v   

valuables:   goods, valuables

Borrowing from Malay, ultimately from Sanskrit.

value, worth

The Philippine forms and Chamorro bali apparently derive from Spanish valer. The remaining items may have the same source, or may reflect *baliw₂.

vampire:   evil spirit, vampire, witch

Borrowing into Kapampangan from a GCPh source. It is possible that the suaŋgi/ of eastern Indonesia has a similar origin.

vampire:   ghoul, vampire

The essential content of this morpheme is a reference to women who have died in childbirth, and to the culturally perceived vindictiveness and malevolence that their ghosts feel, especially toward men. In Java it is said that the puntianak appears as a beautiful young woman in the twilight of the evening and tempts gullible men to follow her from the village. Once they are alone she turns and flees with a hideous shriek, revealing a hole through the middle of her back, her feet not quite touching the earth.

The forms cited here are conspicuous for their multiple phonological irregularities and apparent morphological reanalyses. This strongly suggests that the form has been borrowed, probably from Malay. According to Alton L. Becker (p.c.) a similar folk belief is found in Burma. If true it is tempting to hypothesize that the puntianak belief was ultimately borrowed by speakers of an early form of Malay from a mainland Southeast Asian source and subsequently disseminated through much of island Southeast Asia.

The problem with this hypothesis is that a similar belief is found among speakers of OC languages. For Nggela in the central Solomons Fox, C. (1955) cites vahuhu 'be born, give birth to', mate 'dead, death; kill, etc.', and vahuhumate '1. goblins that sing when the moon goes down. They have holes in their heads and backs, 2. die in childbirth'. What we have then, appears to be a belief that was present in PMP society, perhaps under the name *m-atay anak (cf. *aCay). For reasons that are unclear, the Malay or Javanese name of this belief was widely borrowed during a much more recent period of history, overlaying an older cultural distribution and presumably replacing the older name in most areas.

various, suitable, equal

Despite the semantic differences that distinguish most Philippine forms from those in Indonesia, all of these items appear to be products of borrowing, ultimately from Tamil.

various, miscellaneous

Also Hanunóo sadisádi ‘miscellany; multifarious, various’. The history of this form is puzzling. Although it may have begun with the general meaning ‘various, miscellaneous’, in many languages it probably is a Tagalog loan that became widespread after the Spanish colonization and the introduction of a money economy. In any case, an assignment to Proto-Philippines would be incautious without further evidence of forms that are not likely to be borrowed.

velvet

Borrowing, ultimately from Portuguese.

venom:   power, venom

Borrowing, ultimately from Sanskrit. This comparison is remarkable for at least two reasons: 1) although it seems clearly to be a Sanskrit loan which acquired much of its attested distribution as a result of borrowing from Malay, it originally referred to animal (particularly snake) venom, a referent for which a native term would normally be expected, 2) the word is very widespread in the Philippines and both western and eastern Indonesia, and has acquired a variety of secondary meanings including that of general force or power, skill, knowledge and ability. In Malay and some other languages (e.g. Rembong) this abstraction and generalization of the original concrete nominal sense has gone even further, leading to the use of bisa as an auxiliary verb meaning 'can, be able'.

victory:   exult, celebrate (as a victory)

Dempwolff (1938) posited *surak ‘to exult, cheer, celebrate’, but the relationship of the Tagalog and Samoan forms to the others cited here is open to question, the Malagasy form appears to reflect *kurak, and the remaining forms could be products of borrowing from Malay.

village

This word shows phonological irregularities that make a reconstruction impossible. The Atayalic forms point toward an etymon with medial *l, the Saisiyat form to one with medial *C, and the Bunun form to one with medial *S. In addition to this set Proto-Rukai *cəkələ, Puyuma dekal show similarities without regular sound correspondences, and these suggest borrowing of a different form meaning ‘village,’ implying that the notion of ‘village’ was not found in PAn, and once it was lexically encoded it tended to spread easily by borrowing.

village, place of residence

Although this appears initially to be a straightforward comparison Saisiyat /s/ can only reflect PAn *C and Bunun /s/ can only reflect *s or *S. The similarity of Atayal qalaŋ, Truku Seediq alaŋ ‘village’ to these and to one another also cannot be accounted for by recurrent sound correspondences.

vinegar

Borrowing, ultimately from Sanskrit chukra.

violin

Borrowing from Portuguese.

violin

From Spanish rabel ‘type of three-stringed violin’, ultimately from Arabic.

viscous:   thick (of fluids), viscous

Also Balinese hentel ‘thick, close, dense, solid’. Given its distribution only on Java, Bali and Lombok and in Malay, but not in the Batak languages or other languages of northern Sumatra, or in Borneo, this is most likely to be a loan from Javanese. Dempwolff (1938) reconstructed *kenTel ‘viscous’.

vote

The Philippine forms are borrowed from Spanish, Tetun boto from Portuguese.