Reconstructions

Note

Also Ansus tapuy, Serui-Laut tafui, Palauan babíi, Ulithian pa:bwi ‘pig’, Yapese bæbiy (< Palauan), paabuuy (< Ulithian) ‘pig; bulldozer’, Chamorro bæbuy ‘pig, swine; a term used in keeping track of score by counting the number of games won in tres siete (card game), all of which appear to be loans from languages of the Philippines or eastern Sulawesi (the nearest areas where *-uy did not merge with *i), or possibly from the central Moluccas before *-uy was reduced to –u.

Dempwolff (1934-38) reconstructed *babuy ‘pig’. Blust (1970) reconstructed *babuy ‘wild pig’, *beRek ‘domesticated pig’. At the time this semantic distinction appeared to be justified since: