luav
White Hmong
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Proto-Hmong *ʔljuᴮ (“rabbit”). The "donkey" sense is apparently connected to the "rabbit" sense (perhaps owing to donkeys and rabbits both having similarly-shaped ears), along with Chinese 騾／骡 (luó, “mule”) (and perhaps 驢／驴 (lǘ, “donkey”)), though the internal details are unclear.[1]
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]luav (classifier: tus)
Usage notes
[edit]A rabbit may be referred to as luav nas to disambiguate from a donkey, the latter which may be referred to as luav nees.
References
[edit]- Heimbach, Ernest E. (1979) White Hmong — English Dictionary[1], SEAP Publications, →ISBN, page 122.
- ^ Ratliff, Martha (2010) Hmong-Mien language history (Studies in Language Change; 8), Camberra, Australia: Pacific Linguistics, →ISBN, page 63; 276.