On the Etymology of the Eastern Japanese Word tego

John Kupchik
University of Auckland

In this paper I detail the weaknesses of the previously proposed etymologies of

the Eastern Japanese word tego ‘third daughter; maiden’, which is exclusive to
Eastern Old Japanese (EOJ) and the modern Hachijō language. I then offer a new
hypothesis in which the original form of this word was a morphological hybrid
consisting of Proto-Ainu *dE ‘three’ (borrowed into EOJ as te), the EOJ adnomi-
nal copula nö, and the EOJ word ko ‘girl’, which contracted to tego and had the
meaning ‘girl who is third’. Furthermore, I claim that the primary meaning of tego
is ‘third daughter’ and that it developed the secondary meaning of ‘maiden’ in
EOJ. I argue this hypothesis is stronger than the previously proposed etymologies
in phonetics, morphology, and semantics, and more importantly it allows us to
account for this word in both EOJ and Hachijō.

1. introduction 1

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the etymology of the word tego, which is exclu-
sive to Eastern Old Japanese (EOJ) and the modern Hachijō language—both of which are
Eastern Japanese languages in the Japonic language family. 2 In EOJ this word is attested
eight times, and the predominant view is that it means ‘maiden’ (Omodaka et al. 1967: 483,
Mizushima 1986: 109–10), although there is also the viewpoint that it carries the meaning
‘baby’ in Man’yōshū poem 3485 (Omodaka et al. 1967: 483, Ōno et al. 1990: 907). In con-
trast, its meaning in present-day Hachijō is ‘third daughter’ (NINJAL 1950: 372, 3 Asanuma
1999: 150, Yamada 2010: 34). Asanuma (1999: 10) pointed out the similarity between the
Hachijō word and the EOJ word, but he did not go beyond that and offer an etymology.
Three hypotheses have been presented for its etymology. In this paper I discuss the merits
and weaknesses of these etymologies and I offer a new etymology that is based on multiple
pieces of linguistic and philological evidence.
EOJ is attested exclusively in a few hundred poems in books 14 and 20 of the Man’yōshū
(MYS) verse anthology, and based upon this linguistic record it is known to have been spo-
ken in almost all of the easternmost provinces of Japan during the eighth century, with the
exception of Töpotuapumi and Suruga provinces, where a distinct variety of Old Japanese
(OJ) was spoken (Kupchik 2013: 5).

1. The glosses in this paper conform to the Leipzig Glossing Rules and abbreviations. The following additional
abbreviations are also used: ADN: adnominal; AV: adjectival verb; CNJ: conjunction; CONJ: conjunctive gerund;
DES: desiderative; DIM: diminutive; DLF: directive-locative focus; EPT: emphatic particle; EV: evidential; FIN:
final predication marker; PN: place name; RECP: reciprocal marker; SUB: subordinative gerund; TENT: tentative
mood. Eastern Old Japanese words are transliterated phonemically in the IPA, with one exception: a vowel phoneme
written as ö (probably pronounced [ə]). The voiced obstruents are considered to be prenasalized. Western Old Japa-
nese transliterations follow the system used by Vovin (2009b), except prenasalization of voiced obstruents is not
marked (e.g., I use d instead of Vovin’s Nt).
2. In contrast, Modern Japanese descends from Central Old Japanese (Frellesvig 2010: 383).
3. A variant form teko is also recorded here.

Journal of the American Oriental Society 136.4 (2016) 733

734 Journal of the American Oriental Society 136.4 (2016)

At present, Hachijō is a moribund language spoken across the Izu archipelago, which
lies to the south of Tokyo. Five of its dialects (Mitsune, Ōkagō, Kashitate, Nakanogō, and
Sueyoshi) are spoken on Hachijō-jima, while another dialect is spoken on Aogashima. In
the past, two dialects (Utsuki and Toriuchi) were spoken on Hachijō-kojima, but that island
has not had occupants since 1969 (Yamada 2010). Hachijō is generally considered to be a
daughter language of EOJ due to the linguistic features shared between the two languages.
The strongest grammatical evidence for this claim is the retention of the innovative EOJ ten-
tative mood marker -unam- in the Hachijō form -unou- (Kaneda 2001: 179). The EOJ form
appears to be the result of regressive nasal assimilation (*r > n) of the Proto-Japanese form
*-uram- (cf. Western Old Japanese (WOJ) -uram-). Hachijō also retains the EOJ interrogative
form an- (< *ani ‘what’)—as found in the EOJ words aze ‘why; what’ (< *ani se ‘what do’)
and adö ‘why’ (< *ani tö ‘what say’) (cf. WOJ nazö ‘why’ and nadö ‘why’)—in words such
as ani ‘what’ and adan ‘anyhow’. 4

2. previously proposed etymologies of tego

In the sections that follow I describe the strengths and weaknesses of the previously
proposed etymologies of tego. It should be noted that all of these hypotheses are concerned
exclusively with EOJ tego, and the Hachijō meaning ‘third daughter’ is not discussed by any
of the scholars who put forth these hypotheses.

2.1 Matsuoka’s Hypothesis

In Nihon Kogo Daijiten 日本古語大辞典, published in 1929, Matsuoka Shizuo 松岡静雄
proposed that EOJ tego is a compound consisting of WOJ ti ‘spiritual power, vital force’ and
ko ‘girl’, and that the syllable te in EOJ is the result of a later, sporadic ablaut. In support of
this he offers the speculation that tego was used in reference to girls who aided in religious
ceremonies (Matsuoka 1929: 883). However, there is absolutely no evidence to corroborate
this idea. Moreover, this hypothesis is untenable in regard to phonetics because there are no
other known cases in which any EOJ dialect lowered Proto-Japanese *i > e, and Ryukyuan
reflexes such as the chi in Okinawan inuchi ‘life’ (Handa 1999: 202) (< Proto-Japonic *i-nö ti
‘liver; gallbladder-GEN vital.force’ [Vovin 2010: 127]) indicate that the Proto-Japonic form
should be reconstructed as *ti, not *te (i.e., we would expect ti in Okinawan if the Proto-
Japonic form was *te). Due to all of these problems, I think this hypothesis should be rejected.

2.2 Frellesvig’s Hypothesis

Bjarke Frellesvig has proposed that EOJ tego is an earlier form of Classical Japanese
(Heian period) tigo ‘baby’. The Classical Japanese word is believed to be the result of an
earlier contraction of unattested *ti-nö ko ‘milk/breast-gen child’, meaning ‘child of the
milk/breast’ (Vovin 2012: 75 n. 27). This hypothesis works well in regard to semantics, as
it is plausible that the meaning ‘baby’ would extend to ‘maiden’ or be used in reference to
a third-born girl. There is a problem with the phonetics, however. Specifically, there is no
evidence for Frellesvig’s hypothetical EOJ te ‘milk; breast’ (cf. WOJ ti ‘id.’). Moreover,
Hachijō usually retains EOJ e unchanged, instead of raising it to /i/, and we find chi for this
morpheme in the Hachijō word chibu ‘milk; milky liquid’ (Asanuma 1999: 141). In addi-
tion, Ryukyuan evidence points to Proto-Japonic *ti ‘milk; breast’, rather than *te (Pellard

4. There are other lexical and grammatical features shared between EOJ and Hachijō, but a discussion of these
is beyond the scope of this paper. Works that contain discussions of features shared between both languages include
Dickens and Satow 1878, Hōjō 1948, 1966: 529–86, Gotō 1955, Tsuzuku 1955, Asanuma 1999: 8–10, and Kaneda
2001.
 Kupchik: On the Etymology of the Eastern Japanese Word tego 735

Table 1. Vovin’s Proposed Ainu Words in EOJ Poetry5

Eastern Old Japanese Gloss Ainu Gloss
azu ‘crumbling cliff’ *-as- + so ‘to split’ + ‘rocky shore’
atu- ‘sea’ atuy ‘sea’
ka ‘top’ ka ‘top’
ködök- ‘to bless with words’ ko-itak ‘to speak to, to address’
ma ‘wife’ mat ‘woman; wife’
mato ‘girl’ matpo ‘girl’
na ‘river’ nay ‘river’
pa ‘to find’ pa ‘to find’
paka ‘rumor, gossip’ páhaw ‘rumor, gossip’
pirö ‘oak’ pero ‘oak’
pizi ‘sandbank’ pisi ‘its shore’
sida ‘when’ hi-ta ‘time-loc’
sömö ‘not’ somo ‘not’
su ‘again’ suy ‘again’
tora ‘together’ tura ‘together’
unaru ‘to search’ hunar ‘to search’
ya ‘shore’ ya ‘shore’

2010: 97). Therefore, due to the insurmountable problem with the first syllable, I think this
hypothesis should also be rejected.

2.3 Vovin’s Hypothesis 5

Alexander Vovin (2009a: 33–42; 2012: 75) has proposed that tego is wholly Ainu, con-
sisting of a concatenation of the morphemes tek ‘arm’ and o ‘take.in’, literally meaning
‘embrace in the arms’, but lexically meaning ‘maiden’ in EOJ. In terms of phonetics the
intervocalic voicing of k to g assumes that the phonetic intervocalic voicing of obstruents
attested in modern Ainu dialects occurred in Nara-period Old Ainu dialects. The evidence is
scarce, but the intervocalic consonant correspondences in Vovin’s proposed EOJ borrowings
of sida ‘when’ from Ainu hi-ta ‘time-LOC’ and pizi ‘sandbank’ from Ainu pisi ‘its shore’
(see Table 1 above) offer support for this idea. In any case, in order for Vovin’s hypothesis
to work the phonetic form in Old Ainu had to be [tego], not [teko].
Setting aside phonetics, there are problems with the semantics. Specifically, according
to the Ainu dictionaries by Hattori et al. (1964), Tamura (1996), Nakagawa (1995), Kayano
(2002), and Ōtsuka et al. (2008), the hypothetical Ainu word teko [tego] ‘maiden’ does not
exist in any Ainu dialect. Moreover, I am unaware of any evidence to support the claim that
Ainu tek-o ‘arm-take.in’ could be used as a noun in the sense of ‘maiden’. The very specific
meaning ‘third daughter’ in Hachijō is also difficult to account for with this hypothesis. Due
to these problems I find this hypothesis difficult to accept.
Vovin’s hypothesis of an Ainu origin for this word is based on his broader hypothesis of
Ainu words in Eastern Old Japanese poetry. Specifically, Vovin (2012: 11–12) examined a
number of EOJ words in the MYS that have resisted Japonic-internal explanations. These
are shown in Table 1 above. I find a few of the comparisons to be unconvincing (e.g., pa ‘to

5. I do not include place names.

736 Journal of the American Oriental Society 136.4 (2016)

find’, mato ‘girl’, and unaru ‘to search’), but most of them are strong and are firmly rooted
in regular sound correspondences and plausible semantics. Moreover, Vovin’s hypothesis
is in accord with the fact that there was a sustained, non-hostile contact situation between
the Ainu and the Eastern Japanese during the seventh and eighth centuries (Sansom 1958:
105–6) and it furthermore suggests that this contact was intimate enough to permeate into
the language of EOJ poetry. These are important points to consider when investigating the
etymology of any word exclusive to Eastern Japanese languages.

3. a new hypothesis

In the previous sections I demonstrated the weaknesses of the previously proposed tego
etymologies. In this section I propose a new hypothesis for the etymology of tego, which
is based on the following pieces of evidence: the phonology and morphology of EOJ, the
Hachijō meaning of ‘third daughter’, the non-hostile contact situation between Ainu and EOJ
speakers during the seventh and eighth centuries, and Vovin’s hypothesis of Ainu loanwords
in EOJ. In the sections that follow I will describe this in detail.

3.1 Orthographic Forms

Before conducting an analysis of the morphology and semantics of EOJ tego it will be
useful to examine its orthographic forms. In the EOJ poems this word is written seven times
as 手兒 and once as 弖胡. The latter form is purely phonographic and consequently of great
importance because it establishes the voicing of the onset of the second syllable. This is due
to the fact that 胡 was only used to write go syllables in the MYS. A purely logographic
reading of 手兒 would mean ‘child/girl of the hand/arm’, as the EOJ reading te for 手 means
‘hand/arm’ while the reading ko for 兒 means either ‘child’ or ‘girl’. 6 In this case the voicing
of the onset of ko to g would be a residue from a contraction of the genitive nö. This read-
ing is semantically similar to Vovin’s proposed Ainu etymology of ‘embrace in the arms’
discussed in section 2.3 above. I am, however, doubtful that the original meaning of tego was
‘child/girl of the hand/arm’, due to the Hachijō meaning of ‘third daughter’. Although 手 is
often used in the WOJ poems of the MYS as a kungana phonogram 7 for te to write verbal
morphology such as the subordinative gerund -te or the verbal perfective -te-, there are no
other examples of its use as a phonogram in the EOJ corpus. Therefore, in this case I think
the scribe(s) who recorded the EOJ poems really did think the word meant ‘child/girl of the
hand/arm’ and the form 手兒 was logographic. Consequently, I think this is simply a folk
etymology. Vovin mentions a similar case of folk etymology for the word tuku-yömî ‘moon;
deity of the moon’ in WOJ poetry, stating “the spelling Tuku-yômî 月夜見 may indicate an
attempt at a folk etymology of the name as ‘seeing the moon[lit] night’, once the meaning
of yömî became obscure” (2009b: 41). The form 月夜見 that Vovin points out is attested
in MYS poem 3245, from book 13. The meaning of yömî remains unclear as the word only
occurs in this compound.

6. A good example of this is MYS poem 3440, where the first 兒 is used to write EOJ ko ‘girl’, while the second
兒 is used to write EOJ ko ‘child’.
7. Kungana phonograms utilize the Japanese reading of a Chinese character for its phonetic value in order to
write one or more syllables that are unrelated to the meaning of the character.
 Kupchik: On the Etymology of the Eastern Japanese Word tego 737

3.2 Morphological Analysis

The second syllable is simpler to explain than the first, so I will begin there and work my
way backwards. I analyze the second syllable as EOJ n-ö ko ‘cop-adn girl’, which subse-
quently contracted to go (such contractions are common in all OJ dialects). Now, for the first
syllable, if we look for a word meaning ‘three’ in order to account for the Hachijō meaning
‘third daughter’, in OJ dialects we only find mî [mi] ‘three’, which is clearly not etymologi-
cally related to EOJ/Hachijō tego. In contrast, when we look to Proto-Ainu we find the word
for ‘three’ has been reconstructed as *dE 8 (Vovin 1993: 83). EOJ phonology did not permit
word-initial /d/ in nouns, therefore Proto-Ainu *dE could only be borrowed into EOJ as /te/,
which is a perfect phonetic match with the first syllable of EOJ/Hachijō tego. Thus, based
on this hypothesis, a morpheme-by-morpheme translation of tego is ‘girl who is third’. 9 This
hypothesis is bolstered by the fact that other hybrids have been proposed for Old Japanese
(OJ) dialects, such as the permanent epithet siranupî ‘white land’ (OJ sira ‘white’ + nupi
‘land’ [< Ainu nupi ‘its land’]) (Vovin 2010: 20), yagï ‘willow’ (ya ‘willow’ [< Early Middle
Chinese jiang] + OJ n-ö kï ‘cop-adn tree’) (Vovin 2010: 60), and the permanent epithet
soramîtu ‘under the sky’ (OJ sora ‘sky’ + mîtu ‘under’ [< an earlier form of Middle Korean
mith ‘under’]) (Vovin 2010: 141).

3.3 Semantics
My analysis of the morphology of tego is based upon the premise that the original mean-
ing was ‘third daughter’. As mentioned before, previous scholars viewed this word as mean-
ing ‘maiden’ or ‘baby’ in EOJ. However, there is no definitive evidence to support those
interpretations for all attestations of the word, and it seems that none of these scholars took
into account the Hachijō cognate and its meaning ‘third daughter’. In order to explore this
issue further, in (1) – (7) below I give every attestation of tego in EOJ and discuss whether
or not the meaning ‘third daughter’ is plausible in any of the contexts. When written 手兒
I transliterate it as teGO: the capitalization of the second syllable indicates it is logographic
while the first syllable is phonographic. This is in accordance with the morphological analy-
sis presented in section 3.2 and the discussion of the orthographic forms given in section 3.1.
(1) 比等 未奈乃許等 波 多由 登毛 波尓思奈能 伊思井乃
pitö mina-nö kötö pa tay-u tömo panisina-nö isiWI-nö
people all-gen word top break-fin cnj pn-gen pn-gen
手兒我 許登 奈多延曽祢
teGO-ga kötö na=taye-sö-n-e
tego-poss word neg.imp=break.inf-do-des-imp
Even if everyone else stops talking to me, I hope the tego of Isiwi in Panisina will
not stop talking to me. (MYS poem 3398)
In example (1) tego is connected to two proper names: Isiwi and Panisina. Panisina is a
place name corresponding to present-day Hanishina in Nagano Prefecture (Mizushima 1986:
132). However, among all OJ texts Isiwi is attested only in this poem, and it does not cor-
respond to any known location in Hanishina or the surrounding areas. One possibility is that
Panisina-nö Isiwi-nö is in reference to a specific family. In this case the meaning of ‘third

8. In Vovin’s transcription d indicates a voiced dental stop, while E indicates a front mid vowel more open than
e. In most Ainu dialects its reflex was re, though it was te in the Nairo dialect (Vovin 1993: 83).
9. This is morphologically and semantically similar to Modern Japanese and Chinese 三女 ‘third daughter’.
738 Journal of the American Oriental Society 136.4 (2016)

daughter’ is plausible and the latter half of (1) would then be translated as “I hope the third
daughter of the Isiwi (family) in Panisina will not stop talking to me.”
(2) 可都思加能 麻末能 手兒奈乎 麻許登 可聞
kadusika-nö mama-nö teGO-na-wo ma-kötö kamo
pn-gen cliff-gen tego-dim-acc int-word ept
和礼尓 余須 等布 麻末乃 弖胡奈乎
ware-ni yös-u tö [i]p-u mama-nö tego-na-wo
1sg-dat make.approach-fin quot say-fin cliff-gen tego-dim-acc
I wonder, is it true that people say the tego on the cliffs of Kadusika has a
relationship with me? The tego on the cliffs. . . (MYS poem 3384)
(3) 可豆思賀能 麻萬能 手兒奈我 安里之可婆
kadusika-nö mama-nö teGO-na-ga ar-i-si-ka-ba
pn-gen cliff-gen tego-dim-poss exist-inf-pst-ev-conj
麻末乃於 須比尓 奈美 毛 登杼呂 尓
mama-nö osu pi-ni nami mo tödörö n-i
cliff-gen rock shore-loc waves foc booming cop-inf
The waves are booming on the rocky shore under the cliffs, because there was a
tego on the cliffs of Kadusika. (MYS poem 3385)
Example (2) contains two attestations of tego while example (3) contains one. All three
attestations are suffixed with the diminutive -na; this does not occur in any of the other EOJ
attestations. In these poems it appears, at first glance, that we once again find the same pat-
tern of two proper names directly preceding tego. The first proper name is clearly a place
name (Kadusika). The idea that the second proper name, Mama, is also a place name has
been suggested (Vovin 2012: 27), although, as in the case of Isiwi discussed in example (1)
above, there is no known location with that name. In Hachijō dialects mama means ‘cliff’,
and this word also survives in some mainland Japanese dialects (Omodaka et al. 1967: 689).
Due to this Vovin (2012: 75) has suggested this line is referring to the “maiden from Kadu­
sika cliffs.” I consider this to be the stronger hypothesis, so I have adopted this interpretation
in my glossing and translation of (2) and (3) above. Three out of the eight EOJ attestations
of tego are in reference to “the cliffs of Kadusika” and tego-na appears in five WOJ poems
(MYS 431, 432, 433, 1807, and 1808) that are all also in reference to “the cliffs of Kadusika”;
therefore presumably the same tego is involved. 10 As a result, many scholars have suggested
this woman was a “legendary beauty” from that location, and some have suggested her name
was actually Tegona (Mizushima 1984: 409–12). This idea is based on the female name
Tekômê 手古賣 (possibly pronounced [tegome]) attested in the Mînô province census from
the year 702 (Omodaka et al. 1967: 483). However, Mizushima (1984: 409) convincingly
refutes this hypothesis, noting there are no attested female names that end in -na from that
time period. Furthermore, there are no other personal names attested in the EOJ corpus. Thus,
it is plausible to translate tego in examples (2) and (3) as ‘third daughter’, which would entail
the supposed “legendary beauty” was the third daughter in a family located on the cliffs of
Kadusika. However, the meaning ‘maiden’ is also plausible here.

10. While attested in a handful of WOJ poems in the Man’yōshū (out of more than 4,000 poems in total), it
should be emphasized that tego is not a WOJ word, as all of these WOJ attestations are exclusively used in reference
to a particular tego in Kadusika where an EOJ dialect was spoken.
 Kupchik: On the Etymology of the Eastern Japanese Word tego 739

(4) 左和多里能 手兒尓 伊由伎安比 安可故麻我

sawatari-nö teGO-ni i-yuk-i-ap-i aka koma-ga
pn-gen tego-loc dlf-go-inf-meet-inf red stallion-poss
安我伎乎 波夜美 許等登 波受 伎奴
agaki-wo paya-mi kötö tö [i]p-az-u k-i-n-u
gallop-abs be.fast-avadn word quot say-neg-inf come-inf-pfv-fin
I went over to meet the tego of Sawatari, but since my red stallion’s gallop is
swift, I came back without saying a word to her. (MYS poem 3540)

In example (4) we find tego following Sawatari, another apparent place name whose exact
location is unknown, although several possibilities have been suggested (Mizushima 1986:
361). The pattern pn-nö pn-nö shown in example (1), and possibly also (2) and (3), is not
replicated here, but the ‘third daughter’ interpretation is possible if we take Sawatari to be
a family name.
(5) 安豆麻治乃 手兒乃 欲妣 左賀 古要我祢弖
aduma-di-nö teGO-nö yob-i saka koye-kane-te
pn-road-gen tego-gen call-nmlz hill get.past.inf-neg.pot.inf-sub
夜麻尓   可 祢牟 毛 夜杼里 波
yama-ni     ka ne-m-u mo yadör-i pa
mountain-loc q sleep-tent-adn foc lodge-nmlz top

奈之尓
na-si-ni
not.exist-fin-loc
I am unable to cross the tego-calling hill on the road to Aduma—shall I sleep in
the mountains since there is no lodging here? (MYS poem 3442)

(6) 安都麻道乃 手兒乃 欲婢 佐可 古要弖 伊奈婆

aduma-DI-nö teGO-nö yob-i saka koye-te in-aba
pn-road-gen tego-gen call-nmlz hill cross.inf-sub leave-cond
安礼 波 古非牟 奈 能知 波 安比奴 登母
are pa kopi-m-u na nöti pa api-n-u tömö
1sg top long.for-tent-fin ept later top recip-sleep-fin cnj

When you leave me and cross the tego-calling hill on the road to Aduma, I shall
long for you! Even if we sleep together later. (MYS poem 3477)

The phrase tego-nö yobi saka in examples (5) and (6) is thought to mean “maiden-calling
hill” (Mizushima 1986: 210). Both attestations immediately follow the phrase Aduma-di-nö
“on Aduma road,” indicating the road on which one could find this hill. Here, only the mean-
ing ‘maiden’ seems plausible.
(7) 都流伎 多知 身尓 素布 伊母乎
turugi tati MI-ni sop-u imö-wo
double.edged.sword long.sword body-loc be.close-adn beloved.girl-acc
等里見我祢 哭乎 曽 奈伎都流
tör-i-MI-kane NE-wo sö nak-i-t-uru
take-inf-look.inf-neg.pot.inf sound-acc foc cry-inf-pfv-adn
740 Journal of the American Oriental Society 136.4 (2016)

手兒 尓 安良奈久 尓
teGO n-i ar-an-aku n-i
tego cop-inf exist-neg-nmlz cop-inf
I failed to take care of my beloved girl who is as close to me as my double-edged
sword and my long sword, so I cried loudly, even though I am not a tego. (MYS
poem 3485)
Example (7) is the only one in the corpus in which tego is not connected to any proper name.
Here, the ‘maiden’ interpretation is much more likely. The possibility that the meaning of
tego in this poem is ‘baby’ has also been suggested (Omodaka et al. 1967: 483, Ōno et al.
1990: 907), but there is no other evidence for this meaning in EOJ or Hachijō, so I do not
see any reason to accept it.
From the above we can see that the meaning ‘third daughter’ is plausible for tego in
examples (1) – (4), but very unlikely in examples (5) – (7). However, the ‘maiden’ interpreta-
tion is equally plausible in examples (1) – (4) because there is no definitive evidence that any
of the examples specifically refer to a ‘third daughter’. As a result, the interpretation of tego
in these poems is probably destined to remain unclear. In contrast, the ‘maiden’ interpretation
is far more plausible in examples (5) – (7).
Based on tego’s meaning ‘third daughter’ in Hachijō, its meaning of ‘maiden’ in EOJ, and
the above data, I conclude that ‘maiden’ was a semantic innovation in EOJ that did not carry
on into Hachijō. This would entail that Hachijō either descends from an EOJ dialect that did
not have this innovation, or this innovation was a transient colloquial meaning in EOJ that
did not replace the formal (and primary) meaning ‘third daughter’.
Having explored the semantics of tego and its attestations in EOJ within the limitations
inherent to the extant corpus, in this section I will briefly compare the two other words for
‘girl’ attested in EOJ (including their frequency), and I will demonstrate how their semantic
development provides a strong parallel to that of tego.
The two other words for ‘girl’ attested across the EOJ dialects are ko ‘girl’ and imo
‘beloved girl; female lover’. These meanings are both secondary, as they developed from
kinship terms: in the case of ko the primary meaning is ‘child’, while the primary mean-
ing of imo is ‘younger sister’. Furthermore, in the corpus both words are attested much
more frequently with their secondary meanings than with their primary meanings. This
is congruent with the case I put forth here regarding tego, in which its primary meaning
is ‘third daughter’ (kinship term) and its more frequently attested secondary meaning is
‘maiden’. In Table 2 below I give all attestations of each word along with any accom-
panying diminutive suffixes, demonstrating their frequency. I exclude all attestations of
ko ‘child’ and imo ‘younger sister’. From these data we can see that tego is the least
attested of all three words by quite a significant margin: just eight attestations compared
to thirty-eight attestations of ko ‘girl’ and thirty-eight attestations of imo ‘beloved girl’.
It is also notable that tego is only attested in isolation or suffixed with the EOJ-exclusive
diminutive -na, while the other two words are each attested with at least three differ-
ent diminutive suffixes. Both of these points support the idea that tego ‘third daughter;
maiden’ is a more specific, less commonly used term. Another notable, and possibly
important, difference between tego on the one hand and ko and imo on the other is that
the latter two words are never attested immediately preceded by a proper name in the
pattern pn-nö (pn-nö), as occurs in five out of the eight tego attestations (examples (1)
– (4) in section 3.3).
 Kupchik: On the Etymology of the Eastern Japanese Word tego 741

Table 2. Attestations of Words for ‘Girl’ in EOJ Dialects and Their Diminutive Forms
Total
Number Of
Word Word Form Attestations (MYS poem numbers) Attestations
ko ‘girl’ ko ‘girl’ 4414, 3440, 3440a, 3500, 3529, 3533, 7
3555
ko-ra ‘girl-dim’ 4401, 3405, 3408, 3412, 3537, 3537, 8
3569, 4436
ko-rö ‘girl-dim’ 3368, 3424, 3351, 3473, 3504, 3509, 20
3513, 3522, 3525, 3530, 3532, 3537a,
3539, 3541, 3543, 3564, 3565, 4431,
3361, 3369
ko-na ‘girl-dim’ 4358, 3476, 3476a 3
TOTAL 38
imo ‘beloved girl’ imo ‘beloved.girl’ 3354, 3362, 3423, 3474, 3480, 3481, 28
3485, 3486, 3517, 3527, 3538, 3538a
3542, 3567, 4351, 4354, 4363, 4365,
4366, 4367, 4369, 4390, 4391, 4407,
4415, 4423, 4429, 4432
imo-rö ‘beloved.girl- 3489, 4427 2
dim’
imo-ko ‘beloved.girl- 4405 1
dim’
wa-g-imo-ko 4345, 4404, 4353, 4357, 3519, 3566 6
‘1sg-poss-beloved.girl-
dim’
imo-nö-ra ‘beloved.girl- 3528 1
dim-dim’
TOTAL 38
tego tego 3398, 3442, 3477, 3485, 3540 5
tego-na ‘tego-dim’ 3384 (twice), 3385 3
TOTAL 8

An even clearer parallel semantic development can be found when we compare the WOJ
word musumê ‘daughter’ (unattested in EOJ), which is attested with the meaning ‘young girl;
maiden’ as early as the Heian period (Ōno et al. 1990: 1288). In Modern Japanese as well,
娘 musume can mean either ‘daughter’ or ‘young girl; maiden’.

4. conclusion
In this paper I have detailed the reasons for rejecting the previously proposed etymologies
of EOJ tego ‘maiden’ and I have presented a new etymology for EOJ/Hachijō tego ‘third
daughter; maiden’. My hypothesis can be summarized by the following points:
742 Journal of the American Oriental Society 136.4 (2016)

• EOJ tego is a morphological hybrid consisting of Proto-Ainu *dE ‘three’ (borrowed

into EOJ as te), the EOJ adnominal copula nö, and EOJ ko ‘girl’, literally meaning
‘girl who is third’.
• EOJ te nö ko contracted to tego and became lexicalized as such.
• The original and primary meaning of tego is ‘third daughter’. This meaning sur-
vives in the present-day Hachijō language (a daughter language of EOJ) and may be
attested in one or more EOJ poems.
• The semantic development of tego ‘third daughter’ > ‘maiden’ is an EOJ innovation.
It patterns well with other OJ words for ‘girl’ which also developed from kinship
terms:
OJ ko: ‘child’ > ‘girl’
OJ imo: ‘younger sister’ > ‘beloved girl; female lover’
WOJ musumê: ‘daughter’ > ‘young girl; maiden’ (Heian-period onwards)

In conclusion, I have argued that this etymology is stronger than the previously proposed ety-
mologies in phonetics, morphology, and semantics, and, importantly, it allows us to account
for this word in both EOJ and Hachijō. Furthermore, it is consistent with what we know of
the language contact between Ainu and Eastern Old Japanese speakers during the seventh
and eighth centuries.

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