Oh shit, you cracked it for me
Bunyan /bʌnjən/
Funyun /fʌnjən/ (devoicing: /b/ -> /p/, spirantization: /p/ -> /f/)
Hanya~n /haɲaɴ/ (debuccalization: /f/ -> /h/, plus handwaving away differences in English and Japanese phonology)The original inspiration of the meme was the actual historical development of the ha-gyou in Japanese, i.e. /pana/ → /ɸana/ → /hana/ — So basically I heard Sakura say "hanya~n" and for some reason I thought "a hypothetical Middle Japanese form of that would be *ɸaɲaɴ, which sounds a bit like funyun, which is mildly amusing" — And then I decided to make a meme out of that random thought. Except because *paɲaɴ doesn't quite sound like anything funny, I had to do *baɲaɴ instead just so the rule of threes would work. But PIE *bʰréh₂tēr to Latin frater so it checks out.
I really ought to read up some on historical Japanese linguistics. I did a teensy bit in uni, but it was pretty surface level because it was in a course for non-linguists. A professor of mine recommended Bjarke Frellesvig's A History of the Japanese Language so perhaps I'll start there.
Also Grimm's law my beloved
Also also thank you for creating and posting this meme specifically for me
I don't know how petty this is to point out but *bʰ becoming /f/ in *bʰréh₂tēr to frater is not an example of Grimm's law — *t becoming /ð/ in *bʰréh₂tēr to brother is. Grimm's law is a specific chain shift affecting only the Germanic languages, which Latin decidedly is not an example of.
No, not petty at all! I must have glossed over the Latin part, since I know it's specifically a Germanic thing. Oh, frother!
Well, not just that it's a specifically Germanic thing, but that Grimm's law says that PIE *bʰ corresponds to PGmc *b, just as PIE *b corresponds to PGmc *p, and PIE *p corresponds to PGmc *f.
