19.4.1.23:59:
THE DAY OF THE YELLOW DRAGON
Or, in Jurchen,
<YELLOW.nggiyan DRAGON DAY> songgiyan mudur inenggi
Today Chief Cabinet Secretary 菅 義偉 Yoshihide Suga
revealed the new Japanese era name 令和 <GOOD
HARMONY>¹
Reiwa that
will begin a month from now. ('Now' is Alofi time
so I can finish this
on 1 April!)
So much has been said about that name in just one day. Hence I might not be the first to say this:
Could the Old Chinese word *Cɯreŋ 'good' written as 令 be cognate with the far more common Old Chinese word 良 *Cɯraŋ 'good'?
OK, I doubt anyone else would reconstruct the two words that way. But the two words are similar no matter which reconstruction one uses. They're even similar to this day in Mandarin: líng and liáng.
There are two problems with my claim:
First, what is the significance of the two different root vowels? I have no explanation. I would feel more justified in linking the words if I had other examples of *a ~ *e alternation with identifiable functions.
Second, did the words really have the same initial consonant in their presyllables? If not, what would have been the significance of different prefixes?
I need the high-vowel presyllables to account for the diphthongs
that the words developed in Middle Chinese:
令 Old Chinese *Cɯreŋ > Middle Chinese *Cɯrieŋ
良 Old Chinese *Cɯraŋ > Middle Chinese *Cɯrɨaŋ
¹Why is this name already in Windows 10's
Japanese IME!? Was it added in an update?