Yami
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Definitions
- 1 A Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by the Tao people.
Synonyms
All synonymsEtymology
Coined by Torii Ryūzō in 1897. Possibly related to English Y'Ami Island and Spanish Diami, which early 1800s Spanish texts refer to as the name of a populated island of the Batanes Islands north of the Babuyan Islands, whose natives were at war with those of the other Batanes Islands who do not receive them except during storms or when the sea currents lead them to their islands, which in that case, they also don't let them go beyond the beaches. In 1802, Fr. Francisco de Paula Esteban O.P. also referred to Diami as the northernmost island in the Batanes Archipelago that people were moving to. See also Ibatan di- (qualitative prefix, indicating that someone or something possesses the quality of the word being prefixed), Ibatan ammyānan (“north”), Ibatan ammyan (“northeast monsoon; rainy season”), Ivatan amyan (“northeast monsoon; rainy season”), Ilocano amianan (“north”), Sakizaya amis (“north”), Amis amis (“north”), Bikol Central amihan (“north”), Cebuano amihanan (“north”), Tagalog amihan (“northeast monsoon”), Hiligaynon amihan (“north wind”), Proto-Austronesian *qamiS (“north wind”), Proto-Austronesian *i (location marker), Japanese 闇(やみ) (yami).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.