Sino-Tibetan entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

Proto-Sino-Tibetan

Reconstruction

  • Proto-Sino-Tibetan:
    • Proto-Tibeto-Burman: *ma-y ⪤ *mey (Matisoff, 2003; STEDT)

Most non-Sinitic languages reflect *maj; the Chinese and and Tangkhul vowels are highly aberrant compared to them.

Sagart in 2011 believed that the use of this word to mean "rice" across Sino-Tibetan indicated that Proto-Sino-Tibetans knew rice; he has since retracted this idea since Chinese 米 (mǐ) turns out to not actually be rice-specific.[1]

Sagart (2018) believes that the -m in the Jingpho form comes from the contraction of a compound with *ʔəm (“to eat; rice”).

Noun

*mej

  1. grain

Descendants

  • Chinese: 米 (OC *(C.)mˤ[e]jʔ (B-S)) (see there for further descendants)
  • rGyalrongic
    • East rGyalrongic
      • Situ: smai-khrī (“millet”)
  • Proto-Bodo-Garo: *mai¹ (“rice”)
    • Atong (India): mai (“rice”)
    • Dimasa: mai
    • Garo: mi (“rice”)
    • Kokborok: mai
    • Rabha: মাই (mai)
  • Jingpho-Asakian
    • Jingpho: mam (“rice”)
  • Proto-Tangkhulic: *ma
    • Tangkhul Naga: mā (“paddy”)
  • Proto-Karen: *may
  • Tani
    • Eastern Tani

References

  1. ^ Sagart, Laurent; Jacques, Guillaume; Lai, Yunfan; Ryder, Robin J.; Thouzeau, Valentin; Greenhill, Simon J.; List, Johann-Mattis (2019), “Supplementary Information for the Paper “Dated Language Phylogenies Shed Light on the ancestry of Sino-Tibetan languages””, in PNAS‎[1], volume 116, number 21
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