Reconstructions

Note

The initial *h which appears in this form in Malay and the Chamic languages is clarified by the alternation in Iban (and Malay (Sarawak)) ari ‘day’, mata hari (< earlier *mata ni waRi) ‘sun’, where consonant epenthesis prevents the coalescence of what otherwise would be adjacent like vowels in the compound expression. Other languages in which *w- has disappeared, as Toba Batak and Balinese, maintain a reflex of the genitive marker *ni, and hence are not confronted with the problem.

The semantic distinction between PAn *waRi and *qalejaw is not entirely clear, although judging from the agreement of Formosan and CMP languages the former term included the meaning ‘dry in the sun’, while the latter did not. Finally, Jarai yaŋ hrəy, Rhade yaŋ hruê ‘sun’ (< yaŋ ‘deity, god’ + ‘day’), and Old Javanese textual references to saŋ hyaŋ we (Zoetmulder 1982, Subanen/Subanun we) suggest that in pre-Indic western Indonesia the sun was conceived as a deity.