>You group Maori with Mongloid? Maori are austroloid. So the difference >between "very fair mongloid" and "tanned monglod" is simply the >difference of skin colour? Then a "very fair monglod" from north >China .might become "tanned mongloid" after he moves to Malaysia.
First of all, maori belongs to the malayo-polynesian family group, they are not australoid. Australoids are much darker and have other differences.
I am talking about the skin color which they are born with and not from sun exposure. If a fair mongoloid were to move back to the north, they would recover their skin color. I used to be tan, but after avoiding the sun , i regained back my fair skin color.
>Where do the Tibetans fit into?
I havent' seen much tibetans but I heard that some of the tibetans intermarried with the darker indians. So need to see the pure tibetan.
But they belong to either group 1 or group 2.
>And do you watch Hong Kong drama? The Hong Kong actresses are all so fair. Are they pure south Chinese?
By south chinese, I mean SOME of the original non-han inhabitants of south china such as zhuang, tai. The hong kong actresses are han people originated from the north.
>I notice also the southern Asian are grouped as tanned mongloid. You >know that south Asia are hotter and more exposed to sunlight radiation. >Our skin will turn darker to protect ourselve from excessive UV. So what is >the difference between a south chinese and north chinese? what is the >difference between Burmese and siamese?
Aside from the slightly darker skin color, their eyes are slightly rounder but not as much as the third group. There are a lot of burmese working in coffee shops in malaysia, sometimes it is difficult to distinguish them from a han chinese who is dark due to high exposure from the sun.
>You need to give more explanation give better support your ?>classifications, orelse I will simply see this as another proof that north >south Chinese and Indocinaians are indistinguishable except through the >skin colour.
Whether my theory is correct or not, you can test it on the people around you. The sub-groups are distinguished based on shape of eyes (most important clue), single, thin, thick eyelid AND color of skin. As there are intermarriages for several centuries, some malays look like second group but they are not pure malays.
>Malays should be classified under Austronesians. To my observance, the >southeast asia archipelagos people are austronesians and Indocinaians >are mongloids, if you want to draw a line. The archipelagos languages are >austronesians.
If i am not mistaken, Austronesians is a language family group, there is no anthropological grouping of austronesians. They are mongoloids. Remember, 4 main groups of mongoloid, negroids, australoid, caucasoids.
Search the internet for the main characteristics. Malays belong to the malayo-polynesian language family.
>O ya, another thing. Now you have classified khmer and southern chinese >as tanned monloid but vietnamese as very fair mongloid. Do you mean >vietnamese are realted to norht chinese but not south chinese? Then, you >are contradicting your first post in this tread.
As I said, vietnamese is an anomaly, the only fair group in south east asia. That is why their origin is still under research. If you don't believe me, go and compare a vietnamese and khmer, they are quite different.
Vietnamese is sino-tibetan ?
-
AlexNg
Re: Vietnamese is sino-tibetan ?
Hi Alex
i'd like to know more about the race characteristics can u tell me more???
coz i never thought vietnamese would be part of Very fair mongoloid
i was thinking more of Tanned mongoloid
where did u get ur resources from ?
------------------------------------------
My resources ?
I read somewhere that there are ONLY two classification from a western source of fair mongoloid and brown mongoloid (that means the tan mongoloid and brown mongloid are considered as single group) but I disagree with them because from my asian perspective and my own observations, the tanned mongoloid and the brown mongoloid can be distinguished.
i'd like to know more about the race characteristics can u tell me more???
coz i never thought vietnamese would be part of Very fair mongoloid
i was thinking more of Tanned mongoloid
where did u get ur resources from ?
------------------------------------------
My resources ?
I read somewhere that there are ONLY two classification from a western source of fair mongoloid and brown mongoloid (that means the tan mongoloid and brown mongloid are considered as single group) but I disagree with them because from my asian perspective and my own observations, the tanned mongoloid and the brown mongoloid can be distinguished.
-
AlexNg
Re: Vietnamese is sino-tibetan ?
It may be true that vietnamese are originally from the yangtze river
in the past, that could be why they have fair skin.
Read:
http://www.guidetothailand.com/thailand ... ietnam.htm
in the past, that could be why they have fair skin.
Read:
http://www.guidetothailand.com/thailand ... ietnam.htm
-
qrasy
Re: Vietnamese is sino-tibetan ?
What does Vietnamese belong to?
Mon-Khmer, Miao-Yao, Tibeto-Burman, Tai-Kadai, Sinitic, Austronesian, Language Isolate?
So long we have removed the last 3. So we can only debate these:
Mon-Khmer, Miao-Yao, Tibeto-Burman, Tai-Kadai
Consider these:
"Vietnamese is not Sino-Tibetan since the non-Sino-Tibetan words come from Mon-Khmer"
Look at English, we have numerous French loanwords (Remember, we can have loanwords from a close language). So, how to determine which is pure English? To remove all Indo-European words? Of course not. We need to remove French BUT NOT German.Similiar applies to Vietnamese. You can remove all Chinese words, but probably you will remove also the Tibeto-Burman or even pure-V. (How if Vietnamese were really Sino-Tibetan, and those Khmeric words were loans?)
"Vietnamese if Mon-Khmer because Muong is"
Well, in the "SiniticVietnamese, part4" (http://www.vny2k.net/vny2k/SiniticVietnamese4.htm) I saw:
"196 basic Muong words compared with the Mon-Khmer family, 65 or 33% are apparent cognates with three or more Mon-Khmer languages. Another 30 possible cognates appear on the second list. Together the two lists yield 48%. Either of these percentages seems to establish Muong as a member of the Mon-Khmer family. This in turn would lend additional strength to the arguments for the inclusion of Vietnamese in the Mon-Khmer family."
Removing all Sino-Tibetan-like words in Mon-Khmer, I think it should be 22 or 11% and while we include the second list (only 17 remains), becomes 17%. (There are more Sino-Tibetan-Khmer words than Mon-Khmer-only related words). Of course, there could still be unclear Sino-Tibetan~Mon-Khmer cognates, which I didn't detect. (and 131 items not shown seems promising to have Sino-Tibetan words)
Interestingly, I found these cases:
Vietnamese words, I thought not to be related to Sino-Tb, is related by Muong words
e.g. Stand: Viet=[d-][u*´]ng Muong=twang--> related to "duan1"
Muong words, I thought not to be related to Sino-Tb, is related by Mon-Khmer words
e.g. Blow: Viet=th[o^?]i Muong=W[o*]l <Somewhere in Mon-Khmer>:Thuol-->related to "Chui1"
Mon-Khmer words, being related to Sino-Tb, without being related to Viet itself.
e.g. Pig: Sedang=Chu, Viet=Heo, Mand=Zhu1
Well, Yesterday you all debated so much, now I want to write my opinion:
Eng Wai:
>>>"the present Vietnamese is certainly under the group of Sino-Tibetan because the language has had so much influence of sinitic languages."
<<<You should know that a language cannot change to any influencer's branch. (in case of French, their mother Germanic tongue is replaced, not changed gradually into Romance)
>>>"Hakka certainly look more like southern chinese than northern chinese, my mum is short, my boss is short. Both are Hakka, and northern and inland chinese are slightly taller than southern chinese."
<<<I don't think north ones are pure. Why do you insist that North ones are purer? (Even though no one is "pure", but at least we can say "purer", "purest"). South could be mixed with Yue, but North are also, with Hu (notice: these are also barbarian, could be a source of tall gene). So a form that are close to both North and South are the purest. Hakkas usually have smaller eyes than Hokkienese (somewhere I read that Hakkas are told to be similar to Korean/Japanese), so it is closer to North ones than does Hokkienese. (While keeping proximity to South ones). Also, from historical evidence we can say that Hakkas are "Middle Chinese".
Short-Tall is no problem. Notice that before the second world war, the members of Japanese army in Indonesia areshorter than Indonesian average, but now the reverse. Nowadays Japanese males are averagely taller than Indonesian. You see that it depends also on the food and environment (affected by technology).
Averagely, Indonesian is taller than Chinese. If the South Chinese's "short gene" is more bastard, tell me how could South Chinese be shorter than both "Souther" and "Norther" people.
>>>"I can't agree with Grasy's view about Malay= +-(Austroloid + Mongloid)/2."
<<<Well, Indonesian history experts determined that Indonesians were Negroids, and there are no other way around to change so drastically except to mix with Mongoloids, Austroloids and Caucasoid. I don't know exactly which is the most, but somewhere I heard that Malays belongs to Mongoloids, that means that it is Mongoloid as the other ancestors of Indonesians. Also, I didn't write "+-(Austroloid + Mongloid)/2", I wrote Negroid-Mongoloid. There could be something like
+-(3Mongoloid+3Negroid+1Australoid+1Caucasoid)/8, which I can't determine.
>>>If a fairer Malay is naked beside me (naked as well), nobody can be sure if I were malay or not, vice versa.
<<< Fairer Malay comes from heavy mix with Mongoloids, could be more than 90% (although this is a very high percentage, it is still very very dissimilar to Chinese). I rarely sees this kind of people.
>>>"You know that south Asia are hotter and more exposed to sunlight radiation. Our skin will turn darker to protect ourselve from excessive UV"
<<<Yes, I know that it is. I am exposed to heavy sunlight in this tropical area, but I never grow darker than Brown Mongoloids or Tanned Mongoloids, even my apparent parts. (of course, unseen parts are also influenced, but the influence is less than apparent parts of body). With this darker skin, I am more similar to mountain-dwellers in China than China city-dwellers. Even seeing my parts that I thought to be "tanned", my friends tell me that those are white.
>>>"very fair mongloid. Do you mean vietnamese are realted to norht chinese but not south chinese?"
<<<Well, even south Chinese are very fair, not considerably darker than north ones.
AlexNg:
>>>"Maybe I am not one of them, because I am very fair."
<<<I think Bai Yue were not dark people, since I have never seen any black south Chinese or Vietnamese. Also, one can grow dark of sunbath, and it is not genetic. (Genetics are determined before one is born, and can never be changed). Tropical and mountain dwellers are surely darker unless they rarely go out.
>>>"I believe it is an influence from the bai yue people."
<<<I think "kai kung" is not "male chicken" but it means "chicken-males" or "males of the chickens" (like "kung" in "thien kung")
>>>"vietnamese is an anomaly, the only fair group in south east asia"
<<<Of course it is, since their ancestors are Bai Yue
>>>"It may be true that vietnamese are originally from the yangtze river
in the past, that could be why they have fair skin."
<<<Well, do you know why were Yangtze dwellers white, while when they moved closer to Tropical area, they are still very white?
Ly:
>>>"when i was learning cantonese it was so much easier than learning mandarin"
It is very hard to pronounce dead vowels like in "Shï", also the there are some retroflex consonants (hard for people that just learned) in Mandarin ("Zh, Ch, Sh, R").
>>>"1. chinese, 2. mexican, 3. greek, 4. filo, 5. laos, 6. lebanese, 7. mixed 8.thai ... 1) viet with thai or 2) viet with chinese "
<<<You look like many races? It is funny. Maybe they see Chinese (or their cousins) from that country. If I come to Mexico, someones will ask where I came from and I will say that I come from Indonesia. So they will have a wrong thought of Indonesian. So if another day a Chinese come there, the Mexicans I met would say that he/she is similar to Indonesian (while actually not). (Similar to my very wrong thought on October 18 in this forum.)
About 25% of Thailand dwellers are Chinese, so Chinese-Vietnamese-"Thai" would be "very hard" to distinguish without asking languages (it's not very hard anymore, it is impossible. Of course, bar the minority of Vietnamese, and what is compared is the Thailand's Chinese, not the Thai itself). You should know that in the countries you listed above live many ethnic Chinese. "Mixed"? Did they tell you that you are a mix of some kind of East Asians? If not, then it is very strange.(similar to mix of non-East-Asians??? Impossible.).
>>>"i always thoguht the surname Nguyen is a pure vietnamese surname, however reading from the forum its is chinese"
<<<Well, I think all Korean and Vietnamese surnames come from Chinese.
>>> "im only in high school "
<<< In fact, I'm also.
>>>"coz i never thought vietnamese would be part of Very fair mongoloid"
<<<Yes, Vietnamese are very similar to south Chinese, which is said to be very fair. If it is not very fair, then how is the fair Mongoloids? Albino?
The new year draws close...
---qrasy---
Mon-Khmer, Miao-Yao, Tibeto-Burman, Tai-Kadai, Sinitic, Austronesian, Language Isolate?
So long we have removed the last 3. So we can only debate these:
Mon-Khmer, Miao-Yao, Tibeto-Burman, Tai-Kadai
Consider these:
"Vietnamese is not Sino-Tibetan since the non-Sino-Tibetan words come from Mon-Khmer"
Look at English, we have numerous French loanwords (Remember, we can have loanwords from a close language). So, how to determine which is pure English? To remove all Indo-European words? Of course not. We need to remove French BUT NOT German.Similiar applies to Vietnamese. You can remove all Chinese words, but probably you will remove also the Tibeto-Burman or even pure-V. (How if Vietnamese were really Sino-Tibetan, and those Khmeric words were loans?)
"Vietnamese if Mon-Khmer because Muong is"
Well, in the "SiniticVietnamese, part4" (http://www.vny2k.net/vny2k/SiniticVietnamese4.htm) I saw:
"196 basic Muong words compared with the Mon-Khmer family, 65 or 33% are apparent cognates with three or more Mon-Khmer languages. Another 30 possible cognates appear on the second list. Together the two lists yield 48%. Either of these percentages seems to establish Muong as a member of the Mon-Khmer family. This in turn would lend additional strength to the arguments for the inclusion of Vietnamese in the Mon-Khmer family."
Removing all Sino-Tibetan-like words in Mon-Khmer, I think it should be 22 or 11% and while we include the second list (only 17 remains), becomes 17%. (There are more Sino-Tibetan-Khmer words than Mon-Khmer-only related words). Of course, there could still be unclear Sino-Tibetan~Mon-Khmer cognates, which I didn't detect. (and 131 items not shown seems promising to have Sino-Tibetan words)
Interestingly, I found these cases:
Vietnamese words, I thought not to be related to Sino-Tb, is related by Muong words
e.g. Stand: Viet=[d-][u*´]ng Muong=twang--> related to "duan1"
Muong words, I thought not to be related to Sino-Tb, is related by Mon-Khmer words
e.g. Blow: Viet=th[o^?]i Muong=W[o*]l <Somewhere in Mon-Khmer>:Thuol-->related to "Chui1"
Mon-Khmer words, being related to Sino-Tb, without being related to Viet itself.
e.g. Pig: Sedang=Chu, Viet=Heo, Mand=Zhu1
Well, Yesterday you all debated so much, now I want to write my opinion:
Eng Wai:
>>>"the present Vietnamese is certainly under the group of Sino-Tibetan because the language has had so much influence of sinitic languages."
<<<You should know that a language cannot change to any influencer's branch. (in case of French, their mother Germanic tongue is replaced, not changed gradually into Romance)
>>>"Hakka certainly look more like southern chinese than northern chinese, my mum is short, my boss is short. Both are Hakka, and northern and inland chinese are slightly taller than southern chinese."
<<<I don't think north ones are pure. Why do you insist that North ones are purer? (Even though no one is "pure", but at least we can say "purer", "purest"). South could be mixed with Yue, but North are also, with Hu (notice: these are also barbarian, could be a source of tall gene). So a form that are close to both North and South are the purest. Hakkas usually have smaller eyes than Hokkienese (somewhere I read that Hakkas are told to be similar to Korean/Japanese), so it is closer to North ones than does Hokkienese. (While keeping proximity to South ones). Also, from historical evidence we can say that Hakkas are "Middle Chinese".
Short-Tall is no problem. Notice that before the second world war, the members of Japanese army in Indonesia areshorter than Indonesian average, but now the reverse. Nowadays Japanese males are averagely taller than Indonesian. You see that it depends also on the food and environment (affected by technology).
Averagely, Indonesian is taller than Chinese. If the South Chinese's "short gene" is more bastard, tell me how could South Chinese be shorter than both "Souther" and "Norther" people.
>>>"I can't agree with Grasy's view about Malay= +-(Austroloid + Mongloid)/2."
<<<Well, Indonesian history experts determined that Indonesians were Negroids, and there are no other way around to change so drastically except to mix with Mongoloids, Austroloids and Caucasoid. I don't know exactly which is the most, but somewhere I heard that Malays belongs to Mongoloids, that means that it is Mongoloid as the other ancestors of Indonesians. Also, I didn't write "+-(Austroloid + Mongloid)/2", I wrote Negroid-Mongoloid. There could be something like
+-(3Mongoloid+3Negroid+1Australoid+1Caucasoid)/8, which I can't determine.
>>>If a fairer Malay is naked beside me (naked as well), nobody can be sure if I were malay or not, vice versa.
<<< Fairer Malay comes from heavy mix with Mongoloids, could be more than 90% (although this is a very high percentage, it is still very very dissimilar to Chinese). I rarely sees this kind of people.
>>>"You know that south Asia are hotter and more exposed to sunlight radiation. Our skin will turn darker to protect ourselve from excessive UV"
<<<Yes, I know that it is. I am exposed to heavy sunlight in this tropical area, but I never grow darker than Brown Mongoloids or Tanned Mongoloids, even my apparent parts. (of course, unseen parts are also influenced, but the influence is less than apparent parts of body). With this darker skin, I am more similar to mountain-dwellers in China than China city-dwellers. Even seeing my parts that I thought to be "tanned", my friends tell me that those are white.
>>>"very fair mongloid. Do you mean vietnamese are realted to norht chinese but not south chinese?"
<<<Well, even south Chinese are very fair, not considerably darker than north ones.
AlexNg:
>>>"Maybe I am not one of them, because I am very fair."
<<<I think Bai Yue were not dark people, since I have never seen any black south Chinese or Vietnamese. Also, one can grow dark of sunbath, and it is not genetic. (Genetics are determined before one is born, and can never be changed). Tropical and mountain dwellers are surely darker unless they rarely go out.
>>>"I believe it is an influence from the bai yue people."
<<<I think "kai kung" is not "male chicken" but it means "chicken-males" or "males of the chickens" (like "kung" in "thien kung")
>>>"vietnamese is an anomaly, the only fair group in south east asia"
<<<Of course it is, since their ancestors are Bai Yue
>>>"It may be true that vietnamese are originally from the yangtze river
in the past, that could be why they have fair skin."
<<<Well, do you know why were Yangtze dwellers white, while when they moved closer to Tropical area, they are still very white?
Ly:
>>>"when i was learning cantonese it was so much easier than learning mandarin"
It is very hard to pronounce dead vowels like in "Shï", also the there are some retroflex consonants (hard for people that just learned) in Mandarin ("Zh, Ch, Sh, R").
>>>"1. chinese, 2. mexican, 3. greek, 4. filo, 5. laos, 6. lebanese, 7. mixed 8.thai ... 1) viet with thai or 2) viet with chinese "
<<<You look like many races? It is funny. Maybe they see Chinese (or their cousins) from that country. If I come to Mexico, someones will ask where I came from and I will say that I come from Indonesia. So they will have a wrong thought of Indonesian. So if another day a Chinese come there, the Mexicans I met would say that he/she is similar to Indonesian (while actually not). (Similar to my very wrong thought on October 18 in this forum.)
About 25% of Thailand dwellers are Chinese, so Chinese-Vietnamese-"Thai" would be "very hard" to distinguish without asking languages (it's not very hard anymore, it is impossible. Of course, bar the minority of Vietnamese, and what is compared is the Thailand's Chinese, not the Thai itself). You should know that in the countries you listed above live many ethnic Chinese. "Mixed"? Did they tell you that you are a mix of some kind of East Asians? If not, then it is very strange.(similar to mix of non-East-Asians??? Impossible.).
>>>"i always thoguht the surname Nguyen is a pure vietnamese surname, however reading from the forum its is chinese"
<<<Well, I think all Korean and Vietnamese surnames come from Chinese.
>>> "im only in high school "
<<< In fact, I'm also.
>>>"coz i never thought vietnamese would be part of Very fair mongoloid"
<<<Yes, Vietnamese are very similar to south Chinese, which is said to be very fair. If it is not very fair, then how is the fair Mongoloids? Albino?
The new year draws close...
---qrasy---
-
bathrobe
Re: Vietnamese is sino-tibetan ?
The following site throws doubt on the idea that Vietnamese belongs to Mon-Khmer:
http://www.glossika.com/en/dict/dialectv.php
It also includes some useful links.
http://www.glossika.com/en/dict/dialectv.php
It also includes some useful links.
-
AlexNg
Re: Vietnamese is sino-tibetan ?
Thanks bathrobe, for the link.
I think there are just too many similarities to classify vietnamese as belonging to mon-khmer.
The linguist based the classification on the few basic mon-khmer words,
but how do we know whether these are original words or loan words ? And that the foreign words may actually be original words? Basic words can be loaned as has happened in malaysian chinese.
As for the difference in "noun adjective" order, if you look at cantonese, you can also find some words with a reverse order from mandarin. And cantonese people are supposed to be a mixture of "han" and "bai yue" people.
As for dylan sung's argument that korean and japanese borrowed a lot of chinese words, you must understand that argument is flawed.
1. Japanese/korean are polysyllable. Each word cannot be broken up into a ideogram to represent an idea. Arigato is so different from "to che".
2. They are also non-tonal.
I think there are just too many similarities to classify vietnamese as belonging to mon-khmer.
The linguist based the classification on the few basic mon-khmer words,
but how do we know whether these are original words or loan words ? And that the foreign words may actually be original words? Basic words can be loaned as has happened in malaysian chinese.
As for the difference in "noun adjective" order, if you look at cantonese, you can also find some words with a reverse order from mandarin. And cantonese people are supposed to be a mixture of "han" and "bai yue" people.
As for dylan sung's argument that korean and japanese borrowed a lot of chinese words, you must understand that argument is flawed.
1. Japanese/korean are polysyllable. Each word cannot be broken up into a ideogram to represent an idea. Arigato is so different from "to che".
2. They are also non-tonal.
-
Dylan Sung
Re: Vietnamese is sino-tibetan ?
AlexNg > As for the difference in "noun adjective" order,
AlexNg > if you look at cantonese, you can also find some
AlexNg > words with a reverse order from mandarin. And
AlexNg > cantonese people are supposed to be a mixture
AlexNg > of "han" and "bai yue" people."
The reversal in character order in words between Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese compounds and the noun-adjective difference in Vietnamese are two different things.
Examples: a beautiful picture
Vietnamese
môòt býìc tranh ðeòp
one [class] picture beautiful
Cantonese
yat fuk leng wah
one [class] beautiful picture
Q. Does Vietnamese display Chinese word order?
A. No.
Demonstratives in Vietnamese also are different to Chinese.
Example : these two tables
Vietnamese.
hai caìi baÌn naÌy
two [class] table these
Cantonese
ni leong jeong t'oi
these two [class] table
Other fundamental vocabulary which doesn't change when you absorb new vocabulary are pronouns. Vietnamese use the following pronouns in the singular:
First person
I/me tôi
Second Person
you ông/baÌ/anh/chiò/cô/em
Third person
he/him ông âÞy/anh âÞy
she/her baÌ âÞy/chiò âÞy
he/him/she/her/it noì
In the plural:
First person
we/us chuìng tôi/ chuìng ta
Second person
you caìc anh/caìc chiò
Third person
they/them caìc anh âìy/caìc ông âìy
Even the in the plural formation, the pluralising syllable is placed before the pronoun in Vietnamese, but in Chinese it is the other way around.
Cantonese:
I ngo, we ngo dei
you nei, you (pl) nei dei
he/she/it keui, they/them keui dei
Mandarin
I wo, we wo men
you ni, you (pl.) ni men
he/she/it ta, they/them ta men
If you define tonal languages with those which relies on pitch differences to indicate meaning, then both modern Korean and Japanese displays these features. For example, the word 'nose' and 'flower' in Japanese are written using the syllables hana. What distinguishes the two is the pitch difference between them. Another pair is chopsticks and bridge, both written hashi, but distinguished by tone the first High-Low the latter Low-High pitch changes.
Korean uses the writing system known as Hangeul, which was created in 1444 AD by King Sejong. It is well known that this stage of the Korean language (often refered to as Middle Korean) is different to modern Korean. The hangeul writing of Sejong's day showed it had clearly defined symbols for tones (bang jeom), and was able to distinguish three different tones. These tone marks are incorporated in modern Unicode, but modern Korean doesn't employ the use of tones in it's everyday writing. Moreover there are instances of tonal dialects (like speakers in Gyeongsangdo) in Korean too, though the Seoul standard used for the national language is not tonal.
This is not to say Korean and Japanese are tonal languages, but they display pitch variance which are used to differentiate between two words with the same syllables and thus their meaning in speech.
Even in English, you can change pitch to infer different meaning. For instance raising the pitch at the end of a word may make it a question. Or are you saying it is impossible for polysyllabic languages to show tonal contrasts?
Vietnamese is not a sub dialect of Chinese. It has basic vocabulary and grammar which are resistant to change, like it's pronouns and word order which are different. It clearly shows that all SV words are borrowed, whether during Old Chinese of the early Han and pre-Han times, or later Middle Chinese borrowings, during the 1000 year influence of Chinese in the northern Annam outpost of the early Chinese empire. Vietname gained it's independence in the tenth century. The 70% figure of Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary in Vietnamese can realistically enter the Vietnamese language over this length of time. However, that does not make Vietnamese a dialect of Chinese whatsoever.
Dyl.
AlexNg > if you look at cantonese, you can also find some
AlexNg > words with a reverse order from mandarin. And
AlexNg > cantonese people are supposed to be a mixture
AlexNg > of "han" and "bai yue" people."
The reversal in character order in words between Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese compounds and the noun-adjective difference in Vietnamese are two different things.
Examples: a beautiful picture
Vietnamese
môòt býìc tranh ðeòp
one [class] picture beautiful
Cantonese
yat fuk leng wah
one [class] beautiful picture
Q. Does Vietnamese display Chinese word order?
A. No.
Demonstratives in Vietnamese also are different to Chinese.
Example : these two tables
Vietnamese.
hai caìi baÌn naÌy
two [class] table these
Cantonese
ni leong jeong t'oi
these two [class] table
Other fundamental vocabulary which doesn't change when you absorb new vocabulary are pronouns. Vietnamese use the following pronouns in the singular:
First person
I/me tôi
Second Person
you ông/baÌ/anh/chiò/cô/em
Third person
he/him ông âÞy/anh âÞy
she/her baÌ âÞy/chiò âÞy
he/him/she/her/it noì
In the plural:
First person
we/us chuìng tôi/ chuìng ta
Second person
you caìc anh/caìc chiò
Third person
they/them caìc anh âìy/caìc ông âìy
Even the in the plural formation, the pluralising syllable is placed before the pronoun in Vietnamese, but in Chinese it is the other way around.
Cantonese:
I ngo, we ngo dei
you nei, you (pl) nei dei
he/she/it keui, they/them keui dei
Mandarin
I wo, we wo men
you ni, you (pl.) ni men
he/she/it ta, they/them ta men
If you define tonal languages with those which relies on pitch differences to indicate meaning, then both modern Korean and Japanese displays these features. For example, the word 'nose' and 'flower' in Japanese are written using the syllables hana. What distinguishes the two is the pitch difference between them. Another pair is chopsticks and bridge, both written hashi, but distinguished by tone the first High-Low the latter Low-High pitch changes.
Korean uses the writing system known as Hangeul, which was created in 1444 AD by King Sejong. It is well known that this stage of the Korean language (often refered to as Middle Korean) is different to modern Korean. The hangeul writing of Sejong's day showed it had clearly defined symbols for tones (bang jeom), and was able to distinguish three different tones. These tone marks are incorporated in modern Unicode, but modern Korean doesn't employ the use of tones in it's everyday writing. Moreover there are instances of tonal dialects (like speakers in Gyeongsangdo) in Korean too, though the Seoul standard used for the national language is not tonal.
This is not to say Korean and Japanese are tonal languages, but they display pitch variance which are used to differentiate between two words with the same syllables and thus their meaning in speech.
Even in English, you can change pitch to infer different meaning. For instance raising the pitch at the end of a word may make it a question. Or are you saying it is impossible for polysyllabic languages to show tonal contrasts?
Vietnamese is not a sub dialect of Chinese. It has basic vocabulary and grammar which are resistant to change, like it's pronouns and word order which are different. It clearly shows that all SV words are borrowed, whether during Old Chinese of the early Han and pre-Han times, or later Middle Chinese borrowings, during the 1000 year influence of Chinese in the northern Annam outpost of the early Chinese empire. Vietname gained it's independence in the tenth century. The 70% figure of Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary in Vietnamese can realistically enter the Vietnamese language over this length of time. However, that does not make Vietnamese a dialect of Chinese whatsoever.
Dyl.
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Dylan Sung
Re: Vietnamese is sino-tibetan ?
Alex Ng,
Vietnamese have their own number system, used much more frequently than the Sino-Viet sytem. They use their V numbers for quantities, but SV numbers are found mostly in SV phrases. Pick up any dictionary on Vietnamese, try the on-line one here
http://www.ksvn.com/anhviet_new.htm
Just put English words in, and out pops modern Vietnamese, and the overwhelming returns for phrases with numbers show that SV numbers nhat, nhi, tam, tu, ngu, luc, that, bat, cuu, thap aren't used. Vietnamese words mot, hai, ba, bon, nam, sau. bay, tam, chin, muoi are used in the majority of cases.
If the Chinese loans were indigenous words in Vietnamese, that is, Vietnamese is a dialect of Chinese, then these Vietnamese words would be used far less, and you'd expect the overwhelming use of SV words instead.
The basic vocabulary of numerals shows once again, Vietnamese is not a Chinese dialect/language.
For anyone else interested in numbers, Mark Rosenfelder's site on numbers 1 through to 10 inclusive in over 5000 languages is worth visiting.
http://www.zompist.com/asia.htm
Dyl.
Vietnamese have their own number system, used much more frequently than the Sino-Viet sytem. They use their V numbers for quantities, but SV numbers are found mostly in SV phrases. Pick up any dictionary on Vietnamese, try the on-line one here
http://www.ksvn.com/anhviet_new.htm
Just put English words in, and out pops modern Vietnamese, and the overwhelming returns for phrases with numbers show that SV numbers nhat, nhi, tam, tu, ngu, luc, that, bat, cuu, thap aren't used. Vietnamese words mot, hai, ba, bon, nam, sau. bay, tam, chin, muoi are used in the majority of cases.
If the Chinese loans were indigenous words in Vietnamese, that is, Vietnamese is a dialect of Chinese, then these Vietnamese words would be used far less, and you'd expect the overwhelming use of SV words instead.
The basic vocabulary of numerals shows once again, Vietnamese is not a Chinese dialect/language.
For anyone else interested in numbers, Mark Rosenfelder's site on numbers 1 through to 10 inclusive in over 5000 languages is worth visiting.
http://www.zompist.com/asia.htm
Dyl.
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Dylan Sung
Re: Vietnamese is sino-tibetan ?
Let me rephrase that
<strike>
Dyl > If the Chinese loans were indigenous words in Vietnamese,
Dyl > that is, Vietnamese is a dialect of Chinese,
</strike>
If Chinese words were indigenous words in Vietnamese, that is, according to Alex Ng, Vietnamese is a dialect/language of Sino-Tibetan, ....
Dyl > then these Vietnamese
Dyl > words would be used far less, and you'd expect the overwhelming
Dyl > use of SV words instead.
Dyl.
<strike>
Dyl > If the Chinese loans were indigenous words in Vietnamese,
Dyl > that is, Vietnamese is a dialect of Chinese,
</strike>
If Chinese words were indigenous words in Vietnamese, that is, according to Alex Ng, Vietnamese is a dialect/language of Sino-Tibetan, ....
Dyl > then these Vietnamese
Dyl > words would be used far less, and you'd expect the overwhelming
Dyl > use of SV words instead.
Dyl.
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qrasy
Re: Vietnamese is sino-tibetan ?
How could it be some words which is claimed to be Mon-Khmer in origin but they are very similar to Sino-Tibetan?