From: Roger Mills
Message: 45425
Date: 2006-07-19
On 2006-07-18 16:44, amshuman_k wrote:
> I also came across Malay 'kapas' and Mongol 'Kabaz/Kabiz' for
> cotton. Are these words genetically related to Latin Carbasus ?
They may easily be Indian loans, though it's hard to be sure without
investigating them more closely.
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Dempwolff, who was usually aware of Indic loans, reconstructed Austronesian
(= Malayo-Polynesian in today's classification) *kapas 'Baumwolle, Faden'
with witnesses in his Indonesian languages (all glossed 'Baumwolle') as well
as Melanesian Fijian, and Polynesian Tonga, Samoa (all glossed 'Bindfaden').
Provided the Oceanic cognates are correctly aligned, it implies either MP
origin (thence > Indic), or a very early loan from the mainland, likely
prior to the known massive Indic influence in the archipelago. Perhaps a
Wanderwort for "various useful plant-fibers"?
Gonda, and later scholars, consider Ml/Ind. kapas an Indic loan; but do not
explain the Oceanic witnesses.
(In modern Ml/Indonesian and areas influenced by them, kapas does indeed
mean 'cotton'; some Moluccan languages attest a variant *kabas.
Blust's comparative AN dictionary does not include the word, perhaps by
oversight (it's still "in progress"). Zorc's Core Etym.Dict. of Pilipino
cites _kapas_, but as a presumed Ml. loan ult. < Indic "kappa:sa" (per
Gonda). He also gives other PI forms pointing to *kap&s (&=schwa). An older
Pilipino dictionary (Panganiban 1970) doesn't list it.