173 replies to this topic

[ren]

You can't compare a modern word with a modern word, which is how a lot of the Western linguists, often not even understanding the languages, analyze.. by going to a dictionary.

Example, "egg" in Tai is "kai". That's different from "egg"/"dan" in Mandarin. But, maybe the Tai "kai" is cognate with the Mandarin "ke", which means "shell" or something with a hard outter finish.

Another example, "sawn" is "two" in Tai but "two" in Sinitic is "er/yi/ni", though Shanghainese/Wu uses "liang". But "shuang" in Chinese means a pair.

And on and on...

Oh, I do believe Tai-Kadai and Sino-Tibetan are related. One day I hope to see it proven.

Edited by rudeboy, 11 February 2006 - 12:56 PM.

[qrasy]

You can't compare a modern word with a modern word, which is how a lot of the Western linguists, often not even understanding the languages, analyze.. by going to a dictionary.

Yeah, but actually like in Tibeto-Burman you can often find clear cognates. Words like "I" are clearly related even in modern forms. In fact for Thai it's closer to Miao-Yao, and Austronesian.
And what I use are so-called Yakhontov's most-stable meanings, though actually some of them are related to other meaning and some of them can be considered "not very basic".
To show that Tai-Kadai is far away from Sino-Tibetan, I think I can compare with Austroasiatic....
[I also see Viet-Muong seemingly have more blanks in "Austroasiatic etymology" compared to some other, but that doesn't disprove, at least the link is much better than Thai to Old Chinese.]
I'll compare Monic, reconstructed Old Chinese, Viet-Muong, while I know the wordlist may not be complete.
I tried to link Tai-Kadai and Sino-Tibetan but it's rather frustating. There's no "Miao-Yao" etymology in Starostin's site but my guess is that it "scores better" (closer to Sino-Tibetan) than Tai-Kadai or Austroasiatic.
Anyway looking through the database I don't see the reason for "Austric" to exist well as so few words are identifiable. Some linguists are too clever

Example, "egg" in Tai is "kai". That's different from "egg"/"dan" in Mandarin. But, maybe the Tai "kai" is cognate with the Mandarin "ke", which means "shell" or something with a hard outter finish.

Another example, "sawn" is "two" in Tai but "two" in Sinitic is "er/yi/ni", though Shanghainese/Wu uses "liang". But "shuang" in Chinese means a pair.

Yeah, Starostin was clever enough to make those cross-meaning relationships, then the product was Sino-Caucasian
Anyway, according to him, Chinese is closer to Caucasian than Tai-Kadai
He was a better linguist than you and me

Oh, I do believe Tai-Kadai and Sino-Tibetan are related. One day I hope to see it proven.

In the big picture I posted (post#26), every non-African non-Melanesian meets at single point

It's actually more like "song". There are also cases where "yi" is used. Like sometimes the second month is called "duan yi", where duan just means moon or month. When counting in Tai and you reach number 20 it is called "yi sip", where yi is 2 and sip is 10. The number 21 is "yi sip et". In this case, the et just means first, rather than 1. The number 22, is "yi sip song" where obviously song is used as the second 2.

Using of foreign numerals are proven in Japanese and Korean....

I've also had my doubts on linguististic classification. It seems so arbitrary. It seems to be based on the preconcieved notion that languages sprang up cleanly and in an orderly fashion. Maybe a language came to be because it was a fusion of 3 or 4 languages? Who knows.

No, the base is that languages never loan too many basic words. It could be replaced with another language with some "original language" loans. In English, Latin have also mixed in but the core words are still recognizable.
Some are called "mixed Language": Wutunhua is Chinese-Tibetan-Mongolian. Looks like rather modern mix

[xng]

Another example, "sawn" is "two" in Tai but "two" in Sinitic is "er/yi/ni", though Shanghainese/Wu uses "liang". But "shuang" in Chinese means a pair.

Oh, I do believe Tai-Kadai and Sino-Tibetan are related. One day I hope to see it proven.

When you compare thai/vietnamese/korean languages, you must use the languages closest to middle chinese languages like cantonese or hokkien or hakka. Mandarin has been influenced by the altaic languages so it is hardly close.

"Song" is "Siong" 雙 in cantonese, see how close it is ?

"Yi" is also used in thai. It is "Yi" 二 in cantonese.

[xng]

I've also had my doubts on linguististic classification. It seems so arbitrary. It seems to be based on the preconcieved notion that languages sprang up cleanly and in an orderly fashion. Maybe a language came to be because it was a fusion of 3 or 4 languages? Who knows.

The linguistic classification are mainly done by european people. What sort of basis do they group languages ?

Languages can be grouped either by

1. Percentage of common characteristics such as grammar and vocabulary

2. Root words such as numbers only

3. Genetically came from the same tribe


I just wonder whether hindi and english have more similarities than chinese and thai ?

[qrasy]

When you compare thai/vietnamese/korean languages, you must use the languages closest to middle chinese languages like cantonese or hokkien or hakka. Mandarin has been influenced by the altaic languages so it is hardly close.

Those languages are not even derivative of Middle Chinese, if you mean the loanwords then it would be right. Those languages are logically closer to Old Chinese, the reconsruction of which I would try to use to compare later.

"Song" is "Siong" 雙 in cantonese, see how close it is ?
"Yi" is also used in thai. It is "Yi" 二 in cantonese.

Comparing to one specific language does not seem really a good idea since you need to see a bigger picture (since Sino-Tibetan is not one language).
Middle Chinese vowel structure was rather complex. By lots of vowel merger you can get many not-exactly-the-same vowels into one.
By the way the Sino-Vietnamese of 雙 is"song". ('s' in here is "rolling tongue").

Languages can be grouped either by

1. Percentage of common characteristics such as grammar and vocabulary

2. Root words such as numbers only

3. Genetically came from the same tribe

Number 3 is discouraged. Number 2 is a subset of number 1 so stating that is essentially repeating. Abstract words are excluded.

I just wonder whether hindi and english have more similarities than chinese and thai ?

Might be not too close, but we could see similarities in conjugation of a verb, which in the classical languages could be 30+.

Edited by qrasy, 12 February 2006 - 12:38 PM.

[qrasy]

I think Grasy has a point. Lao does not use "Yi". When you get to 20 the number becomes "Sao". 21 is "Sao Et", 22 is "Sao Song", 23 "Sao Saam" etc...

But other than that difference everything in the numbers are exactly the same as Bangkokian Thai.

How about 200, 2000, 20000, 200000?
Another difference of Lao to Thai I notice is about the word for 100000. [But that's not a basic number]
[100 rouy and 1000 {forgot} of Thai are very different from Chinese, but 10.000 similar. Again, those are not basic]

[xng]

Both languages are very close. If you can speak one then you can survive in the other environment, although to speak proficiently in the other language takes a bit of work because many of the vocabularies are used differently. Also, it seems to me that northern Thai is much closer to Lao than it is to Bangkokian Thai.

Both of them are not languages but dialects from the same language which is tai. Laos was part of thailand before the french decided to slice it off.

I thought I mentioned somewhere that bangkok area was part of the khmer empire before the thai people moved southwards and conquered it in 13th century ? I would think that because of this history there are khmer influences on the thai language so the northern thai language is closer to the original form just like the southern chinese languages is still closer to the original form.

The dialect in yunnan is also different from the dialect in northern thai but they are still dialects. It has been said that the original homeland of the thai is yunnan province until the mongols invaded yunnan in the 13th century which forced SOME of the thai people to migrate and conquer the land of the khmer.

The thai people from the north look like chinese while some of the thai people in bangkok looks like khmer - darker skin and bigger eyes. An example of the khmer look is Tony Jaa. It is due to the fact that bangkok was originally part of the khmer country ie. cambodia.

Edited by xng, 13 February 2006 - 11:57 PM.

[qrasy]

Both of them are not languages but dialects from the same language which is tai. Laos was part of thailand before the french decided to slice it off.

http://www.ethnologu...asp?subid=90192 [some are said to be "probably the same as...." , see the comments]
I would say not dialects, unless you consider Cantonese and Mandarin dialects on same language.

[DearCoolZ]

Both of them are not languages but dialects from the same language which is tai. Laos was part of thailand before the french decided to slice it off.

I thought I mentioned somewhere that bangkok area was part of the khmer empire before the thai people moved southwards and conquered it in 13th century ? I would think that because of this history there are khmer influences on the thai language so the northern thai language is closer to the original form just like the southern chinese languages is still closer to the original form.

The dialect in yunnan is also different from the dialect in northern thai but they are still dialects. It has been said that the original homeland of the thai is yunnan province until the mongols invaded yunnan in the 13th century which forced SOME of the thai people to migrate and conquer the land of the khmer.

The thai people from the north look like chinese while some of the thai people in bangkok looks like khmer - darker skin and bigger eyes. An example of the khmer look is Tony Jaa. It is due to the fact that bangkok was originally part of the khmer country ie. cambodia.

really?

do northern thais look like me?

[ren]

Yeah, but actually like in Tibeto-Burman you can often find clear cognates. Words like "I" are clearly related even in modern forms. In fact for Thai it's closer to Miao-Yao, and Austronesian.

What are the root words for "I" in Austronesian, Miao-Yao, Sino-Tibetan, and Tai-Kadai?

really?

do northern thais look like me?

http://img455.images...pict02513ow.jpg

I've seen many Laotians who look like "you", as in East Asian.. indistinguishable from some northern Chinese, Koreans, Japanese. And even more Laotians are indistinguishable from southern Chinese.

BTW, why do you seek every opportunity to post your pic, as if we just can't get enough of your face? You do this repeatedly on every forum I've seen you post in, not that I visit that many forums or that regularly.

[DearCoolZ]

What are the root words for "I" in Austronesian, Miao-Yao, Sino-Tibetan, and Tai-Kadai?
I've seen many Laotians who look like "you", as in East Asian.. indistinguishable from some northern Chinese, Koreans, Japanese. And even more Laotians are indistinguishable from southern Chinese.

BTW, why do you seek every opportunity to post your pic, as if we just can't get enough of your face? You do this repeatedly on every forum I've seen you post in, not that I visit that many forums or that regularly.

because i can
so who said that i cant post my pics up? user1

oh yeah,got any pics of those laotians of yours? i would like to see it how exactlly they look like "me" as in east asian

[ren]

DearCoolZ, how many SE Asians of various kinds have you seen in real life in America?