Bear words

In "Dynamic stew" (10/24/13) and the comments thereto, we had a vigorous discussion of words for "bear" in Korean, Sinitic, Tibetan, and Japanese,  And now Diana Shuheng Zhang has written a densely philological study on "Three Ancient Words for Bear," Sino-Platonic Papers, 294 (November, 2019), 21 pages (free pdf).

Let's start with the basic word for "bear" in Sinitic:  xióng (MSM) 熊.

Etymology

• Cantonese (Jyutping): hung⁴
• Hakka (Sixian, PFS): yùng
• Min Bei (KCR): hê̤ng
• Min Dong (BUC): hṳ̀ng
• Min Nan

  (Hokkien, POJ): hîm / hiông

  (Teochew, Peng'im): him⁵ / hing⁵

• Wu (Wiktionary): hhion (T3)

Topolectal data

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Reconstructions

Middle Sinitic: /ɦɨuŋ/

Old Sinitic

(Baxter–Sagart): /*C.[ɢ]ʷ(r)əm/

(Zhengzhang): /*ɢʷlɯm/

Source (also for most of the following in Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese)

Japanese

Readings

• Go-on: う (u)
• Kan-on: ゆう (yū)
• Kun: くま (kuma, 熊, Jōyō)
• Nanori: かげ (kage)

Pronunciation

• Kun'yomi
  • (Tokyo) くま​ [kùmáꜜ] (Odaka – [2])^[1][2]
  • (Tokyo) く​ま [kúꜜmà] (Atamadaka – [1])^[2]
  • IPA^(key): [kɯ̟ᵝma̠]

Etymology

From Old Japanese. Probably cognate with 隈 (kuma, "inside corner; inner bend; hollow or hole in something"), perhaps from the way that bears often live in dens. Probably also cognate with Korean 곰 (gom, "bear; hole").

Korean

熊 (ung)

• Eumhun:
  • Sound (hangeul): ung 웅
  • Name (hangeul): gom 곰

gom 곰 ("bear")

The Sinitic morpheme xióng 熊 would be pronounced "ung" in Korean, but the Korean word gom 곰 is preferred.  The latter is homophonous (okay, homographic) with the Korean word for "a thick broth made of cooked meat".

Vietnamese

熊 (hùng)

The following observations are mostly extracted from "Dynamic stew" (10/24/13), cited at the beginning of this post.

One commenter suggests that gom is xióng 熊; it's just a really old piece of shared vocabulary. Newer OS reconstructions give things like *wum; adding the "uvular" suggests ~*ɢʷum.

From Juha Janhunen:

My idea of Korean gom [kom] is that it is a borrowing from Para-Japonic and represents the same word as regular Japanese kuma 'bear'. The original form may also be reconstructed as *kuma. (I know of arguments presented against this reconstruction, but I do not think they are valid.) I cannot see how this item could in any regular way be connected with any early form of Chinese xiong.

The same commenter cited above responds:

I find Janhunen's comments interesting as, whatever we might suppose regarding the cause for the resemblance, *ɢʷum is certainly phonologically close to /kom/ and still closer to the Middle Korean kwom cited at Axel Schuessler, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese, p. 542 — where, it turns out, the author has already noted the similarity between these two as well as a number of other area 'bear' words, largely TB items but also PMonic *kmum 'Himalayan black bear'.

Jongseong Park:

On the subject of the homonym 곰 gom [ɡ̊oːm] "bear", it is already attested in the current spelling in Seokbo sangjeol (釋譜詳節; 석보상절), 1447, one of the first works written in the Korean alphabet. The Japanese クマ/くま kuma is no doubt a cognate. The Old Chinese reconstruction *wum ~ *ɢʷum is certainly intriguing. Note that the Sino-Korean reading for 熊 is ung [uŋ], reflecting -ŋ in Middle Chinese. So if there is a connection between Chinese 熊 and Korean 곰 gom, then it must be very old, predating the establishment of Sino-Korean readings connected to the large-scale adoption of Classical Chinese as the literary language during the late Three Kingdoms / Unified Silla period. I've seen a similar suggestion that the Korean word for "wind", baram [b̥aɾam], is from Old Chinese 風 *priəm, though I'm completely out of my depth when it comes to evaluating such claims.

More from Jongseong Park:

I found some assertions that the Old Korean form of 곰 gom "bear" was 고마 goma. One evidence is that the native name of the early capital of Baekje, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, is given as 固麻, which is 고마 goma in Sino-Korean. This capital is better known as 熊津 웅진 ungjin, which seems to be a translation of a native name like 고마나루 goma naru "bear crossing".

It does look to me like 고마 goma is a plausible early form for Middle Korean 곰 gom and Japanese kuma. The extra vowel at the end does move it further from the Chinese 熊, though. Not sure what this means….

From an anonymous colleague:

If you want to go way out on a limb, there is modern Tibetan དོམ༌ (tom) meaning "bear". The vowel and final work nicely but the initial consonant is a stretch.

From Juha Janhunen (personal correspondence [9/15/19])

I wrote a paper on bear cult, available here (pdf).

However, in this paper I did not discuss bear words, and I do not think I have discussed them elsewhere, either. In many languages, 'bear' is referred to by a taboo word, e.g., Finnish karhu from karhea 'rough to touch', a taboo word with an age of at least 1,500 years, since it is also present in Estonian (karu). An older word for 'bear', with cognates as far as the Permic languages, was oksi : ohde- (< *okti), which is also preserved in Finnish in the derivative ohto 'bear' (< *okt-iw). Then we have languages that, probably also for taboo reasons, have borrowed the word for 'bear', like Hungarian medve (from Slavic).

I was during the summer in Tuva (Tannu-Tuva) and learnt the word adïg 'bear' – there were a lot of bears there. However, more recently, when I looked at some data of regular Turkish I noticed that they also have the same word, in the regularly evolved shape ayï (orthographically ayı). So, this is a Common Turkic word, *adïg, deriving from Proto-Turkic (without Chuvash). Erdal has *adïg 'sober' in his Old Turkic Word Formation, but I am not sure if it is the same word.

From Chris Button (personal correspondence [9/9/19])

Personally I think the Mon-Khmer, Japanese, and Korean forms are probably all ultimately somehow related to Chinese. There doesn't seem to be a likely Indo-European cognate though.

Reading

"Bear talk" (11/15/19)

"Horses, soma, riddles, magi, and animal style art in southern China" (11/11/19)

[Thanks to Chris Button for reminding me to make this post.]