In a previous post, I quoted Sagart et al. (2019:26), who presented potential lexical innovations shared by Lolo-Burmese and Gyalrongic. I will quote their list below, with additions from Nungish in italics. All bolding is mine. Unless otherwise stated, Rawang forms come from the Rawang Dictionary.
Sagart et al. say:
The hypothesis of a genetic relationship between Lolo-Burmese and Gyalrongic languages has been previously discussed by several scholars, including Bradley (1997), Jacques and Michaud (2011), and Lǐ (1998). The Burmo-Gyalrongic hypothesis is strongly supported by our analysis. Potential Burmo-Gyalrongic innovations in our database are the following:
1. Japhug ɕɤɣ “new” – Old Burmese sac ‘new’ (Jacques (2004: 190)). This etymon has cognates elsewhere in Sino-Tibetan, but in other branches the coda is nasal (for instance Chinese 新 sin < *siŋ)
Based on Jacques (2004:260, 266, 330), the Japhug word kɯ-ɕɤɣ 'new' corresponds to the Somang/Cogtse Gyalrongic word kə-ɕə́k 'new', and the Proto-Gyalrongic form (minus the pre-syllable) should be something like *ɕ{ɐ/ɔ/ə}k. This k final does fit with the Old Burmese -c. On the other hand, Nungish has a final rhotic, as seen in Rawang ʃə́r 'new' and Central T'rùng sər⁵⁵ 'be new' (T'rùng Dictionary). The rhotic fits better with Tibetan གསར་ gsar 'new' and Burmese θa < sa < *sar 'titivate' (Hill 2019:71). I will have to take Nungish out of the running for this one.
2. Japhug ɣɯrni “red” – Old Burmese nī ‘red’ (Jacques (ibid.: 172))
3. Japhug zdɯm “cloud” – Old Burmese tim “cloud” (Jacques (ibid.: 185))
4. Japhug ɯ-ʁɤri “the front side” – Old Burmese rheʔ ‘the front side’ (Jacques (ibid.: 104)).
5. Japhug tɯ-rtsʰɤz “lung” – Old Burmese ʔachut ‘lung’ (Jacques (ibid.: 150)).
Rawang rəʃɯ́ 'lung'; Central T'rùng rə³¹sɯ⁵⁵ (T'rùng Dictionary). The Nungish r initial fits the Japhug r, and the Nungish ɯ vowel fits Japhug ɤ and Old Burmese u, but the final z or t does not appear in Rawang, unless we say that it became a high tone. Also, the tsʰ / ch cluster does not correspond terribly well with Nungish ʃ / s. It is possible that Japhug and Burmese added a dental suffix after splitting off from Nungish, so I will take Nungish out of the running for this word.
6. Japhug tɯ-mɯ “rain, sky, weather” – Rangoon mo⁵⁵ ‘rain, sky’(Jacques (ibid.: 154))
Rawang mu͏ʔ 'sky, rain, name of a spirit-deity', dəmɯ̀ 'god' (Mətwàng); gəmɯ̀ 'god', gəmɯ́ 'heaven' (Jerwàng and other northern dialects). Since I have not read up thoroughly on Japhug morphology, I don't know whether to ignore the tɯ- pre-syllable or not. As Hill (2017) points out, not only Rawang but also Old Tibetan dmu 'a type of sky god' corresponds well to the Japhug form.
7. Daofu sme “woman” – Old Burmese minḥ-ma ‘woman’
The Daofu form would be better matched with Burmese သမီ θəmí < sa-mīḥ 'daughter' (spelling from Hill 2019:59). Rawang has a similar word, zəmì 'girl, bride', which is also used as part of some women's names, but it might be a Burmese loanword.
From the Rawang Dictionary:
zəmì rɯt lə́m ʃaʔrépèla búŋe. "The elders went to ask/propose a bride."
zəmì-ʃə́r 'bride' (dictionary entry erroneously reads 'groom') (lit. girl+new)
zəmì-sè (girl-son/diminutive) 'baby girl'
zəmì-sè-rì (girl-son-PL) 'family you give your daughter to (brothers and uncles from the woman's side)' [here son-PL means 'people']
Interestingly, there is also a Rawang word with the syllables switched: məzè 'girl, woman (a formative in noun compounds)', e.g. ŋà-ní məzè (1SG-DL girl) 'we two women'.
From the Rawang Dictionary:
àŋ-ní məzè tuʔ-daʔ-ì.
3SG-DL girl arrive-DOWN/TOWARD-3INTR.PST
"The two girls have arrived."
As I mentioned above, I believe that zəmì comes from Burmese *sa-mīḥ 'daughter' (son-female), the equivalent of Rawang sè-mè < Proto-Nungish *tsə̀{l/j}-mə̀j (son-female) 'daughter', and məzè probably comes from either the two Burmese syllables in reverse or from the Rawang phrase mè-sè < *mə̀j-tsə̀{l/j} (female-son/diminutive) 'little girl'.
Note that the cognacy between Rawang zəmì and Burmese sa-mi was long ago noted by Benedict (2008[1941]:165), based on the Waʔdə́mkong form zami 'daughter' (Barnard 1934:74). He also cites the Linguistic Survey of India (Grierson 1928:24, 156), which provides the form sɑ̀mi 'daughter', also collected by Barnard: with the s initial, this one is even closer to the Burmese spelling.
As evidence that syllable reduction in Rawang dialects is possible, compare the following words from Melam (a northern Anu variety) collected at Tsekou (Cigu) on the upper Mekong River (d'Orleans 1898:439-446), with the latter two transcribed by Father Dubernard:
poumakielra [puma-cəl-ra] (woman-son/child-group) 'daughter'
poumatienza [puma-cən-za] (woman-son/child-group) 'daughter'
lankiera [laŋ-ce-ra] (man-son/child-group) 'son'
Now compare them with modern spoken Mətwàng:
səmaré ~ səmasəré (səma 'woman', -sə- 'child?', -ré 'group, class') 'woman'
ləŋàré ~ ləŋàsəré (ləŋà 'man', -sə- 'child?', -ré 'group, class') 'man'
I heard the two forms with the infixed -sə- from Ráwàng Gønzì in Yangon, and when I asked about them to see whether they came from the word sè 'son, child', she said no, that's just they way they say it sometimes. I still suspect that -sə- is derived from 'son', but that it is now fossilized, whereas it was still recognizable in 1895-1896 in the case of Melam. This still doesn't mean that zəmì is not a Burmese loanword, but it does show how the process of fossilization works -- and even today, you can add -sè 'son/child/diminutive' to the end of səmasəré 'woman' or ləŋàsəré 'man'. And the cycle goes on!
8. Daofu kvo, Wobzi Khroskyabs djú “year” – Lisu kho̱³¹ “year” (Jacques (2014: 101)).
9. Japhug nɯqambɯmbjom, Wobzi Khroskyabs jmbjə̂m “to fly” – Old Burmese pjaṃ ‘to fly’. This root is related to Tibetan ’byam “spread” and Chinese 泛 phjomH “float”, with unidirectional semantic change “float” → “fly”. The Japhug verb form has reduplication and additional prefixes, but related language have the simple verb root.
[10.] Jacques (ibid.: 305-306) lists a additional few phonetic and lexical innovations, notably the verb ‘to be’, ŋu in Japhug, ŋǽ in Wobzi Khroskyabs, corresponding to Proto-Burmese *ŋwa¹ ‘to be the case’ (Bradley 1979 0698a). Jacques (2014: 305-306) suggests that the copular use of this verb is derived from an earlier meaning, namely ‘to be true’.
Rawang has the form ˀɯ̀ŋ 'yes', which can be used to acknowledge an interlocutor's statement, respond affirmatively to a question, or to place emphasis after one's own statement. This is a widespread iconic ideophone, as the Mandarin Chinese spoken in Jinmen, Taiwan (and no doubt elsewhere) has a similar form: ˀɯ̀ŋ/ˀm̀/ˀǹ, used in affirmation after someone has asked you a question. English has it too, for that matter, in our grunt "mm-hmm".
On another note, compare Jinghpaw ŋà 'be, exist' and ŋa 'say, speak, declare' -- these two forms correspond to the Burmo-Gyalrongic forms, and they also correspond in semantic range (but not in phonetic form) to the Rawang forms əl ~ e 'exist in a place; say, tell; call/name someone'. This semantic range shared by the Jinghpaw and Rawang terms, as well as the semantic extension pathway 'be true' > 'be the case' > 'be' suggested for Burmo-Gyalrongic, appears to be an areal feature.
Summary
Out of ten etyma proposed by Sagart et al. and Jacques as Burmo-Gyalrongic innovations, one appears in Nungish with close correspondence ('sky'); two appear with distant correspondence ('new' and 'lung'); one appears as a possible Burmese loanword ('woman'), and one has ideophonic similarity and a possible semantic areal feature ('be').
I don't know whether that casts doubt on the uniqueness of the innovations or if it pulls Nungish in closer to the tenuous Burmo-Gyalrongic orbit. As with many things in comparative-historical linguistics, evidence of genetic closeness is a matter of degrees, in counting how many isoglosses are shared and how closely they correspond. The next step would be to figure out some regular sound correspondences for Lolo-Burmese, Gyalrongic, and Nungish. Considering the messiness of the data already presented, that step will take a lot more work.
It is a credit to Jacques, Sagart et al., and Hill, that, each in their own way, they have moved the conversation forward this far in our search for evidence of historical relatedness.
References
Barnard, Joseph Terence Owen. 1934. A handbook of the Răwang dialect of the Nung language. Rangoon: Superintendent of Gov’t. Printing and Stationery.Bradley, David 1979. Proto-Loloish. London: Curzon Press.
Bradley, David. 1997. Tibeto-Burman languages and classification. In David Bradley (ed.), Papers in Southeast Asian Linguistics. Vol. 14, 1–72. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
Coblin, W. South. 1987. A note on Old Tibetan mu. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 10.1, 166–168.
Grierson, George Abraham (ed.). 1928. Linguistic survey of India. Vol. 1 (Part 2): Comparative vocabulary of Indian languages. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent, Government Printing, India. http://dsal.uchicago.edu/books/lsi/ (15 August, 2015).
Hill, Nathan W. 2017. Songs of the Bailang: A new transcription with etymological commentary. Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 103. 386–430.
Hill, Nathan W. 2019. The historical phonology of Tibetan, Burmese, and Chinese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Orléans, Henri Philippe Marie, prince d’. 1898. From Tonkin to India by the sources of the Irawadi, January ’95-January ’96. London: Methuen. http://seasiavisions.library.cornell.edu/catalog/sea:054 (17 July, 2015).
