Numbers In Thai..

[Johpa]

... where does the "yee" come from?

Much of the Thai language (NOT the writing) comes from Chinese.

Thai has many words borrowed from Chinese, including surprisingly some numbers, vocabualry items that are not commonly borrowed from neighboring languages. Yee is indeed a borrowing from Chinese, I think some older meaning like 'second". So the meaning is more like the second ten. It is also used in one of my favorite Asian foods, tao huu yee, fermented tofu. I suppose it might be used to translate the biblical term "the second coming."

Yet to conclude that "much of Thai comes from Chinese" would be a matter of debate, if not simply incorrect. Although there are some linguists who think the Tai languages are part of the Sino-Tibetan language family there are many others who strongly disagree with that classification.

[meadish_sweetball]

Yet to conclude that "much of Thai comes from Chinese" would be a matter of debate, if not simply incorrect. Although there are some linguists who think the Tai languages are part of the Sino-Tibetan language family there are many others who strongly disagree with that classification.

...and if you take a closer look at the nationality of the linguists who claim that the Tai language family is a subgroup of the Sino-Tibetan, many of them are, not surprisingly, of Chinese ethnic origin.

[Richard W]

Thai has many words borrowed from Chinese, including surprisingly some numbers, vocabualry items that are not commonly borrowed from neighboring languages.

Borrowing of numbers is not as rare as one might think. The usual Japanese numbers are also of Chinese origin (though the native words also survive), and several North American languages have replaced their native numbers with English numbers. Scanning through the Sino-Tibetan numbers at www.zompist.com, I noticed that one minor Sino-Tibetan language uses the Thai numbers.

If you scanned through the non-Semitic menbers of the Afro-Asiatic group, you'd find cases where numbers betweeen 5 and 10 have been replaced by the Arabic numbers. Hausa, a language of West Africa, uses Arabic names for the 'tens'. Many think that the Indo-European numbers for 'six' and 'seven' have been borrowed from Semitic, though sometimes it is suggested that there were religious reasons for these borrowings.

Thais used to use a 60-year cycle of year names. It was a combination of the 12 year Chinese cycle ('year of the rat', etc.) and a ten year cycle with the years designated by the Pali numbers 1 to 10. The Thai word โท 'two' used in telephone numbers comes from Pali.

[wolf5370]

Is there a Thai number for a Billion?

It seems all specific numbers end at 1,000,000 - Lan.

My wife wasn't sure (even though she's an ex-teacher) she uses Pan Lan (a thousand million) for US Billion or Lan Lan (Million Million) for British Billion.

[Johpa]

The Thai word โท 'two' used in telephone numbers comes from Pali.

And for those who never noticed, the four Thai tone marks, mai ek, thoo, trii, & jatawa, not only show their phonetic relationship to Indo-European one, two three and four, but look at the tone mark symbols to see 1, 2, 3, 4, although you will need to turn the 2 & 3 ninety degrees.

[tatom]

Off the subject a bit, but as an American, Im always amused to hear the British say, "one and a half thousand".

[chanchao]

Not nearly as amused as Thais calling any number for example between 1000 and 2000 as phan "kwaa". This 'kwaa' is then most often something involving 800 or 900, especially when the speaker is also the person receiving the number as an amount of money...... :-)

[Edward B]

Yes, it is simply the same as saying "More than 1000 baht". It's not giving much away is it.

I have a very similar question on the use of the 'ones' in Thai. Does anyone know where the 'et' (เอ็ด) comes from?

11 = sip et

21 = yip et (yee sip et)

31 = sarm sip et

41 = see sip et,

.

.

.

etc. Why not sip neung, etc...

[Richard W]

I have a very similar question on the use of the 'ones' in Thai. Does anyone know where the 'et' (เอ็ด) comes from?

See my earlier posting on this topic, in p2.

[Edward B]

Sorry Richie, that page doesn't mean diddly-squat to me. Can you translate all that garbage?

[Richard W]

Sorry Richie, that page doesn't mean diddly-squat to me. Can you translate all that garbage?

I take it you're referring to Numbers in Sino-Tibetan Languages. The columns are arranged: language, word for 'one', word for 'two',.. word for 'ten'.

[penzman]

Is there a Thai number for a Billion?

GF says PUN LAN 1000 millions

By the way, I mistakenly invented a new number last week at the corner shop,

see yip (meant yee sip), anyone know how much stuff I could buy with that...

[Richard W]

Is there a Thai number for a Billion?

GF says PUN LAN 1000 millions

That's only a thousand million. The question is, 'What do they say instead of ล้าน ๆ?'.

[konangrit]

Is there a Thai number for a Billion?

It seems all specific numbers end at 1,000,000 - Lan.

My wife wasn't sure (even though she's an ex-teacher) she uses Pan Lan (a thousand million) for US Billion or Lan Lan (Million Million) for British Billion.

Which all of my dictionaries agree with. There is no specific word for a billion, just one thousand million (US) or one million million (UK), which seems to be rarely used even in the UK nowadays.