Comments:KW 323, Poppe 29 (Mong.-Tung.), Лексика 412, Whitman 1985, 188, 234 (Kor.-Jpn.). In Turkic -lm- reflects *-ĺm- ("Helimski's rule"). *-j- has to be reconstructed to account for the loss of -ĺ- in Kor. This is the only root pertaining to metal terminology that can be reconstructed for PA, and it is not quite clear what metal was meant (perhaps meteorite iron - it is highly dubious that the speakers of PA possessed any kind of developed metallurgy). Note that in the Turko-Mong. area the metal name as such was lost and preserved only within the name of iron objects (sabre, armour).
Comments:АПиПЯЯ 58-59, 283, Лексика 85. Cf. also WMong. saja, Kalm. sā 'newly' (KW 316), EAS 72, probably a variant of the same root with different vocalization. Turkic reflects an attributive form (*jeŋi < *jeń-ki); medial *-j- has to be reconstructed because of the loss of *-ń- in Kor.
Comments:The Mong. -ü-reflex is not quite clear: since -ld- is not simplified in this case, we may suspect that the original form was *süle-de, probably with usual labialization metathesis < *selü-dü, with consequent vowel reduction.
Comments:Lee 1958, 116 (Kor.-TM), АПиПЯЯ 294. Mong. jara- 'to shine, glimmer', which is usually compared with the PT form (see KW 216, Владимирцов 317, VEWT 189) is an obvious loanword from Turkic. Illich-Svitych (ОСНЯ 1, ХV) regards Mong. sara as a prosodic variant of sira- 'yellow', which is hardly the case. Jpn. tone seems to contradict TM length, but the root is only attested in compounds and may be itself a contraction (see below), so the tone may well have been displaced. If the Jpn. word is indeed to be analysed as *sa- 'early spring' (+ *tukui 'month', 'moon'), then its original meaning must have been '(beginning of a new) moon cycle, season' - cf. the meaning 'season' in Kor. and TM, and especially 'beginning of the year' in Kor. (note that TM *sē biaga has also the meaning 'first month of the year' > Manchu se-bija, Jurch. sei-bi(a)ha, see the discussion in Lee 1958). The form *sa itself has to be explained as reflecting a suffixed *zēr(a)-gV or *zēr(a)-ŋV - cf. Jurch. sejŋe-r and Mong. *sara-ɣu-l.
Comments:The Turkic form may also have been influenced by PA *ni̯áŋa q. v. The Jpn. form is probably metathesized: *sìntúka- < *sìnkutá- ( = TM *siŋkuti-).
Comments:In Mong. and Tung. the root may have been confused with a local Wanderwort for 'sorgho', cf. Man. šušu 'holcus sorghum', Nan. sịso id. (cf. also Rozycki 196); Kor. susu id. The direction of borrowings here is difficult to establish, but note that Mong. *sisi violates the rule of dissimilation of fricatives - if it were genuine, we would rather expect *sisi > *isi. A possible scenario, therefore may presuppose a development of the meaning 'sorgho' (from 'lentils', 'peas') in the TM area, whence it penetrated into Mongolian and Korean. The root for 'lentil', 'pea' itself, preserved in Turkic, TM and Japanese, seems, however, common Altaic.
Comments:The root has a general meaning 'cut' in the Eastern area (TM and Japanese), and a more specialized meaning - 'wound' - in the Turko-Mongolian area; it is not quite clear which one is more archaic.
Comments:KW 348. A Western isogloss. The Turkic reflex is difficult: on the one hand, it is usually not distinguished from *jaŋak 'door post' (which actually can go back to a quite different source, see *p`i̯àŋk`i); on the other hand, it may also be a modification of *jag-ŋak and have a connection with TM *ǯegi 'chin' (ТМС 1, 281).
