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.

Teaser

honu, Manyogana, toman

Full Text

• 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

honu, Wan Shi Tong, Manyogana, Touman, Tumen (River), toman, Tyumen

Footnotes

1. ^

   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.

2. ^

   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".

3. ^

   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.