#5811 PTB *C-na PADDY FIELD / MEADOW / MARSH (provisional)

This areal etymon has its origins in Proto Kam-Tai *na, ‘paddy field’. In particular, it has attracted scholarly interest in its role as a toponymic morpheme, easily recognizable in place names in e.g. southern China, which has historically been a Tai-speaking area. Take, for example, 那馬 Mand. nàmǎ, a township south of 南寧 Nanning city in 廣西 Guangxi province, as well numerous other toponyms with 那 in the vicinity of Nanning area (note that 那 nà here is simply the Chinese transcription of an (originally) non-Chinese toponymic component).

Of interest also are cases in certain ST languages where *na seems to have become part of the lexicon as a common noun early on; for instance, Chinese 洳, Mand. rù, ‘marsh, bog’, which Schuessler (2007:447) and others have contended is cognate (see Comparanda; 洳 rù is etymologically unrelated to transcriptional 那 nà cited above). Given the substantial phonetic alteration seen in reflexes of *na in modern Chinese dialects, this would imply that *na, “borrowed” or not, must have entered the Chinese lexicon prior to the OC stage (see Comparanda; 洳 rù is etymologically unrelated to transcriptional 那 nà cited above). The historicity of Tibetan na ‘meadow’ and Jingpho na ‘paddy’ (also noted by Schuessler (ibid.)) is less obvious; however, we see little reason to assume that reflexes of *na in these languages are merely recent. Kayan nà̤ ‘paddy field’, possibly a borrowing from Shan, may be an exception.