Talk:馬騮

Etymology

@Huhu9001, Wyang, I don't think Zhang Yongyan was necessarily talking about 馬騮, but 沐猴, so we probably shouldn't cite him for this. I think we should clear up whether this word is Sino–Tibetan or Tai–Kadai. In many Tai languages, the word for monkey is from Proto-Tai *liːŋᴬ; Zhuang maxlaeuz seems to be restricted to some dialects (including Wuming, Hengxian, Yongning, Shanglin, Guigang, Lianshan, Qinzhou, Long'an, Fusui) of Zhuang (but cf. Ong Be ma³-lu²). Does this make it unlikely for it to be a native Tai word? Would a Sino–Tibetan etymology be more likely (cf. Proto-Sino-Tibetan *m(j/r)uk)? — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 13:55, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

To justin(r)leung: I don't think we are supposed to clear up the poorly-known etymologies of Old Chinese here in Wiktionary. I would rather merely rephrase published linguistic conclusions/assumptions.Huhu9001 (talk) 03:47, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

@Huhu9001: I think we can "clear up" by finding more published work on this word. If the literature doesn't have agreement, we can certainly list out different accounts as equally probable, but if the literature gives more support to a particular view, we should probably adopt that as the main view and list other views as alternatives. Right now we are asserting the Tai–Kadai substrate theory as the main view, but I just wanted to see if there's more evidence for a Sino–Tibetan etymology. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 03:56, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

@Justinrleung, Huhu9001 Let's describe the etymology as 'Unknown' and list the two as hypotheses. Wyang (talk) 10:08, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

This may be an interesting read: [1]. Wyang (talk) 10:11, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

@Wyang, Huhu9001: I've put "Unknown" in. Please add to it if you think it needs more info. And yeah, I've stumbled upon that article when I was researching dialectal words for 螳螂 (like 馬螂狂). — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 05:42, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

@Wyang: I put in *m(j/r)uk per Schuessler, who says it's reminescent of it. Do you think it's fine and should we cite him? — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 05:48, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

@Justinrleung I think it's fine. Wyang (talk) 05:50, 2 November 2017 (UTC)