74 replies to this topic

[nguoiVietchanhtong]

Female in Vietnamese: nái, mái, cái, gái (slightly different meanings, some for human and some for animal, I forget the difference)

nái is preferred to the pig
mái is preferred to the birds or small animals (non-mammals).
cái is for the mammals and reptiles
gái is for humans only

the second and third one are used most of the time but no specific rule
the last one must be for humans only

The indonesians were once the Yue for 5 thousand years as they moved close to hot climate.

Southern China along the big rivers were the source for human civilization for both cultivation and foraging.

Edited by nguoiVietchanhtong, 17 July 2005 - 08:00 AM.

[qrasy]

I consider Indonesians as only partly Yue (as modern Turkish is only partly Turkut). Immunoglobulin proves the Yue-part, but based on my memory (I read somewhere), a part of seem to share Y-gene with Australo-Melanesian, means they are mixed.
Their HLA also seems to be very different from Vietnamese (3 very different groups of HLA in Taiwan: one is Mongolian-like, another is Vietnamese-like, and another is like Taiwanese Aborigine; my direct assumption is that they share with Taiwanese Aborigine)

My teacher (but not biology one, so he can't be trusted 100%) once said that the main non-Mongoloid mixture in Indonesian is Dravidian (South Indian), and indeed, half-Tamil-South Chinese (can be assumed half-Dravida-Yue) look very much like Indonesian.

Edited by qrasy, 18 July 2005 - 02:41 AM.

[nguoiVietchanhtong]

I consider Indonesians as only partly Yue (as modern Turkish is only partly Turkut). Immunoglobulin proves the Yue-part, but based on my memory (I read somewhere), a part of seem to share Y-gene with Australo-Melanesian, means they are mixed.
Their HLA also seems to be very different from Vietnamese (3 very different groups of HLA in Taiwan: one is Mongolian-like, another is Vietnamese-like, and another is like Taiwanese Aborigine; my direct assumption is that they share with Taiwanese Aborigine)

My teacher (but not biology one, so he can't be trusted 100%) once said that the main non-Mongoloid mixture in Indonesian is Dravidian (South Indian), and indeed, half-Tamil-South Chinese (can be assumed half-Dravida-Yue) look very much like Indonesian.

I don't understand. Other people like the username=Register password=loser, once claimed that Cantonese are no Yue b/c according to him all the Yue had died or fleed to Red River Delta

[AhMan]

Look at it this way. Vietnamese share so many basic words with Khmer that we can safely state that ancient Vietnamese were related to Khmer. If ancient Vietnamese were indeed Yue then this should be a loose classifcation and Yue should not be interpreted as you did (i.e. all south barbarians were Yue, no matter what their language, culture). Furthermore if ancient Vietnamese were Yue in South China then according to your Yue theory, Yue had no culture and as they migrated to Vietnam they were assimilated into Khmer culture. Thus Yue represented only a small proportion of ancient Vietnamese. Are you ready to accept that?
If ancient Vietnamese were Yue and shared some culture with Yue in South China and there were no migration then it is not appropriate for you to blame Han on supressing Yue because this does not make sense. You can't accuse somebody of maltreating another who happens to have the same name as yours.
You stated that you are living in the US now and you blatantly claimed that you see most Vietnamse have south Chinese look? Do you think that arguement hold water? How could a small percentage of overseas Vietnamese represent the whole Vietnamese population? Not to mention that most boat people are of Chinese descent.
Grasy, i think you just know a little of Vietnamese culture and people through some websites and dictionary. Now you use that to counter-argue mine. Do you think I did not argue back because you were right? You should contemplate on this, my friend.
When I traveled in China from north to south, from east to west although Chinese look different from region to region but one think I can safely say that they don't look anywhere like Vietnamese. One of my friend put it that Vietnamse look more quick-witted. I would say I saw an immense patience and endurance of Chinese people, particularly northern Chinese. I have eye-witnessed a ShanDong farmer pulling the plough while his wife was pushing it at 4 o'clock (which is already day time in North China in summer time). I respect Chinese more of this instead of sending Shenzhou into space. This is the character that makes Chinese civilization.
That's it for now. I don't have any message to you in this post. Just some thoughts I wanted to share.

[nishishei]

4 o'clock (which is already day time in North China in summer time).

Hehe, this is because of the single Chinese time zone, it's more of a east-west cause, not north-south. The eastern coast (particularly Manchuria, Shandong, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang because they are furthest east) has sunrise at 4 AM during the summer. Beijing, Guangzhou/HK have later sunrises because they are more west geographically (by hundreds of miles, Hong Kong is about 500 miles west of Shanghai).

[qrasy]

Look at it this way. Vietnamese share so many basic words with Khmer that we can safely state that ancient Vietnamese were related to Khmer.

Yeah, you can make it a strong proof, but dchph thinks that lots of words are exported from Viet to Khmer. Looking farther to Indonesian we still find a little possibly shared words.

If ancient Vietnamese were indeed Yue then this should be a loose classifcation and Yue should not be interpreted as you did (i.e. all south barbarians were Yue, no matter what their language, culture).

It's said that their culture and language are quite similar, but with lots of variation. It's safe enough to think they are descended from same group. (not referring to Cantonese/Yue-Chinese)

Furthermore if ancient Vietnamese were Yue in South China then according to your Yue theory, Yue had no culture and as they migrated to Vietnam they were assimilated into Khmer culture.

Yue had no culture you said? The Yue had a culture, which seemed to share something with American Indian.

Thus Yue represented only a small proportion of ancient Vietnamese. Are you ready to accept that?

What's this meant to? The Au and Lac ethnics, who formed Au-Lac Nation, are part of BaiYue.

If ancient Vietnamese were Yue and shared some culture with Yue in South China and there were no migration then it is not appropriate for you to blame Han on supressing Yue because this does not make sense. You can't accuse somebody of maltreating another who happens to have the same name as yours.

No. There was no something called 'Yue Chinese'. The name seems to be a recent name. The 'Yue' name was given to Cantonese since their geographical location is in the 'Yue' territory recorded by Chinese.

blatantly claimed that you see most Vietnamse have south Chinese look? Do you think that arguement hold water? How could a small percentage of overseas Vietnamese represent the whole Vietnamese population? Not to mention that most boat people are of Chinese descent.

A large percentage of Vietnamese American are said to be Chinese descent. I was never able to believe that most Vietnamese look South Chinese, that's one of the reason my pictures were posted in 3 parts.

Grasy, i think you just know a little of Vietnamese culture and people through some websites and dictionary. Now you use that to counter-argue mine. Do you think I did not argue back because you were right? You should contemplate on this, my friend.

In fact I never stayed long in Vietnam, so I definitely not know much about Vietnamese.

When I traveled in China from north to south, from east to west although Chinese look different from region to region but one think I can safely say that they don't look anywhere like Vietnamese.

We can't see all people in a region at the glance so we take randomly the 'look'.
The look of people are not so uniform, even in one family everyone look different, right?
A few 'shared-look' who can be Vietnamese and South Chinese are observable (see my pics?). These looks only make a small part of both Vietnamese and South Chinese.
Perhaps Ethnic Chinese Indonesian look more Vietnamese?
Hokkien/Cantonese?

One of my friend put it that Vietnamse look more quick-witted.

What's meant by 'quick-witted'??

Edited by qrasy, 19 July 2005 - 08:03 AM.

[qrasy]

New finding: 睇 is actually found in Japanese and Korean.
http://en.wiktionary...ry.org/wiki/�
Japanese kun reading shows that it was actually different from 看 in meaning.

[tongyan]

New finding: 睇 is actually found in Japanese and Korean.
http://en.wiktionary...ry.org/wiki/�
Japanese kun reading shows that it was actually different from 看 in meaning.

don't see any reason why they wouldn't be found in japanese and korean. 睇 is not a cantonese-specific character. it's actually a character used in classical chinese which also happens to be heavily used by cantonese so many have just conveniently identified it with cantonese.

[qrasy]

I thought like that because it's not found in commone use in Hakka and Hokkien.
The particles with 口 radical also seem dubious.

Edited by qrasy, 08 August 2005 - 02:27 AM.

[tongyan]

I thought like that because it's not found in commone use in Hakka and Hokkien.
The particles with 口 radical also seem dubious.

Yeah, many of the characters with the mouth radical are very suspect. Those are usually native cantonese words or otherwise the pronunciation has shifted so much that they designate a character just to represent the sound.

In cantonese, 睇 and 看 are both used but in a different way and slightly different meaning. 睇 in cantonese basically serves all purposes that 看 does in mandarin.
看 in cantonese, however, is restricted to looking after something, like looking after a child or a purse or handbag or something, restricted to the meaning of 看守 basically. It is pronounced hon1 when used in vernacular cantonese to mean "looking after" but when used in standard chinese to mean "look, watch, read" it is pronounced hon3.

[thedamnrainman]

I've never heard of anyone usiing 看 before.
Whats the other character for look? As in "mong/mon? me ye ah?" (What are you looking at?)

[tongyan]

I've never heard of anyone usiing 看 before.
Whats the other character for look? As in "mong/mon? me ye ah?"  (What are you looking at?)

You've never heard of
同我看住部車
同我看住D細路

note 看 is pronounced hon1 instead of hon3

of course, nowadays only older people use this term. most of the younger generation (including myself) use 睇 instead.

mong6 , the other character for look, is 望 it's use is reserved for 'looking over' and is used in conjunction with 過 as in 望過. you wouldn't say 睇過


oh yeh, i just remembered an instance where we still use 看. what do you call a night watchman? hon1 gaang1 看更 right?

[AhMan]

Surely Cantonese has changed a lot during the last 200 years. People who lost contact with Cantonese cultural centre in HK/Guangzhou could not understand some words Cantonese use today (more Mandarinized).

[nguoiVietchanhtong]

Surely Cantonese has changed a lot during the last 200 years. People who lost contact with Cantonese cultural centre in HK/Guangzhou could not understand some words Cantonese use today (more Mandarinized).

Of course languages change all the time. I agree with Ahman that Cantonese nowadays have more genetic mix than any time in the past prior to contact of the Westerners. It does not mean that Cantonese population is completely no Yue.

[qrasy]

Also: I think probably this '晓' <=> hiểu (Vietnamese).

I realize the tone dismatches original Chinese (all Chiense I know have Shang tone rather than Qu tone), and the form resembles Middle Chinese.
This "understand" could have come from "bright". tongyan, how do you use this word?

Edited by qrasy, 25 August 2005 - 03:07 AM.