Talk:しか

Derivation

@Kwékwlos, this is very unlikely to be from Proto-Japonic. See the KDJ entry at Kotobank, listing the limiting sense as appearing only in 1784.

Also, it's unclear what Proto term ika would be indicated by your proposed derivation:

From Old Japanese, from Proto-Japonic *sə ika (“only that”)...

I cannot find any native ika term with such a sense in the JA or OJP lexicon. The only non-Sinic ika terms I can find are the following:

• 烏賊 (ika, “squid, cuttlefish”)
• 五十日 (ika, “fifty days”)
• 凧・紙鳶 (ika, “kite (flying toy)”, short for ikanobori, literally “climbing [flying] squid”)
• 如何 (ika, “how much”, cognate with iku, Proto form *əku)

The only ika term with a sense vaguely similar to this limiting "only" sense is Sinitic 以下 (ika).

In addition, Vovin's review of Robbeets' work, Is Japanese related to Korean, Tungusic, Mongolic, and Turkic?, was extremely unfavorable, as indicated by this excerpt at the end:

... So this is my ultimate assessment of the book: scholarly-wise it is completely useless, but those who had the misfortune to purchase it should think twice before discarding it: it will hold your stacks of paper really well.

I have therefore backed out your proposed derivation. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:10, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

I concur, then. Do you really believe that *wasay is from Austronesian? Kwékwlos (talk) 21:16, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

@Kwékwlos -- thanks for the dialog.  :)

The *wasay derivation from Proto-Austronesian strikes me as highly tentative, at best. Robbeets' notation is also unacceptably opaque -- what does she mean by her unexplained use of ⟨ C ⟩ and ⟨ R ⟩? Does ⟨ C ⟩ mean "any consonant" (unacceptably vague), or /t͡s/ (much better to use IPA), or ...?

Cheers, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:25, 11 February 2020 (UTC)