Reconstructions

Note

Also Balinese hidup ‘life; being alive’, Manggarai m-osé ‘live, stay; energetic, lively; age, life; soul; livelihood; thankfully, thanks’, Sika m-oré-t ‘to be alive, of people, animals and vegetation’, Mussau (ma)-ma-ule ‘living, alive’. Dempwolff (1934-38) reconstructed *qudip ‘to live’, and although this semantic reconstruction is justified, it appears incomplete in a number of respects due to differences in the "conceptual focus" (Blust 1991a) of the German/English and Austronesian terms. Whereas English ‘living, alive’ denotes merely the presence of life processes, PMP *qudip evidently denoted a dominance of vitality as manifested in growth, flourishing, and being healthy, fresh (of plants), or green (of plants, wood).

Reflexes in MP languages show recurrent references to vegetation and to growth, a component of the meaning which is reinforced by the observation that *qudip has been replaced in a number of the languages of Sulawesi by reflexes of *tumbuq ‘to grow’. If anything in English reminds us of this conceptual focus it is perhaps the depiction of the life-force in Dylan Thomas, ‘The force that through the green fuse drives the flower’ (‘Drives my green age ... ‘).

Extensions of this primary sense are seen in PPh *qudip 'mend, repair' (Ilokano and Maranao), recurrent references to newness (Ngadha and 'Āre'āre), the new moon (Rotinese, Maori, Hawaiian), and birth (Tetun, Sa'a) and perhaps the soul, where the vital principle is seen as essentially supernatural (Javanese, Lonwolwol, Rennellese, Anuta, Rarotongan, Nukuoro), and so applied to body parts that have well-known associations with the exit and entry of the soul (Rennellese: skull, fontanel, Hawaiian: fontanel). Mota maur! ‘cry to a child that sneezes’ and Tuvaluan ma-uli ‘a sneeze; to sneeze’ undoubtedly derive from formulaic expressions wishing health or protection from the loss of the soul Tylor (1958 [1871]:1:97ff).

Although this is substantially similar to traditional European beliefs, the different emphasis of the Austronesian term in comparison with the English term is seen again in the recurrent references to healing, curing, reviving and recovering (where the life-force is reasserting not merely its presence, but its dominance). A metaphorical extension of the notion of healing or riviving is seen in Ilokano údip ‘mend, patch (mats, baskets, etc.)’, Maranao orip ‘reweave, patch up, repair a mat’ (hence PPh *qudip ‘patch a mat’).

Finally, there are difficult questions with some features of the morphology of this form. I assume that the similar infixation in Old Javanese h-um-urip and such Formosan forms as Paiwan q-m-uzi-quzip is a product of convergence, and that despite the widespread loss of morpheme boundary in CEMP reflexes of PMP *ma-qudip, PCEMP must have had *ma-qudip (not *maqudip), since Sa'a haʔa-uri appears to be a straightforward reflex of PMP *paka-qudip.