How close is Vietnamese to Mandarin or Cantonese?

[Denis Giron]

Greetings...

This is primarily a linguistic question, thus it is mainly for the
sci.lang newsgroup, but since the question I am most interested in
pertains to the similarities (if any) between Vietnamese and Mandarin
or Cantonese... I mean in their spoken forms (not written), i.e. this
is a question of grammar and language families, not really about
scripts.

Hence the title of my post: How close is Vietnamese to Mandarin or
Cantonese? Below I will explain my motivation for asking such in more
detail...



I recently found the following passage in a book about Yiddish:

"Yiddish and Hebrew are entirely different languages. A knowledge of
one will not give you even a rudimentary understanding of the other.
True, Yiddish uses the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, employs a great
many Hebrew words, and is written, like Hebrew, from right to left,
thusly:

UOY EVOL I ACIREMA

-which should delight any reader under fourteen. But Yiddish and Hebrew
are as different from each other as are English and French, which also
use a common alphabet, share many words, and together proceed from left
to right."
[Leo Rosten, "The Joys of Yiddish: A Relaxed Lexicon of Yiddish, Hebrew
and Yinglish Words," (Pocket Book, 1968), p. x]

Now to my point: I didn't like the French-English analogy, because
these two languages are closer to one another grammatically than is
Yiddish to Hebrew. So I was toying around with the idea of a different
analogy, which is a bit more dramatic (i.e. give two languages that use
roughly the same script but have very different grammatical
structures), thus Vietnamese came up.

But being that I'm totally ignorant of Vietnamese, I don't know
anything about its grammar. How close is Vietnamese, grammatically, to
Cantonese or Mandarin? Or is Vietnamese closer to Thai or Malay? What
language family does Vietnamese fall within, and it is safe to say that
it is very different grammatically from English?

The reason I ask is because I ran into a couple of conspiracy nuts who
claimed Modern Israeli Hebrew is really just Yiddish, but the people
who make this claim only speak English, thus I've had trouble getting
across the idea that one language is a Semitic language, and the other
is a European (Germanic? Slavic?) one. So I've been fishing around for
analogies. I contemplated using a Farsi-Arabic analogy, or Urdu-Arabic
analogy, or Somali-English analogy, or Turkish-Arabic analogy
(pre-Ataturk), or a English-Turkish analogy (post-Ataturk), but these
would mostly be lost on them. Living in New York, there are many
Vietnamese resturants one can see, that have signs written in Latin
characters (admittedly with a lot of accents and/or diacritical marks
I'm not familiar with), hence it might be my best bet.

Whatever, I'm babbling at this point, but my main question is with
regard to grammar: How close is Vietnamese to Mandarin or Cantonese?

[K***@aol.com]

***

Sir,

No such close as a hair, to the others, they said Vietnamese
pronountiation sound like "bird" , I think that pronounciation
mostly belong to the North VN people with voice tone changing
up and down and nice plus cool :)))

Can you compare the voice of Japanese and Korean ? , the way
they dressed is differenced, and so does Vietnamese vs Madrrin
or Cantoneese , Chineese people dont wear "jupe", meant a pant
with one leg :)))) in the old day, Vietnamese women worn "va'y "
without underware :))) Not for Chineese

I might be wrong :)))))))))

[Wiktor S.]

Post by K***@aol.com
No such close as a hair, to the others, they said Vietnamese
pronountiation sound like "bird" , I think that pronounciation
mostly belong to the North VN people with voice tone changing
up and down and nice plus cool :)))
Can you compare the voice of Japanese and Korean ?

Yes, they sound alike :-)
Except there's no such eloOoOngaAaAting in the former.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Denis Giron
Greetings...
This is primarily a linguistic question, thus it is mainly for the
sci.lang newsgroup, but since the question I am most interested in
pertains to the similarities (if any) between Vietnamese and Mandarin
or Cantonese... I mean in their spoken forms (not written), i.e. this
is a question of grammar and language families, not really about
scripts.
Hence the title of my post: How close is Vietnamese to Mandarin or
Cantonese? Below I will explain my motivation for asking such in more
detail...

<skipping lots of BS about Yiddish and Hebrew and French and English>

Post by Denis Giron
But being that I'm totally ignorant of Vietnamese, I don't know
anything about its grammar. How close is Vietnamese, grammatically, to
Cantonese or Mandarin? Or is Vietnamese closer to Thai or Malay? What
language family does Vietnamese fall within, and it is safe to say that
it is very different grammatically from English?

Vietnamese is a Mon-Khmer language, in the Austroasiatic phylum. It has
many loanwords from Chinese (just as English has many loanwords from
French).

It is thus not related to Chinese, Thai, or Malay. It is related to
Khmer (Cambodian).

Vietnamese has been written with a variety of roman alphabet since the
17th century (the orthography devised by Portuguese missionaries), but
until the end of the 19th century it was more often written with a
script derived from the Chinese script but different from it.

Post by Denis Giron
The reason I ask is because I ran into a couple of conspiracy nuts who

They may be "conspiracy nuts," but they seem to be familiar with the
theories of Paul Wexler.

Post by Denis Giron
claimed Modern Israeli Hebrew is really just Yiddish, but the people

Wexler says that Modern Hebrew is "relexified Yiddish," and he has a
point -- because Modern Hebrew grammar bears very little relation to
Biblical Hebrew grammar and is very similar to "Standard Average
European" grammar, which is reasonable because Hebrew was revived as a
spoken language by people whose native language was Yiddish. They
assiduously learned Hebrew vocabulary, but they were not equipped to
take on a very alien syntax, including a tense-aspect system totally
different from what they were used to.

Post by Denis Giron
who make this claim only speak English, thus I've had trouble getting
across the idea that one language is a Semitic language, and the other
is a European (Germanic? Slavic?) one. So I've been fishing around for

Wexler claims, furthermore, that Yiddish is not a Germanic language, but
a Slavic language. He has not made any converts to this point of view.

Post by Denis Giron
analogies. I contemplated using a Farsi-Arabic analogy, or Urdu-Arabic
analogy, or Somali-English analogy, or Turkish-Arabic analogy
(pre-Ataturk), or a English-Turkish analogy (post-Ataturk), but these
would mostly be lost on them. Living in New York, there are many
Vietnamese resturants one can see, that have signs written in Latin
characters (admittedly with a lot of accents and/or diacritical marks
I'm not familiar with), hence it might be my best bet.
Whatever, I'm babbling at this point, but my main question is with
regard to grammar: How close is Vietnamese to Mandarin or Cantonese?

They are of the same morphological typology, viz., isolating; but that
doesn't mean anything at all. English is almost as isolating as Chinese,
and Chinese is almost as isolating as Vietnamese, which is usually given
as the most isolating language of all. But morphological typology
changes easily over the centuries.

[Dylan Sung]

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by Denis Giron
Greetings...
This is primarily a linguistic question, thus it is mainly for the
sci.lang newsgroup, but since the question I am most interested in
pertains to the similarities (if any) between Vietnamese and Mandarin
or Cantonese... I mean in their spoken forms (not written), i.e. this
is a question of grammar and language families, not really about
scripts.
Hence the title of my post: How close is Vietnamese to Mandarin or
Cantonese? Below I will explain my motivation for asking such in more
detail...

<skipping lots of BS about Yiddish and Hebrew and French and English>

Post by Denis Giron
But being that I'm totally ignorant of Vietnamese, I don't know
anything about its grammar. How close is Vietnamese, grammatically, to
Cantonese or Mandarin? Or is Vietnamese closer to Thai or Malay? What
language family does Vietnamese fall within, and it is safe to say that
it is very different grammatically from English?

Vietnamese is a Mon-Khmer language, in the Austroasiatic phylum. It has
many loanwords from Chinese (just as English has many loanwords from
French).
It is thus not related to Chinese, Thai, or Malay. It is related to
Khmer (Cambodian).
Vietnamese has been written with a variety of roman alphabet since the
17th century (the orthography devised by Portuguese missionaries), but
until the end of the 19th century it was more often written with a
script derived from the Chinese script but different from it.

[snip irrelevant stuff]

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by Denis Giron
Whatever, I'm babbling at this point, but my main question is with
regard to grammar: How close is Vietnamese to Mandarin or Cantonese?

They are of the same morphological typology, viz., isolating; but that
doesn't mean anything at all. English is almost as isolating as Chinese,
and Chinese is almost as isolating as Vietnamese, which is usually given
as the most isolating language of all. But morphological typology
changes easily over the centuries.

See Mark Alves's "What's so Chinese about Vietnamese?". It's a large PDF
download, but he concludes that whilst the contribution of Chinese is
significant, the "Apparent structural and typological similarities of modern
Vietnamese and Chinese tend to be partially conditioned influence at best
and are generally the result of numerous language internal and natural
typological tendencies rather than change through structural borrowing". By
which I understand him to mean such stuff as there being classifiers and
tones used in both languages etc.

One notable difference between Vietnamese and Chinese is the post
positioning of adjectives, that is the adjective occurs after the noun in
Vietnamese.

With repsect to the Chinese borrowings, I took a list of SV readings of
Chinese characters and sorted them according to a list of characters I knew
came from the four classical Chinese tones. This was because there was a
theory about the how the upper and lower Middle Chinese registers the tones
are supposed to correspond very well to SV readings. However, they did not
account for the many characters which actually occured in other modern SV
tone reading coming from other MC tone categories. Alves mentions an older
stratum of readings prior to MC, and I can only conclude that some of these
readings are most probably from OC. It's not surprising since there has been
over 2000 years of interaction between the Chinese and Annamese.

Dyl.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Fri, 6 May 2005 07:44:35 +0100: "Dylan Sung"

Post by Dylan Sung

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by Denis Giron
Greetings...
This is primarily a linguistic question, thus it is mainly for the
sci.lang newsgroup, but since the question I am most interested in
pertains to the similarities (if any) between Vietnamese and Mandarin
or Cantonese... I mean in their spoken forms (not written), i.e. this
is a question of grammar and language families, not really about
scripts.
Hence the title of my post: How close is Vietnamese to Mandarin or
Cantonese? Below I will explain my motivation for asking such in more
detail...

<skipping lots of BS about Yiddish and Hebrew and French and English>

Post by Denis Giron
But being that I'm totally ignorant of Vietnamese, I don't know
anything about its grammar. How close is Vietnamese, grammatically, to
Cantonese or Mandarin? Or is Vietnamese closer to Thai or Malay? What
language family does Vietnamese fall within, and it is safe to say that
it is very different grammatically from English?

Vietnamese is a Mon-Khmer language, in the Austroasiatic phylum. It has
many loanwords from Chinese (just as English has many loanwords from
French).
It is thus not related to Chinese, Thai, or Malay. It is related to
Khmer (Cambodian).
Vietnamese has been written with a variety of roman alphabet since the
17th century (the orthography devised by Portuguese missionaries), but
until the end of the 19th century it was more often written with a
script derived from the Chinese script but different from it.

[snip irrelevant stuff]

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by Denis Giron
Whatever, I'm babbling at this point, but my main question is with
regard to grammar: How close is Vietnamese to Mandarin or Cantonese?

They are of the same morphological typology, viz., isolating; but that
doesn't mean anything at all. English is almost as isolating as Chinese,
and Chinese is almost as isolating as Vietnamese, which is usually given
as the most isolating language of all. But morphological typology
changes easily over the centuries.

See Mark Alves's "What's so Chinese about Vietnamese?". It's a large PDF
download, /

http://www.geocities.com/malves98/
http://www.geocities.com/malves98/publications.html

Post by Dylan Sung
/but he concludes that whilst the contribution of Chinese is
significant, the "Apparent structural and typological similarities of modern
Vietnamese and Chinese tend to be partially conditioned influence at best
and are generally the result of numerous language internal and natural
typological tendencies rather than change through structural borrowing". By
which I understand him to mean such stuff as there being classifiers and
tones used in both languages etc.

[Dylan Sung]

Post by Ruud Harmsen
Fri, 6 May 2005 07:44:35 +0100: "Dylan Sung"

Post by Dylan Sung
See Mark Alves's "What's so Chinese about Vietnamese?". It's a large PDF
download, /

http://www.geocities.com/malves98/
http://www.geocities.com/malves98/publications.html
--
Ruud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com

Thanks Ruud for my inexcusable omission - the links!!!

Dyl.

[Helmut Richter]

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Wexler says that Modern Hebrew is "relexified Yiddish," and he has a
point -- because Modern Hebrew grammar bears very little relation to
Biblical Hebrew grammar and is very similar to "Standard Average
European" grammar, which is reasonable because Hebrew was revived as a
spoken language by people whose native language was Yiddish.

I understand the point but I feel it is grossly exaggerated. A Modern
Hebrew speaker has no problems reading the Bible, and if he once and
for all has learnt that what mitaking aspects as tenses can yield
unexpected meanings in some contexts (and surprisingly, statistically
only in few contexts because the most frequent BH form does not exist
in MH and thus cannot cause misunderstandings), he will understand
everything correctly. One afternoon of BH lessons might well be enough
to learn the different tense system and the somewhat different SOV
word order.

Post by Peter T. Daniels
They
assiduously learned Hebrew vocabulary, but they were not equipped to
take on a very alien syntax, including a tense-aspect system totally
different from what they were used to.

Would such a shift in grammar (an aspect system with some tense
flavour becoming a tense system with a little aspect flavour) be
absolutely inconceivable, had the language gradually evolved over the
last 2000 years instead of being reanimated or reinvented?

Helmut Richter

[Helmut Richter]

Post by Helmut Richter
Hebrew speaker has no problems reading the Bible, and if he once and
for all has learnt that what mitaking aspects as tenses can yield

for all has learnt that mistaking aspects as tenses can yield

Post by Helmut Richter
to learn the different tense system and the somewhat different SOV
word order.

VSO word order.

Helmut Richter

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Helmut Richter

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Wexler says that Modern Hebrew is "relexified Yiddish," and he has a
point -- because Modern Hebrew grammar bears very little relation to
Biblical Hebrew grammar and is very similar to "Standard Average
European" grammar, which is reasonable because Hebrew was revived as a
spoken language by people whose native language was Yiddish.

I understand the point but I feel it is grossly exaggerated. A Modern
Hebrew speaker has no problems reading the Bible, and if he once and

They could _read_ TaNaKh, but they couldn't _write_ it or speak its
language.

Post by Helmut Richter
for all has learnt that what mitaking aspects as tenses can yield
unexpected meanings in some contexts (and surprisingly, statistically
only in few contexts because the most frequent BH form does not exist
in MH and thus cannot cause misunderstandings), he will understand
everything correctly. One afternoon of BH lessons might well be enough
to learn the different tense system and the somewhat different SOV
word order.

SOV??

Post by Helmut Richter

Post by Peter T. Daniels
They
assiduously learned Hebrew vocabulary, but they were not equipped to
take on a very alien syntax, including a tense-aspect system totally
different from what they were used to.

Would such a shift in grammar (an aspect system with some tense
flavour becoming a tense system with a little aspect flavour) be
absolutely inconceivable, had the language gradually evolved over the
last 2000 years instead of being reanimated or reinvented?

Of course not. And it _did_ happen. The people who continued to write in
Hebrew for centuries after no one spoke it any more naturally wrote it
with more and more of their native syntaxes. Just as 19th-century Latin
bears little syntactic relationship to Cicero's Latin.

And IH is most definitely very unlike BH.

[Denis Giron]

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by Helmut Richter

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Wexler says that Modern Hebrew is "relexified Yiddish,"
and he has a point -- because Modern Hebrew grammar
bears very little relation to Biblical Hebrew grammar
and is very similar to "Standard Average European"
grammar, which is reasonable because Hebrew was
revived as a spoken language by people whose native
language was Yiddish.

I understand the point but I feel it is grossly
exaggerated. A Modern Hebrew speaker has no problems
reading the Bible, and if he once and

[Quick comment: A person who knows Modern Israeli Hebrew can read large
swaths of the Hebrew Bible, but certain parts would be problematic or
obscure. My favorite example is the word taqpee'eni in Job 10:10, as it
means something like "you curdled me" [or "you solidified me" or "you
pulled me together"], while a person who only knowns MIH might read
"you will freeze me".]

Post by Peter T. Daniels
They could _read_ TaNaKh, but they couldn't _write_ it
or speak its language.

What an odd objection in this context. A person who only knows Modern
Israeli Hebrew would have a much better chance of writings or speaking
the language of the TaNaKh than would a person who only knew Yiddish.
But then, you already knew that.

Post by Peter T. Daniels
I know Denis Giron has been here before, but
I don't remember for what.

The last time I was in sci.lang was to take part in the "Arabic: Rajul
Adamu" thread, where I argued that the Biblical Hebrew "adom" can be
used to designate something that is the color of blood.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Denis Giron

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by Helmut Richter

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Wexler says that Modern Hebrew is "relexified Yiddish,"
and he has a point -- because Modern Hebrew grammar
bears very little relation to Biblical Hebrew grammar
and is very similar to "Standard Average European"
grammar, which is reasonable because Hebrew was
revived as a spoken language by people whose native
language was Yiddish.

I understand the point but I feel it is grossly
exaggerated. A Modern Hebrew speaker has no problems
reading the Bible, and if he once and

[Quick comment: A person who knows Modern Israeli Hebrew can read large
swaths of the Hebrew Bible, but certain parts would be problematic or
obscure. My favorite example is the word taqpee'eni in Job 10:10, as it
means something like "you curdled me" [or "you solidified me" or "you
pulled me together"], while a person who only knowns MIH might read
"you will freeze me".]

Post by Peter T. Daniels
They could _read_ TaNaKh, but they couldn't _write_ it
or speak its language.

What an odd objection in this context. A person who only knows Modern
Israeli Hebrew would have a much better chance of writings or speaking
the language of the TaNaKh than would a person who only knew Yiddish.
But then, you already knew that.

And a person who only knows Modern English would have a much better
chance of reading (but not writing or speaking) Chaucer than a person
who only knew Hebrew, but so what? Take it back a few more centuries to
Beowulf and their chances are just about even.

Post by Denis Giron

Post by Peter T. Daniels
I know Denis Giron has been here before, but
I don't remember for what.

The last time I was in sci.lang was to take part in the "Arabic: Rajul
Adamu" thread, where I argued that the Biblical Hebrew "adom" can be
used to designate something that is the color of blood.

No, that wasn't it. Long ago.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Fri, 06 May 2005 20:05:40 GMT: "Peter T. Daniels"

Post by Peter T. Daniels
And a person who only knows Modern English would have a much better
chance of reading (but not writing or speaking) Chaucer than a person
who only knew Hebrew, but so what? Take it back a few more centuries to
Beowulf and their chances are just about even.

Large parts of Old-English vocabulary are comprehensible from Dutch or
German, much better than from Modern English.

[Yusuf B Gursey]

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by Denis Giron

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by Helmut Richter

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Wexler says that Modern Hebrew is "relexified Yiddish,"
and he has a point -- because Modern Hebrew grammar
bears very little relation to Biblical Hebrew grammar
and is very similar to "Standard Average European"
grammar, which is reasonable because Hebrew was
revived as a spoken language by people whose native
language was Yiddish.

I understand the point but I feel it is grossly
exaggerated. A Modern Hebrew speaker has no problems
reading the Bible, and if he once and

[Quick comment: A person who knows Modern Israeli Hebrew can read large
swaths of the Hebrew Bible, but certain parts would be problematic or
obscure. My favorite example is the word taqpee'eni in Job 10:10, as it
means something like "you curdled me" [or "you solidified me" or "you
pulled me together"], while a person who only knowns MIH might read
"you will freeze me".]

Post by Peter T. Daniels
They could _read_ TaNaKh, but they couldn't _write_ it
or speak its language.

What an odd objection in this context. A person who only knows Modern
Israeli Hebrew would have a much better chance of writings or speaking
the language of the TaNaKh than would a person who only knew

Yiddish.

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by Denis Giron
But then, you already knew that.

And a person who only knows Modern English would have a much better
chance of reading (but not writing or speaking) Chaucer than a person
who only knew Hebrew, but so what? Take it back a few more centuries to
Beowulf and their chances are just about even.

Post by Denis Giron

Post by Peter T. Daniels
I know Denis Giron has been here before, but
I don't remember for what.

The last time I was in sci.lang was to take part in the "Arabic: Rajul
Adamu" thread, where I argued that the Biblical Hebrew "adom" can be
used to designate something that is the color of blood.

No, that wasn't it. Long ago.

before that he occassionaly used to ask about Arabic and the Qur'an
you could use Google to find his earlier posts. like using the
author only search option (his e-mail address), search for "sci.lang"

Post by Peter T. Daniels
--

[Yusuf B Gursey]

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by Helmut Richter

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Wexler says that Modern Hebrew is "relexified Yiddish," and he has a
point -- because Modern Hebrew grammar bears very little relation to
Biblical Hebrew grammar and is very similar to "Standard Average
European" grammar, which is reasonable because Hebrew was revived as a
spoken language by people whose native language was Yiddish.

I understand the point but I feel it is grossly exaggerated. A Modern
Hebrew speaker has no problems reading the Bible, and if he once and

They could _read_ TaNaKh, but they couldn't _write_ it or speak its
language.

a forgery of an inscription alledgedly attesting to repairs on the
Temple of Jerusalem was caught when a modern hebrew word was noticed.
also IIRC some felt that "spiral staircase", included in the forgery
was a misreading of the Biblical text. the letters were also phoenician
rather than canaanite.

it also led to the reevaluation of the "James Osuary" given by the same
dealer. both being judged forgeries, the dealer was arrested.

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by Helmut Richter
for all has learnt that what mitaking aspects as tenses can yield
unexpected meanings in some contexts (and surprisingly,

statistically

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by Helmut Richter
only in few contexts because the most frequent BH form does not exist
in MH and thus cannot cause misunderstandings), he will understand
everything correctly. One afternoon of BH lessons might well be enough
to learn the different tense system and the somewhat different SOV
word order.

SOV??

Post by Helmut Richter

Post by Peter T. Daniels
They
assiduously learned Hebrew vocabulary, but they were not equipped to
take on a very alien syntax, including a tense-aspect system totally
different from what they were used to.

Would such a shift in grammar (an aspect system with some tense
flavour becoming a tense system with a little aspect flavour) be
absolutely inconceivable, had the language gradually evolved over the
last 2000 years instead of being reanimated or reinvented?

Of course not. And it _did_ happen. The people who continued to write in
Hebrew for centuries after no one spoke it any more naturally wrote it
with more and more of their native syntaxes. Just as 19th-century Latin
bears little syntactic relationship to Cicero's Latin.
And IH is most definitely very unlike BH.
--

[Denis Giron]

Post by Peter T. Daniels
<skipping lots of BS about Yiddish and Hebrew
and French and English>

Okey-dokey...

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by Denis Giron
The reason I ask is because I ran into a couple
of conspiracy nuts who

They may be "conspiracy nuts," but they seem to be
familiar with the theories of Paul Wexler.

I have my doubts about that... Nonetheless, could you recommend a
specific work by Wexler pushing this view (i.e. a book or article)?

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Denis Giron

Post by Peter T. Daniels
<skipping lots of BS about Yiddish and Hebrew
and French and English>

Okey-dokey...

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by Denis Giron
The reason I ask is because I ran into a couple
of conspiracy nuts who

They may be "conspiracy nuts," but they seem to be
familiar with the theories of Paul Wexler.

I have my doubts about that... Nonetheless, could you recommend a
specific work by Wexler pushing this view (i.e. a book or article)?

No, but his titles are very explicit. There was just an announcement on
one of the Lists of a 683-page book from Harrassowitz. Check you local
amazon.

[Yusuf B Gursey]

Post by Denis Giron

Post by Peter T. Daniels
<skipping lots of BS about Yiddish and Hebrew
and French and English>

Okey-dokey...

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by Denis Giron
The reason I ask is because I ran into a couple
of conspiracy nuts who

They may be "conspiracy nuts," but they seem to be
familiar with the theories of Paul Wexler.

I have my doubts about that... Nonetheless, could you recommend a
specific work by Wexler pushing this view (i.e. a book or article)?

here are the titles relevant to the subject in my nearby university
library:



Relexification in Creole and non-Creole languages : with special
attention...

Title: Relexification in Creole and non-Creole languages : with special
attention to Haitian Creole, modern Hebrew, Romani, and Rumanian /
edited by Julia Horvath and Paul Wexler.
Published: Wiesbaden : O. Harrassowitz, 1997.
Description: 211 p. ; 24 cm.



Studies in Yiddish linguistics / edited by Paul Wexler.

Title: Studies in Yiddish linguistics / edited by Paul Wexler.
Published: Tübingen : M. Niemeyer, 1990.
Description: viii, 216 p. ; 23 cm.


The Ashkenazic Jews : a Slavo-Turkic people in search of a Jewish
identity...

Author: Wexler, Paul.
Title: The Ashkenazic Jews : a Slavo-Turkic people in search of a
Jewish identity / Paul Wexler.
Published: Columbus, Ohio : Slavica Publishers, c1993.
Description: 306 p. ; 23 cm.


The Balkan substratum of Yiddish : a reassessment of the unique Romance
and...

Author: Wexler, Paul.
Title: The Balkan substratum of Yiddish : a reassessment of the unique
Romance and Greek components / Paul Wexler.
Published: Wiesbaden : O. Harrassowitz, 1992.
Description: 140 p. ; 24 cm.


Judeo-Romance linguistics : a bibliography (Latin, Italo-, Gallo,
Ibero-,...

Author: Wexler, Paul.
Title: Judeo-Romance linguistics : a bibliography (Latin, Italo-,
Gallo, Ibero-, and Rhaeto-Romance except Castilian) / Paul Wexler.
Published: New York : Garland Pub., 1989.
Description: xxvii, 174 p. ; 24 cm.



The non-Jewish origins of the Sephardic Jews / Paul Wexler.

Author: Wexler, Paul.
Title: The non-Jewish origins of the Sephardic Jews / Paul Wexler.
Published: New York : State University of New York Press, 1996.
Description: xviii, 321 p. ; 24 cm.



Schizoid nature of modern Hebrew : a slavic language in search of a
Semitic...

Author: Wexler, Paul.
Title: Schizoid nature of modern Hebrew : a slavic language in search
of a Semitic past / Paul Wexler.
Published: Wiesbaden : Harrassowitz, 1990.
Description: 146 p. ; 24 cm.



Three heirs to a Judeo-Latin legacy : Judeo-Ibero-Romance, Yiddish
and...

Author: Wexler, Paul.
Title: Three heirs to a Judeo-Latin legacy : Judeo-Ibero-Romance,
Yiddish and Rotwelsch / Paul Wexler.
Published: Wiesbaden : O. Harrassowitz, 1988.
Description: xix, 196 p. ; 24 cm.

[o***@gmail.com]

Without a literary tradition to refer to with the languages of SE asia
the point is moot. We can only speculate through contacts from trade,
wars, envoys from chinese dynastys and influences from buddhism, ect.

Everyone knows/knew enough of the other guys language to order rice or
noodles, ask for the time, location of toilets and were to buy a cheap
$2 whore. Transmission of ideas from oral tradition is limited to
family/small village. Which is also the case with medicine in se asian
cultures. There is no "standardized" system. Even the mayans had
"acupuncture" charts but probably from fresian and magyar contacts via
naval expeditions. How deep did the "philosophy" get into the cultures
of s. america? Not very deep at all. Thus is the limitation of
cultural artifacts.

***@gmail.com

[Ruud Harmsen]

Post by Denis Giron
[Leo Rosten, "The Joys of Yiddish: A Relaxed Lexicon of Yiddish, Hebrew
and Yinglish Words," (Pocket Book, 1968), p. x]
-which should delight any reader under fourteen. But Yiddish and Hebrew
are as different from each other as are English and French, /

More different: different language family.

Post by Denis Giron
But being that I'm totally ignorant of Vietnamese, I don't know
anything about its grammar. How close is Vietnamese, grammatically, to
Cantonese or Mandarin? Or is Vietnamese closer to Thai or Malay? What
language family does Vietnamese fall within, and it is safe to say that
it is very different grammatically from English?

Vietnamese is in a different language family than English, but also a
different family than Mandarin and Cantonese.

Post by Denis Giron
The reason I ask is because I ran into a couple of conspiracy nuts who
claimed Modern Israeli Hebrew is really just Yiddish, but the people
who make this claim only speak English, thus I've had trouble getting
across the idea that one language is a Semitic language, and the other
is a European (Germanic? Slavic?) one.

Germanic. Yiddish is originally a German dialect, with a lot of Hebrew
and Slavic loan words.

Post by Denis Giron
Whatever, I'm babbling at this point, but my main question is with
regard to grammar: How close is Vietnamese to Mandarin or Cantonese?

Not close at all, but totally different.

[ELCHINO]

A few years back, I met a Japanese in Hanoi in the house of a
distinguished Vietnamese historian, and with whom I had an interesting
conversation. The Japanese was in Hanoi for about six months to study
the evolution in the pronunciation of Vietnamese in History as part of
his research leading to a Ph.D degree in linguistics jointly awarded by
the University of Kyoto and the University of Hanoi. The Vietnamese
professor was one of his Thesis Advisor.

What I learnt from our conversation was the old Vietnamese language was
a mixture of old South Asian languages comprising Thai and Mon-Khmer
languages which came, probably from much older Austronesian
-Polynesian languages and constituting the foundation of the old
Vietnamese Language. It should be emphasized that this old language
was used by the inhabitants of North Vietnam much earlier than when the
cultural entities known as Thai or Khmer were known to exist, i.e., Old
Vietnamese, Thai and Khmer evolved from the same Austronesian older
language.

What differentiated Vietnamese from Thai or Mon-Khmer was heavy
borrowing of Chinese language resulting from Chinese Colonization of
North Vietnam from 200 BC to 931 AD. Very similar to the borrowing of
French words by the Anglo-Saxons following the conquest of England by
the Duke of Normandy, The domination of Chinese Language over the
native language occurred mainly at the Colonial Court where Vietnamese
who collaborated with the Chinese learnt the language of their masters
(Han Ngu or Han Viet) while the majority of Vietnamese still used their
own language (Chu Nom) at home. While Vietnamese borrowed Chinese
Words to express new things or new concepts, our ancestors did not
borrow Chinese Language Grammar. Thus the well known Vietnamese
practice to put the adjective after the noun.

One fact unknown to me was the pronunciation of the Han Viet (i.e.,
words borrowed from Chinese) was similar to that of Northern Chinese
and not of Cantonese the language spoken by Chinese who lived next
door to Vietnamese, This was due to the fact that Vietnam does not
share borders with Canton but with Guangxi and Yunnan whose
inhabitants do not speak Cantonese but Chuang and Mandarin,
respectively. The Chinese Administrators and military who came to
rule Vietnam usually came from the Capitals of China (Nanking, Beijing
etc...) or from Hunan (Changsa) or Sichuan (Chengdu), i.e., from
places where people speak Mandarin.
As far as the musicality of the Vietnamese language, I have the
following comments:
I used to be a Short wave radio buff and had considerable difficulty in
differentiating a Thai or Cambodian stations from a Vietnamese stations
when the reception was bad but would not have difficulty in recognizing
Japanese or Korean stations. Chinese stations whether broadcasted in
Cantonese or Mandarin were in between.

[Peter T. Daniels]

ELCHINO wrote:

What a load of nonsense.

I _hope_ this is a bunch of misremembered crap, and not the actual
thesis of the alleged Japanese student supposedly earning one degree
simultaneously at two universities.

Post by ELCHINO
A few years back, I met a Japanese in Hanoi in the house of a
distinguished Vietnamese historian, and with whom I had an interesting
conversation. The Japanese was in Hanoi for about six months to study
the evolution in the pronunciation of Vietnamese in History as part of
his research leading to a Ph.D degree in linguistics jointly awarded by
the University of Kyoto and the University of Hanoi. The Vietnamese
professor was one of his Thesis Advisor.
What I learnt from our conversation was the old Vietnamese language was
a mixture of old South Asian languages comprising Thai and Mon-Khmer
languages which came, probably from much older Austronesian
-Polynesian languages and constituting the foundation of the old
Vietnamese Language. It should be emphasized that this old language
was used by the inhabitants of North Vietnam much earlier than when the
cultural entities known as Thai or Khmer were known to exist, i.e., Old
Vietnamese, Thai and Khmer evolved from the same Austronesian older
language.
What differentiated Vietnamese from Thai or Mon-Khmer was heavy
borrowing of Chinese language resulting from Chinese Colonization of
North Vietnam from 200 BC to 931 AD. Very similar to the borrowing of
French words by the Anglo-Saxons following the conquest of England by
the Duke of Normandy, The domination of Chinese Language over the
native language occurred mainly at the Colonial Court where Vietnamese
who collaborated with the Chinese learnt the language of their masters
(Han Ngu or Han Viet) while the majority of Vietnamese still used their
own language (Chu Nom) at home. While Vietnamese borrowed Chinese
Words to express new things or new concepts, our ancestors did not
borrow Chinese Language Grammar. Thus the well known Vietnamese
practice to put the adjective after the noun.
One fact unknown to me was the pronunciation of the Han Viet (i.e.,
words borrowed from Chinese) was similar to that of Northern Chinese
and not of Cantonese the language spoken by Chinese who lived next
door to Vietnamese, This was due to the fact that Vietnam does not
share borders with Canton but with Guangxi and Yunnan whose
inhabitants do not speak Cantonese but Chuang and Mandarin,
respectively. The Chinese Administrators and military who came to
rule Vietnam usually came from the Capitals of China (Nanking, Beijing
etc...) or from Hunan (Changsa) or Sichuan (Chengdu), i.e., from
places where people speak Mandarin.
As far as the musicality of the Vietnamese language, I have the
I used to be a Short wave radio buff and had considerable difficulty in
differentiating a Thai or Cambodian stations from a Vietnamese stations
when the reception was bad but would not have difficulty in recognizing
Japanese or Korean stations. Chinese stations whether broadcasted in
Cantonese or Mandarin were in between.

[ELCHINO]

Thank you Pete for your comments.
In fact you might be right when challenging my claim that the Degree of
Ph. D was jointly awarded by University of Kyoto and University of
Vietnam (Dai Hoc Tong Hop in Hanoi, there is no University named
University of Hanoi per se). The Student was enrolled with the
University of Tokyo with a Japanese Professor who had professional
collaboration and publications co-authored with the Vietnamese
Professor in Hanoi and suggested the later's name to be one of the
advisors.

The Japanese Student upon completion will have a Ph. D degree awarded
by the University of Kyoto not the University of Vietnam in Hanoi

From your posts, You seemed to have a deep knowledge of the Language of

South East Asia in general, I would like to have a list of your
publications in peer-reviewed journals.

Thanks in advance

[ELCHINO]

ELCHINO wrote:

Thank you Peter for your comments.

In fact you might be right when challenging my claim that the Degree
of
Ph. D was jointly awarded by University of Kyoto and University of
Vietnam (Dai Hoc Tong Hop in Hanoi, there is no University named
University of Hanoi per se). The Student was enrolled with the
University of Tokyo (ERROR HERE=Should be University of Kyoto) with a
Japanese Professor who had professional
collaboration and publications co-authored with the Vietnamese
Professor in Hanoi and suggested the later's name to be one of the
advisors.

The Japanese Student upon completion will have a Ph. D degree awarded
by the University of Kyoto not the University of Vietnam in Hanoi
From your posts, You seemed to have a deep knowledge of the Language
of
South East Asia in general, I would like to have a list of your
publications in peer-reviewed journals.

Thanks in advance

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by ELCHINO
Thank you Peter for your comments.
In fact you might be right when challenging my claim that the Degree of
Ph. D was jointly awarded by University of Kyoto and University of
Vietnam (Dai Hoc Tong Hop in Hanoi, there is no University named
University of Hanoi per se). The Student was enrolled with the
University of Tokyo (ERROR HERE=Should be University of Kyoto) with a
Japanese Professor who had professional
collaboration and publications co-authored with the Vietnamese
Professor in Hanoi and suggested the later's name to be one of the
advisors.
The Japanese Student upon completion will have a Ph. D degree awarded
by the University of Kyoto not the University of Vietnam in Hanoi
From your posts, You seemed to have a deep knowledge of the Language of
South East Asia in general, I would like to have a list of your
publications in peer-reviewed journals.
Thanks in advance

Then I suggest you consult the linguistics bibliographies published by
the MLA and by the International Congress of Linguists (or whatever it's
called these days -- the principal editor was Uhlenbeck, who died
recently). I'm not about to post my CV here.

[trongluc]

Not only comrade Heo Chino bullshited about join degree, no one has
never heard of University of Vietnam before, it is only existed in his
imagination.

"Dai hoc tong hop Hanoi" is University of Hanoi or Hanoi University,
address: 20 Nguyen Trai, Dong da, Hanoi.

In 1993, Hanoi University combined with Hanoi National Pedagogic
University and Hanoi University for Teachers of Foreign Languages to
form Hanoi National University (Dai hoc quoc gia Hanoi) address: 144
Xuan Thuy Road, Cau Giay District, Hanoi. Then later on it became part
of Dai hoc Quoc gia Viet nam, Hanoi branch, so is the name Vietnam
National University of Hanoi.

Hanging around here you can see a lot of bullshits from this comrade.

TL.

Post by ELCHINO
Thank you Peter for your comments.
In fact you might be right when challenging my claim that the Degree of
Ph. D was jointly awarded by University of Kyoto and University of
Vietnam (Dai Hoc Tong Hop in Hanoi, there is no University named
University of Hanoi per se). The Student was enrolled with the
University of Tokyo (ERROR HERE=Should be University of Kyoto) with a
Japanese Professor who had professional
collaboration and publications co-authored with the Vietnamese
Professor in Hanoi and suggested the later's name to be one of the
advisors.
The Japanese Student upon completion will have a Ph. D degree awarded
by the University of Kyoto not the University of Vietnam in Hanoi
From your posts, You seemed to have a deep knowledge of the Language of
South East Asia in general, I would like to have a list of your
publications in peer-reviewed journals.
Thanks in advance

[Dylan Sung]

Post by trongluc
"Dai hoc tong hop Hanoi" is University of Hanoi or Hanoi University,
address: 20 Nguyen Trai, Dong da, Hanoi.
In 1993, Hanoi University combined with Hanoi National Pedagogic
University and Hanoi University for Teachers of Foreign Languages to
form Hanoi National University (Dai hoc quoc gia Hanoi) address: 144
Xuan Thuy Road, Cau Giay District, Hanoi. Then later on it became part
of Dai hoc Quoc gia Viet nam, Hanoi branch, so is the name Vietnam
National University of Hanoi.

Do you know if there are courses teaching chu+~ no^m at any of the
Vietnamese universities?

Dyl.

[trongluc]

Dylan,

To my knowledge there is none, and only a handful of Vietnamese can
write chu+~ No^m nowaday.

But with various efforts from Vietnamese scholars, mainly oversea
Vietnamese, about 10,000 No^m characters have been reserved in Unicode
standard.

For online course you can visit Institute of Vietnamese Studies (Vien
Viet Hoc)
http://www.viethoc.com/content.php?menu=16&page_id=25
http://www.viethoc.com/hannom/index.php

Contradict to comrade Heo Chino claim, the Han-Viet pronunciation is
generally closer to Cantonese than Mandarin.
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/chunom.htm

TL.

Post by Dylan Sung

Post by trongluc
"Dai hoc tong hop Hanoi" is University of Hanoi or Hanoi

University,

Post by Dylan Sung

Post by trongluc
address: 20 Nguyen Trai, Dong da, Hanoi.
In 1993, Hanoi University combined with Hanoi National Pedagogic
University and Hanoi University for Teachers of Foreign Languages to
form Hanoi National University (Dai hoc quoc gia Hanoi) address: 144
Xuan Thuy Road, Cau Giay District, Hanoi. Then later on it became part
of Dai hoc Quoc gia Viet nam, Hanoi branch, so is the name Vietnam
National University of Hanoi.

Do you know if there are courses teaching chu+~ no^m at any of the
Vietnamese universities?
Dyl.

[Dylan Sung]

Post by trongluc
Dylan,
To my knowledge there is none, and only a handful of Vietnamese can
write chu+~ No^m nowaday.
But with various efforts from Vietnamese scholars, mainly oversea
Vietnamese, about 10,000 No^m characters have been reserved in Unicode
standard.

Yes, I've extracted them and they are available as a zipped download from my
site at

http://www.dylanwhs.ukgateway.net/misc/index.html

Post by trongluc
For online course you can visit Institute of Vietnamese Studies (Vien
Viet Hoc)
http://www.viethoc.com/content.php?menu=16&page_id=25
http://www.viethoc.com/hannom/index.php

Thanks.

Post by trongluc
Contradict to comrade Heo Chino claim, the Han-Viet pronunciation is
generally closer to Cantonese than Mandarin.
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/chunom.htm

That may have something to do with the finals -p, -t, -c/-ch endings in SV,
and also the preservation of -m, -n, -ng/-nh too, where you see Mandarin
only having -n and -ng endings.

There is an interesting observation which can be seen in the SV distinction
of -ng and -nh ending rimes. -nh ending rimes tend to be associated with mid
to mid high front vowels (generally speaking, though there are exceptions).
You can see this in a table I made some while ago using a list of characters
for riming in poetry, and giving the readings in SV.

http://www.sungwh.freeserve.co.uk/chinese/guangyun-sino-viet-rhymes.htm

Scroll down until you see the number 12 and a She rime character in the far
left column, and the sub columns to its right numbered 44, 46 and 47. Also
the next She numbered 13, and sub column to its right numbered 48.

In most cases where the syllable rime ends in -ng, modern SV has a low
vowel, or a back vowel in the case of the She category 1 and 2 at the top of
the table.

Dyl.

[o***@gmail.com]

viet/cantonese:

Doctor:
Baaksae / Poksze

"fuck your mother"
diumamay / diu lay lo mo

However in n. viet its:
Ditmamay

The only words in viet I can think off the top of my head that have a
mandarin equivalent are names:

Tien/Tian which is actually rooted in mongolian not sino-tibetain.

Usually phonetic crossover happens when people live in close proximity
but I dont think this is the case as I have heard laotian (actually
pronounced like lotion), hmong, ect in various dialects and those
people have at some time lived closer than viet and n. or s. chinese in
history.

***@gmail.com

[Ruud Harmsen]

6 May 2005 01:10:45 -0700: "ELCHINO"

Post by ELCHINO
I used to be a Short wave radio buff and had considerable difficulty in
differentiating a Thai or Cambodian stations from a Vietnamese stations
when the reception was bad but would not have difficulty in recognizing
Japanese or Korean stations. Chinese stations whether broadcasted in
Cantonese or Mandarin were in between.

Where I first heard Vietnamese, some 30 or 25 years ago, I thought it
would be the same language family as Chinese. I later learnt this is
not the case and was surprised. Never heard Korean. Would have
immediately recognized Japanese to be a different family than Chinese
though. I expected Japanese to be remotely related to Turkish and
Hungarian, which I now know it probably isn't.

But my initial judgement of such matters is not very reliable, because
when I first heard European Portuguese (1973 or thereabouts) I thought
I didn't sound like an Indo European language at all, let alone
related to Spanish.

[Dylan Sung]

Post by ELCHINO
One fact unknown to me was the pronunciation of the Han Viet (i.e.,
words borrowed from Chinese) was similar to that of Northern Chinese
and not of Cantonese the language spoken by Chinese who lived next
door to Vietnamese, This was due to the fact that Vietnam does not
share borders with Canton but with Guangxi and Yunnan whose
inhabitants do not speak Cantonese but Chuang and Mandarin,
respectively. The Chinese Administrators and military who came to
rule Vietnam usually came from the Capitals of China (Nanking, Beijing
etc...) or from Hunan (Changsa) or Sichuan (Chengdu), i.e., from
places where people speak Mandarin.

Unfortunately, there is a tendency to say a place in a country, but not an
associated time too, when discussions about Chinese and other neighbouring
languages are involved.

Modern Chinese dialects like Cantonese and Mandarin have been well studied
for their pronunciation of characters compared to the Middle Chinese rime
lexicon, GuangYun (1008 AD) and it's earlier incarnation, Qieyun of 601 AD,
where Chinese characters are grouped by the four tone categories of
traditional Chinese philology, then by the 200 or so rimes under these
tones. They are then further grouped by characters of the same initial, that
is, characters that are homophones. What can be show with Cantonese and
Mandarin, and the majority of other Chinese dialects is that each have
regular phonological changes with respect to the MC sound system.

In Hakka Chinese for instance, all the MC voiced stop ([b d g]) initialed
characters become devoiced and aspirated. In Cantonese, MC voiceless
initials syllables become the upper tone register in the modern dialect,
whilst MC voiced initals syllables become lower register tones in the modern
dialect, and so on. In today's modern dialects, the northern dialects
symbolised by Mandarin based on the Beijing dialect shows a complete loss of
final occlusive stops [p t k] which are those syllables which make up the
traditional Ru tone class. However, they are preserved in southern dialects.
This is not to say there are no Mandarin dialects which have occlusive
endings, and some form of Ru tone. Its just that they may have changed to
become glottal stops [?] instead.

When you reach back in time to the Middle Chinese sound system, encapsulated
in the QieYun and Guangyun, one even sees that the four hundred years have
produced some changes. For instance the development of f from [b] and [p]
etc.

Going further back to Old Chinese, we are on rockier ground, since what we
know is extrapolated from MC, but with contemporaneous material derived from
rhyming of poetry such as the earliest stuff called The Book of Odes,
Shijing.

The other problem with modern nomenclature for people, countries and
ethnicity is modern boundaries are not the same as those in the past. For
most of the Vietnamese history, northern Vietnam was the area that
Vietnamese speakers lived, even during the Chinese occupation in Han times
until after the fall of the Tang dynasty. It wasn't until relatively
recently (in the last five hundred years) that the Vietnamese extended their
borders southwards.

So, ancient northern Vietnam and Guangxi province of China were neighbours.
Old Chinese as a language was first to penetrate ancient Vietnam. By the
time Vietnam had gained full independence, the pronunciation of characters
in the Middle Chinese sound system had had a firm footing. When one compares
modern Vietnamese and modern Cantonese, for the SinoViet pronunciations of
characters one finds that both have elements of Middle Chinese which survive
to this day. These are the presence of the occlusive endings, a bi-polar
splitting of the four MC tones, a correspondence between the voiced and
unvoiced distinctions in the way the MC tones have split.

However, since Mandarin does not have the final occlusive endings, modern
northern Mandarin is very different from modern SV pronunciations. One thing
it its favour though is the retention of the medial -i- in both SV and
Mandarin which hasn't survived well in Cantonese.

Post by ELCHINO
As far as the musicality of the Vietnamese language, I have the
I used to be a Short wave radio buff and had considerable difficulty in
differentiating a Thai or Cambodian stations from a Vietnamese stations
when the reception was bad but would not have difficulty in recognizing
Japanese or Korean stations. Chinese stations whether broadcasted in
Cantonese or Mandarin were in between.

I believe that though dictionaries hold a large body of SV vocabulary, it
may be that it isn't as frequently used in everyday speech as one supposes.
I would think that modern Vietnamese is totally unintelligible to a
Cantonese speaker, although I have hearsay that Vietnamese people may
understand the gist of a Cantonese speaker.

Dyl.

[Lee Sau Dan]

Dylan> I believe that though dictionaries hold a large body of SV
Dylan> vocabulary, it may be that it isn't as frequently used in
Dylan> everyday speech as one supposes. I would think that modern
Dylan> Vietnamese is totally unintelligible to a Cantonese
Dylan> speaker,

You're right. I can't understand Vietnamese at all. In the late 80s,
the government financed radio station RTHK in Hong Kong started
broadcasting a Vietnamese message of about 2 minutes in duration from
time to time. It is to tell Vietnamese people that the "Vietnamese
refugee" policy has changed, and newly arrived people will no longer
be treated as refugees. This is meant to discourage the flux of
Vietnamese people who leave their homes and head for HK. The message
was played from time to time until mid-90s.

Many HKers are familiar with that Vietnamese message, and sometimes
imitate it for jokes, but we cannot understand what is spoken. We
only know what the message is about, because the message is followed
by a sentence in Cantonese, briefing what the message conveys.


Dylan> although I have hearsay that Vietnamese people may
Dylan> understand the gist of a Cantonese speaker.

I doubt.

[ELCHINO]

I entirely agree with Lee Sau Dan 's statement that Vietnamese and
Cantonese are mutually incomprehensible except for a few Cantonese
/trieu chau words made popular in Vietnam by Cantonese/trieu chau
Immigrants in last hundred years. Not surprisingly, most of these
words were related to the restaurant occupation. For example:

Ti?m Sa('m= Chinese Dim Sum
Ho^`i Si= Hoisin sauce
Lat Chieu tuong= hot sauce
Su+.c Fa`n= Thuc Fan= eating
Ti?u La^u= restaurant, eating place
Ma`i Ta'n= the check pleased
Si` Zau= Soy Sauce

Vietnamese language used , however thousands of terms or about 40% of
total, borrowed from Chinese we called Han Viet.
The compound word Han Viet followed the Vietnamese grammar with the
adjective following the noun so it should be understood as Chinese for
Vietnamese or specific to Vietnamese. However most of these Han Viet
words are neither Cantonese nor Mandarin but words invented and
understood only by Vietnamese, The rule to construct these han viet
words is inexistent or at least very loose resulting in creation of Han
Viet words that Vietnamese themselves can not agree on the meaning.

The problem was exacerbated because Vietnam was divided into 2 from
1955-1975 resulting in two sets of Han Viet vocabulary, one created in
the South which continued to this day by Boat People all over the
Word., the other by the Communists in the North and now in Vietnam

My own belief was the Han Viet created by the Communist North was more
accurate in following the meaning of the Chinese Words used by the
Chinese themselves while the Han Viet created by South Vietnamese and
Boat People was almost random, following no rules and the original
meanings of the words as understood by the Chinese.

[Dylan Sung]

Post by ELCHINO
I entirely agree with Lee Sau Dan 's statement that Vietnamese and
Cantonese are mutually incomprehensible except for a few Cantonese
/trieu chau words made popular in Vietnam by Cantonese/trieu chau
Immigrants in last hundred years. Not surprisingly, most of these

Trieu chau are the Chaozhou speakers whose dialect of Chinese is classed as
a southern Min dialect, and the Cantonese speakers use a Yue dialect.

I'm a Hakka Chinese speaker, and my mother recalls in her youth, in the
1930's that she had a cousin who went to live in Vietnam, or as she called
it, On-nam (ie. Annam). We don't know what became of them, but there may be
many Chinese dialect speaker who went to Vietnam in the last few of
centuries.

Post by ELCHINO
Ti?m Sa('m= Chinese Dim Sum
Ho^`i Si= Hoisin sauce
Lat Chieu tuong= hot sauce
Su+.c Fa`n= Thuc Fan= eating
Ti?u La^u= restaurant, eating place
Ma`i Ta'n= the check pleased
Si` Zau= Soy Sauce

Quite a lot of SV words or syllables beginning in t cound from a Middle
Chinese 's'. e.g.

SV
tam (three)
tu+' (four)
toa'n (calculate)
thu? (hand)

I wonder how this sound change occured.

Post by ELCHINO
Vietnamese language used , however thousands of terms or about 40% of
total, borrowed from Chinese we called Han Viet.
The compound word Han Viet followed the Vietnamese grammar with the
adjective following the noun so it should be understood as Chinese for
Vietnamese or specific to Vietnamese. However most of these Han Viet
words are neither Cantonese nor Mandarin but words invented and
understood only by Vietnamese, The rule to construct these han viet
words is inexistent or at least very loose resulting in creation of Han
Viet words that Vietnamese themselves can not agree on the meaning.
The problem was exacerbated because Vietnam was divided into 2 from
1955-1975 resulting in two sets of Han Viet vocabulary, one created in
the South which continued to this day by Boat People all over the
Word., the other by the Communists in the North and now in Vietnam
My own belief was the Han Viet created by the Communist North was more
accurate in following the meaning of the Chinese Words used by the
Chinese themselves while the Han Viet created by South Vietnamese and
Boat People was almost random, following no rules and the original
meanings of the words as understood by the Chinese.

As I understand it, you have northern, central and southern dialects of
Vietnamese, with there being six tones in the far north, and only five down
south. Which is the missing tone, do you know?

Dyl.

[e***@yahoo.com]

Post by Dylan Sung
I'm a Hakka Chinese speaker, and my mother recalls in her youth, in the
1930's that she had a cousin who went to live in Vietnam, or as she called
it, On-nam (ie. Annam). We don't know what became of them, but there may be
many Chinese dialect speaker who went to Vietnam in the last few of
centuries.

Cultural tidbit: please refrain from using the word "Annam", it's
considered derogatory in Vietnamese.

The Chinese tradition is, after conquering some place, they would add
some "peace" word to the name of the city. Example: Beijing was Peiping
(="norhtern peace"), the city of Hue in Vietnam is Shun-Hua (="docile
pacification"), Vietnam was Annam (="peaceful south"). Well, the trick
did not work out quite so well... :)

Of course, in some other cases they are a bit more shameless: like
Seoul, which is often still referred to as Hancheng (="Chinatown"?).

Post by Dylan Sung
As I understand it, you have northern, central and southern dialects of
Vietnamese, with there being six tones in the far north, and only five down
south. Which is the missing tone, do you know?

The ? and the ~ tones have merged. Standard northern Vietnamese uses a
broken tone (inserted glottal stop) for ~. In the South, there are no
broken tones (not for ~, nor for .) Once the glottal stop is removed
from ~, it becomes indistinguishable from ? in a southerner's speech.

-- Ekki

[Lee Sau Dan]

ekkilu> The Chinese tradition is, after conquering some place,
ekkilu> they would add some "peace" word to the name of the
ekkilu> city. Example: Beijing was Peiping (="norhtern peace"),
ekkilu> the city of Hue in Vietnam is Shun-Hua (="docile
ekkilu> pacification"), Vietnam was Annam (="peaceful
ekkilu> south"). Well, the trick did not work out quite so
ekkilu> well... :)

Did the term "Annam" refer to the whole Vietnam as it is now, or just
the northern part centred around Hanoi and Haiphong? Could Saigon be
a part of "Annam"?


ekkilu> Of course, in some other cases they are a bit more
ekkilu> shameless: like Seoul, which is often still referred to as
ekkilu> Hancheng (="Chinatown"?).

But Han4cheng2 is the *official Chinese name* given by the S. Korean
government. We Chinese people just followed what that government
suggested. (Early this year, the S.K. government changed it to
Shou2er3, and demanded Chinese people to follow suit. But the old
name Han4cheng2 would be there to stay for at least 2 generations.)


ekkilu> The ? and the ~ tones have merged. Standard northern
ekkilu> Vietnamese uses a broken tone (inserted glottal stop) for
ekkilu> ~. In the South, there are no broken tones (not for ~, nor
ekkilu> for .) Once the glottal stop is removed from ~, it becomes
ekkilu> indistinguishable from ? in a southerner's speech.

When the Southerns write, do they often mix up these 2 tone marks?

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Lee Sau Dan
ekkilu> The Chinese tradition is, after conquering some place,
ekkilu> they would add some "peace" word to the name of the
ekkilu> city. Example: Beijing was Peiping (="norhtern peace"),
ekkilu> the city of Hue in Vietnam is Shun-Hua (="docile
ekkilu> pacification"), Vietnam was Annam (="peaceful
ekkilu> south"). Well, the trick did not work out quite so
ekkilu> well... :)
Did the term "Annam" refer to the whole Vietnam as it is now, or just
the northern part centred around Hanoi and Haiphong? Could Saigon be
a part of "Annam"?

The French name for the Vietnamese language is (was?) "Annamite."

[e***@yahoo.com]

Post by Lee Sau Dan
ekkilu> The ? and the ~ tones have merged. Standard

northern

Post by Lee Sau Dan
ekkilu> Vietnamese uses a broken tone (inserted glottal stop) for
ekkilu> ~. In the South, there are no broken tones (not for ~, nor
ekkilu> for .) Once the glottal stop is removed from ~, it

becomes

Post by Lee Sau Dan
ekkilu> indistinguishable from ? in a southerner's speech.
When the Southerns write, do they often mix up these 2 tone marks?

Sure. For instance, in a restaurant menu, I have seen

Xe Lu+~a

instead of

Xe Lu+?a

which means "train", but stands for the extra-large size for a bowl of
Pho+~, the Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup. (The Viet invented this term to
fit the English acronym XL for "extra-large".)

One finds this mistake in newsgroups, too. E.g:

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/soc.culture.vietnamese/browse_frm/thread/7d2b7fc55a31e77a/c7366ffda08c0e46?q=%22xe+lu%2B%7Ea%22&rnum=39&hl=en#c7366ffda08c0e46

-- Ekki

[Lee Sau Dan]

Post by Lee Sau Dan
When the Southerns write, do they often mix up these 2 tone
marks?

ekkilu> Sure. For instance, in a restaurant menu, I have seen

ekkilu> Xe Lu+~a

ekkilu> instead of

ekkilu> Xe Lu+?a

ekkilu> which means "train", but stands for the extra-large size
ekkilu> for a bowl of Pho+~, the Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup. (The
ekkilu> Viet invented this term to fit the English acronym XL for
ekkilu> "extra-large".)

How about words which are pronounced with retroflex sounds in the
north? Are they also spelt wrong by southerners?

[e***@yahoo.com]

Post by Lee Sau Dan
How about words which are pronounced with retroflex sounds in the
north? Are they also spelt wrong by southerners?

It's the opposite. Northerners are the ones that can't make the
retroflex sounds: they pronounce tr- just like ch-, s- just like x-.
Yes, I have been told about northerners misspelling. But I am no native
speaker to give examples.

-- Ekki

[Michael Farris]

Post by Lee Sau Dan
How about words which are pronounced with retroflex sounds in the
north? Are they also spelt wrong by southerners?

Well the retroflex sounds are (mostly) in the south, in Hanoi they
merge with the palatals (and initial [j] becomes [z]).

First, about Vietnamese spelling:
Qu&#7889;c ng&#7919; (the latin-based alphabet) is nothing really like
Pinyin or other latin transcription systems that take a specific
dialect and write it phonemically. It's much more (though not exactly)
like German spelling, that is it's largely a compromise between the
different dialects gradually worked out consciously and unconsciously
over the generations. One result of this process is that a native
speaker of almost any dialect will have to learn some distinctions in
writing that they don't make in speech. Just what the differences are
and how extensive they are depends on the dialect (and how much of a
burden to active or passive literacy this is depends on the person and
other factors).
It's also not quite as standardized as some European spelling systems
and probably never will be for various reasons (there's still a lot of
inconsistencies for example between final -au / -âu and -ay / -ây, for
example not to mention -i versus -y, the only distinction in writing
not made anywhere in speech that I know of)

It's my understanding that Vietnamese living outside the country tend
to have active spelling difficulties with those parts of the writing
system that don't match their particular dialect well (that is
northerners esp. from Hanoi will confuse d-, r- gi- (all [z]) and s-
and x- ([s]) will southerners will confuse tones and final -n, -ng
etc. This is also more likely with relatively less common words, for
example, I can't imagine anyone misspelling the future particle
s&#7869; as x&#7869; (northern s-x- confusion) or s&#7867; (southern
tone confusion), it's just too common a word. Reading comprehension is
also not affected, it's trying to remember how to write words that one
doesn't come across that often that causes difficulties.

This is hardly unusual, after many years of living in Poland, my
active abilities in English spelling have eroded greatly (though this
doesn't affect my ability to read at all). Japanese speakers living
long term in Poland tell me they have the same problem with
characters, they recognize them all easily enough but remembering how
to write some of them isn't so easy.

-michael farris

[Ruud Harmsen]

Post by Michael Farris
This is hardly unusual, after many years of living in Poland, my
active abilities in English spelling have eroded greatly /

Your spelling is much better than you think. I didn't see a single
mistake.

[Geoff]

Post by Lee Sau Dan
Did the term "Annam" refer to the whole Vietnam as it is now, or just
the northern part centred around Hanoi and Haiphong? Could Saigon be
a part of "Annam"?

In the Tang dynasty, the Protectorate-General of Annan covered the
northern half of former North Vietnam, only as far south as the
present-day coastal city of Vinh.

[Tak To]

Post by Lee Sau Dan
Did the term "Annam" refer to the whole Vietnam as it is now, or just
the northern part centred around Hanoi and Haiphong? Could Saigon be
a part of "Annam"?
In the Tang dynasty, the Protectorate-General of Annan covered the
northern half of former North Vietnam, only as far south as the
present-day coastal city of Vinh.

Subsequently, "An Nam Quo~c" has been the official title bestowed
by the Chinese Empire (in all Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties)
to the Viet Kingdom as the latter expanded southward, conquering
Chams and later pushing out the Khmers in the Mekong Delta.
The title was used until Nguyen Anh asked for a change in 1803.

Tak
--
----------------------------------------------------------------+-----
Tak To ***@alum.mit.eduxx
--------------------------------------------------------------------^^
[taode takto ~{LU5B~}] NB: trim the xx to get my real email addr

[Tak To]

Post by e***@yahoo.com
Cultural tidbit: please refrain from using the word "Annam", it's
considered derogatory in Vietnamese.
The Chinese tradition is, after conquering some place, they would add
some "peace" word to the name of the city. Example: Beijing was Peiping
(="norhtern peace"),

No, Beiping was so named after (and because) it is no longer a
capital.

Post by e***@yahoo.com
the city of Hue in Vietnam is Shun-Hua (="docile
pacification"),

So name by in Tran Dynasty as Annam annexed the Hu and the E from



Vietnam was Annam (="peaceful south"). Well, the trick

Post by e***@yahoo.com
did not work out quite so well... :)
Of course, in some other cases they are a bit more shameless: like
Seoul, which is often still referred to as Hancheng (="Chinatown"?).

Post by Dylan Sung
As I understand it, you have northern, central and southern dialects

of

Post by Dylan Sung
Vietnamese, with there being six tones in the far north, and only

five down

Post by Dylan Sung
south. Which is the missing tone, do you know?

The ? and the ~ tones have merged. Standard northern Vietnamese uses a
broken tone (inserted glottal stop) for ~. In the South, there are no
broken tones (not for ~, nor for .) Once the glottal stop is removed
from ~, it becomes indistinguishable from ? in a southerner's speech.
-- Ekki

[Tak To]

[Note: an early draft of this message was sent out by mistake.
I have cancelled it but cancellation may not work on all news
servers. Anyways, this supercedes the earlier version.]

Post by e***@yahoo.com
Cultural tidbit: please refrain from using the word "Annam",
it's considered derogatory in Vietnamese.

I am surprised that they don't find "Viet Nam" offensive since
both are bestowed by the Chinese Empire. (In 1803, Nguyen Anh
asked for the "Nam Viet" but the Qing government balked at giving
the same name as the historical "Nam Viet" Kingdom that covered
a far much bigger geographical area, including part of the Qing
Empire at that time.)

Post by e***@yahoo.com
The Chinese tradition is, after conquering some place, they would
add some "peace" word to the name of the city. Example: Beijing
was Peiping (="norhtern peace"),

Actually re-taking.

Post by e***@yahoo.com
the city of Hue in Vietnam is
Shun-Hua (="docile pacification"),

So named during t he Tran Dynasty as "Dai Viet" annexed the "Hu"
and the "E" Districts from its southern neighbor, the Champa
Kingdom. Apparently the Viets found this Chinese tradition
admirable. :-)

Post by e***@yahoo.com
Vietnam was Annam (="peaceful south"). [...]

Annam was first used in Tang, as 安南都護府，_centuries_ after
China occupied that piece of land. I.e., nothing to do with
military conquest.

Post by e***@yahoo.com
Of course, in some other cases they are a bit more shameless: like
Seoul, which is often still referred to as Hancheng (="Chinatown"?).

Actually "City on the Han". Originally named Hanyang 漢陽, as
it was located on the northern banks of the River Han. Since
China already has an river named 漢 (and thus a geographical area,
a dynasty, etc) it is quite inconceivable that a Chinese would
want a river in a foreign land to bear the same name as the
Chinese one. (Naming a child after someone is an _offense_ in
Chinese culture, after all.) Thus, it is far more propable that
the character 漢 was chosen by a Shillese [Shillan? Shillian?]

Tak
--
----------------------------------------------------------------+-----
Tak To ***@alum.mit.eduxx
--------------------------------------------------------------------^^
[taode takto ~{LU5B~}] NB: trim the xx to get my real email addr

[Dylan Sung]

Post by e***@yahoo.com

Post by Dylan Sung
I'm a Hakka Chinese speaker, and my mother recalls in her youth, in the
1930's that she had a cousin who went to live in Vietnam, or as she called
it, On-nam (ie. Annam).

Cultural tidbit: please refrain from using the word "Annam", it's
considered derogatory in Vietnamese.

That might be as it is, but you still encounter text which were written in
the last century which are referred to, like Haudricourt's studies.

Dyl.

[Lee Sau Dan]

Dylan> I'm a Hakka Chinese speaker, and my mother recalls in her
Dylan> youth, in the 1930's that she had a cousin who went to live
Dylan> in Vietnam, or as she called it, On-nam (ie. Annam). We
Dylan> don't know what became of them, but there may be many
Dylan> Chinese dialect speaker who went to Vietnam in the last few
Dylan> of centuries.

True. But AFAIK, Cantonese speakers dominate the Chinese communities
in Vietname.



Dylan> As I understand it, you have northern, central and southern
Dylan> dialects of Vietnamese, with there being six tones in the
Dylan> far north, and only five down south. Which is the missing
Dylan> tone, do you know?

Besides tones, there are also retroflex sounds in some but not in
others.

[e***@yahoo.com]

Post by ELCHINO
One fact unknown to me was the pronunciation of the Han Viet (i.e.,
words borrowed from Chinese) was similar to that of Northern Chinese
and not of Cantonese the language spoken by Chinese who lived next
door to Vietnamese, This was due to the fact that Vietnam does not
share borders with Canton but with Guangxi and Yunnan whose
inhabitants do not speak Cantonese but Chuang and Mandarin,
respectively. The Chinese Administrators and military who came to
rule Vietnam usually came from the Capitals of China (Nanking,

Beijing

Post by ELCHINO
etc...) or from Hunan (Changsa) or Sichuan (Chengdu), i.e., from
places where people speak Mandarin.

That is a good observation. Viet pronunciation has more "northerner"
features than Cantonese. In particular, it has some retroflex initials
(tr-, s-, r-) absent in Cantonese and other southern Chinese dialects.

One thing for sure is that in the past, the consonant initials in
Chinese and Vietnamese (Mon-Khmer) were much more complicated. So, I
don't know whether the origin of the retroflex series can be
established easily. Some people have conjectured that the languages of
historical Chu kingdom was Austroasiatic. I mean, people should
probably keep an open mind about the direction of influence. Things
like tone-split, influence of voicing, etc. traditionally has been
regarded as a Chinese phenomenon, but it's best to keep an open mind.
Genetic and archeological findings often show that the actual history
is much more complex than what people would like to admit.

Funny thing is, the retroflex series tends to disappear in today's
norhtern Vietnamese speech, being better preserved in the southern Viet
dialects. Similary, southern Viet tend to lose tone categories, while
nothern Viet tend to preserve tones. So you have a north-south flip as
compared to the Chinese case.

-- Ekki

[Lee Sau Dan]

ekkilu> That is a good observation. Viet pronunciation has more
ekkilu> "northerner" features than Cantonese. In particular, it
ekkilu> has some retroflex initials (tr-, s-, r-) absent in
ekkilu> Cantonese and other southern Chinese dialects.

Do the Chinese equivalents of Han-Viet words with retroflex initials
also have retroflex initials in Mandarin?



ekkilu> Funny thing is, the retroflex series tends to disappear in
ekkilu> today's norhtern Vietnamese speech, being better preserved
ekkilu> in the southern Viet dialects. Similary, southern Viet
ekkilu> tend to lose tone categories, while nothern Viet tend to
ekkilu> preserve tones. So you have a north-south flip as compared
ekkilu> to the Chinese case.

For Chinese, the north tends to keep initials but lose final
consonants and tones. (Beijing Mandarin has completely lost the
syllabic final consonants /-m/, /-p/, /-t/, /-k/, leaving only /-ng/
and /-n/. Some other Mandarin dialects have further merged /-n/ and
/-ng/, or replaced them with nasalisating of the preceeding vowel.)
The south tends to keep final consonants and tones (or even create
more tones, like Cantonese) but lose some initials features
(retroflex).

But the picture is not that simple. Shanghainese is "southern", but
it does lose final consonants. Final non-nasal consonants have merged
into /-?/, and nasal ones have been lost and replaced by nasalisation
of the preceeding vowel. In many cases, the nasalisation is lost
altogether. Shanghainese is also on the way of losing tones,
substituting it with a tone-stress system like Japanese. Yet,
Shanghainese has kept (from Middle Chinese) the voiced (unaspirated)
vs. voiceless aspirated vs. voiceless unaspirated distinction in the
initial stops. Mandarin and Cantonese have lost voiced stops for many
centuries.

[e***@yahoo.com]

Post by Lee Sau Dan
Do the Chinese equivalents of Han-Viet words with retroflex

initials

Post by Lee Sau Dan
also have retroflex initials in Mandarin?

Yes. This was used by a linguist to refute some past Hakka claim that
Chinese originally had only palatalized and no retroflex initials and
that retroflex sounds were brought into Chinese by Manchurians.

Side note: I just read that the word "Manchu" may have its origin in
"Manjusri", a well-known Bodhisattva icon in Mahayana Buddhism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manjusri

Post by Lee Sau Dan
For Chinese, the north tends to keep initials but lose

final

Post by Lee Sau Dan
consonants and tones. (Beijing Mandarin has completely lost

the

Post by Lee Sau Dan
syllabic final consonants /-m/, /-p/, /-t/, /-k/, leaving only /-ng/
and /-n/. Some other Mandarin dialects have further merged /-n/ and
/-ng/, or replaced them with nasalisating of the preceeding

vowel.)

Post by Lee Sau Dan
The south tends to keep final consonants and tones (or even create
more tones, like Cantonese) but lose some initials

features

Post by Lee Sau Dan
(retroflex).

Vietnamese has some similar development, but as I said, the north-south
relationship is reversed.

(1) In Southern Vietnamese: you lose tones, you have swapping/merging
of final consonants /-p/ /-t/ /-k/, you have merging of /-n/ and /-ng/
in many situations, you have retroflex initials.

(2) In Northern Vietnamese: you lose retroflex initials, you keep final
consonants better and tones.

-- Ekki

[Dylan Sung]

Post by Dylan Sung

Post by Lee Sau Dan
Do the Chinese equivalents of Han-Viet words with retroflex

initials

Post by Lee Sau Dan
also have retroflex initials in Mandarin?

Yes. This was used by a linguist to refute some past Hakka claim that
Chinese originally had only palatalized and no retroflex initials and
that retroflex sounds were brought into Chinese by Manchurians.

I've not come across this so called "past Hakka claim", and I don't hold
such a view either. Who made it, and who was the linguist who refuted it?
Perhaps you'd like to tell me, since I'm a Hakka speaker.

Dyl.

[e***@yahoo.com]

Post by Dylan Sung

Post by e***@yahoo.com
Yes. This was used by a linguist to refute some past Hakka claim that
Chinese originally had only palatalized and no retroflex initials and
that retroflex sounds were brought into Chinese by Manchurians.

I've not come across this so called "past Hakka claim", and I don't hold
such a view either. Who made it, and who was the linguist who refuted it?
Perhaps you'd like to tell me, since I'm a Hakka speaker.

The Hakka claim was made by Luo Zhao-Jin (LZJ) (I am not sure about his
actual name spelling in English.) See:

http://www.softidea.com/twhakkausa/hkphoe.html

Of course, LZJ was brain-washed by the ethnic engineering theory
started by Lo Hsiang-Lin, and cites the genealogy books as bibles,
which is pure trash in light of modern comparative genetic research of
Dr. Al Chu and archeological/anthropological findings from Jiaying
Hakka University (I am sure you are aware of both). Frankly, not too no
long ago I also read an article about Hakka not being a valid dialectal
group and that should probably be merged into Gan (?) I can't remember
who wrote it, but it was from some well-known linguist.

The palatalized theory actually was started by Bernard Karlgren, and I
think it was taken whole heartedly by LZJ without further thought. Luo
Changpei refuted the palatalized theory via evidences from Sanskrit
comparison in 1931, while Pulleyblank in 1984 further refuted it via
evidences from Sino-Viet terms, but of course addressing Karlgren, not
LZJ. I guess you can find these things in either Pulleyblank's or
Baxter's book.

-- Ekki

[Dylan Sung]

Post by e***@yahoo.com

Post by Dylan Sung

Post by e***@yahoo.com
Yes. This was used by a linguist to refute some past Hakka claim

that

Post by Dylan Sung

Post by e***@yahoo.com
Chinese originally had only palatalized and no retroflex initials

and

Post by Dylan Sung

Post by e***@yahoo.com
that retroflex sounds were brought into Chinese by Manchurians.

I've not come across this so called "past Hakka claim", and I don't

hold

Post by Dylan Sung
such a view either. Who made it, and who was the linguist who refuted

it?

Post by Dylan Sung
Perhaps you'd like to tell me, since I'm a Hakka speaker.

The Hakka claim was made by Luo Zhao-Jin (LZJ) (I am not sure about his
http://www.softidea.com/twhakkausa/hkphoe.html

Thanks, yes, I have a hardcopy of his taiwanese Hakka romanisation
somewhere, but I haven't read the above article.

Post by e***@yahoo.com
Of course, LZJ was brain-washed by the ethnic engineering theory
started by Lo Hsiang-Lin, and cites the genealogy books as bibles,
which is pure trash in light of modern comparative genetic research of
Dr. Al Chu and archeological/anthropological findings from Jiaying
Hakka University (I am sure you are aware of both). Frankly, not too no

Luo Xianglin restricted his studies mostly to Hakka genealogies. Recent
researchers like Dr. Chunfat Lau (currently at Xiamen University, but
formerly of HK Polytechnic University, Kowloon, HK) found that Cantonese
speakers who would deny any association with Hakka, have common ancestry.
That aside, most southern Chinese are descended from one mass migration or
another, as can be deduced from population census during the dynastic
periods.

Post by e***@yahoo.com
long ago I also read an article about Hakka not being a valid dialectal
group and that should probably be merged into Gan (?) I can't remember
who wrote it, but it was from some well-known linguist.

That might be along the lines of Gan and Hakka having the common MC +v
initials [b d g] becoming -v +aspiration [ph th kh]. Why 'not valid' I don't
know. Dr. Lau gave me a paper (I don't know if he published it though) he
wrote on common vocabulary between some Yue dialects and some Gan dialects,
suggesting that the ancestors of those Yue dialect speakers may have once
been through Gan areas in it's migration south too, and possibly, Hakka-Gan
and Yue form a much older genetic relationship.

Post by e***@yahoo.com
The palatalized theory actually was started by Bernard Karlgren, and I
think it was taken whole heartedly by LZJ without further thought. Luo
Changpei refuted the palatalized theory via evidences from Sanskrit
comparison in 1931, while Pulleyblank in 1984 further refuted it via
evidences from Sino-Viet terms, but of course addressing Karlgren, not
LZJ. I guess you can find these things in either Pulleyblank's or
Baxter's book.

As it didn't address LZJ, its probably why I haven't noticed it in any of
the printed sources I have at home.

Dyl.

[e***@yahoo.com]

Post by Dylan Sung
That aside, most southern Chinese are descended from one mass

migration or

Post by Dylan Sung
another, as can be deduced from population census during the dynastic
periods.

Be careful with the "northern-origin theory" about Southern Chinese as
migrants from the North. Nowadays the view is closer to a
"southern-origin theory", that is, the northern immigrants being a
tiny, insignificant fraction.

Case in example: consider the modern case of Taiwan. The local
languages and identities were wiped out after the 1949 migration of
mainland Chinese to the island. But in reality, only 1/6 of the DNA
pool in Taiwan today comes from that particular migration. There are
some observable effects of the subtratum: Mandarin as spoken in Taiwan
tends to lose retroflex sounds.

That scenario is closer to what happened in the past in the Chinese
South. DNA studies consistently indicate time and again that Chinese
Southerner's core component is from the South itself. In clustering
analysis, Southern Chinese's genetic composition is much closer to
Thai/Malay people than to Northern Chinese. And I knew it before DNA
studies: I simply had to look at the similarities between Southern
Chinese dialects and Taic/Austronesian languages. On linguistic ground,
people like Paul K. Benedict knew it decades ago. On
archaeological/anthropological ground, people like Ling Shun-Sheng
(founder of the Institute of Ethnology of Academia Sinica) knew it even
earlier.

Written records are often flawed. Linguistic, archeological and DNA
studies paint a very different story from standard Chinese history
books.

-- Ekki

[Lee Sau Dan]

ekkilu> Case in example: consider the modern case of Taiwan. The
ekkilu> local languages and identities were wiped out after the
ekkilu> 1949 migration of mainland Chinese to the island. But in
ekkilu> reality, only 1/6 of the DNA pool in Taiwan today comes
ekkilu> from that particular migration. There are some observable
ekkilu> effects of the subtratum: Mandarin as spoken in Taiwan
ekkilu> tends to lose retroflex sounds.

And also a tendency of merging the u-umlaut sound into "i". The
present president Chen Shui Bian does speak Mandarin with a very
typical Tawanese accent.


ekkilu> That scenario is closer to what happened in the past in
ekkilu> the Chinese South. DNA studies consistently indicate time
ekkilu> and again that Chinese Southerner's core component is from
ekkilu> the South itself.

To me, that's not so surprising. Ancient Chinese used to be good at
*culturally* assimilating neighbouring nations. (Even Jewish
communities that have been in China for centuries have been culturally
and linguistically assimilated. They have only kept their religion.
The same for the Hui minority, who externally look like Turkish or
middle-east people, are muslims, but speak Mandarin!) That's what
Chinese is: a culture, not a blood lineage.

[e***@yahoo.com]

That's what Chinese is: a culture, not a blood lineage.

You wish.

How do you explain the fanaticism for being "Children of the Yan-Huang
Patriachs"? How do you fit in the Hmong people who choose Chiyou
instead?

(See e.g.: http://www.indexuslist.de/keyword/Miao.php)

How can the Chinese collectively choose to ignore their actual blood
lineage (you said it is a culture, right?) and yet, choose to call
themselves children of the Yan-Huang Patriarchs? Kind of contradictory,
right? So why all the emphasis on assuming a fake blood lineage? How is
this any less ridiculous from the French teaching Indochina children to
recite "Nos ancêtres les Gaulois"?

Chinese is not a culture. It's a religion.

How do you tell a Chinese from a Non-Chinese? You ask them the
following question:

Q: How many dog radicals are in the Chinese characters for "Jews"?

A1: One, but it's pure coincidence and needs no change.
A2: Two, but it's pure coincidence and needs no change.
A3: Three, but it's pure coincidence and needs no change.
A4: Not even one single dog radical should ever be there.

If you choose A1, A2 or A3, you are a Chinese, and your name is ugly.

-- Ekki

[Wiktor S.]

Post by e***@yahoo.com
Chinese is not a culture. It's a religion.
How do you tell a Chinese from a Non-Chinese? You ask them the
Q: How many dog radicals are in the Chinese characters for "Jews"?

Looking up CEDICT... Aa-ha!

Post by e***@yahoo.com
A1: One, but it's pure coincidence and needs no change.
A2: Two, but it's pure coincidence and needs no change.
A3: Three, but it's pure coincidence and needs no change.
A4: Not even one single dog radical should ever be there.
If you choose A1, A2 or A3, you are a Chinese, and your name is ugly.

Now some dog-lovers may start persecuting you for that. Beware of them.

[Lee Sau Dan]

ekkilu> Q: How many dog radicals are in the Chinese characters for
ekkilu> "Jews"?

ekkilu> A1: One, but it's pure coincidence and needs no change.
ekkilu> A2: Two, but it's pure coincidence and needs no change.
ekkilu> A3: Three, but it's pure coincidence and needs no change.
ekkilu> A4: Not even one single dog radical should ever be there.

ekkilu> If you choose A1, A2 or A3, you are a Chinese, and your
ekkilu> name is ugly.

My choice is A5: Zero. What you mean by "dog radical" is actually an
"animal radical", not specifically for dogs. More specifically, this
radical usually indicates mammals.

[Tak To]

That's what Chinese is: a culture, not a blood lineage.

I would disagree somewhat: it is both cultural and biological;
not unlike "Jew", for example.

You wish.
How do you explain the fanaticism for being "Children of
the Yan-Huang Patriachs"?

It is a figure of speech; few Chinese take it literally.

How do you fit in the Hmong people who
choose Chiyou instead?

I consider some Hmong people Chinese; other not. It depends
mostly on how sinicized their society is. Obviously there is
a large grey area, but the fact that they may have chosen
Chiyou (whatever that means) matters little.

Note that in this context, "Chinese" is descriptive, not
prescriptive.

(See e.g.: http://www.indexuslist.de/keyword/Miao.php)

I find sentences such as "[Hmomgs] probably has a history
even longer than that of the Han Chinese" quite fascinating.
:-)

How can the Chinese collectively choose to ignore their
actual blood lineage (you said it is a culture, right?)

Your assertion is simply untrue.

and
yet, choose to call themselves children of the Yan-Huang
Patriarchs?

As I said before, it is only a figure of speech.

Kind of contradictory, right?

Only in the eyes of those who want to see contradiction.

So why all the emphasis on assuming a fake blood lineage?

Emphasis? As compared to what?

How is
this any less ridiculous from the French teaching Indochina
children to recite "Nos ancêtres les Gaulois"?

Are you trying to draw a parallel between, say, Chinese-Hmong
and French-Vietnamese? Well, since Vietnam is not adjacent
to France and there is veritually no history of large numbers
of Vietnamese assimilated into French society, I see more
disparity than parallel. French-Corsican might be more like
it.

Chinese is not a culture. It's a religion.

Not by any conventional definition of the word "religion".

----- -----

How do you tell a Chinese from a Non-Chinese? You ask them the
Q: How many dog radicals are in the Chinese characters for
"Jews"?
A1: One, but it's pure coincidence and needs no change.
A2: Two, but it's pure coincidence and needs no change.
A3: Three, but it's pure coincidence and needs no change.
A4: Not even one single dog radical should ever be there.

My anser: none of the above. (One.)

If you choose A1, A2 or A3, you are a Chinese, and your name is ugly.

Why?

Tak
--
----------------------------------------------------------------+-----
Tak To ***@alum.mit.eduxx
--------------------------------------------------------------------^^
[taode takto ~{LU5B~}] NB: trim the xx to get my real email addr

[Harlan Messinger]

Post by Denis Giron
"Yiddish and Hebrew are entirely different languages. A knowledge of
one will not give you even a rudimentary understanding of the other.
True, Yiddish uses the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, employs a great
many Hebrew words, and is written, like Hebrew, from right to left,
UOY EVOL I ACIREMA
-which should delight any reader under fourteen. But Yiddish and Hebrew
are as different from each other as are English and French, which also
use a common alphabet, share many words, and together proceed from left
to right."
[Leo Rosten, "The Joys of Yiddish: A Relaxed Lexicon of Yiddish, Hebrew
and Yinglish Words," (Pocket Book, 1968), p. x]

That was a silly thing for Rosten to say. Yiddish and Hebrew are much
more different from each other than English and French. It would be more
accurate to say that they're as different from each other as English and
Hebrew.

Post by Denis Giron
Now to my point: I didn't like the French-English analogy, because
these two languages are closer to one another grammatically than is
Yiddish to Hebrew.

OK, so you came to the same conclusion!

Post by Denis Giron
So I was toying around with the idea of a different
analogy, which is a bit more dramatic (i.e. give two languages that use
roughly the same script but have very different grammatical
structures), thus Vietnamese came up.

Or you could use my analogy above.

Post by Denis Giron
But being that I'm totally ignorant of Vietnamese, I don't know
anything about its grammar. How close is Vietnamese, grammatically, to
Cantonese or Mandarin? Or is Vietnamese closer to Thai or Malay? What
language family does Vietnamese fall within, and it is safe to say that
it is very different grammatically from English?
The reason I ask is because I ran into a couple of conspiracy nuts who
claimed Modern Israeli Hebrew is really just Yiddish, but the people
who make this claim only speak English, thus I've had trouble getting
across the idea that one language is a Semitic language, and the other
is a European (Germanic? Slavic?) one.

A more conclusive clue is the fact that someone who speaks only Hebrew
won't understand Yiddish at all, and vice versa, so it's *really* *hard*
to make a case that they are the same language. What's next, Basque *is*
Quechua?

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Harlan Messinger
A more conclusive clue is the fact that someone who speaks only Hebrew
won't understand Yiddish at all, and vice versa, so it's *really* *hard*
to make a case that they are the same language. What's next, Basque *is*
Quechua?

Ah, just think what the Trask-Rosenfelder team could have accomplished!

I know Denis Giron has been here before, but I don't remember for what.

[Taisun]

Vietnamese came from China. Vietnamese and Thai languares are all part
of local old languages from China. Some minorities in China are still
using those local languages. The orginal old Chinese language is not
Mandarin.

Post by Denis Giron
Greetings...
This is primarily a linguistic question, thus it is mainly for the
sci.lang newsgroup, but since the question I am most interested in
pertains to the similarities (if any) between Vietnamese and Mandarin
or Cantonese... I mean in their spoken forms (not written), i.e. this
is a question of grammar and language families, not really about
scripts.
Hence the title of my post: How close is Vietnamese to Mandarin or
Cantonese? Below I will explain my motivation for asking such in more
detail...
"Yiddish and Hebrew are entirely different languages. A knowledge of
one will not give you even a rudimentary understanding of the other.
True, Yiddish uses the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, employs a great
many Hebrew words, and is written, like Hebrew, from right to left,
UOY EVOL I ACIREMA
-which should delight any reader under fourteen. But Yiddish and Hebrew
are as different from each other as are English and French, which also
use a common alphabet, share many words, and together proceed from left
to right."
[Leo Rosten, "The Joys of Yiddish: A Relaxed Lexicon of Yiddish, Hebrew
and Yinglish Words," (Pocket Book, 1968), p. x]
Now to my point: I didn't like the French-English analogy, because
these two languages are closer to one another grammatically than is
Yiddish to Hebrew. So I was toying around with the idea of a

different

Post by Denis Giron
analogy, which is a bit more dramatic (i.e. give two languages that use
roughly the same script but have very different grammatical
structures), thus Vietnamese came up.
But being that I'm totally ignorant of Vietnamese, I don't know
anything about its grammar. How close is Vietnamese, grammatically, to
Cantonese or Mandarin? Or is Vietnamese closer to Thai or Malay? What
language family does Vietnamese fall within, and it is safe to say that
it is very different grammatically from English?
The reason I ask is because I ran into a couple of conspiracy nuts who
claimed Modern Israeli Hebrew is really just Yiddish, but the people
who make this claim only speak English, thus I've had trouble getting
across the idea that one language is a Semitic language, and the other
is a European (Germanic? Slavic?) one. So I've been fishing around for
analogies. I contemplated using a Farsi-Arabic analogy, or

Urdu-Arabic

Post by Denis Giron
analogy, or Somali-English analogy, or Turkish-Arabic analogy
(pre-Ataturk), or a English-Turkish analogy (post-Ataturk), but these
would mostly be lost on them. Living in New York, there are many
Vietnamese resturants one can see, that have signs written in Latin
characters (admittedly with a lot of accents and/or diacritical marks
I'm not familiar with), hence it might be my best bet.
Whatever, I'm babbling at this point, but my main question is with
regard to grammar: How close is Vietnamese to Mandarin or Cantonese?

[Dylan Sung]

Post by Taisun
Vietnamese came from China.

One of the recognised minorities of China is the "Jing" peoples who are
associated with the ethnic Vietnamese across the border.

Post by Taisun
The orginal old Chinese language is not
Mandarin.

That's right.

Dyl.

[Tak To]

Post by Taisun
Vietnamese came from China.

Who lived in present day Vietnam before the Vietnamese people
moved there?

Post by Taisun
Vietnamese and Thai languares are all part
of local old languages from China.

What kind of languages were spoken before these languages from
[present day?] China were imported?

Tak
--
----------------------------------------------------------------+-----
Tak To ***@alum.mit.eduxx
--------------------------------------------------------------------^^
[taode takto ~{LU5B~}] NB: trim the xx to get my real email addr

[ELCHINO]

This is the 64$ question.
Of course there were people , homo sapiens- sapiens and not
pithecanthropus, who lived in Vietnam much before , i.e., 15,000-10,000
BC than when what is known as Chinese Culture /civilization existed,
i.e., around 2,000 BC.

Same as for Thailand when its earlier occupants were found to live
there 30,000 Year BC and did not come from Yunnan in the 13th Century
when the Mongol occupied the country of Dai Ly (Tali in Chinese)as what
was generally suggested.

So the question is:

Are these earlier occupants of North Vietnam being replaced by
genocide or forced displacement by successive waves of immigrations--
whose occurrence remained to be demonstrated --or there was peaceful
co-existence and even inter-marriage with the newcomers who came in
small numbers over a long period. The evidence is overwhelming for the
second hypothesis.

There is a strong body of evidence that these proto-Vietnamese already
possessed

1) A developed language and a mastering of agriculture (Rice Planting
in flooded land),fishing, hunting, handicrafts such as pottery,
weaving, metal works (Steel, Iron, Bronze both in Blacksmithing and
casting)
2) An organization of social life in village with wise old men as
leaders, Another theory was Vietnamese were a matriarchal society,
3) A primitive form of Religion in a cult of dead ancestors and in the
worshipping of Genie (kami) of the Winds, Mountains, rivers, forests
not unlike but less elaborated than the Japanese cult for Kami and the
Chinese cult for Ancestors

The Chinese Colonization brought to Vietnamese:
1) a writing system that allowed Vietnamese to express
orders/information/feelings/ in writing words thus extended the range
of communication far beyond the range of the spoken words.
2) The new imported Chinese vocabulary allowed Vietnamese to express
new entities, concepts which could not be done with the very simple
native language thus allowing Vietnamese to acquire Chinese Philosophy
(Confucianism, Taoism) and Chinese system of government much faster ,
3) Technical advances in Agriculture and Handicrafts which allowed
Vietnamese to improve the productivity and quality of food and
handicrafts

I believed that these Chinese cultural and technical imports, the fruit
of Chinese Colonization, had given a competitive edge to Vietnam over
her neighbors especially Champa, Laos and Cambodia in the second
Millennium but probably not in the Third Millennium where both Vietnam
and China will have to modernize their culture to compete with the
West.

[Dylan Sung]

Post by Denis Giron
Greetings...
This is primarily a linguistic question, thus it is mainly for the
sci.lang newsgroup, but since the question I am most interested in
pertains to the similarities (if any) between Vietnamese and Mandarin
or Cantonese... I mean in their spoken forms (not written), i.e. this
is a question of grammar and language families, not really about
scripts.
Hence the title of my post: How close is Vietnamese to Mandarin or
Cantonese? Below I will explain my motivation for asking such in more
detail...

The following are raw unedited output from my annotaors in Mandarin,
Cantonese, Hakka and Sino-Viet. Bracketed syllables indicate two readings
or more for each corresponding character. He ZhiZhang's poem Huixiang Oushu
is the text for comparison.

Cheers,

Dyl.


Mandarin




???????
hui2 ( xiang1 xiang4 ) ou3 shu1 he4 ( zhi1 zhi4 ) zhang1




??????? , ??????? .
( shao3 shao4 ) xiao3 li2 ( gu1 jia1 ) lao3 ( da4 dai4 ) hui2 , ( xiang1
xiang4 ) yin1 wu2 gai3 bin4 mao2 cui1 .

??????? , ??????? ?
( er er2 ) tong2 ( xiang1 xiang4 ) jian4 ( bu2 bu4 ) ( xiang1 xiang4 ) (
shi4 zhi4 ) , xiao4 wen4 ke4 ( cong1 cong2 zong4 ) he2 ( chu3 chu4 ) lai2 ?


Cantonese

???????
wui4 ( hoeng1 hoeng3 ) ngau5 syu1 ho6 ( zi1 zi3 ) zoeng1




??????? , ??????? .
( siu2 siu3 ) siu2 ( lei4 lei6 ) ( gaa1 gu1 ) lou5 daai6 wui4 , ( hoeng1
hoeng3 ) jam1 mou4 goi2 ban3 mou4 ( ceoi1 ceoi4 ) .

??????? , ??????? ?
( ji4 ngai4 ) tung4 ( soeng1 soeng3 ) ( gin3 jin6 ) bat7 ( soeng1 soeng3 )
( sik7 zi3 ) , siu3 man6 haak8 ( cung4 sung1 zung6 ) ( ho4 ho6 ) ( cyu2 cyu3
syu3 ) ( lai4 loi4 loi6 ) ?

Hakka

???????
( fi2 fui2 ) hiong1 ( ngiau3 ngieu3 ) su1 fo4 ( di1 ji1 zi1 ) zong1




??????? , ??????? .
( sau3 sau4 seu3 seu4 ) ( seu3 xiau3 ) li2 ga1 ( lau3 lau4 ) tai4 ( fi2
fui2 ) , hiong1 yim1 ( mau2 mo2 vu2 ) goi3 bin4 mau1 cui1 .

??????? , ??????? ?
( e3 yi2 ) tung2 ( xiong1 xiong3 xiong4 ) gian4 but5 ( xiong1 xiong3
xiong4 ) ( si4 sit5 ) , ( seu4 xiau4 ) mun4 ( hak5 ket5 ) qiung2 ho1 ( cu3
cu4 ) loi2 ?


Sino-Viet
???????
( hô`i hô?i ) huong ngâ~u thu ha? tri chuong




??????? , ??????? .
( thiê?u thiê?u ) tiê?u ly ( cô gia ) la~o ( da?i tha?i ) ( hô`i hô?i ) ( ,
, ) huong âm ( mô vô ) ca?i ( mâ?n tâ?n ) ( mô mao ) ( tô`i to?a ) ( . . )

??????? , ??????? ?
( nghê nhi ) dô`ng ( tuo?ng tuong ) ( hiê?n kiê?n ) ( bâ?t phâ`u phi phu? )
( tuo?ng tuong ) ( chi? thu?c ) ( , , ) tiê?u vâ?n kha?ch ( thung to`ng
tu?ng tu?ng tung ) ha` ( xu? xu? ) ( la~i lai ) ( ? ? )

[Dylan Sung]

Post by Dylan Sung
???????

Dang and blast. UTF8 never seems to work. I'll try again later, as I'm a
little push for time right now.

Dyl.

[Dylan Sung]

Post by Dylan Sung

Post by Dylan Sung
???????

Dang and blast. UTF8 never seems to work. I'll try again later, as I'm a
little push for time right now.
Dyl.

Since my emailer mangles UTF8, I've placed it on my website instead.

http://www.dylanwhs.ukgateway.net/zi/compare.htm

Cheers,
Dyl.

[Lee Sau Dan]

Dylan> Since my emailer mangles UTF8, I've placed it on my website
Dylan> instead.

Use a more standards-conformant news reader. Those from $MONOPOLY
aren't good at following standards, let alone stupid security holes
which makes programmers laugh.

[Orc General]

Post by Denis Giron
Greetings...
This is primarily a linguistic question, thus it is mainly for the
sci.lang newsgroup, but since the question I am most interested in
pertains to the similarities (if any) between Vietnamese and Mandarin
or Cantonese... I mean in their spoken forms (not written), i.e. this
is a question of grammar and language families, not really about
scripts.
Hence the title of my post: How close is Vietnamese to Mandarin or
Cantonese? Below I will explain my motivation for asking such in more
detail...

I think there are some similarities with the more ancient vietnamese
language with mandarin. By ancient I mean words that are used more in past
rather than in the present. Take for example some of these that I came
across:


Dong (mandarin for East) = Ddo^ng (viet for east)
Nan (mandarin for South) = Nam (viet for south)
Xie (mandarin for West) = Tay (viet for west)
Bie (mandarin for North) = Bac (viet for North)
Hong (red) = Hong (red also)
Lao Hu (big mean cat) = Lao Ho (big mean cat, although the lay man will just
say co^.p)
Zhu4 (pig) = Chu (rarely used now a day except in literature, most people
will say Heo)

Hai (mandarin sea) = Hai (viet for sea, though u don't hear it much anymore,
most people say Bien for sea)
Shan (mountain?) = Son (viet,.... aka Truong Son that runs north to south
Vietnam)
Hai Jun (mandarin for Navy force) = Hai Quan (viet for Navy force)
Kong Jun (mandarin for Air Force) = Khong Quan (viet for air force)
Zhong Guo (china) = Trung Quoc (china)
Zhong (middle) = Trung (middle)

then there is geography:

Cuu Long River (This has roots in Cantonese cu=nine, Long = dragon)
Thai Binh Duong (viet for Pacific Ocean)
Day Tay Duong (Atlantic)
An Do Duong (Indian ocean)
My Quoc (America, its Mei Guo in Mandarin)
Phi Chau (Africa similarly in Mandarin)
Au Chau (Europe, its similar in Mandarin)

Surprisingly the list goes on an on.

I read it somewhere that once a upon a time (up to 300 years ago), viet
language was written very similar to chinese character, not surprising when
you consider that historically (I stand corrected though I remember reading
this in grade school) we share the same government for a thousand year.
Thanks to france (vivre le france), we now use the alphabet (minus the
letters W, Z, and J) no more straining your eyes to read those funny
squiggle. Although I find chinese language beautiful to look at in a way,
and I hope they will continue to use it instead of romanizing it.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Orc General

Post by Denis Giron
Greetings...
This is primarily a linguistic question, thus it is mainly for the
sci.lang newsgroup, but since the question I am most interested in
pertains to the similarities (if any) between Vietnamese and Mandarin
or Cantonese... I mean in their spoken forms (not written), i.e. this
is a question of grammar and language families, not really about
scripts.
Hence the title of my post: How close is Vietnamese to Mandarin or
Cantonese? Below I will explain my motivation for asking such in more
detail...

I think there are some similarities with the more ancient vietnamese
language with mandarin. By ancient I mean words that are used more in past
rather than in the present. Take for example some of these that I came
Dong (mandarin for East) = Ddo^ng (viet for east)
Nan (mandarin for South) = Nam (viet for south)
Xie (mandarin for West) = Tay (viet for west)
Bie (mandarin for North) = Bac (viet for North)
Hong (red) = Hong (red also)
Lao Hu (big mean cat) = Lao Ho (big mean cat, although the lay man will just
say co^.p)
Zhu4 (pig) = Chu (rarely used now a day except in literature, most people
will say Heo)
Hai (mandarin sea) = Hai (viet for sea, though u don't hear it much anymore,
most people say Bien for sea)
Shan (mountain?) = Son (viet,.... aka Truong Son that runs north to south
Vietnam)
Hai Jun (mandarin for Navy force) = Hai Quan (viet for Navy force)
Kong Jun (mandarin for Air Force) = Khong Quan (viet for air force)
Zhong Guo (china) = Trung Quoc (china)
Zhong (middle) = Trung (middle)
Cuu Long River (This has roots in Cantonese cu=nine, Long = dragon)
Thai Binh Duong (viet for Pacific Ocean)
Day Tay Duong (Atlantic)
An Do Duong (Indian ocean)
My Quoc (America, its Mei Guo in Mandarin)
Phi Chau (Africa similarly in Mandarin)
Au Chau (Europe, its similar in Mandarin)
Surprisingly the list goes on an on.

It is not surprising in the least. Chinese culture was highly
influential in Vietnam for a very long time, so naturally a large number
of Chinese words were borrowed into Vietnamese, especially for concepts
that were not previously part of Vietnamese culture.

Post by Orc General
I read it somewhere that once a upon a time (up to 300 years ago), viet
language was written very similar to chinese character, not surprising when
you consider that historically (I stand corrected though I remember reading
this in grade school) we share the same government for a thousand year.
Thanks to france (vivre le france), we now use the alphabet (minus the
letters W, Z, and J) no more straining your eyes to read those funny
squiggle. Although I find chinese language beautiful to look at in a way,
and I hope they will continue to use it instead of romanizing it.

I take it you are Vietnamese? Were you educated in Vietnam, or in a land
to which your family emigrated?

Either way, it's pathetic that you don't know the history of your own
nation and language.

Vietnamese was written with characters like Chinese characters until 100
years ago or so.

The Vietnamese alphabet had nothing to do with France; it was devised by
Portuguese missionaries 350 years ago.

[Lee Sau Dan]

Peter> The Vietnamese alphabet had nothing to do with France; it
Peter> was devised by Portuguese missionaries 350 years ago.

Do the Portugese like using "ph" for the /f-/ sound? And "th" for
/t'-/? I ask this because this may relate to the origin of "typhoon".

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Lee Sau Dan
Peter> The Vietnamese alphabet had nothing to do with France; it
Peter> was devised by Portuguese missionaries 350 years ago.
Do the Portugese like using "ph" for the /f-/ sound? And "th" for
/t'-/? I ask this because this may relate to the origin of "typhoon".

I have no idea (ask Antonio). Vietnamese orthography represents both
17th-century Portuguese phonology and 17th-century Vietnamese phonology.

[e***@yahoo.com]

Post by Lee Sau Dan
Do the Portugese like using "ph" for the /f-/ sound? And "th" for
/t'-/? I ask this because this may relate to the origin of

"typhoon".

I don't know why people still argue about origin of "typhoon". I have
seen people conjecturing it came from Greek.

The simple fact is that people neglect to look this expression in
Hoklo. In Hoklo, it is not "ty-phoon", it is "hong thai". Mystery
solved. Period. The fact that Hoklo uses "hong thai" means:

(1) the "phoon" part is 100% sure cognate of modern Chinese "feng",
meaning "wind".

(2) the Hoklo term follows Austronesian/Taic grammar of putting
adjective after noun. Therefore, this expression must existed long
before any interaction with the West, and cannot possibly have anything
to do with European languages. The Hoklo term must have easily existed
one thousand year ago and likely much more.

I am not saying Hoklo is the origin of the expression "typhoon". I am
saying that "typhoon" is built from two words: "ty" and "phoon", and
that "ty" itself describes the type of wind, and that this term "ty"
was used in Chinese South and possibly Southeast Asia to describe this
type of wind, long before any interaction with Europeans.

Why have all kinds of weird theories about this expression, when the
theorists haven't consulted with the obvious: who do you think suffered
the most from typhoon in Chinese coast, if not the seafaring Hoklo
people?

-- Ekki

[Lee Sau Dan]

ekkilu> I don't know why people still argue about origin of
ekkilu> "typhoon". I have seen people conjecturing it came from
ekkilu> Greek.

ekkilu> The simple fact is that people neglect to look this
ekkilu> expression in Hoklo. In Hoklo, it is not "ty-phoon", it is
ekkilu> "hong thai". Mystery solved. Period. The fact that Hoklo
ekkilu> uses "hong thai" means:

ekkilu> (1) the "phoon" part is 100% sure cognate of modern
ekkilu> Chinese "feng", meaning "wind".

Are you 100% sure? Then, please explain why the /-ng/ would got spelt
with "-n".


ekkilu> (2) the Hoklo term follows Austronesian/Taic grammar of
ekkilu> putting adjective after noun. Therefore, this expression
ekkilu> must existed long before any interaction with the West,

Of course. Nobody is arguing against this idea. I'm only curious in
the source language from which English borrowed this word. While it
is likely that it came from some Chinese language, it is unclear which
one that is.


ekkilu> and cannot possibly have anything to do with European
ekkilu> languages. The Hoklo term must have easily existed one
ekkilu> thousand year ago and likely much more.

But "typhoon" could have been borrowed from Cantonese or Mandarin or
Hokkien or Hakka, too. The question: which one?


ekkilu> Why have all kinds of weird theories about this
ekkilu> expression, when the theorists haven't consulted with the
ekkilu> obvious: who do you think suffered the most from typhoon
ekkilu> in Chinese coast, if not the seafaring Hoklo people?

A lot of people suffer from typhoons. This includes speakers of
Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, Hoklo, ... So, which one it is from where
English got this word? You have an answer?

[e***@yahoo.com]

Post by Lee Sau Dan
A lot of people suffer from typhoons. This includes speakers

of

Post by Lee Sau Dan
Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, Hoklo, ... So, which one it is from where
English got this word? You have an answer?

Of course. It's Cantonese. The modern form is recorded and traceable to
one source, with name and date. That's not a problem. The problem is
that people tried to ascribe Greek origin to this word, and many
Chinese people even believed that typhoon was imported from English
into Chinese. That's the silly part. Your -ng -> -n is answered as well
in the following:

"The modern form of typhoon was influenced by a borrowing from the
Cantonese variety of Chinese, namely the word taaîfung, and respelled
to make it look more like Greek. Taaîfung, meaning literally "great
wind," was coincidentally similar to the Arabic borrowing and is
first recorded in English guise as tuffoon in 1699. The various forms
coalesced and finally became typhoon, a spelling that first appeared in
1819 in Shelley's Prometheus Unbound."

See:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=typhoon

You've been missing this information a long time?

-- Ekki

[Lee Sau Dan]

A lot of people suffer from typhoons. This includes speakers
of Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, Hoklo, ... So, which one it is
from where English got this word? You have an answer?

ekkilu> Of course. It's Cantonese. The modern form is recorded and
ekkilu> traceable to one source, with name and date. That's not a
ekkilu> problem.

Then, how come the Cantonese word [fUN55] would be spelt as "phoon"?
The final consonant is /-N/, not /-n/, which are phonemically
different in both Cantonese and English.


ekkilu> The problem is that people tried to ascribe Greek origin
ekkilu> to this word, and many Chinese people even believed that
ekkilu> typhoon was imported from English into Chinese. That's the
ekkilu> silly part. Your -ng -> -n is answered as well in the
ekkilu> following:

ekkilu> "The modern form of typhoon was influenced by a borrowing
ekkilu> from the Cantonese variety of Chinese, namely the word
ekkilu> taaîfung, and respelled to make it look more like
ekkilu> Greek.

Really? Why do they spell the Cantonese syllable [t'Oi] as "tai" or
"ty", rather than "toy"?


FYI, "typhoon" is [t'Oi22 fUN55] in Cantonese. So, if you think
"typhoon" came from Cantonese, you not only have to explain the
discrepancy in the final "n", but also the wrongly spelt diphthong in
the first syllable.



ekkilu> Taaîfung, meaning literally "great wind," was
ekkilu> coincidentally similar to the Arabic borrowing and is
ekkilu> first recorded in English guise as tuffoon in 1699. The
ekkilu> various forms coalesced and finally became typhoon, a
ekkilu> spelling that first appeared in 1819 in Shelley's
ekkilu> Prometheus Unbound."

By spelling that Cantonese word as "taaifung" instead of "toifung",
the author of this paragraph has lost his creditability to speakers of
Cantonese.


ekkilu> See: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=typhoon

ekkilu> You've been missing this information a long time?

No. I've already point out IN THIS NEWSGROUP a few months ago, that I
don't find this paragraph a reliable source of information, because it
spelt the Cantonese word [tOi22 fUN55] as "taaifung".


Further, that paragraph didn't explain why "typhoon" is spelt with a
final "n", not "ng" if it were to meant to transcribe the Cantonese
pronunciation [tOi22 fUN55].


So, no, it's not me who misses information. It is you who didn't read
this group carefully a few months back.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Lee Sau Dan
ekkilu> The problem is that people tried to ascribe Greek origin
ekkilu> to this word, and many Chinese people even believed that
ekkilu> typhoon was imported from English into Chinese. That's the
ekkilu> silly part. Your -ng -> -n is answered as well in the
ekkilu> "The modern form of typhoon was influenced by a borrowing
ekkilu> from the Cantonese variety of Chinese, namely the word
ekkilu> taaîfung, and respelled to make it look more like
ekkilu> Greek.
Really? Why do they spell the Cantonese syllable [t'Oi] as "tai" or
"ty", rather than "toy"?

Are you not aware of dialects of English in which /tay/ is pronounced
[tOj]?

Post by Lee Sau Dan
FYI, "typhoon" is [t'Oi22 fUN55] in Cantonese. So, if you think
"typhoon" came from Cantonese, you not only have to explain the
discrepancy in the final "n", but also the wrongly spelt diphthong in
the first syllable.

Can you point to _any_ English word that ends with, or even contains,
the sequence "oong" /uwN/?

[benlizross]

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by Lee Sau Dan
ekkilu> The problem is that people tried to ascribe Greek origin
ekkilu> to this word, and many Chinese people even believed that
ekkilu> typhoon was imported from English into Chinese. That's the
ekkilu> silly part. Your -ng -> -n is answered as well in the
ekkilu> "The modern form of typhoon was influenced by a borrowing
ekkilu> from the Cantonese variety of Chinese, namely the word
ekkilu> taaîfung, and respelled to make it look more like
ekkilu> Greek.
Really? Why do they spell the Cantonese syllable [t'Oi] as "tai" or
"ty", rather than "toy"?

Are you not aware of dialects of English in which /tay/ is pronounced
[tOj]?

Post by Lee Sau Dan
FYI, "typhoon" is [t'Oi22 fUN55] in Cantonese. So, if you think
"typhoon" came from Cantonese, you not only have to explain the
discrepancy in the final "n", but also the wrongly spelt diphthong in
the first syllable.

Can you point to _any_ English word that ends with, or even contains,
the sequence "oong" /uwN/?
--

Is every little phonotactic gap like this assumed to be the result of a
Rule of English Phonology?
I believe the Aussies have /uN/ in "boong". (And maybe some sinophiles
pronounce names like "Fung" and "Sung" that way.) Even if we imagine
that /uwN/ is somehow impossible, would not /uN/ be a possible English
form for the Cantonese word?
FWIW OED has an 1806 citation in which the word is spelled <ty-foong>.

Ross Clark

[Lee Sau Dan]

Post by Peter T. Daniels

FYI, "typhoon" is [t'Oi22 fUN55] in Cantonese. So, if you
think "typhoon" came from Cantonese, you not only have to
explain the discrepancy in the final "n", but also the
wrongly spelt diphthong in the first syllable.

Can you point to _any_ English word that ends with, or even
contains, the sequence "oong" /uwN/? -- Peter T. Daniels

benlizross> Is every little phonotactic gap like this assumed to
benlizross> be the result of a Rule of English Phonology? I
benlizross> believe the Aussies have /uN/ in "boong". (And maybe
benlizross> some sinophiles pronounce names like "Fung" and "Sung"
benlizross> that way.) Even if we imagine that /uwN/ is somehow
benlizross> impossible, would not /uN/ be a possible English form
benlizross> for the Cantonese word? FWIW OED has an 1806 citation
benlizross> in which the word is spelled <ty-foong>.

And Peter, which English dialect would pronounce "ty" as [t'Oi]?

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Lee Sau Dan

Post by Peter T. Daniels

FYI, "typhoon" is [t'Oi22 fUN55] in Cantonese. So, if you
think "typhoon" came from Cantonese, you not only have to
explain the discrepancy in the final "n", but also the
wrongly spelt diphthong in the first syllable.

Can you point to _any_ English word that ends with, or even
contains, the sequence "oong" /uwN/? -- Peter T. Daniels

benlizross> Is every little phonotactic gap like this assumed to
benlizross> be the result of a Rule of English Phonology? I
benlizross> believe the Aussies have /uN/ in "boong". (And maybe
benlizross> some sinophiles pronounce names like "Fung" and "Sung"
benlizross> that way.) Even if we imagine that /uwN/ is somehow
benlizross> impossible, would not /uN/ be a possible English form
benlizross> for the Cantonese word? FWIW OED has an 1806 citation
benlizross> in which the word is spelled <ty-foong>.

I'm trying to explain to LSD that absence of /N/ in the English word
does not require absence of /N/ in the source language. The /uN/
sequence in the source language (for instance, Cantonese) should yield
/uwn/ in English.

Post by Lee Sau Dan
And Peter, which English dialect would pronounce "ty" as [t'Oi]?

I don't know what your <'> is intended for, but American stage Cockney
has [Oj] for /ay/ (just check Dick Van Dyke in *Mary Poppins*!).

[Lee Sau Dan]

Post by Lee Sau Dan
And Peter, which English dialect would pronounce "ty" as
[t'Oi]?

Peter> I don't know what your <'> is intended for, but American
Peter> stage Cockney has [Oj] for /ay/ (just check Dick Van Dyke
Peter> in *Mary Poppins*!).

So, once more: which English dialect would pronounce the "y" in
"typhoon" as [Oj] or [Oi]?

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Lee Sau Dan

Post by Lee Sau Dan
And Peter, which English dialect would pronounce "ty" as [t'Oi]?

Peter> I don't know what your <'> is intended for, but American
Peter> stage Cockney has [Oj] for /ay/ (just check Dick Van Dyke
Peter> in *Mary Poppins*!).
So, once more: which English dialect would pronounce the "y" in
"typhoon" as [Oj] or [Oi]?

Wait a minute -- how do _you_ think that <y> is pronounced?

Obviously, in the dialect from which the caricature is taken.

[benlizross]

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by Lee Sau Dan

Post by Peter T. Daniels

FYI, "typhoon" is [t'Oi22 fUN55] in Cantonese. So, if you
think "typhoon" came from Cantonese, you not only have to
explain the discrepancy in the final "n", but also the
wrongly spelt diphthong in the first syllable.

Can you point to _any_ English word that ends with, or even
contains, the sequence "oong" /uwN/? -- Peter T. Daniels

benlizross> Is every little phonotactic gap like this assumed to
benlizross> be the result of a Rule of English Phonology? I
benlizross> believe the Aussies have /uN/ in "boong". (And maybe
benlizross> some sinophiles pronounce names like "Fung" and "Sung"
benlizross> that way.) Even if we imagine that /uwN/ is somehow
benlizross> impossible, would not /uN/ be a possible English form
benlizross> for the Cantonese word? FWIW OED has an 1806 citation
benlizross> in which the word is spelled <ty-foong>.

I'm trying to explain to LSD that absence of /N/ in the English word
does not require absence of /N/ in the source language. The /uN/
sequence in the source language (for instance, Cantonese) should yield
/uwn/ in English.

What I'm questioning is whether you have a theory which predicts
_exactly_ this outcome. And I don't see it so far.

Ross Clark

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by benlizross

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by Lee Sau Dan

Post by Peter T. Daniels

FYI, "typhoon" is [t'Oi22 fUN55] in Cantonese. So, if you
think "typhoon" came from Cantonese, you not only have to
explain the discrepancy in the final "n", but also the
wrongly spelt diphthong in the first syllable.

Can you point to _any_ English word that ends with, or even
contains, the sequence "oong" /uwN/? -- Peter T. Daniels

benlizross> Is every little phonotactic gap like this assumed to
benlizross> be the result of a Rule of English Phonology? I
benlizross> believe the Aussies have /uN/ in "boong". (And maybe
benlizross> some sinophiles pronounce names like "Fung" and "Sung"
benlizross> that way.) Even if we imagine that /uwN/ is somehow
benlizross> impossible, would not /uN/ be a possible English form
benlizross> for the Cantonese word? FWIW OED has an 1806 citation
benlizross> in which the word is spelled <ty-foong>.

I'm trying to explain to LSD that absence of /N/ in the English word
does not require absence of /N/ in the source language. The /uN/
sequence in the source language (for instance, Cantonese) should yield
/uwn/ in English.

What I'm questioning is whether you have a theory which predicts
_exactly_ this outcome. And I don't see it so far.

There can't be a "theory" unless there's a pattern. What are some other
[-uwN] words that have been borrowed by English? /uwN/ doesn't exist in
English, so it has to come in differently. ("Boong" was mentioned here a
few days ago -- as an insulting term for Australian native?, which makes
it an oddity, an "expressive," if you will, outside normal phonology as
"Bach" is.)

If, of course, Australian English has a plethora of words borrowed from
Australian languages that end in -oong, then a new (Firthian) subsystem
has arisen, and if "typhoon" had been borrowed in Australia from
Cantonese in the last century or so, it probably would have been
"typhoong."

[Richard Herring]

Post by Peter T. Daniels
I don't know what your <'> is intended for, but American stage Cockney

"American stage cockney" is a dialect of English?!

Post by Peter T. Daniels
has [Oj] for /ay/ (just check Dick Van Dyke in *Mary Poppins*!).

<shudder>

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Richard Herring

Post by Peter T. Daniels
I don't know what your <'> is intended for, but American stage Cockney

"American stage cockney" is a dialect of English?!

It's not a dialect of French or Swahili, is it?

Post by Richard Herring

Post by Peter T. Daniels
has [Oj] for /ay/ (just check Dick Van Dyke in *Mary Poppins*!).

<shudder>

Do you deny that /a/ is rounded in some English dialects? That's all LSD
is asking for.

[John Atkinson]

Post by benlizross

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Can you point to _any_ English word that ends with, or even

contains,

Post by benlizross

Post by Peter T. Daniels
the sequence "oong" /uwN/?

Is every little phonotactic gap like this assumed to be the result of a
Rule of English Phonology?
I believe the Aussies have /uN/ in "boong".

No, that's /bUN/.

Macquarie Dictionary claims it's from Wemba Wemba, but Dixon doesn't
think it's from any aboriginal language, and suggests Indonesian "bung",
elder brother.

John.

[Lee Sau Dan]

Really? Why do they spell the Cantonese syllable [t'Oi] as
"tai" or "ty", rather than "toy"?

Peter> Are you not aware of dialects of English in which /tay/ is
Peter> pronounced [tOj]?

No. Examples with example words?

FYI, "typhoon" is [t'Oi22 fUN55] in Cantonese. So, if you
think "typhoon" came from Cantonese, you not only have to
explain the discrepancy in the final "n", but also the wrongly
spelt diphthong in the first syllable.

Peter> Can you point to _any_ English word that ends with, or even
Peter> contains, the sequence "oong" /uwN/?

But the sound of [fUN55] would better be transcribed with "-ung", as
in "Fung Shui", "Pung" (an Anglised Mahjong jargon). That doesn't
rhyme with "sung" and "hung", though.

BTW, how native does the word "kamquat" look?

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Lee Sau Dan

Really? Why do they spell the Cantonese syllable [t'Oi] as
"tai" or "ty", rather than "toy"?

Peter> Are you not aware of dialects of English in which /tay/ is
Peter> pronounced [tOj]?
No. Examples with example words?

FYI, "typhoon" is [t'Oi22 fUN55] in Cantonese. So, if you
think "typhoon" came from Cantonese, you not only have to
explain the discrepancy in the final "n", but also the wrongly
spelt diphthong in the first syllable.

Peter> Can you point to _any_ English word that ends with, or even
Peter> contains, the sequence "oong" /uwN/?
But the sound of [fUN55] would better be transcribed with "-ung", as
in "Fung Shui", "Pung" (an Anglised Mahjong jargon). That doesn't
rhyme with "sung" and "hung", though.

"Feng shui" is either pronounced as it's spelled ([E]), or to rhyme with
"sung"and "hung." The second syllable is either /Swiy/ or /Swey/.

Post by Lee Sau Dan
BTW, how native does the word "kamquat" look?

What ever happened to kumquats? They used to be a standard dessert
offering in Chinese (i.e. Cantonese) restaurants in New York.

[Lee Sau Dan]

Post by Lee Sau Dan
BTW, how native does the word "kamquat" look?

Peter> What ever happened to kumquats? They used to be a standard
Peter> dessert offering in Chinese (i.e. Cantonese) restaurants in
Peter> New York.

So, what was your point when you pointed out that no native English
ends in "oong"? Why would that be an explanation for not spelling
typhoon as "typhoong", comparing to "kumquat"?

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Lee Sau Dan

Post by Lee Sau Dan
BTW, how native does the word "kamquat" look?

Peter> What ever happened to kumquats? They used to be a standard
Peter> dessert offering in Chinese (i.e. Cantonese) restaurants in
Peter> New York.
So, what was your point when you pointed out that no native English
ends in "oong"? Why would that be an explanation for not spelling
typhoon as "typhoong", comparing to "kumquat"?

What does "kumquat" have to do with "typhoon"?

The initial <k> is enough to mark the word as [+foreign].

[e***@yahoo.com]

Post by Lee Sau Dan
Then, how come the Cantonese word [fUN55] would be spelt as

"phoon"?

Post by Lee Sau Dan
The final consonant is /-N/, not /-n/, which are

phonemically

Post by Lee Sau Dan
different in both Cantonese and English.

How come the Gulf of "Tonkin" is not spelt as "Tong-King" or
"Tong-Kinh"?

And what about place names like Amoy, Quemoy? Should we include all the
bizarre names from Marco Polo's book, too?

Not all Europeans are English speakers.

Post by Lee Sau Dan
Really? Why do they spell the Cantonese syllable [t'Oi] as "tai" or
"ty", rather than "toy"?

You are misguided by Chinese characters. The American Heritage Dict.
authors were referring to the Chinese character for "big", which is
indeed "taaî". Read again more carefully. Your English reading skill
needs improvement. The authors explicitly said "great wind".

"The modern form of typhoon was influenced by a borrowing from the
Cantonese variety of Chinese, namely the word taaîfung, and respelled
to make it look more like Greek. Taaîfung, meaning literally "great
wind," was coincidentally similar to the Arabic borrowing and is
first recorded in English guise as tuffoon in 1699. The various forms
coalesced and finally became typhoon, a spelling that first appeared in

1819 in Shelley's Prometheus Unbound."

One common mistake of Chinese people is to interpret things from
Chinese characters. I guess modern Taiwanese scholars are better in
avoiding this cultural trap. Case in example: the "wan" as in "Taiwan"
is nowadays written with a particular Chinese character, which is
phonetically wrong in its tonal value as compared to Hoklo. What does
this mean? This immediately suggests that the original word for
"Taiwan" was likely non-sinitic in its origin. If you look at the
various Chinese characters used historically by Hoklo speakers to write
"Taiwan", you see that there was no consensus: more than one choice
existed.

Similarly, the Mandarin and Cantonese pronounciations for typhoon
(taifeng and toifung, respectively) have a wrong tonal value for the
"ty" syllable, as compared to Hoklo's "hong thai". This also
immediately suggests that the "thai" word is NON-SINITIC in its origin.
The word "Hoklo" itself is also NON-SINITIC, and as a result, you have
a -k ending in the first syllable in Cantonese and Hakka, whereas in
Hoklo speech itself there is no final -k stop (i.e., sounds more like
"Holo"). For non-sinitic words, a typical phonemenon is that multiple
choices of Chinese characters were used HISTORICALLY.

The American Heritage Dictionary editors were referring to one
particular rendering of the word typhoon in Cantonese. Lee Sau Dan was
referring to another. Two different characters. Two different
pronunciations. Case closed.

Post by Lee Sau Dan
FYI, "typhoon" is [t'Oi22 fUN55] in Cantonese. So, if you

think

Post by Lee Sau Dan
"typhoon" came from Cantonese, you not only have to explain

the

Post by Lee Sau Dan
discrepancy in the final "n", but also the wrongly spelt diphthong in
the first syllable.

No wrong spelling. You are the one that did not read carefully.

Post by Lee Sau Dan
By spelling that Cantonese word as "taaifung" instead of

"toifung",

Post by Lee Sau Dan
the author of this paragraph has lost his creditability to speakers of
Cantonese.

Lucky you do not have to lose any credibility, because there is none in
the first place. :)

Post by Lee Sau Dan
Further, that paragraph didn't explain why "typhoon" is spelt with a
final "n", not "ng" if it were to meant to transcribe the

Cantonese

Post by Lee Sau Dan
pronunciation [tOi22 fUN55].

The authors were very clear: the word "typhoon" was coined to look like
its Greek counterpart.

-- Ekki

[Lee Sau Dan]

Post by Denis Giron
Hence the title of my post: How close is Vietnamese to
Mandarin or Cantonese? Below I will explain my motivation for
asking such in more detail...

Orc> I think there are some similarities with the more ancient
Orc> vietnamese language with mandarin.

No. Unless you mean Middle Chinese or Old Chinese when you use the
word "mandarin". These languages resemble Cantonese, Hakka, Hokkien,
Sino-Japanese more than modern Mandarin. The "Mandarin" language is
relatively new.


Orc> By ancient I mean words that are used more in past rather
Orc> than in the present. Take for example some of these that I
Orc> came across:

Orc> Dong (mandarin for East) = Ddo^ng (viet for east)
Orc> Nan (mandarin for South) = Nam (viet for south)
Orc> Xie (mandarin for West) = Tay (viet for west)
Orc> Bie (mandarin for North) = Bac (viet for North)

Have you wondered why the Vietnamese word for "north" ends in [-k],
which is spelt as "-c"? And why does "south" end with "-n" in
Mandarin but "-m" in Vietnamese? Now, compare these 4 words with
Cantonese:

Do^ng (Cantonese for East)
Nam (Cantonese for South)
Sai (Cantonese for West)
Ba^k (Cantonese for North)

(where "o^" and "a^" are as in Vietnamese)

And tell me which of Cantonese and Mandarin is closer to Vietnamese,
in terms of words inherited from older forms of Chinese.



Orc> Hai Jun (mandarin for Navy force) = Hai Quan (viet for Navy force)

Compare with:

Hoi Gua^n (Cantonese for navy)

Why does Mandarin stand out here, using "j-" in the second syllable?
Cantonese and Vietnamese agree here. (And make allowance for the
historical, systematic developement in Cantonese from "ai" to "oi".)


Orc> Zhong Guo (china) = Trung Quoc (china)

Again, why there is a "-c" in this Vietnamese word? Compare with
Cantonese and you'll see again that Mandarin has lost this final
consonant:

DZo^ng Guok



Orc> Surprisingly the list goes on an on.

You'll find it more surprising by comparing with Cantonese instead of
Mandarin.


Orc> Although I find chinese language beautiful to look at in a
Orc> way, and I hope they will continue to use it instead of
Orc> romanizing it.

Why "although", then? Who is trying to Romanize it (again) nowadays?
All previous attempts have failed. Even the Communists' dictatorship
has failed to push Pinyin through. I see no threat to the unique
Chinese script.

[Geoff]

Post by Lee Sau Dan
Orc> Dong (mandarin for East) = Ddo^ng (viet for east)
Orc> Nan (mandarin for South) = Nam (viet for south)
Orc> Xie (mandarin for West) = Tay (viet for west)
Orc> Bie (mandarin for North) = Bac (viet for North)
Have you wondered why the Vietnamese word for "north" ends in [-k],
which is spelt as "-c"? And why does "south" end with "-n" in
Mandarin but "-m" in Vietnamese? Now, compare these 4 words with
Do^ng (Cantonese for East)
Nam (Cantonese for South)
Sai (Cantonese for West)
Ba^k (Cantonese for North)

And close behind, Middle Chinese

dung
***@m
si
***@k

[Orc General]

Hi Lee, thanks for the eye opener. I am humbled. So Cantonese is indeed
closer to Viet language. Being an avid fan of ancient history. There might
be some truth after all about that story in Vietnamese history book that
West Canton (Qua~ng Ta^y) and East Canton (Qua~ng Do^ng) was once
territory of Vietnam (or was it the other way around), But anyway I
remember reading somewhere that Viet Emperor Quang Trung (Nguyen Hue) was
making war preparation to attack China to reclaim these two provinces when
he mysteriously died (assassination?) . If he had lived I guess the
region's history would have been very very different.

Post by Denis Giron
Hence the title of my post: How close is Vietnamese to
Mandarin or Cantonese? Below I will explain my motivation for
asking such in more detail...

Orc> I think there are some similarities with the more ancient
Orc> vietnamese language with mandarin.

No. Unless you mean Middle Chinese or Old Chinese when you use the
word "mandarin". These languages resemble Cantonese, Hakka, Hokkien,
Sino-Japanese more than modern Mandarin. The "Mandarin" language is
relatively new.


Orc> By ancient I mean words that are used more in past rather
Orc> than in the present. Take for example some of these that I
Orc> came across:

Orc> Dong (mandarin for East) = Ddo^ng (viet for east)
Orc> Nan (mandarin for South) = Nam (viet for south)
Orc> Xie (mandarin for West) = Tay (viet for west)
Orc> Bie (mandarin for North) = Bac (viet for North)

Have you wondered why the Vietnamese word for "north" ends in [-k],
which is spelt as "-c"? And why does "south" end with "-n" in
Mandarin but "-m" in Vietnamese? Now, compare these 4 words with
Cantonese:

Do^ng (Cantonese for East)
Nam (Cantonese for South)
Sai (Cantonese for West)
Ba^k (Cantonese for North)

(where "o^" and "a^" are as in Vietnamese)

And tell me which of Cantonese and Mandarin is closer to Vietnamese,
in terms of words inherited from older forms of Chinese.



Orc> Hai Jun (mandarin for Navy force) = Hai Quan (viet for Navy force)

Compare with:

Hoi Gua^n (Cantonese for navy)

Why does Mandarin stand out here, using "j-" in the second syllable?
Cantonese and Vietnamese agree here. (And make allowance for the
historical, systematic developement in Cantonese from "ai" to "oi".)


Orc> Zhong Guo (china) = Trung Quoc (china)

Again, why there is a "-c" in this Vietnamese word? Compare with
Cantonese and you'll see again that Mandarin has lost this final
consonant:

DZo^ng Guok



Orc> Surprisingly the list goes on an on.

You'll find it more surprising by comparing with Cantonese instead of
Mandarin.


Orc> Although I find chinese language beautiful to look at in a
Orc> way, and I hope they will continue to use it instead of
Orc> romanizing it.

Why "although", then? Who is trying to Romanize it (again) nowadays?
All previous attempts have failed. Even the Communists' dictatorship
has failed to push Pinyin through. I see no threat to the unique
Chinese script.

[Tak To]

Post by Orc General
Being an avid fan of ancient history. There might
be some truth after all about that story in Vietnamese history book
that West Canton (Qua~ng Ta^y) and East Canton (Qua~ng Do^ng) was
once territory of Vietnam (or was it the other way around),

The Kingdom of Nam Viet existed from 204BC to 110BC. It occupied,
as you have described, part of nowadays Northern Vietnam and most
of nowadays the Guangdong and Guangxi Provinces of China. The capital
was at nowadays the city of Guangzhou. However, the royal family was
Chinese. The first king was a Chinese official posted in that area,
and took the (then) three Chinese provinces to form an independent
country as the Qin Empire went into a turmoil shortly after the death
of the First Emperor.

Btw, although at one time "Canton" referred to both the Province of
Guangdong and the city of Guangzhou, nowadays it refers to the City
exclusively. The Province of Guangdong was at one time "Canton"
but not "East Canton"; and Guangxi is never "West Canton".

Post by Orc General
But anyway I remember reading somewhere that Viet Emperor Quang
Trung (Nguyen Hue) was making war preparation to attack China to
reclaim these two provinces when he mysteriously died (assassination?).
If he had lived I guess the region's history would have been very very
different.

Nguyen Hue did defeat an intervening Chinese army intended to restore
the Le's to power. However, he made peace with the Chinese shortly
afterwards so the plan to invade China seems to be unlikely.

Tak
--
----------------------------------------------------------------+-----
Tak To ***@alum.mit.eduxx
--------------------------------------------------------------------^^
[taode takto ~{LU5B~}] NB: trim the xx to get my real email addr

[Dylan Sung]

Post by Orc General
Hi Lee, thanks for the eye opener. I am humbled. So Cantonese is indeed
closer to Viet language.

No. The pronunciation of Sino-Viet vocabulary may be similar to Cantonese,
but the whole of the Vietnamese language is not the close to Cantonese at
all. Vietnamese has its own native vocabulary which no Chinese speaker would
understand unless they learnt the language.

Dyl.