w   

wager in gambling:   bet, wager in gambling

From Spanish apostar ‘to bet’.

wages:   earnings, wages

Apparently from Spanish quitación ‘salary, income’.

wait

Kalamian Tagbanwa elat is assumed to be a loan from a Greater Central Philippines language.

walking stick

From Spanish bastón ‘walking stick, baton’

walling:   woven bamboo walling material

Probably a Tagalog loan distribution, as shown by the irregular lack of a final consonant in both Agutaynen (expected **sawalik), and Cebuano (expected **sawáliʔ).

want:   desire, want

Probably an innovation in Proto-Malayic, later borrowed into Toba Batak and Old Javanese from Malay.

war

Borrowing from Makassarese.

war

Borrowing from Malay. Dempwolff (1938) reconstructed Uraustronesisch *pe(rR)aŋ ‘war’.

warehouse

Borrowing from Spanish.

wash

Borrowing of Spanish lavar ‘to wash’.

wasp

Dempwolff (1934-38) reconstructed *pan-eŋet but the Malay form, as indicated by Wilkinson 1959, is morphologically complex whereas the Malagasy form is not. The latter was almost certainly borrowed from Malay prior to the change of last-syllable *e/ to //a//. For abundant evidence of Malay loans in Malagasy cf. Adelaar (1989).

watchman:   guard, watchman

Borrowing from Malay, ultimately from Tamil.

water not intended for drinking

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

water pot

Also Toba Batak gondi ‘water jug’. Borrowing from Malay, ultimately from Hindi. Dempwolff (1938) reconstructed *kendi ‘water jug’.

water:   ebb (of water)

Dempwolff proposed *surud ‘ebb’, but his comparison could easily be a loan distribution from Javanese into Malay, and thence from Malay into other languages of western Indonesia. If this term were native in the Batak languages, for example we would expect Karo Batak **surun**. His inclusion of Malagasy a-tsururúka ‘to be made to fall down, as hair down the back, or water made to run down a hill, etc.’ appears misguided.

water buffalo, carabao

Borrowing from Malay, ultimately from a Mon-Khmer source (Thurgood 1999:322). Kavalan has several loanwords from Philippine languages and from Spanish that date to the brief Spanish occupation of the Ilan basin from 1626-1642, during which time they came up from Manila in an attempt to expand their colonial holdings. The source of Fijian karavau remains unclear. Capell (1968:85) entertains two speculations: 1. “the name came from Vuda, where the people, seeing reddish cattle, called them after the cloth karavau”, 2. “probably Eng. caribou”. The second of these appears particularly improbable.

watercraft:   small watercraft

Given its limited distribution in western Indonesia this cognate set is best attributed to borrowing from Malay, to a late innovation, or to some combination of these two.

way, manner

Borrowing from Malay. Dempwolff (1934-38) included these forms together with Samoan ula-vale 'make a nuisance of oneself, make trouble' under a proposed reconstruction *ulaq 'employment, occupation', which I reject.

ways and manner

This is another of many problematic Dempwolff comparisons. The sound correspondences are irregular, and even if Ngaju Dayak had not borrowed substantially from Javanese during the Majapahit period (1293-c. 1500), a reconstruction based only on these languages could not be assigned to any of the proto-languages recognized in the ACD.

wealth, possessions

Borrowing, ultimately from Sanskrit.

wealth

weapon

Borrowing, ultimately from Tamil.

wear:   use, wear, dress up in finery

This is a clear Malay loanword in both of its common senses: ‘to use’ and ‘to wear/clothiing, adornment’. Dempwolff compared the Ngaju Dayak, Malay, Toba Batak and Javanese words given here with Tagalog pákay ‘mission; purpose; intention; aim’, and posited Urindonesisch *pakay ‘to use; to dress up, put on clothing’. However, the Tagalog word does not appear to be related to the others, and the remaining forms do not justify a reconstruction. (see clothing)

weather:   season, time, weather

From Spanish tiempo ‘time, period, epoch; weather’.

wedding

Bimanese ɓunti and Balinese bunciŋ are assumed to be loans from Makassarese. The similarity of Numfor buk to these forms is attributed to chance.

wedge

Most or all of these forms appear to be loanwords from Malay.

weed

Also Hanunóo ilamn-án ‘be weeded’. Since the Ayta Abellen were traditional foragers this word is almost certainly a loan from an agricultural neighbor, although it is currently unknown in Tagalog.

weighing:   scale for weighing, balance

Borrowing from Malay, ultimately from Persian. Dempwolff (1938) marked this as a loan distribution, but provided a reconstruction simply to illustrate the regularity of the sound correspondences. However, as with other loans used for a similar purpose, the sound correspondences are not entirely regular, the final glottal stop in Tagalog being an immediate clue to its loan status.

weight:   catty (unit of weight for foodstuffs)

Borrowing from Malay.

welcome:   meet, run across, welcome

Based on just these two languages Dempwolff (1938) reconstructed Uraustronesisch *papag ‘to meet, run across’. However, Wilkinson gives papag as Malay variant, a form that could only be borrowed from Javanese, and there appears to be little basis for a reconstruction at even a very shallow time-depth.

well:   spring, well

Apparently from Spanish brocal ‘parapet (round well)’.

well (water)

From Spanish pozo ‘well, sump’.

well-made structurally sound

Probably a Tagalog loan distribution.

wharf:   dock, pier, wharf

Borrowing from Malay. Dempwolff (1938) reconstructed ‘Uraustronesisch’ *cukup ‘be sufficient’.

wheal

Borrowing from Malay.

whip

Borrowing of Spanish látigo ‘whip’.

whip

Borrowing from Malay. Dempwolff (1938) posited ‘Uraustronesisch’ *cambuk ‘whip’.

whip; to whip

Borrowing from Malay.

whirlwind

Borrowing from Tagalog into Kapampangan and Casiguran Dumagat.

whisper

Borrowing from Tagalog.

whistle

From Spanish chiflo ‘a whistle’, with adaptations to the canonical shape of Philippine languages.

whistle

Borrowing of Spanish pito ‘whistle’.

wholesale

Borrowing from Malay. Although the origin of this word remains unclear, its referents suggest that it did not exist in its present meaning prior to the commercial civilization of Hinduized western Indonesia during the Sriwijaya period (7th to 13th centuries A.D.).

wholesale buying

Borrowing from Tagalog, ulimately from Hokkien (Southern Min) ba⁵ giao⁴.

whore:   prostitute, whore

Presumably a loan, although a source is yet to be determined.

wick

Borrowing from Malay.

wick

Borrowing of Spanish pabilo ‘wick or snuff of candle’.

wide

Borrowing from Malay.

wide-mouthed bottle

Borrowing of Spanish garrafa ‘decanter, carafe’.

widow:   period in which a widow may not remarry

Borrowing, ultimately from Arabic.

wild ox

Dempwolff posited *banTiŋ ‘wild cow’, but the available evidence suggests that this form originated in Java and spread from there to Malay and to languages that were in close contact with Malay . Wild bovids are found both on the island of Mindoro in the Philippines and in Borneo, and permit the reconstruction of PWMP *tamadaw ‘kind of wild ruminant.’

wild

Probably a Malay loan distribution. Dempwolff (1938) also included Tagalog iyág ‘lust, sensuality’, which seems unconnected, and Fijian lia-lia ‘foolish’, which does not appear in Capell (1968), and in any case differs considerably in meaning. Nonetheless he posited Uraustronesisch *liaR ‘wild’.

win

Borrowing from Javanese, in some cases (e.g. Toba Batak monaŋ) probably through Malay.

wind, storm

This evidently was the PAn word for 'wind', replaced in PMP by *haŋin. The available forms in MP languages suggest that they were borrowed in the meaning 'typhoon', presumably well after the dispersal of PMP.

wind:   stillness (of wind)

Borrowing from Malay, except Fijian toro, which is best treated as a chance resemblance. Dempwolff (1938) reconstructed ‘Uraustronesisch’ *te(n)duq ‘stillness of wind’ (Windstille).

wind around

Probably a Malay loan distribution. Dempwolff (1938) added Samoan liɁo ‘circle, ring’, and posited Uraustronesisch *li(ŋ)ke(r) ‘wind around, coil up’, but without further support from Oceanic witnesses the resemblance of the Samoan form to the other words cited here is better treated as a product of chance.

winnowing:   shake grains on winnowing tray

Borrowing from Malay. Despite the consistent shapes of the forms cited here Dempwolff (1938) reconstructed ‘Uraustronesisch’ *tiŋtiŋ ‘loosen by shaking’ (durch schütteln losemachen). His inclusion of Tongan sisiŋ-i ‘hit oneself on the head’ (sich auf den Kopf klopfen) is puzzling, as I find no such form in Churchward (1959), and even if it could be found, the semantic connection with the above forms is strained beyond credibility.

wipe off

Probably a Tagalog loan distribution in languages outside the Central Philippine group.

wire

Borrowing from Malay.

wire

Dempwolff (1938) compared the Tagalog, Ngaju Dayak, Malay and Javanese forms with Tongan, Futunan kava, Samoan ava ‘beard’, and proposed *kawad ‘wire, fiber’. However, the Polynesian forms are not clearly related, and since the remaining words are 1. connected with metallurgy, and 2. phonologically irregular since the final consonant is voiceless in some languages in which it would be expected to be voiced (if from *kawad) it must be assumed that this word is a loan, although its source is yet to be determined.

wire

Borrowing of Spanish alambre ‘wire’.

wish, aspire

Borrowing from a GCPh source into Casiguran Dumagat.

witch:   evil spirit, vampire, witch

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

withdrawal from food:   fast, withdrawal from food

Borrowing of Spanish ayuno ‘fast’ (from ayunar ‘to fast’).

witness

Also Maranao taksiʔ ‘witness’. This Sanskrit loanword entered Malay and Old Javanese during the Indianization of western Indonesia. It was later spread to the Philippines through Malay traders, who probably concentrated their efforts mostly in the Tagalog-speaking region of Manila Bay. From Tagalog it reached areas of the northern Philippines that apparently never came under direct Malay contact influence. Given his usual practice of including pseudo-reconstructions for loanwords with a distribution that would justify an attribution to his ‘Proto-Indonesian’ if they were native, it is noteworthy that Dempwolff (1938) did not include this form. The reason for this exclusion may have been phonotactic, since a reconstruction *saksi would violate his otherwise exceptionless template of CVCVC forms or CVCCVC forms which were either reduplicated monosyllables or unreduplicated bases with homorganic medial prenasalization. Finally, the extent to which this form has been integrated into native morphological paradigms is a warning that loanwords cannot easily be detected by their exclusion from indigenous word-building mechanisms.

wits:   trick, ruse, scheme, wits

A Malay loanword, ultimately from Arabic. Note how the positive features of the meaning in Malay assume a more negative cast in most other languages.

wood shavings:   sawdust, wood shavings

Mintz and Britannico (1985) derive the Bikol form from a Hokkien original, and English (1986) holds a similar view of the Tagalog form, although this has not been confirmed.

wooden peg

From Spanish tarugo ‘wooden peg or pin, stopper’.

work

A loanword, probably from Bunun into Paiwan, although this remains unclear.

works of piety, charity

Borrowing, ultimately from Arabic.

worm:   palolo worm

Tanga parur is assumed to be a loan, presumably from a Polynesian source.

worry:   trouble, worry, difficulty

Dempwolff (1938) posited this form as ‘Uraustronesisch’, but its distribution is restricted to Malay and other languages of western Indonesia that have borrowed from Malay. It is therefore best considered a Proto-Malayic innovation that has been borrowed over much of the area that it is found, and is indicated as such in at least two of the sources cited here. In addition, Dempwolff included Malagasy usa ‘cowardly, timid, faint-hearted; feeble, weak’ in his comparison, but this appears to be unrelated.

worship:   prayer, worship

Borrowing, probably from Javanese into Malay, and from Malay into Philippine languages, where the sound correspondences are irregular, as they also are in Makassarese.

worth:   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.

woven bamboo walling material

Probably a Tagalog loan distribution, as shown by the irregular lack of a final consonant in both Agutaynen (expected **sawalik), and Cebuano (expected **sawáliʔ).

wrestle, struggle with

From Spanish torcer, ‘twist’.

write

Also Javanese (Krama)) serat ‘letter’. Most of this comparison is due to borrowing, ultimately from Malay. Dempwolff (1938) reconstructed *surat ‘writing’, and Blust (1976:33) noted that “Since all reported ‘indigenous’ scripts in Indonesia and the Philippines ... appear to be based on Indian originals, there is no known physical reason to suppose a pre-Indian tradition of ‘bamboo literacy’. *surat is not a Sanskrit loanword, however, invariably and exclusively refers to writing, and must have existed in western Indonesia only slightly later than the earliest inscriptions in an Indian-based script. It therefore seems unlikely that writing was introduced to Indonesia entirely as a result of direct or stimulus diffusion from India.”

Whatever the origin of this word, it now seems safest to assume that it came to refer to writing in the Malay world only after the introduction of Indic scripts. What is most remarkable is its occurrence (with irregular sound correspondences) in several Formosan languages, presumably as a result of the Dutch commericial and proselytizing presence in southwest Taiwan from 1624-1661. Since the short-lived Dutch colonization of Taiwan was staged from Batavia it is very likely that it would have included Malay speakers, and one can only assume in the absence of direct historical evidence that some of these Malays introduced elements of literacy to the Siraya. However, the historical records we have indicate that the earliest Dutch contact with Taiwan in October, 1623, was a fleet under the command of Cornelis Reyerson that included “a small following of soldiers and Bandanese slaves”, but apparently no Malays (Blusse and Roessingh 1984:66). Nonetheless, the observations that were made of the Siraya-speaking Soulang village claim that the population at that time already used “many Malay words”. While this can be interpreted as meaning only that the Dutch recognized Siraya cognates of Malay words they already knew -- much as they did two decades earlier in stating that there was “much of Malay in Malagasy” -- several cited forms are distinctively Malay, and not Siraya, as with babij ‘pig’, tacot ‘afraid’, boesoek ‘rotten’, maccan ‘to eat’, or ican ‘fish’. Some of the Dutch in this contingent speculated that these words might have been introduced by Malay sailors from Johore who had preceded them in reaching southwest Taiwan, but this raises the question why similar contacts would not have happened along the west coast of northern Luzon. The presence of sulal in Kavalan is more plausibly attributed to contact with Tagalog speakers who accompanied the Spanish during their even briefer colonization of northeast Taiwan from 1626-1642.

Finally, the forms in some of the languages of Sulawesi, as Bare'e and Tae' suggest that Malay surat may have arisen from PWMP *suRat ‘to carve, incise’, and spread widely during the apogee of Sriwijaya after undergoing semantic change. A connection with PWMP *suRat ‘wound’ seems less likely.

write

Borrowing from Malay, although the gloss of the Toba Batak form suggests that this may have been a more widespread form that originally referred to natural markings, as on animal pelts. Dempwolff (1938) proposed an etymological chimera, comparing the western Indonesian forms with Tagalog túlis ‘point, sharp end; spire;; anything tapering and pointed’, which is better assigned to PWMP *tirus ‘tapering, attenuating to a point’, and with Samoan tusi ‘point (with finger); draw; write’, etc., and other Polynesian forms that are best assigned to PCEMP *tusi ‘draw, make marks or designs’.