買

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 网 (“net”) + 貝 (“money cowrie”). The original version is 𧵽.

Baxter and Sagart (2014) consider it to be a phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声): abbreviated phonetic 羅 (*rˤaj) + semantic 貝 (“money cowrie”).

Possibly from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *laj (“to buy; to barter”) (PTB *g/m/s-lay ~ r/s-ley ~ b-rey); compare Proto-Karen *breᴬ (“to buy”), Proto-Bodo-Garo *prai¹ (“to buy”), Tibetan རྗེ (rje, “to exchange; to barter”) (Schuessler, 2007; Sagart, 1999, 2011). Benedict (1967, 1972) considers this allofam to be a result of borrowing from Austro-Tai *(m)baḷi several times into Sino-Tibetan languages.

Alternatively, Haudricourt and Strecker (1991) consider 買 and 賣 to be borrowed from Hmong-Mien, which may have a family of verbs related to possession: *mɛjX (“to buy”, corresponding to 買), *mɛjH (“to buy”, corresponding to 賣), *ʔ-mɛj (“to grasp”), *n-mɛj (“to have”) (Ratliff, 2010). However, Sagart (1995) argues that the direction of borrowing is more likely to be from Chinese to Hmong-Mien because Hmong-Mien does not seem to have a suffix that would give rise to the tone in the word for “to buy”. In addition to these two ways of relating the Chinese word to Hmong-Mien, Ratliff (2010) proposes common inheritance as a third option and maintains that more evidence is needed to determine which of the three explanations are correct.

The surname only appears among Taiwanese aboriginals and Hui people in Mainland China. The surname is from the Siraya name Takalomay in Taiwan or possibly from the name 買買提 /买买提 (Mǎimǎití, “Mehmet”) for Hui people.