Reconstruction:Proto-Sino-Tibetan/nja-ŋ/k

Etymology

 * Proto-Sino-Tibetan: *nryak (Coblin, 1986)
 * Proto-Tibeto-Burman: *nya-ŋ/k (Matisoff, STEDT); *nya (Matisoff, 2003)

This root is reconstructed on the base of Tibetan and Chinese. Maybe 🇨🇬 also belongs to this root.

Matisoff (2003: 173-174) reconstructs *nya and identifies a form with a *-k suffix, which has both and. In the STEDT, Chinese is listed under this root, pointing to an allofamic variant with a *-ŋ, but according to Coblin (1994) this is a later word, unattested before the , and is better regarded as a graphical fusion of  and. Some authors think that is related to 🇨🇬 and, thus, should not be considered a genuine descendant of this root (Vovin and McCraw, 2011).

Perhaps a better Old Chinese comparandum is, with a final glottal stop. This word, however, may belong either to this root or to 🇨🇬.

Noun

 * 1) woman

Descendants

 * Old Chinese:  (B-S),  (ZS) ("woman")
 * (in the oracle bone script) 女-oracle.svg
 * Middle Chinese:


 * Modern Mandarin
 * Beijing Mandarin:
 * Cantonese:
 * Hakka:
 * Min
 * Min Nan
 * Xiamen:
 * Himalayish
 * Tibeto-Kanauri
 * Bodic
 * Tibetan
 * Written ,
 * Lolo-Burmese-Naxi
 * Lolo-Burmese
 * Burmish
 * Written