*bu

CHILD

Reconstruction analysis

handlebuinitialbrhymeucoverP · V

Notes

This etymon means CHILD. It is included here because of the important WT form bu-snod ‘womb’ (“child-vessel”). Care is required to distinguish this etymon from reflexes of #1733 PTB *r/m-bu ⪤ *pru NEST / WOMB / PLACENTA, above. The Tibetan-Chinese comparison is due to Coblin (1986:164).

Chinese comparandum

僕 OC *b’uk/*b’ôk, GSR #1211b ‘servant, groom, male slave’; Li 1971: *buk; Baxter 1992: *bok; Mand. pú.

The vowel correspondence is regular, as OC *-uk (Li)/*-ok (Baxter) normally corresponds to PTB *-uk, as in ‘bend /crooked’ PTB *guk~*kuk, OC 曲 *khjuk (Li)/*kh(r)jok (Baxter); Mand. qū, qǔ. However, the presence of coda *-k in the Chinese form is unexplained.

Peiros and Starostin (1996.1:57 #203) relate this Chinese word to Tibetan phrug ‘child’ and Burmese pauk ‘young of animals’.
[ZJH]

Reflexes & cognates3 reflexes · 3 subgroups

0Sino-Tibetan (previously published reconstructions)1

*Sino-Tibetanbuʔ ‘boy / servant’Coblin 86: 47

2.1.2.1Tibetan2

Spitipui◦net#471 PTB *s-nwat ⪤ *s-nut ‘MOUTH / VESSEL / WOMB’ ‘womb’Bodh 91: 10.4.8

Tibetan (Written)bu-snod#471 PTB *s-nwat ⪤ *s-nut ‘MOUTH / VESSEL / WOMB’ ‘womb’Matisoff 87 BP

9.0.1Old Chinese1

Chinese (Old)buk ‘servant, male slave’Chinese 僕.Coblin 86: 164

Cite this entry

STEDT etymon #1633, *bu ‘CHILD’.

Stable link: https://larc-iu.github.io/stedt/etymon/1633

Data: STEDT v1.0 (2017). Accessed: [date].

References: isolated to Tibetan?

BibTeX

@misc{stedt-1633,
  title  = {{*bu 'CHILD'}},
  author = {STEDT},
  year   = {2017},
  note   = {Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus (STEDT) v1.0, etymon #1633},
  url    = {https://larc-iu.github.io/stedt/etymon/1633}
}