Reconstruction:Proto-Sino-Tibetan/lwa(ː)j

• Proto-Sino-Tibetan: ?
  • Proto-Tibeto-Burman: *lwa(ː)y (Matisoff, STEDT); *lway (Weidert, 1987; Benedict, 1972); *s-l(w)a-y (LaPolla, 1987)

The quantity of the nuclear vowel has not yet been established, although Jingpho loi ~ lwe (“easy”) doublet suggests that it might have been long^[1] (Matisoff, 2003: 213).

Matisoff (STEDT) and Schuessler (2007) propose 易 (OC *leːɡs, “easy”) as Chinese comparandum. The presence of a labio-velar approximant as well as a velar coda in Chinese is confirmed by the fact that the character was borrowed to write 役 (OC *ɢʷeɡ, “to do service, do labour”) in some classical texts predating the Han dynasty. 易 (OC *leːɡs, “easy”) should not be confused with his homograph 易 (OC *leɡ, “to change”), a derivate of 移 (OC *lal, “to change”) via k-suffixation, i.e. OC *lek < *lajk < *laj + -k.

According to Schuessler (2007), 易 (OC *leːɡs, “easy”) could be compared with Tibetan ལེགས་པོ (legs po, “good, beautiful”) and ཡག་པོ (yag po, “good, fine”) due to phonetic similarity. However, Matisoff (STEDT) reconstructs Proto-Sino-Tibetan *l(j)a(k/ŋ) (“good, beautiful”) for these two Tibetan words.

*lwa(ː)j

1. easy

• Old Chinese: 易 (yì) /*lek-s/ (? < /*ɴ(ə)-lek-s/, see Sagart, 2007) (B-S), /*leːɡs/ (ZS) ("easy")

  (in the oracle bone script)  

  • Middle Chinese: 易 (yì) (yeH, /jᴇ^H/) ("easy")
    • Modern Chinese
      • Beijing: 易 (yì, /i⁵¹/, “easy”)
      • Cantonese: 易 (/jiː²²/, “easy”)
      • Wu: 易 (/ɦi²³/, “easy”)
  • Min Nan
    • Xiamen: 易 (/i²²/, “easy”)
• Central Naga:

  *m-laj (Bruhn, 2014)

  • Lotha: ela (“easy, cheap”)
• Angami-Pochuri
  • Angami: meli (“easy”)
• Tangkhulic

  *plaj (Mortensen, 2012)

  • Ukhrul: kəpaj (“easy”)
• Meitei [Manipuri]: লৈবা (laiba, “easy”)
• Tangut-Qiang
  • Northern Tangut
    • Tangut: 𗧙 (*ljɨ², “easy”)
• Sal
  • Jingpho [Kachin]: loi (“easy”), lwe (“easy”)
• Lolo-Burmese
  • Burmish
    • Written Burmese: လွယ် (lwai, “easy”)
    • Lashi: lø
  • Loloish
    • Yi: ꆻ (liet, “easy”)