風

Jiajie (假借) of 鳳 (OC *bəm, “fenghuang”) borrowed for sound to represent 風 (OC *pəm, “wind”), sometimes with 凡 (OC *bam) added as a phonetic.

In Warring States Chu manuscripts the character is written as 凡 (fán) above 口 (kǒu) (or confused with 同 (tóng)) with one or two phoenix feathers beneath, or as 凡 (fán) above a single phoenix feather. In the Qin script the feather was corrupted into 虫, giving the character its modern structure of 凡 (fán) above 虫.

Shuowen misinterpreted the character 風 by associating it with insects. (Li, 2012)

Possibly from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *buŋ (“wind”) (STEDT). Velar nasal final -ŋ, restored later in Middle Chinese (Schuessler, 2007), is preserved in cognates like Proto-Central Naga *m-puŋ, Jingpho mabung, nbung, Drung nvmbeung.

Pronunciations 1, 2, and 3 are all cognates; with both 2 and 3 evolving from *prəm-s, exoactive (with causative suffix -s) of *prəm (Schuessler, 2007). It is unclear how Old Chinese *prəm is related to Tibetan རླུང (rlung) and Proto-Tai *C̬.lɯmᴬ.

Korean 바람 (baram) may have been borrowed from Chinese (Zhao, 2007). The Chinese word has a wide range of extended meanings, and interestingly many of these have exact parallels in the Korean item. Compare Chinese 風流 and 風騷 with Korean 바람둥이 (baramdung'i).

Cognate with:

* 飛廉 (OC *pɯl ɡ·rem, “wind god”)

* 蜚蠊 (OC *pɯlʔ/bɯls ɡ·rem, “cockroach”) (note the preservation of the -r- infix in Old Chinese through disyllabification, also 嵐 (OC *b·ruːm), 葻 (OC *b·uːm))

* 瘋 (OC *plum, “mad, insane”)

* 諷 (OC *plums, “to mock, to advise”)

* 帆 (OC *bom, *boms, “sail”)

The development from Old Chinese to Middle Chinese was irregular, driven by dissimilation of the initial and coda bilabial consonants.