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Comment by haunter | Hacker News Reader

>Michaël Peyrot argues that several of the most striking typological peculiarities of Tocharian are rooted in a prolonged contact of Proto-Tocharian with an early stage of Proto-Samoyedic in South Siberia

>Some modern Chinese words may ultimately derive from a Tocharian or related source, e.g. Old Chinese mjit (蜜; mì) "honey", from Proto-Tocharian ḿət(ə)

Wouldn’t be surprised that cause honey in modern Uralic languages are also very similar. Méz in Hungarian, mesi in Estonian.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead#Etymology

> The English mead – "fermented honey drink" – derives from the Old English meodu or medu, and Proto-Indo-European language, *médʰu. Its cognates include Old Norse mjǫðr, Proto-Slavic medъ, Middle Dutch mede, and Old High German metu, and the ancient Irish queen Medb, among others. The Chinese word for honey, mì (蜜) was borrowed from the extinct Indo-European Tocharian word mit – also a cognate with the English word mead.

Also: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Uralic/m...

> Borrowed from Proto-Tocharian *ḿətə, from Proto-Indo-European *médʰu. One of the words found only within the traditional Finno-Ugric group.

I read somewhere that Chinese "ma" for horse and English "mare" might be related, originating from a steppe people of horseriders. I find these possible connections from time immemorial really fascinating.

Here? https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=44941

In Indoeuropean it's only present in the Germanic and Celtic branches (Protogermanic: marhaz, Protoceltic: markos), but in the Far East, as well as Chinese 馬 (mǎ) there's Mongolian морь, Korean 말 (mal), and Japanese うま (uma).

I can't find any Finno-Ugric or Turkic cognates, so it looks like there are two separate clusters.

In Finnish we still use word "mesi", which is a synonym for honey. The word has the same meaning in Finno-ugric and Uralian languages still spoken in Siberia and Volga areas such as Mari and Udmurt - and Hungarian.

At least the Finnish etymologic dictionary says it's related to Aryan words, e.g. medhu in Sanskrit.

https://kaino.kotus.fi/suomenetymologinensanakirja/?p=qs-art...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanderwort

My favourite example: https://www.academia.edu/25619010, describing a word which ultimately spread from Trans–New Guinea to Latin.

Honey is different compared to oranges and tea (presented as examples in that wiki article) because, presumably, the old Chinese populations were also having access to honey and producing it and, as such, they should have had a name for it. On the other hand Europeans didn't have direct access to stuff like oranges and tea until the transport links happen starting with the 16th century.

Afaik there isn't evidence of beekeeping in East Asia as early as in other regions. While it may sound unbelievable that cultures haven't always known about bees and honey, people are also regularly surprised by how late certain cultures learned about something as "simple" as the wheel. It all sounds obvious in hindsight.

Either way, I'd be cautious and skeptical about all those supposed linguistic links. The honey one might be true, it does sound very enticing, but of course it's always possible it's coincidental.

> Afaik there isn't evidence of beekeeping in East Asia as early as in other regions.

Wow, I actually didn't know that, it will probably do well as a separate HN post if anyone finds a good source for it. I actually thought that beekeeping was a thing across most of Eurasia of ancient times.

> Either way, I'd be cautious and skeptical about all those supposed linguistic links.

I'm in the same boat, especially when talking about peoples and languages so far apart from one another.

Eating honey from wild bees was of course widespread in all places where the ancestors of the humans and then the humans found wild bees.

On the other hand, the domestication of the bees seems to have happened only in Egypt, a few thousands years ago, and then it has spread from there into Europe and Asia.

So it should have reached China after passing through some Indo-Iranian populations.

Even the word "name" seems to be a Wanderwort. If true, it would actually not be a fun coincidence that the Japanese word for the name is "namae" (名前).

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/evolutionary-human-s...

I don't know how much I trust his etymologies for "name" but most of his etymologies for "seven" seem plausible.

Most important rule in linguistics: Follow the honey.

... and to protect the identity of the bear that told you to follow the honey, (while preserving journalistic integrity about not fictionalising sources) never refer to it in print by its proper name, but use an obvious pseudonym, such as "honey-eater"

Also in Slavic languages mȇd.

Also English "mead" for something closely related.

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