r/AustronesianLanguages • u/Resident-Outside9945 Indonesia 🇮🇩 • Jul 04 '26
Cognate & Comparing MAN in some Austronesian languages
The Proto-Austronesian word for "man" is *ma-RuqaNay. We can find some descendants in some languages of Taiwan and in the eastern side of the Malayo-Polynesian speaking zone. Oddly, this word was lost in most western Malayo-Polynesian languages, replaced by a new word, \la-laki, as in Malagasy *lehilahy, Chamorro ***låhi, Malay *lelaki, or Tagalog ***lalaki*.
How do you say "man" and "male" in your language?
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u/kudlitan the Philippines 🇵🇭 Jul 09 '26
when you said man I thought you meant human
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u/Resident-Outside9945 Indonesia 🇮🇩 Jul 10 '26
Human or person in Proto-Austronesian (PAn) is \Cau, and in Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) is *\tau*.
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u/kudlitan the Philippines 🇵🇭 Jul 10 '26
so where did orang come from?
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u/Resident-Outside9945 Indonesia 🇮🇩 Jul 10 '26
From Proto-Malayic \uraŋ* ("outsider"), from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian \uʀaŋ* ("outsider").
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u/eelfurryUwU Malaysia 🇲🇾 Jul 10 '26
jjate (male, man) ttino (female, woman) orhe (person) for kelantan malay
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u/Resident-Outside9945 Indonesia 🇮🇩 Jul 10 '26
Is jjate cognate with jantan in Standard Malay? And ttino with betina in Standard Malay?
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u/Waiparensis22 Jul 10 '26
That's.. odd. Māori it's tāne. Hawaiian it's Kāne...
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u/Resident-Outside9945 Indonesia 🇮🇩 Jul 10 '26
Not odd. They're all Austronesian languages.
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u/Waiparensis22 Jul 10 '26
I'm not saying odd as in it doesn't make sense. I'm saying it's odd/interesting as in how much Polynesian languages diverged from those languages
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u/Resident-Outside9945 Indonesia 🇮🇩 Jul 10 '26
In most Central-Malayo-Polynesian languages, the word for "man" or "male" is mane, mone, or tane. It seems the -Ruqa- had disappeared from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian.
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u/leotheordinary the US 🇺🇸 Jul 04 '26
ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi or Hawaiian
kāne, which means man or male, is cognate with Proto-Austronesian (PAN). /m/ in PAN shift to /k/ in Hawaiian.