i   

idiot, fool

Probably a Tagalog loan distribution.

idiotic:   stupid, idiotic

Borrowing into Casiguran Dumagat from a GCPh source (probably Tagalog).

idle:   lazy, idle

The Casiguran Dumagat form is assumed to be a loan from Tagalog or Bikol.

ignorant, uneducated; poor

This is a very mysterious comparison. Given its gloss, which almost certainly implies a literate society, the distribution seen here must be a product of borrowing, but its source, and why it is known so far only in Palawano and Tboli among members of the Philippine subgroup, is still unresolved. Given their mobility, this may have originated with the Sama-Bajaw, and spread by borrowing from them to a few select land-based populations.

ill:   seriously ill

Probably a Malayo-Chamic innovation that has been borrowed from Malay into Dairi-Pakpak Batak and Mongondow.

imitate, copy

Borrowing from Malay. Dempwolff (1938) reconstructed ‘Uraustronesisch’ *tiru ‘to imitate, copy’ (nachnahmen).

imported vase or jar of Chinese origin

As the glosses in several languages indicate, this is a Chinese loan, although the Chinese language from which it comes and the time of borrowing remain unclear.

in harmony, synchronized

Borrowing of Spanish compas ‘in time, rhythmically’.

incantation

Borrowing, ultimately from Javanese, but with likely mediation through Malay in the case of Tagalog (pa)ŋadyiʔ. Dempwolff (1934-38) also included Sa'a jäsi-kana'a cycle of songs dealing with the herœs of Old Malau, containing reputedly good teachinǵ, and Fijian kaci 'call, invite', but these are far more convincingly treated as chance similarities.

incite

Borrowing from Tagalog.

incite, prod into action

Also Tagalog súhol ‘bribe’. The forms in non-Central Philippine languages are assumed to be borrowings of Tagalog sulsól.

inclination:   leaning, inclination, predilection

Borrowing from Tagalog into Itbayaten.

Indian

Borrowing from Tamil.

indigo dye

Borrowing of Spanish añil ‘indigo plant; indigo; indigo blue’.

Indonesia:   Chinese born in Indonesia

Borrowing from Malay.

induced, tricked

Borrowing from Tagalog into Casiguran Dumagat.

inferior:   social inferior

Borrowing from Malay.

influence

Borrowing from Tagalog.

inheritance:   heir, inheritance

Borrowing, ultimately from Arabic.

inheritance; heirloom

Probably a Malay loan. Based on this slender comparison Dempwolff (1934-1938) posited ‘Uraustronesisch’ *maneq ‘heritage, inheritance’.

injustice, oppression

Borrowing, ultimately from Sanskrit.

ink

From Spanish tinta ‘ink’.

insight:   conscience, mind, insight

Borrowing, ultimately from Sanskrit. Iban budi, budiʔ shows secondary final glottal stop, and two polarized clusters of meaning, evidently connected with the existence of a former system of speech disguise based on antonymy (Blust 1981).

intelligence, craft, scheme

Borrowing, ultimately from Arabic.

intelligent:   clever, intelligent

Borrowing from Malay. Based on data from Ngaju Dayak, Malay, Toba Batak and Javanese, Dempwolff (1938) proposed Uraustronesisch *pinte(rR) ‘clever’.

intended:   water not intended for drinking

Except for Komodo, these form a restricted cognate set; Komodo is a loan from Javanese or Balinese.

interest on a loan

Borrowing from Tagalog

intermediate:   medium, average, intermediate

Dempwolff (1938) reconstructed *sedaŋ ‘middling amount’, leaving the last-syllable vowel of the Javanese form unexplained. Since the same problem is found with several other languages, it appears more economical to assume that Malay borrowed Javanese səḍəŋ, with subsequent spread of the loanword into other languages after the merger of last-syllable schwa and *a.

internode

Borrowing into Casiguran Dumagat and Kapampangan from Tagalog.

interpretation:   explanation, interpretation

Borrowing from Malay, ultimately from Arabic. This presupposes that the Malay word still permitted prepenultimate /i/ at the time of borrowing.

inverted:   turned around, inverted

Probably a Malay loan distribution. Dempwolff (1938) posited *suŋsaŋ ‘turned around’ based on the data considered here minus Karo Batak and Old Javanese.

investigate:   examine, investigate

Also Bikol mag-usísa ‘to cross-examine; to interrogate, question, quiz; to probe’. Probably a Tagalog loan distribution.

invigorates:   plant chewed with betel that invigorates

Dempwolff (1938) reconstructed *gambir ‘refreshing’, but it is now clear that this is a loan distribution due to borrowing from Malay. The Tagalog form, which he cited from Laktaw (1914) does not appear in modern dictionaries.

invulnerability:   charm for invulnerability

iodine

Borrowing of Spanish yodo ‘iodine’.

iron

Almost certainly a Proto-Malayo-Chamic (PMC) innovation which has been borrowed from Malay into various other languages of Indonesia and the Philippines (Dempwolff's inclusion of Fijian vesi 'a very hard tree: Intsia bijuga' is rejected on both formal and semantic grounds). It is assumed that PMC was spoken in southwest Borneo, and that populations speaking PMC dialects began to expand into eastern Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula and coastal regions of the Gulf of Thailand as far north as the central portions of modern Vietnam in the first or second century B.C. It is noteworthy that at least two of the indigenous languages of Borneo have doublets, one reflecting an earlier, and the other a later loan, thus supporting Borneo as the geographical locus of this innovated lexical item.

As noted by Bellwood (1985:xyz) the expansion of Austronesian speakers into mainland Southeast Asia may be correlated with archaeological evidence of innovations in ironworking technology which were taking place in southwest Borneo in the centuries immediately preceding the beginning of Indian contact. Although a word for 'iron' (*bariS) may be much older in Austronesian (Blust 1976), the older term could well have referred to unprocessed iron ore which had no utilitarian function. Under this interpretation *besi could be correlated with the smelted ore, and hence with those innovations in ironworking technology which Bellwood has noted in the archaeological record.

irregular behavior

Borrowing from Malay.

Islamic:   slaughter in accord with Islamic law

Arabic, through the medium of Malay. For a detailed account of the Malagasy term as a Malay loan cf. Adelaar (1989:4-6).

island

Borrowing from Malay. On the basis of data from Tagalog, Ngaju Dayak, Malay, Toba Batak and Javanese Dempwolff (1938) posited Uraustronesisch *pulaw ‘island’.