I" in Burmese and Tibetan being "Nga", in Cantonese "Ngo" and in Minnan "Gua" all pretty much contain the "K/G" sound like Tai-Kadai.
A velar sound + a vowel. That makes eveyone there similar.
A reconstructed root is just a meta-root afterall. It's a guess basically, and the reconstruction depends on the languages fed into it. A reconstructed word from Mandarin and Tibetan will be different from a root reconstructed out of the the various Chinese languages and Tibetan. My point is that it should be built from the ground up. Tai-Kadai in the past have always been grouped with Sinitic, not Tibeto-Burman, so it doesn't help to compare a Tibeto-Burman contribution in the root with Tai-Kadai before comparing proto-Tai-Kadai with proto-Sinitic.
But there are lots of failure in that "feeding in", i.e. too dissimilar, leaving a blank in the reconstruction. Then if I see proto-Tibeto-Burman and I would be able to prove who are closer to Sinitic. In fact if it's similar to Chinese than very likely it's also similar to Tibeto-Burman.
Hmong word "nplaij" (read [mplaj], means "tongue") is cognate with Chinese? Incredible?
Also, what method did they use to reconstruct proto-Chinese? Did they use al of the modern Sinitic languages and dialects as basis or is the reconstruction based on the imperial capital standard of each era? What is Middle Chinese in Changan/Xian wouldn't be what is Middle Chinese in Suzhou.
Middle Chinese are usually from Guangyun, Tangyun etc. [Guangyun have more complex rimes than any other Chinese so that other kinds of reconstruction of Middle Chinese does not distinguish some things in it but not the other way. Even can be argued that it's mix of dialects rather than a single dialect
]
Old Chinese are usually from Middle Chinese, proto-Min [Old Chinese loans on proto-Viet-Muong etc. should be included], and must fit into the constraint of signifies or similar sounds. (e.g. 蚓 and 引 must be similar)
With that said, what is proto-Sinitic words for "I" and what are the Tai-Kadai words for "I"? There has been much documented similarities, though this is now usually attributed to borrowing.
It's still 'ng' for Old Chinese, denasalization of Min Nan are a common play, m->b, n->d/l, ng->g, but could be nasalized back by losing nasal endings. Proto-Chinese still have 'ng'. Another antique language Min Bei doesn't do that.
it's been a general tendency in linguistics as well as other related disciplines to attribute a "West Eurasian"/"Caucasoid"/proto-"Caucasoid" component in northern Asians by Western scientists. This unprovable grouping of NE Asian languages (Sino-Tibetan, Altaic, Uralic, Korean, Japanese, Native American and Siberian languages) with West Eurasian families into Nostratic, Sino-Caucasian could be just the latest symptom, perhaps unconsciously, in a line of thinking of ultimately attributing "progressiveness" to a Western source.
Yeah, except Caucasian, Sino-Tibetan and SEAsian languages, every Eurasian is "Nostratic". I don't really see the correspondences though...
S.Yakhontov's 35 wordlist are being used in this way:
* no semantic meaning difference are allowed.
* result: 30+ very close; 15+ family level; 5+ distant; 5- proto-world heritage or fake.
I don't know whether proto-xxx should be allowed to be used.
In other words, the line draw between SE and NE Asians languages may ultimately come out of biases. It's a funny line if you think about it. Sino-Tibetan linguistic morphology is in essence closer to SE Asian languages than to other NE Asian languages, and it's present distribution patterns is in fact SE Asian in orientation if you count that most ST languages are spoken in Indo-China, NE India, and SW China. And yet because of Chinese civilization it must be related to Caucasian and grouped into the hypothetical Sino-Caucasian language family instead of a neighboring language family, Tai-Kadai, which it has much similarities with. Perhaps this is just paranoia on my part.
And a hypothetical Austric which is unrelated with Sino-Tibetan is even more common. Starostin supported and made the reconstruction of Sino-Caucasian, also took into account the Yeniseian
.
so how long have the hmongs lived in se asia for? is it long enough to be mixed with local natives? in many cases very likely.
The earliest I know of Hmong in SEA was on French colonization of Indochina (18 something). The Miao-Yao speakers lived in mountains, hence the term Lao Soung.
Besides, there are many many attractive SE Asians. In fact, I dear say on average they are more attractive than Chinese. Just because someone has "southern" features doesn't automatically make them ugly.
If you take "on average" then they are less attractive for average East Asian. [well, I'm taking Indonesians/Malays not Vietnamese or Lao]
Edited by qrasy, 18 February 2006 - 08:49 PM.
