Hmm I believe it’s a coincidence. After all, the anecdote of 4 being よん not し and 7 being なな not しち is because they sounded similar to death 死ーし and so the word is definitely Japanese in origin.
Likely coincidence. It’s attested in Old Japanese, see Wiktionary:
> From Old Japanese, from Proto-Japonic *sinu. Appears in the oldest Japanese texts, including the Nihon Shoki of 720 CE and the Man’yōshū[1] of 759 CE.[2][3][4]
Similar forms appear in Okinawa, and the divergence of Ryukyuu and Old Japonic occurs prior to extensive borrowing of words from Middle Chinese.
In Chinese, 死 is pronounced sǐ. In Japanese, ‘si’ doesn’t exist (at least in Tokyo dialect), so it was changed to し(shi)to match Japanese phonetics. But this is a coincidence. 四/4 in Chinese is ‘sì,’ and in Japanese is ‘shi.’ The pronunciation for 四/4 was derived from Chinese pronunciation (音読み おんよみ). Since the pronunciation of 死 (し) came from the old Japanese word pronounced ‘shinu,’ to die, before the influence from Mainland China, it is 訓読み (くんよみ). The similarities of the pronunciation is just a coincidence, and the similarity between the pronunciation of 四/4 and 死 Japanese is a coincidence for a different reason that it sounds similar in Chinese, for the origin of the pronunciation of 死is different.
There is a theory that it potentially came from a combination of Chinese 死 and Japanese 去ぬ (to pass, disappear), so the notion that it should be on’yomi is not entirely ridiculous! It’s interesting because 去ぬ and 死ぬ are the only ぬ ending verbs in Japanese! But even if it was Chinese derived in the end, to answer your question, its absorption into Japanese as a morpheme was too old and too complete to be glossed as an on’yomi word, and would be a Chinese derived word that behaves fundamentally differently from other on’yomi words in Japanese.
The linguist Bjarke Frellesvig, in A History of the Japanese Language, concedes that there are probably many such kun’yomi words in Japanese that are derived from neighbouring languages. It can just be difficult to know from where sometimes.
>It is beyond doubt that Old Japanese includes old loanwords from the languages around Japan—especially words relating to agriculture, seafaring, warfare, spiritual and religious life, government, and administration—but that we will not be able to identify many of them as loanwords on other than extra- linguistic grounds.
While it’s harder arguing for 死ぬ specifically, as seen in the comments below, there’s definitely a case to be made for 死す a less commonly used variant that is basically a leftover from when the language would directly take onyomi readings, attach a する， shortened to す, and turn them into “full” entirely Japanese verbs, 休す etc… theres a bunch of examples.
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Probably pure coincidence.
Hmm I believe it’s a coincidence. After all, the anecdote of 4 being よん not し and 7 being なな not しち is because they sounded similar to death 死ーし and so the word is definitely Japanese in origin.
Likely coincidence. It’s attested in Old Japanese, see Wiktionary:
> From Old Japanese, from Proto-Japonic *sinu. Appears in the oldest Japanese texts, including the Nihon Shoki of 720 CE and the Man’yōshū[1] of 759 CE.[2][3][4]
Similar forms appear in Okinawa, and the divergence of Ryukyuu and Old Japonic occurs prior to extensive borrowing of words from Middle Chinese.
In Chinese, 死 is pronounced sǐ. In Japanese, ‘si’ doesn’t exist (at least in Tokyo dialect), so it was changed to し(shi)to match Japanese phonetics. But this is a coincidence. 四/4 in Chinese is ‘sì,’ and in Japanese is ‘shi.’ The pronunciation for 四/4 was derived from Chinese pronunciation (音読み おんよみ). Since the pronunciation of 死 (し) came from the old Japanese word pronounced ‘shinu,’ to die, before the influence from Mainland China, it is 訓読み (くんよみ). The similarities of the pronunciation is just a coincidence, and the similarity between the pronunciation of 四/4 and 死 Japanese is a coincidence for a different reason that it sounds similar in Chinese, for the origin of the pronunciation of 死is different.
There is a theory that it potentially came from a combination of Chinese 死 and Japanese 去ぬ (to pass, disappear), so the notion that it should be on’yomi is not entirely ridiculous! It’s interesting because 去ぬ and 死ぬ are the only ぬ ending verbs in Japanese! But even if it was Chinese derived in the end, to answer your question, its absorption into Japanese as a morpheme was too old and too complete to be glossed as an on’yomi word, and would be a Chinese derived word that behaves fundamentally differently from other on’yomi words in Japanese.
The linguist Bjarke Frellesvig, in A History of the Japanese Language, concedes that there are probably many such kun’yomi words in Japanese that are derived from neighbouring languages. It can just be difficult to know from where sometimes.
>It is beyond doubt that Old Japanese includes old loanwords from the languages around Japan—especially words relating to agriculture, seafaring, warfare, spiritual and religious life, government, and administration—but that we will not be able to identify many of them as loanwords on other than extra- linguistic grounds.
Some examples thought to come from Old Chinese:
* 梅 ume “plum” < – 梅 *hmay
* 釜 kama “pot” < 坩 *khaam
* 国 kuni “country” < 郡 *guns
* 銭 zeni “money” < – 銭 *dzian
While it’s harder arguing for 死ぬ specifically, as seen in the comments below, there’s definitely a case to be made for 死す a less commonly used variant that is basically a leftover from when the language would directly take onyomi readings, attach a する， shortened to す, and turn them into “full” entirely Japanese verbs, 休す etc… theres a bunch of examples.