The Proto-Lolo-Burmese and old Burmese sources of written Burmese -AC*

Abstract

It is a notable fact that some Written Burmese (WrB) morphemes in -ac are rather consistently spelt with -at when the initials are, or are interpretable as, with medial -y-. Thus WrB hrac ‘eight’ is written in some early Pagan inscriptions as hyat or het. Similarly, we find Old Burmese (OB) ñhat for WrB hñac ‘to squeeze’, OB cat for WrB cac ‘to examine, investigate’, OB khyat for WrB khyac ‘to love’ and OB mryat for WrB mrac ‘root’. On the other hand, the majority of the WrB morphemes in -ac are more consistently spelt with -ac or -ec. To give only a few examples, OB phlac, phlec for WrB phrac ‘to be become’, OB tac, tec or even tic for WrB tac or ta- (in composition with classifiers and in some other phrases) ‘one’, OB nhac or nhec for WrB hnac or hna- (in composition with classifiers) ‘two’, OB (Ɂa-)nhac for WrB (Ɂa-) hnac ‘year’, OB nhac for WrB hnac ‘heart’, OB Ɂac- or Ɂec- for WrB Ɂac- (‘older sibling’) in WrB Ɂac-kúi ‘elder brother’ and Ɂac-ma ‘elder sister’. Side by side, with OB hyat or het and OB khyat, however, we encounter variant spellings such as OB rhec and OB khyac. Likewise, phlet and Ɂat- are variant forms of OB phlac ~ phlec and OB Ɂac- ~ Ɂec-. In spite of this, it is not inconceivable that WrB -ac would be the result of merger of two distinct OB finals