Paiwan Every Day 74: vaqu

Linguistic evidences attest that in the early Austronesian society, grain crops, root crops, sugarcane, and various tree crops were cultivated (page 468 in Robert Blust's 1995 "The Prehistory of the Austronesian-speaking Peoples").

• PAN *pajay "rice"; in Paiwan today, rice is padai or qasalj. 
• PAN *baCaR "millet"; in Paiwan today, millet is vaqu. 
• PAN *biRaq "wild taro"; in Paiwan today, taro is vasa. 
• PAN *CebusS "sugarcane"; in Paiwan today, sugarcane is tjevus. 

While rice and sugarcane sound close, millet and taro are quite different.

namasanpazangal aravac a vaqu i kacalisian. 

In English: 

Millet is very important in indigenous villages.

Glossary: 

1. namasanpazangal: the root is "pazangal" (valuable, important). [na-masan-pazangal] means to have become valuable, actor voice. 
2. aravac: adverb, very
3. a: case marker for subject, nominative
4. vaqu: millet
5. i: case marker for location, in or at
6. kacalisian: the root is "calisi" (hill). [ka-calisi-an] means those who live on the hill, thus indigenous peoples. Here it is extended to mean the indigenous village. 

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