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The noninfallibility yet utility of AIO

Language Log 2025-02-19

Someone complained in an inappropriate and non sequiturish place that AIO (Artificial Intelligence Overview) did not definitively solve the difficult problem of the seeming non-Sinitic etymology of Japanese waka 若 ("young; youth") that he posed to it.

Cf. Wiktionary:

Japanese

Noun

若(わか) • (waka) 

    1. "my lord" (towards a young master or a young heir)

Middle Sinitic

Zhengzhang Shangfang /ȵiaX/ Pan Wuyun /ȵiaX/ Shao Rongfen /ȵʑiaX/ Edwin Pulleyblank /ȵiaX/ Li Rong /ȵiaX/ Wang Li /ȵʑĭaX/ Bernhard Karlgren /ȵʑi̯aX/ Expected Mandarin Reflex rě Expected Cantonese Reflex je5

This is a view adumbrated by Jonathan Smith:

If J. waka means/meant 'milord, miyounglord' as online indicates, then this writing is just based on the fact that the same character wrote a word 'you' in Chinese, "Middle Chinese" nyak or some such according to the Guangyun.

I put the question of the (non-)/Sinitic derivation of Japanese waka 若 ("young; youth") to AIO several times and it pointed me in the right direction each time.

As readers of Language Log are well aware, I'm a fan of this Google add-on and have repeatedly expressed my appreciation for its services.  However, I do not expect it to be infallible, especially when dealing with questions that are notoriously bewildering.  I am grateful for any assistance or inspiration that it may offer, as was the case with the origins of Japanese waka 若 ("young; youth").

I think it would be irresponsible and foolish of me to ask Google (i.e., AIO) to explain the phonotactics of biang.  We realize before we ask that the antecedents of biang are not well known, so why trouble AIO with such a question?

And don't forget that AIO frequently reminds us that it is "experimental".

The burden of proof is on the user.  Caveat lector.

 

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