Revisiting ursine terminology in light of Sinitic cognates: semantics and phonetics

From Chau Wu:

I have always wondered about the deep gulf of variations in the sounds of "néng 能 -bearing" characters, that is, the variations in the onsets and rimes (shēng 聲 and yùn 韻):

néng 能  n- / -eng (Tw l- / -eng)  [Note: 能 orig. meaning 'bear'; nai, an aquatic animal; thai, name of a constellation 三能 = 三台]

xióng 熊  x- (Wade-Giles: hs-) / -iong [熊 Tw hîm; the x- in MSM xióng is due to sibilization of h- caused by the following -i.]

pí 羆  ph- / -i  (the closely related p- onset is also seen in 罷, 擺)

nài 褦  n- / -ai  (the same onset n- is seen in 能)

tài 態  th- / -ai (the same th- onset is seen in 能)

Here is a longer list of characters derived from néng 能:

㑷, X X 㨢, 㴰, 褦, 㔮, 態, 熋, 熊, 螚, 䘅, 罷, X (see here for the three missing characters [marked by "X"])

If you click on the highlighted characters, you can access the complete Wiktionary entry for each one, including glyph origins and early forms, pronunciations (MSM, topolectal, and historical reconstructions from various periods), definitions, and so forth.

Néng 能 itself has seven different pronunciations in MSM and many corresponding meanings.

As for the etymology of néng 能, there are tantalizing suggestions of how this plethora of meanings and pronunciations are related:

"bear-like animal" Apparently an areal word of Austroasiatic origin (Schuessler, 2007; Zhang, 2019). Compare Kharia [script needed] (bɔnɔi), Santali [script needed] (bana, “Indian black bear”) & Lepcha [script needed] (să-na, “bear”), a loanword from Santali “be able to; can; ability” Shijing rhymes point to Old Chinese *nə, but the forms with *-ŋ are also archaic (perhaps ancient dialectal variation?). Possibly Sino–Tibetan: compare Tibetan ནུས (nus, “be able to; capable; to withstand; capacity; strength; force; power; function; energy”), Burmese နိုင် (nuing, “can, be able to, may; master; win; prevail”). Schuessler (2007) also derives 態 (OC *n̥ʰɯːs, “apparition, bearing, manner”) from this. Compare the old Sino–Vietnamese loanword nổi (“be able to; capable”).

         (source)

Sinitic ursine terminology has been long and well studied on Language Log and in related publications, starting with "Dynamic stew" (10/24/13) and the comments thereto, where we had a vigorous discussion of words for "bear" in Korean, Sinitic, Tibetan, and Japanese, then exploring this word family in greater depth and breadth in "Bear words" (11/19/19).  In "Bear talk" (11/15/19), we dealt more with cultural aspects of bear terminology in northeastern China.  Finally, we were gifted with Diana Shuheng Zhang's densely philological study on “Three Ancient Words for Bear,” Sino-Platonic Papers, 294 (November, 2019), 21 pages (free pdf).

Considering that bears are awesome creatures, it is easy to see how words for them proliferate such a wide assemblage of meanings, images, and symbolism.  And sometimes, animals that people call bears aren't even really bears, such as koalas and pandas.  In doing bear research, one must be both linguistically and biologically alert.

Incidentally, I find the Russian word for "bear", medved' медведь, especially endearing (though if you met one in the woods it would be truly scary) because it derives from a Balto-Slavic word that means "honey-eater", which I find charming in and of itself, but also because the "honey" part of the word is evidence of a very old Tocharian borrowing into Sinitic, which we have repeatedly discussed on Language Log (see, for example, here and here)

From Proto-Balto-Slavic *medu-ēdis, equivalent to *medъ (“honey”) +‎ *(j)ěsti (“to eat”), hence literally the epithet "honey-eater". Cognate with Sanskrit मध्वद् (madhv-ád-, “eating sweetness”) (RV I 164,22). Presumably came into use as taboo avoidance of an earlier word, possibly something like *rьstъ (compare Lithuanian irštvà (“bear's den”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ŕ̥tḱos). Similar proposed examples of linguistic taboo for 'bear' are Proto-Germanic *berô (“the brown one”), Latvian lācis (“stomper, pounder”), Sanskrit भल्ल (bhalla) and Old Irish math (“the good one”).

There is a folk etymology from *medъ and *věděti (“to know, to manage”), hence "one who knows honey" or "honey master".

(source)

It seems that Winnie the Pooh was genuinely addicted to honey, which makes him innately so sweet and adorable, no matter what others may say about him.

 

Selected readings

• "Horses, soma, riddles, magi, and animal style art in southern China" (11/11/19)
• "Choice-type questions" (2/12/17) — the famous dilemma of bear's paw versus fish from the philosopher Mencius, ch. 22