@likethemagician @Black_Kettle The prenasalization isn't actually Japanese's fault though! It's a development of early North-West Chinese. Japanese can have syllable initial m, so there's no reason for it to borrow Sanskrit /m/ with their /b/!
@likethemagician @Black_Kettle The vowel is actually weird too. /moka/ would've been possible, and would have been a fine approximation. But! In North-west Chinese initial nasals when not followed by -ng would become prenasalized.
This is why in go-on 馬 is /me/ but in kan-on (NWChin) it's /ba/.
This is why in go-on 馬 is /me/ but in kan-on (NWChin) it's /ba/.
@likethemagician @Black_Kettle There is in fact an alternative spelling for baka that makes better sense of things:
莫迦 reads perfectly in Go-on as /moka/ which accurately represents the Southern Middle Chinese rendering /mo-ka/, which is still a bit weird. Chinese has initial /h/, which Japanese borrows /k/
莫迦 reads perfectly in Go-on as /moka/ which accurately represents the Southern Middle Chinese rendering /mo-ka/, which is still a bit weird. Chinese has initial /h/, which Japanese borrows /k/
@likethemagician @Black_Kettle the 莫 has 2 readings maku < Old CHinese *mak and and mo < Old Chinese *mak-s. In Some Sino-Sanskrit readings *CaC type syllables, especially in front of homorganic initials can just stand for *Ca. So the baka reading seems to be a misread syllable. Should've red bo, not ba(ku)!
@likethemagician @Black_Kettle So, the spellings that we have do not properly transcribe the original sanskrit. Presumably if they had tried to write *moha you'd expect something like 暮訶 for /mo-xa/, which then could be read in early layer as /moka/ later layer as /boka/, and misread as /maka/ and /baka/ :D
@likethemagician @Black_Kettle Pretty complex... this is me just hypothesizing. I wonder if any of this actually checks out.
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