Thread

1. kleton · 1789709109 · focus · HN ↗

   > because the Proto-Indo-European language arose in the landlocked steppes, it had no need for—and has no securely reconstructable word for—‘sea’.

   No, it is mori, attested in marine, muir, maryadah, mal, morje, etc in farflung IE tongues today.

   1. TFNA · 1789709548 · focus · HN ↗

      There are decades of scholarship on those cognates, and a longstanding view that in Proto-Indo-European the word meant simply "large body of water" and not specifically "sea". Moreover, it may be a substrate word borrowed into European IE languages, as the affinity of that Sanskrit word to this cognate set is not very certain.

      1. EdwardDiego · 1789714944 · focus · HN ↗

         Yep, it's the same in Māori, a Polynesian language, where "moana" refers to oceans and large lakes alike.

         What's really interesting is that in Hawaiian, a close relative with some sound shifts (k/t, l/r, n/ng, so taboo is kapu in Hawaiian, in Māori, tapu, path is ala / ara, the God of the sea is Kanaloa/Tangaroa) they have more than one word for ocean, kai is coastal waters, moana is the deep ocean.

         But it makes sense in the geographical context of both societies and how they evolved to their environment, the Hawaiian archipelago is made up of multiple smaller islands separated by waters exposed to the full force of the Pacific, while the archipelago of New Zealand is dominated by two large landmasses separated by a narrow strait that together are about the same area as Germany.

         So the Hawaiians remained more tightly wedded to the sea to build their archipelagan societies than the Māori did.

         In fact, the Māori lost the knowledge to build ocean-going vessels like the ones that had carried them to New Zealand within a few hundred years because there was no need for it. And their language lost the distinction between "coastal waters" and "ocean" while Hawaiian retained them.

         While we have evidence of Māori traveling to Raoul in the Kermadecs early on, as classical Māori culture evolved on much much larger islands, their technology focus on boats switched from ocean going vessels to coastal travel and river travel.

         In fact, while "Wai", water, is often considered the Māori word for "river", there's another word that also means river in Māori:

         "Ara" - path.

         (Of course, it still means a regular path)

         1. dmurray · 1789722098 · focus · HN ↗

            Are there any large lakes in Polynesia? The Māori, Hawaiians, etc are one group of people I would expect to make a distinction between lakes (puddles, really) and open ocean.

            1. EdwardDiego · 1789735547 · focus · HN ↗

               Lake Taupō, the largest lake in New Zealand, is about the size of Singapore.

               The Hawaiians distinguished between coastal waters and open waters because in their archipelago of far smaller and more numerous islands, the distinction between the two was important. Think currents, waves, depth.

               And I guess I failed to adequately make my point, but I'll try again - when the Polynesians who would become the Māori reached New Zealand, the far larger islands they now inhabited lead them to focus far less on oceanic travel as they pivoted to a focus on the land and rivers they now inhabited.

               So a big lake was effectively the same as the ocean for them - a big body of water.

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