Reconstruction:Proto-Sino-Tibetan/b/pa ~ b/po

• Proto-Sino-Tibetan: ?
  • Proto-Tibeto-Burman: *ba (Matisoff, STEDT; Benedict, 1972; Chou, 1972)

Likely cognate with Proto-Sino-Tibetan *bəw (“to carry (on back or shoulders)”). Note the similarity with:

• Proto-Mon-Khmer *ɓɔʔ (“to carry on back”) (Khmer ព (pɔɔ, “to carry (on back, on hip, in arms)”)
• Proto-Mon-Khmer *(d)ɓa(ː)k (“to bestride, to be bestridden, have hanging down e.g. round neck”) (Khmer ពាក់ (peak, “to hang, to wear”), Mon လဇက် (həbɛk, “to hang over horizontal support, to wear round neck”), Vietnamese mắc (“to hang, to hook”)).

*po

1. to carry on back
2. shoulder

• Old Chinese:

  負／负 (*bəʔ (B-S), *bɯʔ (ZS), “to carry on the back; to bear; to lose, to fail”)

  背 (*pˁək-s (B-S), *pɯːgs (ZS), “back (of body)”)

  背 (*m-pˁək-s (B-S), *bɯːgs (ZS), “to turn the back on, to carry on the back”)

  北 (*pˁək (B-S), *pɯːg (ZS), “north, i.e. what the back is turned to when facing south”)

  • Middle Chinese: 負／负 (bɨuX), 背 (puʌiH, buʌiH), 北 (pək)

    → Japanese: 北 (ほく, ​hoku)
    Korean: 북 (北, buk)
    Vietnamese: bắc (北)

    • Modern Mandarin
      • Beijing: 負／负 (fù) /fu⁵¹/); 背 (bèi, “back”) /peɪ̯⁵¹/, 背 (bēi, “to carry on the back”) /peɪ̯⁵⁵/; 北 (běi) /peɪ̯²¹⁴/)
• Himalayish
  • Tibeto-Kanauri
    • Bodic
      • Tibetan
        • Written Tibetan: འབའ་བ ('ba' ba, “to bring, to carry”)
• Tani
  • Apatani: ba (“carry on the back or shoulder”)
• Lolo-Burmese-Naxi
  • Lolo-Burmese
    • Burmish
      • Written Burmese: ပိုး (pui:, “to carry on back”) or perhaps ပခုံး (pa.hkum:, “shoulder”)
      • Written Burmese: ပိုက် (puik, “to carry, to bear”)