Reconstructions

Note

Also Bikol baŋká ‘boat (small)’, Aklanon baŋka(h) ‘small boat, ferry’, Proto-South Aru *boka ‘canoe’. Based solely on the Tagalog word given here and Fijian baka-nawa ‘canoe not hollowed out inside’, Dempwolff (1938) proposed Uraustronesisch *baŋka(q) ‘canoe’. Using a slightly smaller comparison than the above, Pawley and Pawley (1998:179-180) proposed PAn *ba(ŋ)ka(q) ‘outrigger canoe, dugout canoe’, citing Kavalan baŋka ‘canoe’ as Formosan evidence for its PAn status. However, Kavalan shows a number of both Spanish and Tagalog loanwords that almost certainly were acquired during the Spanish presence in the Ilan Basin from 1626-1642, when Spain had aspirations of establishing a colony in Taiwan from its headquarters in Manila, and this word shows phonological signs of being among those loans.

Although *baŋkaq appears to be clearly attributable to PMP, there are indications that some of its reflexes were borrowed even within the Philippines (as seen in the phonologically irregular Bikol and Aklanon forms), and similar suggestions of borrowing, as seen in the glosses for languages of the Solomon Islands.