<研究ノート>アタヤル語群の「酒」と「器具を洗う」のつながり

Abstract

オーストロネシア語族アタヤル語群(アタヤル語とセデック語)において、「酒」が「器具を洗う」から派生された可能性を示す。セデック語の「酒」sinawは、「器具を洗う」sinawと同形である。アタヤル語の「酒」quawは、「器具を洗う」quaxに酷似する(しかも語末wとxは同一音素に遡る)。セデック語とアタヤル語のそれぞれの「酒」の形式は同源と見なすことはできないが、それぞれの「酒」の形式は、それぞれの言語における「器具を洗う」と同形と見なせる。さらに、セデック語の「器具を洗う」は、オーストロネシア祖語の*Sifiawに遡る。そのためセデック語においては「器具を洗う」が先で、「酒」はその語根を転用したのだろう。この「器具を洗う」から「酒」への転用が、アタヤル語にも起こったのではないか。オーストロネシア祖語に「酒」が再建され得ないことも、「酒」が後に創られた形式であることを支持する。

This paper suggests that “wine” is derived from “wash utensils” in the Atayalic languages (Austronesian), including Atayal and Seediq. In Seediq, “wine” is sinaw, which is the identical form for “wash utensils.” These seem to be homonyms. However, Atayal has an overlapping situation. In Atayal, “wine" is quaw, which resembles quax, the form for “wash utensils” In addition, the word-final w and x date back to the same phoneme in Proto-Atayal. It is unlikely that the similarities in the forms for “wine” and “wash utensils” observed in these closely related languages is merely a coincidence. In Seediq, sinaw “wash utensils” reflects the Proto-Austronesian *Siiiaw “to wash.” Therefore, Seediq sinaw originally meant “wash utensils.” It probably gained the meaning of “wine” afterwards. The same semantic shift might occur in Atayal as well. That is, *quag (a Proto-Atayal form) originally meant “wash utensils, ” and it gained the meaning of “wine” afterwards. In present-day Atayal, the two meanings are differentiated by the final consonants: “washutensil” has the final x, and “wine” has the final w. Furthermore, a proto-form for “wine” cannot be reconstructed for Proto-Austronesian. This also supports the idea that the word for “wine” was innovated at a later stage.