Introduction

One final "turtle" word: "honu"

It is very tempting to unify *pəñu: "sea turtle" with *pəNuʔ: "to fill, full, container". And *pəNuʔ: "full" has potential cognates in the possible Sino-Austronesian macrofamily/Southeast Asian historic sprachbund.

And then at that point you're speculating a link between "green sea turtles" and "an army of 10,000 Mongolians", and you start to wonder if you've lost the thread.

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Sino-Austronesian

Austronesian *pəNuʔ full, container ^[1]
- Paiwan peljuq to fill, full
- Malayo-Polynesian *pənuʔ
  - Bornean
    
    Barito
    
    Malagasy feno full
  - Javanese pinuh full
  - Malayo-Sumbawan
    
    Chamic
    
    Aceh peunòh full, laden
    
    Aceh buleuën peunòh full moon
    
    Malayic
    
    Malay penuh full
  - Oceanic *ponuʔ
    
    Micronesian *wonu
    
    Kiribati on full, filled, fullness
  - Philippine
    
    Tagalog punô full, fed up
  - Sundanese ᮕᮤᮔᮥᮂ pinuh full
- Austronesian
  - Malayo-Polynesian *penpen to provision, to fill up
    
    Philippine
    
    Ilokano penpén heap, pile, store of something
    
    Ilokano i-penpén to accumulate, to store, to keep in reserve
    
    Malayo-Sumbawan
    
    Bali penpen to put into, to fill up
- Austronesian *pəñu sea turtle ^[1]
  - Puyuma penu turtle, sea turtle ^[2]
  - East Formosan
    
    Kavalan penu sea turtle
  - Malayo-Polynesian *pəñu green sea turtle
    
    Bornean
    
    Barito
    
    Malagasy fanu green sea turtle, a kind of beetle, a kind of fish ^[2]
    
    Moken penyui
    
    Land Dayak
    
    Jagoi ponyu sea turtle
    
    Javanese penyu sea turtle
    
    Malayo-Sumbawan
    
    Bali penyu
    
    Chamic
    
    Aceh punyi
    
    Malayic *pəñu
    
    Iban penyu
    
    Malay penyu sea turtle
    
    Malay penyu-penyuan ant-lion
    
    Sundanese penyu
    
    Oceanic *poñu
    
    Micronesian *woñu
    
    Chuukese wiin
    
    Kiribati on sea turtle
    
    Fijian vonu sea turtle
    
    Polynesian *fonu
    
    Tongic
    
    Niuēan fonu sea turtle, quiet person
    
    Tongan fonu green sea turtle, a kind of beetle ^[2]
    
    Nuclear Polynesian
    
    Rapa Nui honu
    
    Marquesic
    
    Hawaiʻian honu green sea turtle, turtle
    
    English honu
    
    Tahitic
    
    Māori honu sea turtle (archaic)
    
    Tahitian honu
    
    Tuvaluan fonu
Hmong-Mien *pu̯ɛŋX
- Hmong
  - White Hmong puv full
- Mien
  - Iu Mien buangv full
Sino-Tibetan
- Old Chinese 满 *mˤoːnʔ
  - Middle Chinese 滿 muɑnˣ to fill, to satisfy, full, complete, very
    
    Mandarin 滿 mǎn
    
    Wu 滿 moe³
    
    Yue 滿 mun⁵
  - Min Nan
    
    Hokkien 滿 móa
- Sino-Tibetan
  - Old Chinese 万 *C.man-s
    
    Middle Chinese 萬 mʉɐnᴴ myriad (10,000), very, extremely
    
    Mandarin 萬 wàn
    
    Mandarin 萬事通 wànshìtōng jack-of-all-trades, know-it-all lit. "10,000 things expert"
    
    English Wan Shi Tong
    
    Wu 萬 maan⁶
    
    Yue 萬 me³
    
    Middle Chinese 萬里長城 mʉɐnᴴ lɨˣ ɖɨɐŋ dʑiᴇŋ Great Wall of China literally "Ten Thousand Mile Long Wall"
    
    Mandarin 萬里長城 Wànlǐ Chángchéng
    
    Japanese ばん ban many, all
    
    Japanese まん man myriad (10,000)
    
    Japanese まんようしゅう Man'yōshū Ten Thousand Leaves Collection ^[3]
    
    Japanese まんようが名な man'yōgana Man'yōgana ^[3]
    
    English Manyogana
    
    Korean 만 man myriad (10,000)
    
    Thai หมื่น mʉ̀ʉn myriad (10,000)
    
    Vietnamese vạn myriad (10,000)
    
    Tocharian
    
    Arshian tmāṃ myriad (10,000)
    
    Kushean tᵤmāne myriad (10,000)
    
    Xiongnu *tuman
    
    Old Chinese 头曼 *doː-moːn
    
    Middle Chinese 頭曼 Touman, first Chanyu (Tarkhan?) of the Xiongnu
    
    Mandarin 頭曼 tóumàn
    
    English Touman
    
    Middle Mongolian ᠲᠦᠮᠡᠨ tümen myriad (10,000)
    
    Mongolian ᠲᠦᠮᠡ tüme myriad (10,000)
    
    Manchu ᡨᡠᠮᡝᠨ tumen
    
    Manchu ᡨᡠᠮᡝᠨ ᠰᡝᡴᡳᠶᡝᠨ tumen sekiyen River of Ten Thousand Sources (place name)
    
    Mandarin 圖們 Túmén
    
    English Tumen (River)
    
    Persian تومان tūmān toman (currency), toman (army division of 10,000)
    
    English toman
    
    Russian Тюмень Tjumenʹ
    
    English Tyumen
    
    Turkic
    
    Turkish tümen very many, myriad (10,000), toman
  - Tibeto-Burman
    
    Bodish *ᵐbum
    
    Tibetan འབུམ 'bum myriad (10,000), complete, entire
Austroasiatic
- Mon-Khmer *dpəɲ
  - Eastern Mon-Khmer
    
    Khmer ពេញ pɨñ to be full, to complete, whole
    
    Vietnamese đầy full, filled
  - Northern Mon-Khmer
    
    Khasi tbeng full, as if full

Visual

Collected English words

Footnotes

Regarding the link from *pəNuʔ: "to fill, full, container" to *pəñu: "sea turtle".

Phonologically: In Wolff's reconstruction, *ñ and *N are the same phoneme. /n/ is the expected reflex of *N in Kavalan penu, but Puyuma would be expected to have l. But there are several reason to think Puyuma penu may be a borrowing from East Formosan. If so, peñu: "turtle" is restricted to East Formosan and Malayo-Polynesian, which are good candidates for a subgrouping within Austronesian.

Semantically: In many language, *pəñu refers specifically to the green sea turtle, which is valuable for its meat and eggs. Turtles valued for meat and eggs seem like a reasonably semantic connection to "to fill, full, container". Especially if *penpen: "to provision, to fill up" is included.

A meaning of a specific kind of beetle, in addition to green sea turtle, is present in both Malagasy fanu and Tongan fonu, which are not closely related within Malayo-Polynesian. This could reflect an original polysemy, or just convergent development of calling beetles "little turtles".

Man'yōshū, literally "the Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves", is a 7th/8th C collection of Old Japanese poetry.

The first Japanese kana system is named after it: まんようがな Man'yōgana: "the Letters of the Thousand Leaves". Man'yōgana is the predecessor of the modern Katakana and Hiragana systems.

AidanEM

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