鱷

鱷 (Kangxi radical 195, 魚+16, 27 strokes, cangjie input 弓火一土口 (NFMGR), four-corner 2632₇, composition ⿰魚噩)

• Kangxi Dictionary: page 1480, character 22
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 46597
• Dae Jaweon: page 2012, character 4
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 7, page 4720, character 10
• Unihan data for U+9C77

Phono-semantic compound (形聲／形声, OC *ŋaːɡ) : semantic 魚 (“fish”) + phonetic 噩 (OC *ŋaːɡ).

Within Chinese, Carr (1990) relates it to:

• 咢 (OC *ŋaːɡ, “to beat the drum”), either because drumming was associated with dragons or because some drums were made of crocodilian skins (Schuessler, 2007).
• Words for “fear”, e.g. 愕 (OC *ŋaːɡ, “startled; terrified”), 噩 (OC *ŋaːɡ, “frightening; startling”).

Outside of Chinese, Carr (1990) also relates it to:

• Proto-Tai *ŋwak (“mythical water creature”) (reconstruction from Chamberlain, 1977), which Pittayaporn (2009-2010), reconstructing the root as *ŋɯəkᴰ (“crocodile”), holds to be a loan from Chinese.
• Proto-Austro-Tai *(m)baŋiwak (“shark; crocodile”), posited by Paul K. Benedict and proposed by him to give rise to the Tai word, as well as Japanese 鰐(わに) (wani, “crocodilian; shark”), 魚(うお) (uo, “fish”).

Vovin (2021) notes that 鱷 (OC *ŋâk ~ *ŋɑk) "aquatic reptile, saltwater crocodile" was attested late, for the first time in Shuowen as 𧊜; and that "it would be very weird if the word for a ‘saltwater crocodile’ from the middle of Huang-he (黃河) river basin that lies quite far away from both tropics and the sea would be borrowed by Tai languages in Southern China". Therefore, Vovin contends that, instead, 鱷 (OC *ŋâk ~ *ŋɑk) had been borrowed into Later Han Chinese from Tai.

鱷

1. crocodilian; crocodile; alligator

• →? Proto-Tai: *ŋɯəkᴰ (“crocodile”)
  • Ahom: 𑜂𑜢𑜤𑜀𑜫 (ṅük, “crocodile; nāga”)
  • Lao: ເງືອກ (ngư̄ak, “merperson; electric eel”)
  • Shan: ငိူၵ်ႈ (ngōek, “alligator; crocodile”)
  • Thai: เงือก (ngʉ̂ʉak, “snake; nāga; crocodilian; mythical water creature; merperson”)

• [1]
• 𧊜 in Chinese Text Project's Dictionary

(Hyōgai kanji, kyūjitai kanji, shinjitai form 鰐)

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• Go-on: がく (gaku)
• Kan-on: がく (gaku)
• Kun: わに (wani, 鱷)

鱷: Hán Nôm readings: ngạc

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