Proto-Sino-Tibetan: *Cǝ̆
Meaning: name, concept, form
Tibetan: zo, bzo figure, picture, form.
Burmese: ća writing, letter, paper, document, literature.
Comments: Luce 2. The meaning "character" is late in Chinese, so the Burmese word could be borrowed from Chinese. However, when the meaning "character" evolved in Chinese (around Han time), the character must have been pronounced as *cɨ̀ with falling tone, which hardly explains the phonetic shape ća in Burmese. Tib. bzo is also not explained by the loan theory. We should rather regard the word as Sino-Tibetan, but probably dialectal in Old Chinese, since the meaning 'name, concept' appears only during Late Zhou. The earlier attested meaning 'love, breed, nurture' has certainly nothing to do with the root under consideration: see PST *Că love.
