d   

dance:   round dance

Chance. Dempwolff (1938) reconstructed ‘Uraustronesisch’ *Ta(r)ik ‘round dance’ (Reigen), but nothing of the kind appears to be justified.

dangle

Chance. Manggarai babek may be a loan from a southern Sulawesi source.

day, sun, light

Chance. Kähler (1961) cites this comparison, but Mongondow y can only reflect *d, *r, or *y, none of which are regular sources of Simalur, Nias -l-.

dazzle, flash

deceit, fraud

Also Toba Batak hunsi ‘closed, locked’, a borrowing of Malay kunci ‘lock or bolt’, metathesized in hinsu. Dempwolff (1938) posited *ki(n)cu ‘deceit, fraud’.

deep place in water

Dempwolff (1938) posited ‘Uraustronesisch’ *tubiR ‘deep place in the water’ (Wassertiefe), but the meaning in Central Philippine languages is consistently ‘water’ or ‘juice’, and no forms have been found that might be used to bridge the gap to the semantics of the Malay term.

definite article

Probably a reflex of *qi 'genitive marker' in Nggela and Arosi. I assume that the similarity to Chamorro i is due to chance.

delicacy of pounded foods

Dempwolff (1938) posited Uraustronesisch *laba(r) ‘pleasant flavor’ (Wohlgeschmack). However, if the Toba Batak, South Sulawesi and Malay forms are related it is probably through borrowing, and the similarity to Sa'a laha is best attributed to chance.

dense, close together

dense vegetation

design:   plan, design, project

designate:   to mark, designate

Dempwolff (1938) reconstructed ‘Uraustronesisch’ *teges ‘to mark, designate’ (bezeichnen).

destruction

Chance. Dempwolff (1934-38) compared the above terms and Tongan, Futunan, Samoan mala 'misfortune, bad luck, scourge, plague'. He recognized that the Polynesian forms cannot regularly reflect *walat, but failed to recognize that Javanese walat is also irregular, since *wa- became Javanese o- (*wada > ora 'not', Old Javanese wwalu > Mod. Javanese wolu/ 'eight'). Javanese Nalat has no known etymology (Madurese balat 'misfortune' presumably is a loan), but must derive from earlier *balat.

dew

dig, dig up

dig, dig up

dig up the soil

dig up the soil

dig up

dilate

dirt, filth

Dempwolff (1938) posited *sukar ‘dirt, filth’ on the basis of these two forms, but the sound correspondences are irregular, and there is no known support from other languages.

dirt filth

Dempwolff (1938) proposed Uraustronesisch *laŋes ‘dirt, filth’ (Schmutz). The Isneg and Ifugaw words form a ‘near comparison’ with Central Philippine forms such as Cebuano laŋsá ‘having a fishy smell or the taste of blood’.

disaster:   evil, harm, disaster

Dempwolff (1938) proposed this comparison, which appears to be a collection of unrelated forms in all three languages. I am unable to find sona in Richardson (1885), and the closest form I can find to his so-sol is sol ‘uprooted (by storm)’ in Pigeaud (1938).

disastrous, incurable

Also Fijian dewa ‘to spread abroad, e.g. of a disease that becomes epidemic’. Dempwolff (1938) posited ‘Uraustronesisch’ *tiwas ‘disastrous, incurable’, but despite some marginal plausibility this comparison seems best attributed to chance.

disease:   skin disease

Malay bodok is assumed to be a loan from Javanese. The similarity of the Philippine forms to those in western Indonesia is attributed to chance.

disseminate, strew around

Dempwolff (1938) reconstructed *seba(r) ‘disseminate, strew around’, but plausible cognates are found only in western Indonesia, where they may be borrowings from Malay. Fijian cova does not appear in Capell (1968).

dissention:   argue, quarrel, dissention

dive

Proposed in Blust (1970) as *(CtT)eŋbur ‘dive’, but this now seems misguided, as the initial consonant of Rotuman jopu reflects the nasal grade of *s-, and Fijian tobu-raka reflects PAn *Cebuj ‘natural spring, fresh water spring’.

do

do, perform

don't:   I don't know

door

Also: Malay pintu gerbaŋ 'lynch-gate', Rejang baŋ/ 'door'. Chance, with possible convergence based on a common root *-baŋ 'open out'. Lau, Kwaio baba may reflect *papan 'plank, board'.

door opening

Chance (cp. Kayan ba 'mouth', evidently the primary sense of the term).

down:   bite down on

down:   press down

down:   split down the center

down:   throw down

downpour

drill:   bore a hole, drill

drink

drizzle, trickle

Chance. I cannot find a Tagalog word of this shape with the stated meaning in any modern dictionary. Based on these two forms, and Javanese luh ‘tears’, which clearly reflects PAn *luSeq, Dempwolff (1938) nonetheless proposed Uraustronesisch *luRuq ‘to drizzle’.

drumstick

Based on a comparison of the above Tagalog, Malay, and Javanese words, together with Toba Batak tabu ‘alarm drum’, Dempwolff (1938) reconstructed PAn *tabuq ‘drumstick’. He then extended this inference to *tabuqan ‘yellowjacket wasp’ by suggesting that the latter is *tabuq-an, and is semantically linked with *tabuq through the drumming sound that the yellowjacket wasp reportedly makes. However, I find nothing like the Toba Batak word he cites in Warneck (1906), or in dictionaries of any other Batak language, and the Tagalog word is semantically very distant from the forms in western Indonesia. In short, I consider this whole enterprise fanciful, since there is no sound evidence for *tabuq ‘drumstick’, and without this as a beginning the analysis of *tabuqan --- which is highly questionable on morphological and semantic grounds in any case --- is vacuous.

dry

dug out, excavated

Probably a chance resemblance. Dempwolff (1938) proposed PAn *tibag ‘dug out, excavated’.

dull resounding sound

Probably convergent innovation from a common root *-beŋ₃ 'dull resounding sound'.

dull, blunt

Based on this comparison Dempwolff (1938) proposed Uraustronesisch *calcal ‘to hack off’.

dust