Reconstructions

Note

Also Tagalog saŋág ‘fried, roasted or toasted (referring to cereals)’, saŋág ~ saŋág ‘fried rice’, sáŋag-an ‘a pot or frying pan used for roasting or toasting grains’, Bikol sanlág ‘to fry grains such as rice or corn’, Maranao sendag ‘fry; consume, as fire does’, Manobo (Western Bukidnon) sandag ‘to roast something in a pan over the fire, raking it back and forth to ensure even roasting; to rake some substance back and forth’, Yakan mag-saŋlag ‘to roast something over a fire while stirring it (coffee beans, other seeds, grated cassava, rice, etc. is heated in a frying pan while being stirred; sometimes a little oil is added’ (< a Greater Central Philippine source), Sundanese ñaŋray ‘to roast (as coffee or peanuts, without oil)’, saŋray-an ‘shallow stone pan used to roast without oil’, Tae' saŋgaraʔ ‘fried banana’ (< Buginese), Muna saŋgara ‘fried or baked banana; bake or fry (bananas, yams)’ (< Buginese), Kambera hoŋu ‘to bake, fry, roast (as corn, coffee), to fry (fish, meat)’, Buli soŋor-a ‘roasted, popped (corn), fried without oil’ (said to be from Ternatan soŋara, although this form in a non-Austronesian North Halmahera language must also have been borrowed from a still-undetermined Austronesian source).

This word evidently contained schwa in the environment VC__CV, where it was subject to syncope in many daughter languages. Vowel syncope left an unstable medial cluster –ŋl-, and languages coped with this in various ways. In the Philippines many languages assimilated the nasal to the place of the liquid, producing –nl- either as the only form (Hiligaynon, Waray-Waray, Masbatenyo, Binukid) or as a variant of –ŋl- (Bikol). As a further step, in languages such as Maranao, Manobo (Western Bukidnon), or Mongondow, the liquid was replaced by d, thus conforming to the high frequency pattern of medial homorganically prenasalized stops. A similar strategy in languages of northern Sumatra and south Sulawesi preserved the velar nasal and assimilated the liquid to it as a voiced velar stop, as in Simalur saŋgal or Makassarese saŋgaraʔ. Tagalog saŋág may show cluster simplification, although it is just as likely that the loss of the liquid in this form is part of the larger pattern in which some instances of PAn *l became h or disappeared. Minangkabau salar and Malay selar show cluster reduction by deletion of the first consonant (except in the Minangkabau variant saŋlar), and forms in CMP languages show cluster reduction by deletion of the second consonant.

Malay and CMP languages appear to have undergone prepenultimate vowel neutralization to schwa while this word was still trisyllabic: *saŋelaR ([saŋəlar]) > səŋəlaR > səŋlaR > səlaR > Malay səlar (and presumably Minangkabau salar, with regular *ə > a); *saŋelaR ([saŋəlar]) > səŋəlaR > səŋlaR > səŋaR > sənaR > sonaR > Rotinese sena, Tetun sona, etc. The final vowel of Lamaholot səŋeʔ is evidently irregular, although the precise history of this form is unclear.

Finally, the meaning of this form does not seem to correspond exactly to any English term, as it refers to cooking in a frying pan without oil by rapidly stirring the contents to prevent burning, much as in stir-frying with a Chinese wok.