Reconstructions

Note

Many reflexes of *qaNuaŋ have lost the first syllable with no apparent conditioning. In languages of the northern Philippines such foreshortening may have been favored by oxytonality in a polysyllable which came to be vowel-initial, but no rule can be stated. The referent of *qaNuaŋ is a matter of some interest. While this morpheme clearly referred to a large ruminant mammal, this leaves open several possibilities, including: 1. the larger variety of deer (Cervus equinus, or Cervus unicolor), which were widely hunted for their pelts in Taiwan at the time of European contact, 2. the carabao, or water buffalo, and 3. some other form of bovid.

The first of these choices is in some ways the least problematic, although 1) it cannot be justified by reflexes in both Formosan and WMP languages, and 2) PWMP *u(R)sa(h) must have meant ‘deer, Cervus spp.’, leaving PWMP *qanuaŋ with what presumably was some other meaning. If PAn *qaNuaŋ and PWMP *qanuaŋ had the same referent, then (and there is no reason to believe otherwise), it apparently was not ‘Cervus spp.’. It is noteworthy that reflexes of *qaNuaŋ refer to unique species of wild buffalo or antelope both in Mindoro (Bubalus mindorensis), and in Sulawesi (Anoa depressicornis). Neither referent can be original, however, since the species in question are geographically limited, and neither Mindoro nor Sulawesi is a likely Austronesian homeland. This leaves the carabao as a plausible referent of PAn *qaNuaŋ, with subsequent transfer of the term to various wild varieties of buffalo or buffalo-like animals. Since terms related to Malay kerbau, Tagalog kalabáw ‘carabao’ are widespread in mainland Southeast Asia, Indonesia and the Philippines, and appear to be loanwords both in Austronesian and in Austroasiatic languages (Headley 1976:467), it seems likely that the water buffalo was introduced into western Indonesia after the arrival of Austronesian speakers from the north. The Malay word kerbau then spread with the animal as far north as the central Philippines, but not further north (McFarland 1977:429).

What remains puzzling in all of this is the implication that the carabao was known to speakers of PAn (as *qaNuaŋ), and that the animal was preserved in Taiwan and the northern Philippines, but lost in areas further to the south. Where the carabao was lost the old name was reapplied to various wild bovids. Bellwood (1997 [1985]:219-22) notes that the Lower Yangtze cultures exemplified by, for example, the 7,000-year-old site of Hemudu in the northeastern portion of modern Zhejiang province, show several archaeological traits which make them prime candidates for a pre-PAn phase of the later Austronesian cultural expansion. Both the domestic pig and water buffalo were present in Lower Yangtze sites by 5,000 B.C., and it is possible that the water buffalo was transported to Taiwan (although no archaeological confirmation for either pig or water buffalo is yet available for the earliest agricultural levels in Taiwan). If so, it would make the apparent loss of the water buffalo at a later date further to the south even more puzzling.