ศาลาชุมนุม

[Rick Bradford]

There is no Chinese word from any dialect that I know of in Thailand sounds like it.

The Cantonese for 'no' is 'mei' or 'mai', I believe.

[jariya76]

I'm sorry if I wasn't being clear. I'm talking as a pure amateur on this topic. I just meant that in Korean, as in Thai, some of the numbers bear no resemblance to at least modern Cantonese whereas others clearly do. In Korean the numbers 1, 5 and maybe 6 and 7 don't seem to have a clear relation. In Thai, as pointed out, 1, 2, 5 and 6 don't. I don't pretend to know what long ago "dialect" of Chinese influenced either of the number systems in either country.

[Passerby]

There is no Chinese word from any dialect that I know of in Thailand sounds like it.

The Cantonese for 'no' is 'mei' or 'mai', I believe.

"Nei oum sek gong,: " Nei mou gong tauw la"

Not Cantonese, "oum and mou" are the two words that can be used as no. If someone is a Cantonese native, can either agree or disagree with me. I know about 50% of Cantonese.

[Passerby]

Oh, Just thought of a couple more words, got to write them down before I forgot;

ไทกอ จับกัง กูลี ป้าน ต่าง เล่าซือ ไต้ซือ ยี่ ป้าย คุ๋น ตื๊อ โล้งเล้ง

[Rick Bradford]

Wikitravel gives for the Mandarin phrase: "No, we don't" : 没有 méi yŏu ..... sounds familiar

[Richard Wordingham]

I can't relate these words to any Chinese words that I know of from Mandarin, Cantonese and Tae Chew. Perhaps you could tell me which Chinese dialect they came from. สอง ห้า หก เจ็ด.

The Tai (better - Kam-Tai) numerals show a strong agreement with reconstructed Middle Chinese, though I have a feeling that the usual reconstruction overlooks that initial resonants may be voiceless. Now we have:
Middle Chinese ngú '5', Old Chinese ngaʔ
Middle Chinese ljuwk '6', Old Chinese C-rjuk ('C' means an undetermined consonant)
Middle Chinese tshit '7', Old Chinese tshjit

That takes care of เจ็ด.

Li reconstructs the Proto-Tai word for '6' as *hrok - which gives /hok/ in most SW Tai dialects.

Li finds several correspondences between Tai h- and Sui hng- this strongly suggests that hng- sporadically lost the nasal element and became h-. This we can reconstruct a Proto-Kam-Tai *hnga. That gives us plenty of similar Chinese forms.

For details of the cognates, see http://www.zompist.com/numbers.shtml .

สอง is a more difficult one. The answer is that it actually derives from the Chinese word for 'pair' 雙 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_numerals gives the Cantonese and Mandarin as seung1 and song1 respectively.

[Richard Wordingham]

The word ไม่ is a new Thai word added probably over 300 years ago, more or less(just guessing). There is no Chinese word from any dialect that I know of in Thailand sounds like it.

It's probably older than that. It occurs across the Tai dialects.

[Passerby]

Wikitravel gives for the Mandarin phrase: "No, we don't" : 没有 méi yŏu ..... sounds familiar

Well, you have to make up your mind a little. First you said Cantonese, now you say Mandarin. I am a bit confused.

However, let's stop all of these discussions gone haywire. The fact is that all languages did borrow some words from one another, but I don't believed that all the words were borrowed. Otherwise, all the languages would sound alike. Humans have had their own inventive minds from day one.

The experts are always trying to find any reason to support their conclusions. Some may sounds logical, but not all of them. It is mostly just guessing, more or less. And do we really need to know the root of it religiously?

I say, let's concentrate on learning how it is used, and what it means in the present day. It sure is more productive than arguing about where it came from.

So. I have many expressions from the word ไม่ for you to learn:

ไม่กินเกลียว ไม่กี่น้ำ ไม่ไกล้ไม่ไกล ไม่เข้าท่า ไม่เข้าใครออกใคร ไม่คิดไม่ฝ้น ไม่ชอบมาพากล ไม่เชิง ไม่ใช่เล่น ไม่ซ้กไม่ไซ้ ไม่เดียงสา ไม่ดูเงาหัวตัวเอง ไม่ดูตาม้าตาเรือ ไม่ได้เสีย ไม่ได้เสีย-พกเบี้ยกลับบ้าน ไม่ได้ศัพท์ ไม่ได้ความ ไม่ได้เรื่องได้ราว ไม่เต็มเต็ง ไม่เต็มบาท ไม่ทันกิน ไม่ไถ่ไม่ถาม ไม่บอกไม่กล่าว ไม่เป็นท่า ไม่เป็นเรื่องเป็นราว ไม่เป็นสัปรด ไม่เป็นโล้เป็นพาย ไม่พูดพร่ำทำเพลง ไม่ฟังเสียง ไม่มีปี่มีกลอง ไม่มีปี่มีขลุ่ย ไม่มีมูล-หมาไม่ขี้ ไม่ยี่หระ ไม่แยแส ไม่รู้จักเสือเรือเข้ามาจอด-ไม่รู้จักมอดเอาไม้มาวาง ไม่รู้ไม่เห็น ไม่รู้เหนือรู้ใต้ ไม่รู้อีโหน่อีเหน่ ไม่รู้จักหัวนอนปลายตีน/เท้า ไม่รดราวาศอก ไม่เล่นด้วย ไม่ลืมหูลืมตา ไม่หยุดไม่หย่อน ไม่หวาดไม่ไหว ไม่หือไม่อือ ไม่ท้นเห็นน้ำตัดกระบอก-ไม่ทันเห็นกระรอกก่งหน้าไม้ ไม่อีนังขังขอก ไม่เออออห่อหมก ไม่อือออห่อหมก ไม่เอางานเอาการ ไม่เอาถ่าน ไม่เอาความ ไม่เอาพี่เอาน้อง

[chevil]

Chinese loans into Thai can generally be divided into at least two categories. There are the 'modern' loans, which were borrowed into Thai from large scale immigration from Southern China in the 19th and 20th centuries (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Thai). These are almost exclusively from a variety of Min Chinese known as Taechew in Thai - the Mandarin pronunciation of 'Taechew' is Chao2 Zhou1 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teochew_dialect).

Then there are the 'archaic' loans, which are loans from varieties of Chinese which were spoken at various times between approximately 0 CE to the 10th century (when the Thais migrated out of Southern China - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_history). It is probable that these can be further divided into loans from varieties of Old Chinese and from Middle Chinese (around the Tang dynasty, 6th century CE).

The interested reader can look at the projects up at http://www.sealang.net/thai/chinese/. Modern loans are at http://www.sealang.net/thai/chinese/modern.htm, and ancient loans are up at http://www.sealang.net/thai/chinese/middle.htm. One should keep in mind that the ancient loans are based on a 1976 thesis. While there has been no equivalent large scale discussion of ancient Chinese loans in Thai since, many of the etymologies suggested are now obviously incorrect (based off of more modern reconstructions and such).

Sorry - I've been really lazy and have been citing wiki articles instead of actual papers . They're easier to cite.

[Rick Bradford]

^^^
Thanks for those links -- most interesting.

My personal view is that knowing something of the context and background of a language is very valuable, as it enables learners to create patterns and associations in their minds (which is the essence of learning).

It is certainly far more interesting and often more productive than trying to memorize long lists of words mechanically by rote, and without context.