Modern Chinese Loans Possible Chinese Loan Words

12 area. Bradley 1979, Matisoff 1996 and others have observed that in these areas there are characteristics that seem to have spread across these geographic regions, influencing the development of their many speech varieties regardless of typology or genetic stock. These characteristics may affect phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon and discourse structures. A morphosyntactic example given by Bradley 1979 is that of noun classifiers which are present in both Chinese and Zhuang. Unlike most of the languages in the southwestern branch of Tai, the Zhuang languages did not borrow heavily from Indian languages of Pali and Sanskrit associated with Buddhism cf Zhou and Luo 1999:343–349, but instead have borrowed extensively from Chinese languages both in ancient times and in modern times. In evaluating Zhuang vocabulary, it is virtually impossible to remove medieval Chinese lexemes, as most have been thoroughly adapted to the Taic phonological and tonal systems. As our primary goal is to understand the phonogical similarities and differences among the Wenshan Central Tai languages for the purpose of orthography usage, it is not desirable to only analyze the “truly Taic” lexemes, even were we able to confidently identify these. We will, however, briefly note lexemes in our dataset which appear to be loans from modern Chinese, those which appear to be cognate with Chinese languages, but at a point prior to that for which Proto-Tai has been reconstructed, and also those areal or regional loanword cognates which are found in many unrelated or distantly related languages of the region. In the comparative phonological analysis which follows this section, we will avoid reliance on recent Chinese loanwords, as these may bias the comparisons to cause the language varieties to appear more similar than they actually are.

2.5.1 Modern Chinese Loans

The following is a list of words in dataset that are likely to be recent loans from Chinese, as the current forms here listed as pronounced in Nong Zhuang as spoken in Milewan village in Wenshan more resembles modern Putonghua Mandarin Chinese than the Proto-Tai forms, though of course, as Li 1977 states, some of these Proto-Tai forms may themselves be loans from medieval Chinese: Modern Chinese Loanwords English Chinese Nong Zhuang Wenshan Milewan Yei Zhuang Guangnan County’s Zhemeng District 10 11 Dai Zhuang Wenshan Xiao Minghu Standard Putonghua Mandarin Chinese Proto-Tai Li 1977 a bronze gong 铜锣姓 tɕoŋ²² la³³ dɛ̤n³³lo³¹ tʰɔŋ³⁵luɔ³⁵ dɔŋA2 = copper candle 蜡烛姓 la³¹tɕu³¹ laːp⁴⁴ɕuk¹¹ lɑ⁵⁵ la⁵¹t͡ʂu³⁵ no protoform elephant 大象姓 ta³³ɕiaŋ³³ ɕaːŋ³¹ mi³³ɕiə̤̃ː¹³ ta⁵¹ɕiaŋ⁵¹ d͡ʒaŋC2 lime 石灰姓 hoːi²⁴ hoːi²⁴ huɒ¹³ xuei⁵⁵ no protoform oil 油姓 ju³³ ju⁴⁴ tʰɕei⁵³ jɔu³⁵ no protoform to fry 炒姓 ʨʰau²² ɕaːu³³ tʰɕo⁵⁵ t͡ʂʰau⁵⁵ no protoform road 路姓 lo³¹ ðan²⁴ kʰɔ³³luʔ⁵⁵ lu⁵¹ xru̯ɯnA1, daŋA2 shoes 鞋子姓 haːi³³ haːi⁴⁴ tʰɤu³³nɤu³³ ɕjɛ³⁵zɿ²¹ Wenshanhua: haːi³³ no protoform gun 枪姓 tɕʰoŋ¹¹ ɕuŋ¹¹ tʰɕɿ³³dɑ̃⁵³ t͡ɕʰjaŋ⁵⁵ no protoform to pay 交姓 ɕuei¹¹ ʨaːu²⁴ xei⁵⁵ tɕjau⁵⁵ no protoform 10 11 Yei Zhuang data is from Ahang er al. 1999. 13 English Chinese Nong Zhuang Wenshan Milewan Yei Zhuang Guangnan County’s Zhemeng District 10 11 Dai Zhuang Wenshan Xiao Minghu Standard Putonghua Mandarin Chinese Proto-Tai Li 1977 a to push 推姓 toi⁵⁵ ŋe⁴⁴ duɑi³³ tʰʷei⁵⁵ no protoform friend 朋 姓 进 伴远姓 toŋ³³pən³¹ puŋ⁴⁴jau⁵³ pʰə̃⁵⁵ɟo³¹ tʰɔŋ³⁵pan⁵¹ no protoform green 绿姓 lɔk³³ heːu²⁴ tʰɕu̞⁵³ lu⁵¹ xiauA1 hundred 姓 pak¹¹kou³³ paːk¹¹ pɛ⁵⁵nə³³ pai²¹⁴ no protoform thousand 千姓 tʰiaŋ²⁴ ɕien²⁴ tʰəŋ³¹nɛʔ³¹ t͡ɕjɛn³⁵ no protoform hard, difficult 难姓 nan⁵⁵ naːn⁵³ nɑ̃ʔ³³ nan³⁵ jakD1L a Proto-Tai reconstructions are those of Li Fang Kuei 1977 accessed via the Thai Lexicography Resources page of the Center for Computational Linguistics, Bangkok seasrc.th.netindex.html?main=http3Aseasrc.th.netproto.

2.5.2 Possible Chinese Loan Words

Although the following Central Tai words are similar to the modern Chinese pronunciation, it is possible that they have developed relatively independently, at least since the time of proto-Tai. The Central Tai pronunciation also appears similar to the proto-Tai reconstructed etymons. Many of these are likely ancient Chinese loans into proto-Tai. In some cases, the tones may be of use in determining the history of these words, so we provide the tone reflexes as pronounced in the local dialect of Chinese, Wenshanhua, as well as those expected for Nong Zhuang, if these words have indeed descended directly from Proto-Tai ancestors: Possible Recent Loanwords from Chinese English Chinese Nong Zhuang Wenshan Milewan Yei Zhuang Guangnan County’s Zhemeng District Dai Zhuang Wenshan Xiao Minghu Standard Mandarin Wenshanhua 11 12 Chinese tone reflex Proto-Tai Li 1977 Expected Tonal Reflex for Nong Zhuang head 头姓 tʰu²⁴ ʨau³³ tʰu⁴² tʰɔ³⁵ ⁴² tʰrue A ¹ ²⁴ buttocks 屁 姓姓 ku³³ ʨʰi³³ taɯ²⁴pɔːn⁴⁴ kuən⁵⁵tʰɕɿ⁵⁵ pʰi⁵¹ku ²¹¹ ku̯ɯn C ¹ ²² pus 脓姓 nɔːŋ²⁴ noːŋ²⁴ nõː¹³ nɔŋ³⁵ ⁴² hnɔŋ A ¹ ²⁴ early 早姓 tɕou⁵⁵ ɕau³¹ zɑo⁴⁴ t͡sau²¹⁴ ⁴⁴ d͡ʒau C ² ⁵⁵ cat a 姓 miau¹¹ mɛːu⁴⁴ mjɑu⁵³ mau⁵⁵ ⁵⁵ mɛu A2 ³³ medicine 药姓 ja²⁴ jie²⁴ ʝṳ³³ʝɑʔ jau⁵¹ ²¹¹ ʔjɯ̯a A ² ³³ a Of course, the similarity between the forms for ‘cat’ is likely due to onomatopoeia. 11 12 Tone patterns of Wenshanhua, the local dialect of Southwest Mandarin spoken in Wenshan county, are from an article in the Wenshan Prefecture Gazetteer Zhang 2000. James Campbell’s website www.glossika.comendicttonesguanhua.htm differs from this article with respect to two tone values. For the Wenshan Mandarin dialect the Yin-Shang tone , ‘third tone’ is listed as 53, and the Yin-Qu tone 去 , ‘fourth tone’ as 11. This may belie the difficulty of describing a non-standardized Chinese dialect. The authors have not personally done any research on Wenshanhua Chinese to date. These tones are presented here to help the reader be aware than past and present Chinese tonal influence would most likely come not from that of standard Mandarin but rather from a local Chinese dialect. 14 English Chinese Nong Zhuang Wenshan Milewan Yei Zhuang Guangnan County’s Zhemeng District Dai Zhuang Wenshan Xiao Minghu Standard Mandarin Wenshanhua 11 Chinese tone reflex Proto-Tai Li 1977 Expected Tonal Reflex for Nong Zhuang ginger a 姜姓 ʨʰiŋ²⁴ hiŋ²⁴ tʰɕɘŋ³¹ t͡ɕjaŋ⁵⁵ ⁵⁵ xiŋ A ¹ ²⁴ to chop meat 切进肉远姓 ʨʰiɛn¹¹ ðoːn¹¹ kʰɑ̃⁵⁵ t͡ɕʰiɛ⁵¹ ²¹¹ tʰram C ¹ ²² bow 弓姓 kɔːŋ²⁴ kɔːŋ²⁴ kɑŋ¹³ kɔŋ⁵⁵ ⁵⁵ koŋ A ¹ ²⁴ gold 金姓 tɕim²⁴ tɕim²⁴ tɕɛ̃¹³ t͡ɕin⁵⁵ ⁵⁵ ɣam A ² ³³ mortar 臼姓 tɕuɔk³³ ʔuə²⁴ gɑʔ³¹ t͡ɕjo⁵¹ ²¹¹ gru̯ok D ² S ³³ needle 针姓 ʨʰam²⁴ ʨim²⁴ mɛʔ³³tʰɕen³¹ t͡ʂən⁵⁵ ⁵⁵ khi̯em A ¹ ²⁴ bury 埋姓 mɔk⁵⁵ ham²⁴ mɑʔ³³ mai³⁵ ⁴² hmok D ¹ S ⁵⁵ yellow 黄姓 heːn²² heːn³³ liə̃ŋ¹³ xʷaŋ³⁵ ⁴² hlɯoŋ A1 ²⁴ a Bradley 1979, citing Matisoff 1996, lists ‘ginger’ as an area loanword from Chinese.

2.5.3 Ancient Chinese and Areal Loanwords Prior to Proto-Tai