the west coast of Taiwan dated c.2800–2200 BCE (Tsang 2005), confirming linguistic reconstructions. The same site has also yielded carbonized grains of the millet Setaria italica, again in large quantities. A term for S. italica, *beCeŋ, had been reconstructed to proto-Austronesian. The Nan Kuan Li site attests to co-cultivation of rice and S. italica by the early Austronesians on Taiwan as early as the first half of the third millennium BCE. Today western Austronesian peoples cultivate tropical japonicas and, in lowland locations, indica varieties. Both rice and millet were abandoned by the eastern (Oceanic) Austronesians as taro cultivation, arboriculture and increased reliance on fishing presented attractive alternatives. Japonicas dominate among the traditional landraces maintained by the Austronesians in Taiwan.
Visitors to Taiwan report no indigenous irrigated rice fields (outside of Chinese wet fields) until the Japanese occupation (1895–1945). Yet the Formosan vocabulary of rice shows that rice cultivation by the early Austronesians was not limited to upland dry fields: a proto-Austronesian root *-na ‘flood-land’ occurs in words meaning ‘wet field’ and ‘riverside’, suggesting lowland rice was cultivated on seasonal floodlands along rivers. The root occurs as a bound morpheme in Tsou cxana ‘wet rice field’ (analyzable as cxa-<proto-Austronesian *CeNaq ‘mud’ plus *na ‘floodland’), and as the second syllable in, e.g. Paiwan pana ‘river’ (includes dry river bed, and low land along river; Ferrell 1982), in Kavalan Zena ‘field/wet field’, etc. In addition there are indigenous words for ‘rice seedling’ and ‘transplant rice seedlings’ in the Tsouic languages (Tsuchida 1976:157), Bunun and Kavalan, although no proto-Austronesian term can be reconstructed.
Austronesian and Tai-Kadai
Based on shared innovations in the personal pronouns, numerals 5–10 and morphological innovations, Sagart (2004, 2005) argues that Tai-Kadai is a subgroup of Austronesian coordinate with Malayo-Polynesian, which returned to the mainland after 2000 BCE. Since the Tai-Kadais are rice farmers, one expects that at least some of the rice vocabulary of Austronesian will be found in Tai-Kadai. Two items attest to this:
- Proto-Austronesian *-na ‘floodland’; Proto-Kra *na A ‘rice-field’ (Ostapirat 2000:229). Proto-Tai na: A ‘paddy field’ (Pittayaporn 2009)
Proto-Puluqish (a SE Formosan subgroup) *qaSaN ‘rice in husks’. This is based on Amis ‘asad ’grains in husks mixed with rice’ (Pourrias and Poinsot 2011) and Paiwan qasał ‘chaff’ (Ferrell 1982). Puyuma asal ‘cut rice, before threshing’ (Cauquelin 1991) must be a loan from either Paiwan or Amis (expect Puyuma zero for proto- Austronesian *S). The final syllable in Papora sesal, sisal ‘rice’ (Ino 1998) also reflects proto-Austronesian -SaN, suggesting a ‘root’ *-SaN with rice-related meaning. T these, compare proto-Tai (Pittayaporn 2009) *sa:l A ‘dehusked rice’. The sound correspondences between the proto-Tai and Austronesian forms agree with current knowledge (Ostapirat 2005).
The Chinese word 秈 *sa[n]>sjen>xian1 used to mean ‘indica rice’ in modern standard Chinese matches proto-Tai *sa:l A well and appears to be a Tai loanword into Chinese[1]: there is no evidence that it designated indica rice, as opposed to tropical japonica rice traded from Tai-Kadai speakers in south China. Large-scale contact between Chinese and early forms of Tai began c.2,200 years ago following the establishment in the region of present day Guangzhou of the Chineseled kingdom of Zhao Tuo. After moving ‘back’ to the mainland, the Tai-Kadais came into intimate contact with Austroasiatic-speaking populations, borrowing part of their rice vocabulary (Ferlus, p.c. to the author, 27 August 2002):
- The general word for ‘rice’, proto-Tai (Pittayaporn) *C. qaw C is comparable with Proto-Mon-Khmer (Ferlus) *rkoʔ/rŋkoʔ ‘rice plant’.
- The word for ‘swidden, dry field’, proto-Tai *rɤj B (Pittayaporn) is comparable with Khamou hreʔ<*sreʔ, Khmer srae<srae ‘dry rice field’ as well as related Bahnaric words.
It is interesting that the Tai-Kadai name of the irrigated rice field is of Austronesian origin, while the name of the dry field is of Austroasiatic origin. This suggests that the Tai-Kadais moved to the mainland carrying lowland rice agriculture with them, and acquired upland rice cultivation from their new Austroasiatic neighbours. A problem is that Austronesian peoples in Formosa cultivate both highland and lowland rice. We propose the following explanation: the Austronesian expansions were led by fishermen who
- ↑ The assertion is often made that the distinction between japonica and indica rice was known to the Chinese about 2,000 years ago, as 粳 jīng (japonica) vs. 秈 xiān (indica). While these meanings are those attached to these characters today, it is not at all certain that they designated japonica and indica varieties 2,000 years ago. The word xian1 first occurs in a now lost version of the Fangyan, a c. 1 CE work on words occurring in languages of China other than standard Chinese, as quoted in the Ji Yun, an eleventh century dictionary. It says <<江南 呼粳為秈>>“Xiān is the name of Jīng rice south of the Yangzi”. As to 粳, it is defined under a slightly different graphic form in the Shuo Wen, a character dictionary of 120 CE as <<禾+亢, 稻屬。>>“ Jīng is a kind of rice”. In a text from the Jin dynasty 265–419 CE, we learned that Jing was dependent on irrigation: “Jīng and tú rice are nourished by water and irrigation, while Setaria and Panicum are sown in upland fields” (晉左思<<魏都賦>>: “雨澍粳稌,陸蒔稷黍”). In a lexicographical text dated c. 543 CE, we learn that Jīng was non-sticky jīng means non-glutinous rice 稻 (玉篇: <<粳, 不黏稻>>). It would appear, therefore, that the term 秈 xiān designated nonglutinous lowland rice from south of the Yangzi.
