Talk:まるぶ

Is this a real term? DerekWinters (talk) 02:02, 14 May 2018 (UTC)


 * (It seems to be included on this list. —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 02:07, 14 May 2018 (UTC))
 * Oh interesting, would you classify the language on Hachijo a separate language from Standard Japanese? DerekWinters (talk) 21:32, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Never heard of it before TBH. —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 22:56, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Given how divergent it is from standard Japanese, I would classify it as a separate language. Japanese Wikipedia says "Although it's included in the eastern Japanese dialects, due to the striking differences from mainland Japanese, there are also cases where it is considered to be a separate language ('Hachijo language')." It is classified as "definitely endangered". Here's a PDF for anyone who can read Japanese that wants to learn about the language. ( This may be of interest to you) Nibiko (talk) 14:33, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
 * FWIW, also appears in the standard-JA monolingual KDJ with the kanji spelling . The marubu reading is described as a shift from marobu, “to roll; to fall over, to turn over”, basically deriving from,  + suffix .  Given that the stem verb itself could manifest as either maru or maro, marubu could be a cognate that evolved in parallel with marobu, rather than a shift in reading.
 * Both readings marubu and marobu have appeared in mainland JA, just not with the sense of “to die”. That said, the shift in meaning is pretty clear to get to Hachijō “to die” from mainlaind “to fall over”.  The marubu seems like it might have died out in mainland Japanese; neither Daijisen nor Daijirin include this reading.  The KDJ cites a source for this reading from the, the , apparently a seven-volume treatise on Noh completed around 1402.
 * As far as this entry page goes, without further information on Hachijō than just the word lists on the page linked above, I'm inclined to suggest we rework the entry under a  header and use a label to identify this as Hachijō dialect.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 17:42, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Also, 1 may be of interest. DerekWinters (talk) 19:09, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Hmm. That JLect page is interesting, but their etymological musings are horribly loose.   and  are themselves not related to each other, and it's baffling why the JLect editors would suggest they are.  Nor are either of these related to, which derives from Chinese.  Then again, it's possible I'm simply misinterpreting their odd wording of "apparent to", a construction I'm not familiar with.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 16:53, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
 * So what do you all think, should we designate Hachijo as separate or as Regional Japanese? DerekWinters (talk) 15:28, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
 * In full honesty, I don't feel qualified to say -- I'm quite ignorant of the differences between mainland standard and Hachijō. Moreover, the  page makes it sound like a cluster of dialects rather than a single one, further complicating things.  Without more information, I can't say much -- however, if we do decide to treat Hachijō as a separate language, we'll have to come up with a lot of infrastructure, and suss out conjugation patterns, etc. etc.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 20:02, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

RFC discussion: June 2018
"Hachijo", which we don't recognize. DTLHS (talk) 00:23, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
 * See the talk page. suggested changing it to Japanese, but did not actually implement it. I have now done so, but it still needs a great deal of work. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 00:31, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Proto, and Ryukyuan cognates
, the various Ryukyuan senses for "to die" are highly likely to be semantic shift. Japonic languages in general have lots of evidence of taboo- and avoidance-related vocabulary changes, right down to the fluidity of pronouns. It would not surprise me at all for "to fall down" to become the standard "polite" term for "to die". Consider avoidance-based circumlocutions in English, such as, , , etc.

Internally to Japanese, we have various terms deriving from root mar- related to senses of "round" and "roundness":

That's just a small sampling. This root has been very productive in Japanese. Notably, none of the terms I'm aware of for mainland Japanese have anything to do with dying.

If the Shuri-Naha Dialect Dictionary entry is to be believed, the term まーすん in Okinawan is used more specifically for animals. If it is indeed from this same mar- root, that usage seems to increase the likelihood that this is a semantic shift from "to fall over". That said, I'm not convinced that 🇨🇬 isn't instead from some other root: that すん on the end points to a different derivation. We see that mainland 🇨🇬 correlates with 🇨🇬, as seen in this Shuri-Naha entry. Given sound correspondences, we'd expect 🇨🇬 to correlate with 🇨🇬, not 🇨🇬. While I cannot find marubun, we do have 🇨🇬 as seen here, clearly a cognate with 🇨🇬.

, the JLect entry is a bit of a dog's breakfast, and should probably be ignored in its present state.

TL;DR -- I don't think there's enough evidence for reconstructing a Proto-Japonic root mar- with a meaning of "to die". ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 21:29, 12 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Personally, mairu listed above corresponds to meeyun in Okinawan, but I don't believe the word exists, and the derivation cognate with Japanese ma ~ matsu "end" contradicts the long vowel found in Ryukyuan, which is from a PR sequence *-awa-. Hachijō is actually an EOJ dialect, while Classical Japanese is a WOJ dialect. Either one of these two options would then apply here for Hachijō: from PJ *mar- "to turn, revolve", or from the root *mar- "to die" (discounting the Ryukyuan variants). In this case given the semantics the Hachijō word would not be a cognate of the Classical term, but is there any proof for the cognancy of these two? Cheers! Kwékwlos (talk) 22:22, 12 February 2020 (UTC)


 * I do find a meeyun, but from, not mairu. Looking into the etymology of 🇨🇬, this is from Old Japanese mawiru, and there is some speculation in the KDJ that this might be the intransitive counterpart to mawosu.  I think the actual Okinawan cognate might be もーゆん instead.
 * Must run, I'll respond more fully later. Cheers!  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 23:30, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Continued. :)
 * To clarify about 🇨🇬, the hypothesized root would be *mawu, with conjugations of that giving rise to historical mawiru and (possibly) mawosu. We see that 🇨🇬 matches up with a separate 🇨🇬 in the entry here.
 * That said, 🇨🇬 is listed as a regular conjugation pattern, whereas is listed as irregular.  I don't know enough about Ryukyuan conjugation patterns yet to tell if this might bolster or undercut a possible cognacy with 🇨🇬.
 * Re: JLect's suggestion that 🇨🇬 might be from 🇨🇬, that can be pretty completely discounted by recognizing that the JA term is actually a borrowing from 🇨🇬, and thus cannot be the root of Proto-Japonic anything -- unless we're positing that this is somehow also a prehistoric loanword, but then, as you note, the phonology is all wrong.
 * Re: Hachijō, we see in standard Japanese a pretty free variation in maro- and maru-, so I don't think there is anything to discount cognacy between Hachijō marubu and mainland marubu ↔ marobu on phonological grounds. Considering also that mainland marubu ↔ marobu is listed as synonymous with, which is used to also mean "to be prostrate due to disease or other misfortune" as well as "to collapse; to become no more" (also a sense of additional synonym ), the semantic distance from these senses to "to die" is quite minimal, further suggesting cognacy on semantic grounds.
 * I think I've addressed your various points. Please let me know if you've still got questions.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 17:40, 13 February 2020 (UTC)