Reconstructions

Note

Also Nias awu ‘ash; hearth, kitchen’, Balinese awu ‘ashes, dust’, Balinese awon ‘ashes, ash’, Sasak abu ‘ash; ash-gray (specifically of carrier-pigeons)’, Sasak awu ‘ash from firewood in the kitchen’, Leti apu ‘ash’, Manam apoaŋ ‘fireplace, ashes’. *qabu is among the most widespread and stable morphemes in the Austronesian family. It referred to ashes, and prototypically to the ashes in the fireplace (hence its recurrent replacement of PMP *dapuR in the meaning ‘hearth’). Dyen (1953:29) erred doubly in positing *abuh, the erroneous initial following from his acceptance of Dempwolff's use of Tongan efu ‘ash’ (actually a reflex of *dapuR), and the erroneous final from his overconfidence in the evidentiary value of thematic -/h/ in the Tagalic languages.

Apart from the meanings given here it is likely that some form of *qabu was used to designate a type of plumage for domestic fowls in PPh (cf. Ilokano ábo ‘cock with gray plumage and reddish tail’, Cebuano manuk ŋa abúhun ‘gray-colored cock’), and perhaps in PWMP (cf. Sasak abu ‘ash-gray, specifically of carrier pigeons’). Finally, both the reduplication of *qabu in various daughter languages, and forms assigned to *paR-qabu-an here may be products of convergence. The same explanation probably accounts for the agreement of Kenyah (Long Wat) umaʔ avew ‘kitchen’ with Kambera uma aü ‘cooking place, place of the hearth fire’.