Reconstruction:Proto-Sino-Tibetan/m/s-laj ~ s-lej

• Proto-Sino-Tibetan: ?
  • Proto-Tibeto-Burman: *m/s-lay ⪤ *s-ley (Matisoff, STEDT); *m-lay ⪤ s-lay (Michailovsky, 1991; Weidert, 1987; Benedict, 1972); *s-lay (LaPolla, 1987); *-lay ⪤ -ley ⪤ -lya (Matisoff, 1985); *-ley (French, 1983)

Other PST roots for "tongue" in STEDT:

• *s-l(j)a (“tongue”)
• *s-ljam (“tongue, flame”)
• *s-ljaːw (“to lick, tongue”)
• *m/s/g-ljak (“to lick, tongue”)

The descendants listed below may as well be derived from one (or more than one of) the ones above. It's not always possible to unambiguously assign descendants to one of these etymons (allofams), especially in cases like Old Chinese where there exists considerable variation in the reconstructions. Hence the amalgamation of synonymous descendants here. See *m/s/g-ljak (“to lick”) for more.

*m/s-laj ~ s-lej

1. tongue

Descendants listed hereafter are for words with the sense "tongue" only. Words with the sense "to lick" in daughter languages are mostly cognate to these and can be found at *m/s/g-ljak.

• Old Chinese: 舌 /*mə.lat/ (B-S); /*ɦbljed/ (ZS) ("tongue")

  (likely) →   Proto-Hmong-Mien:  *mblet (“tongue”) (> Hmong (RPA): nplaig)

  • Middle Chinese: 舌 (ʑiᴇt)

• • →   Japanese:  舌 (ぜつ, ​zetsu)
          Korean:  설 (舌, seol)
          Vietnamese:  thiệt (舌)

• • • Modern Mandarin
      • Beijing: 舌 (shé, /ʂɤ³⁵/)
    • Cantonese
      • Guangzhou: 舌 /ɕiːt̚²/, /ɕiːt̚³/
    • Wu
      • Shanghai: 舌 /z̻ə̆ʔ¹²/
  • Min
    • Min Nan
      • Taiwan: 舌 /t͡ɕiʔ⁵/ (colloquial); /ɕi̯at̚⁵/ (literary)
• Himalayish
  • Tibeto-Kanauri
    • Bodic
      • Tibetan
        • Written Tibetan: ལྕེ (lce, “tongue”), ལྗགས (ljags, “(polite) tongue”)
• Lolo-Burmese-Naxi
  • Lolo-Burmese
    • Burmish
      • Burmese: လျှာ (hlya, “tongue”)
    • Loloish
      • Northern Loloish
        • Yi (Liangshan): ꉐꆂ (hxa nie, “tongue”)
• *bleᴬ (Luangthongkum, 2013)
  • Sgaw: ပျ့ၤ (plẽ, “tongue”)