Does the on'yomi of 輪 (リン) have any relation to the English "ring", or is it a coincidence?


Is there an etymological connection between 輪{リン} as in 車輪{しゃりん} and "ring" in
English? Or is this a false cognate?




> Is there an etymological connection between 輪{リン} as in 車輪{しゃりん} and "ring"
> in English? Or is this a false cognate?

There are a few things we have to look at to answer this.

### Derivation of different Japanese readings

As we can see [in the Jisho.org entry](https://jisho.org/search/%E8%BC%AA),
_rin_ is an _on'yomi_ for the kanji 輪. _On'yomi_ are the "sound readings", the
literal meaning of the spelling 音【おん】読【よ】み, in reference to the _sound_ of the
kanji as borrowed from Chinese. So any question about the _on'yomi_ of a kanji
is ultimately a question about Chinese.

### Middle Chinese pronunciations

Looking at the [Wiktionary entry for Chinese
輪](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%BC%AA#Chinese), and particularly the
**Pronunciation** section, we see that modern Mandarin pronounces this as
_lún_. That's not very close to Japanese _rin_.

⇒ Japanese _on'yomi_ readings ultimately derive from Middle Chinese. Sometimes
we know that a particular _on'yomi_ is more specifically a 唐音【とうおん】 or "T'ang
sound" borrowed during the T'ang Dynasty, or a 宋音【そうおん】 or "Song sound"
borrowed during the Song Dynasty. At any rate, we can (mostly) ignore the
modern Chinese readings. _(Sometimes the modern varieties are informative for
hinting at where a particular vowel value may have appeared. But that's beyond
the scope of this thread.)_

The Middle Chinese pronunciation is reconstructed as //liuɪn//. And if we
click that ▼ downward pointing triangle to expand the section, we see a
sampling of the different reconstructions from various academic authors.

I believe that part of the reason for the wide variety of reconstructions is
that Chinese itself has so many different varieties. Think about English even,
where different regions or dialects have different phonetic realizations of
words. Just the first-person pronoun "I" can have several actual
pronunciations, such as:

  * //aɪ//
  * //aː//
  * //ɑe//

Looking back at the Middle Chinese reconstructions for 輪, we see that some of
them are even closer to Japanese _rin_ than the "main" Zhengzhang Shangfang's
reconstructed form of //liuɪn//, such as Pan Yuwun's //lʷin//.

So Middle Chinese //lʷin// (or something like that) was borrowed into Japanese
as the _on'yomi_ of _rin_.

### Where the Middle Chinese came from

But we still haven't answered your initial question. :)

The Middle Chinese came in turn from Old Chinese, with a Zhengzhang
reconstructed reading of //*run//. The character 輪 itself was composed as
semantic (meaning) radical 車 plus 侖 as the phonetic (sound) base. We don't
have any further etymological information about this (or at least, I can't
find any based on sources to hand).

To rephrase your initial question, **is Old Chinese //*run// somehow related
to modern English _ring_?**

Following up on the Chinese term, our data was inconclusive.

### Where the English _ring_ came from

Turning to [the Wiktionary entry for
_ring_](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ring#Etymology_1), we see that English
_ring_ is traced back to [Proto-Germanic
_hringaz_](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-
Germanic/hringaz) ("ring; circle; curve"), derived from Proto-Indo-European
(PIE) _*(s)krengʰ-_ , derived in turn from [PIE
*(s)ker-](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-
European/\(s\)ker-#Root_2) ("to turn, to bend").

### Comparing reconstructed ancient roots: Old Chinese and PIE

PIE _*(s)krengʰ-_ and Old Chinese //*run// don't match up very well.

However, [PIE is tentatively dated](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-
European_language) to around the time of the domestication of the horse, maybe
6000 years ago. Old Chinese is reconstructed to [around 3270 years
ago](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese#History). That's a lot of time
-- so we must still ask if the PIE _*(s)krengʰ-_ might have given rise to Old
Chinese //*run//.

We know from long research into sound correspondences between PIE daughter
languages that the change from PIE //(s)kr-// to Proto-Germanic //hr-// was a
regular shift. We can also see from [the list of
descendants](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-
European/\(s\)ker-#Derived_terms_2) that all other branches of PIE include
that hard //k// at the start, with or without the //s//. So the **only**
branch where the initial //(s)kr-// in reconstructed PIE _*(s)krengʰ-_ lenited
(softened) into just //r-//, as in both modern English and Old Chinese, is the
Germanic branch -- the branch of PIE that was most distant from Old Chinese
speakers.

### Conclusion -- tentative

Given the state of current academia (as publicly accessible by me at the
moment, anyway), it appears that English _ring_ and Japanese _rin_ are only
accidentally similar in sound and meaning.




> Is there an etymological connection between 輪{リン} as in 車輪{しゃりん} and "ring"
> in English? Or is this a false cognate?

There are a few things we have to look at to answer this.

### Derivation of different Japanese readings

As we can see [in the Jisho.org entry](https://jisho.org/search/%E8%BC%AA),
_rin_ is an _on'yomi_ for the kanji 輪. _On'yomi_ are the "sound readings", the
literal meaning of the spelling 音【おん】読【よ】み, in reference to the _sound_ of the
kanji as borrowed from Chinese. So any question about the _on'yomi_ of a kanji
is ultimately a question about Chinese.

### Middle Chinese pronunciations

Looking at the [Wiktionary entry for Chinese
輪](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%BC%AA#Chinese), and particularly the
**Pronunciation** section, we see that modern Mandarin pronounces this as
_lún_. That's not very close to Japanese _rin_.

⇒ Japanese _on'yomi_ readings ultimately derive from Middle Chinese. Sometimes
we know that a particular _on'yomi_ is more specifically a 唐音【とうおん】 or "T'ang
sound" borrowed during the T'ang Dynasty, or a 宋音【そうおん】 or "Song sound"
borrowed during the Song Dynasty. At any rate, we can (mostly) ignore the
modern Chinese readings. _(Sometimes the modern varieties are informative for
hinting at where a particular vowel value may have appeared. But that's beyond
the scope of this thread.)_

The Middle Chinese pronunciation is reconstructed as //liuɪn//. And if we
click that ▼ downward pointing triangle to expand the section, we see a
sampling of the different reconstructions from various academic authors.

I believe that part of the reason for the wide variety of reconstructions is
that Chinese itself has so many different varieties. Think about English even,
where different regions or dialects have different phonetic realizations of
words. Just the first-person pronoun "I" can have several actual
pronunciations, such as:

  * //aɪ//
  * //aː//
  * //ɑe//

Looking back at the Middle Chinese reconstructions for 輪, we see that some of
them are even closer to Japanese _rin_ than the "main" Zhengzhang Shangfang's
reconstructed form of //liuɪn//, such as Pan Yuwun's //lʷin//.

So Middle Chinese //lʷin// (or something like that) was borrowed into Japanese
as the _on'yomi_ of _rin_.

### Where the Middle Chinese came from

But we still haven't answered your initial question. :)

The Middle Chinese came in turn from Old Chinese, with a Zhengzhang
reconstructed reading of //*run//. The character 輪 itself was composed as
semantic (meaning) radical 車 plus 侖 as the phonetic (sound) base. We don't
have any further etymological information about this (or at least, I can't
find any based on sources to hand).

To rephrase your initial question, **is Old Chinese //*run// somehow related
to modern English _ring_?**

Following up on the Chinese term, our data was inconclusive.

### Where the English _ring_ came from

Turning to [the Wiktionary entry for
_ring_](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ring#Etymology_1), we see that English
_ring_ is traced back to [Proto-Germanic
_hringaz_](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-
Germanic/hringaz) ("ring; circle; curve"), derived from Proto-Indo-European
(PIE) _*(s)krengʰ-_ , derived in turn from [PIE
*(s)ker-](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-
European/\(s\)ker-#Root_2) ("to turn, to bend").

### Comparing reconstructed ancient roots: Old Chinese and PIE

PIE _*(s)krengʰ-_ and Old Chinese //*run// don't match up very well.

However, [PIE is tentatively dated](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-
European_language) to around the time of the domestication of the horse, maybe
6000 years ago. Old Chinese is reconstructed to [around 3270 years
ago](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese#History). That's a lot of time
-- so we must still ask if the PIE _*(s)krengʰ-_ might have given rise to Old
Chinese //*run//.

We know from long research into sound correspondences between PIE daughter
languages that the change from PIE //(s)kr-// to Proto-Germanic //hr-// was a
regular shift. We can also see from [the list of
descendants](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-
European/\(s\)ker-#Derived_terms_2) that all other branches of PIE include
that hard //k// at the start, with or without the //s//. So the **only**
branch where the initial //(s)kr-// in reconstructed PIE _*(s)krengʰ-_ lenited
(softened) into just //r-//, as in both modern English and Old Chinese, is the
Germanic branch -- the branch of PIE that was most distant from Old Chinese
speakers.

### Conclusion -- tentative

Given the state of current academia (as publicly accessible by me at the
moment, anyway), it appears that English _ring_ and Japanese _rin_ are only
accidentally similar in sound and meaning.

