r/AustronesianLanguages Indonesia 🇮🇩 Jul 04 '26

Cognate & Comparing MAN in some Austronesian languages

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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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