ACD - Austronesian Comparative Dictionary Online

*laqia ginger

PMP laqia ginger ⇫ ¶

WMP
Isneg	layá	ginger
Agta (Central Cagayan)	layá	ginger, Zingiber officinale
Itawis	layá	ginger
Agta (Dupaningan)	layá	ginger, Zingiber officinale
Bontok	láya	ginger, Zingiber officinale Rosc.
Ifugaw	lāya	ginger (grows chiefly in upland fields); ginger root, i.e. the rhizone (used chiefly as a food condiment, and sometimes as a side dish)
	láya	ginger, Zingiber officinale Roscoe. This is extensively cultivated by the Ifugaw; the root only is eaten by them, sliced and boiled in water
Kankanaey	layá	ginger
Ifugaw (Batad)	lāya	ginger (grows chiefly in upland fields); ginger root, i.e. the rhizone (used chiefly as a food condiment, and sometimes as a side dish)
Casiguran Dumagat	layá	ginger, Zingiber officinale (a spice used to flavor viands)
Ilokano	layá	ginger, Zingiber officinale, used in native medicine to cure rheumatism, wounds, cough and stomach ache
Kapampangan	láya	ginger
Jarai	rəya	ginger
Tboli	leʔiye	ginger, Zingiber officinale
Tombonuwo	layo	ginger
Kadazan Dusun	hazo	ginger
Ida'an Begak	ləjo	ginger
Narum	ləjiəh	ginger
Lun Dayeh	liəh	ginger
Kiput	ləcih	ginger
Berawan (Long Terawan)	ləjəh	ginger
Bintulu	ləza	ginger
Kenyah (Long Anap)	lia	ginger
Abai Sembuak	layo	ginger
Kenyah	ləzó	ginger
	lia	ginger
Kelabit	lieh	a small variety of ginger: with ‘a large variety of ginger: Alpinia galanga’
Kenyah (Òma Lóngh)	ləzó	ginger
Sangir	lia	ginger, used as a spice with food, and as an ingredient in most medicines, charms and spells, where it is chewed with sirih leaves and then sprayed from the mouth onto the afflicted part
Iban	liaʔ	ginger, plant or rhizome of Zingiber officinale
Gaai	aljoʔ	ginger
Malay	halia	ginger, Zingiber officinale; used as a drug and as a flavoring for curries
Wahau	jəʔ	ginger
Singhi Land Dayak	roiʔi	ginger
Basap	lia	ginger
Tontemboan	lia	Spanish pepper
	lia tanaʔ	ginger
Woq Helaq Modang	ləjao̯ʔ	ginger
Mei Lan Modang	ləjao̯ʔ	ginger
Tialo	loía	ginger
Balaesang	láia	ginger
Bare'e	leʔia	ginger
Tae'	laya panaʔ	kind of ginger that has a sharper taste than others
	laia ~ laya	kind of ginger which has a somewhat musty odor when the main root is very large
Murik	liaʔ	ginger
Muna	loghia ŋkadea	red ginger
	loghia ŋkapute	white ginger
	loghia	ginger
Makassarese	niaʔ laiana	(‘he sits in ginger’) = ‘He is of noble descent’
	laia	ginger, Zingiber officinale
Bikol	láʔya	ginger
Long Gelat Modang	ləjao̯ʔ	ginger
Kelai	jɛʔ	ginger
Miri	ləjeh	ginger
CMP
Kei	leii	ginger, Zingiber officinale; people give pieces of ginger to the dogs to make them more spirited in hunting
Erai	lia	ginger
Leti	lia	ginger
Lamaholot	lia	ginger, Zingiber officinale
Rembong	rea	ginger, Zingiber officinale
Manggarai	lia	ginger, Zingiber officinale
Bimanese	rea	ginger, Zingiber officinale
Sika	lea	kind of ginger
Ngadha	lea	ginger; kind of vegetable used as a remedy
Kambera	wai layia	ginger water, infusion of ginger used as a stimulant
	layia	ginger
Rotinese	lia	ginger; spew with (chewed) ginger to make more effective, as a dog to make it bite, a cat to make it a more ferocious mouser, or a net to make it catch more fish
Wetan	lia	ginger
SHWNG
Kowiai/Koiwai	raʔia	ginger
OC
Mussau	laia	ginger
Sori	lei	ginger
Kuruti	liy	ginger
Ahus	liy	ginger
Drehet	lip	ginger
Lindrou	ley	ginger
Penchal	lai	ginger
Lou	lei	ginger
Kairiru	lei	ginger
Tanga	lae	ginger, Zingiber officinale
Nehan	laia	plant species, family Zingiberaceae; several types
Lakalai	la lahia	cultivated ginger (Zingiber sp.); by extension, a warrior
Gitua	laea	kind of edible ginger, flower like Phameria magnifica
Numbami	lai	ginger
Toqabaqita	la-laia	ginger
Kwaio	lia	ginger
'Āre'āre	ria	a ginger with perfumed roots, used as a medicine by witch doctors; there are several varieties for different diseases
	ria ni marutana	a ginger used to enlist the affections of women
Sa'a	lie	ginger, called , tree given to women to eat (to enlist their affections); used in malevolent magic it causes boils when put down on a man’s path for him to pass over
Wedau	naia	ginger
Arosi	ria	ginger, much used in charms
Fijian	caŋo laya	ginger ( = ‘turmeric’)
Wuvulu	laia	ginger

Reconstructions

PMP

laqia

ginger

Note

Also Tagalog lúya, Hiligaynon lúyʔa, Aklanon eúyʔa, Waray-Waray luyʔáʔ, Mansaka loya, Binukid luyʔa ‘ginger, Zingiber officinale’, Masbatenyo lúyʔa ‘ginger root’, Cebuano luyʔá ‘ginger, Zingiber officinale’, Manobo (Western Bukidnon) luya, ‘ginger, Zingiber officinale. The rhizomes of the ginger plant are used for flavoring stews’, Tiruray giya ‘ginger’, Tausug luuya, Ngaju Dayak lai, Tae' laa, Kove haia ‘ginger’. Reconstruction of this word raises several formal issues, and suggests cultural practices that reach beyond linguistic reconstruction.

Dyen (1947, 1953) posited PMP *leyqa ‘ginger’ in order to account for the penultimate vowel of forms such as Cebuano luyʔá, but this proposal confuses an innovative doublet *luqia in Proto-Greater Central Philippines with reflexes of *laqia. Apart from these deviant forms, a number of languages have disyllabic words that appear to reflect *lia. In some cases (Kelabit, Kenyah, Bintulu, Iban, etc.) these can be derived by regular change from *laqia through reduction of the first-syllable vowel to schwa, which then deleted along with the following glottal stop, but in Oceanic languages such as Kwaio or Sa'a this does not work, and forms such as Kwaio lia or Sa'a lie must therefore be regarded either as irregular reductions of *laqia, or as evidence for a possible doublet *lia.

The cultural role of ginger is particularly interesting. Apart from its use as a condiment in cooking, the glosses in several languages show that this plant was used for medicinal purposes from an early time. In this function it evidently was chewed and spewed with saliva onto the afflicted part, as shown in the glosses for Sangir and Rotinese lia. Similar descriptions appear in ethnographic accounts. Fortune (1963:295), for example, notes that among the Dobuans of western Melanesia sorcerors regularly chew ginger and spray it out in practicing sorcery as well as curative medicine: “It is chewed with many healing incantations, apart from the tabu exorcisms which are breathed into water for bathing the patient. With other healing spells it is spat on the seat of illness. The sight of a magician chewing ginger, spitting it onto the object charmed at intervals, and muttering his spell at the same time is a common one at Dobu … It is chewed in all the incantations to ward off a squall at sea and spat towards the lowering squall. It is chewed and bespattered over the canoe, in lashing it with incantation, making it speedy and seaworthy…”.

The puzzling Lakalai gloss, which combines ginger with prowess as a warrior is further illuminated by remarks in Codrington (1972:133) regarding cultural practices on the island of Florida in the central Solomons. A man who is about to go out on a vendetta against his private enemy “will pull up his ginger-plant, and judge from the ease with which it comes out of the earth whether he shall succeed or not; he will make his sacrifice, and with the ginger and leaves on his shield and in his belt and right armlet will go to fight.” As in Dobu, a curer (195) “will chew ginger and blow into the patient’s ears and on that part of the skull which is soft in infants, will call on the name of the tindalo, (ghost) and beg him to remove the sickness.”

Judging from the glosses in Rotinese and Kei in eastern Indonesia ginger provided a stimulant for various kinds of purposes. In particular it evidently was given to dogs to make them more vigorous in hunting. The gloss in Rotinese and the above quote from Fortune on the Dobuans suggest that it was also chewed and spat upon inanimate objects, as a fishing net or canoe to make them more efficacious. These varied uses are all perhaps united by a common thread: given its stimulating taste ginger evidently was conceived as a plant that could impart vitality to other objects, either when chewed and expectorated upon them, as in healing or improving the efficacy of tools such as nets or canoes, or when fed directly to an animal, as in improving the hunting acuity of dogs. When used to confront something negative, as a storm, its supposed supernatural powers act to counter the undesirable effects.