Similarity between thai and fukkinese(hokkien)

[snake24]

Fukkinese has also been referred to as taiwanese dialect but let's be honest about it the taiwanese chinese that speak that dialect used to come from the fukien region of china and not all fukkinese people are located in taiwan or china but all over the world especially in the south east asian region. There is also a difference in northern fukkiense called foo chow and southern fukkienese called hokkien.

Starting from the numbering system.

Thai:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

soon, neung, song, sum, see, ha, hok, jet, pet, gao

Hokkien:

Kong, yeo, yee, sar, see, gor, luck, qik, peua, gao.

One thing of note is that i think for all chinese dialects or rather southern chinese dialects the number 3 and 4 sound the same just like the thai language, sum and see. Notice how the number 9 probably sounds similar too which is gao.

[Richard W]

Basically, Thai uses Chinese numbers, and has for well over a thousand years. A lot of East Asia does - they've also taken over in Japan. Thai [R]suun comes from Pali and Sanskrit, [LS]nueng isn't Chinese, and [R]sawng comes from the Chinese word for 'pair'. The Hokkien yee lives on in Thai [F]yii[L]sip 'twenty'. For comparison, English 'zero' comes from Arabic.

[SlyAnimal]

I wouldn't be surprised if they are distantly related to the Hokkien people. As it is believed that Thai people originally migrated south from China during the Gengis Khan period.

The famous New Zealand/Australian race horse Phar Lap is often mistakenly referred to having a Thai name, however the name was actually came from a Chinese gentleman, as it meant lightning in his local dialect of Chinese. I can't remember which tribe he was from, but apparently their language has many similarities to modern Thai (Although of course has evolved in a different direction over the past ~800 years since the Thais migrated)

[snake24]

I wouldn't be surprised if they are distantly related to the Hokkien people. As it is believed that Thai people originally migrated south from China during the Gengis Khan period.

The famous New Zealand/Australian race horse Phar Lap is often mistakenly referred to having a Thai name, however the name was actually came from a Chinese gentleman, as it meant lightning in his local dialect of Chinese. I can't remember which tribe he was from, but apparently their language has many similarities to modern Thai (Although of course has evolved in a different direction over the past ~800 years since the Thais migrated)

From wiki the name comes from zhuang language and they aren't chinese in the sense that they are han but a minority but of course they are chinese by nationality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Zhuang

Zhuang is one of the languages from the tai family group and yes the original thai people came from china and they all escaped to south east asia during the mongol invasion 800 or more years ago. The original thai people should look like chinese people while those with the darker skin like the malay and issan looking people got conquered later and took up thai language and culture.

[coma]

" The official language of Thailand is Thai, a Tai–Kadai language closely related to Lao, Shan in Burma, and numerous smaller languages spoken in an arc from Hainan and Yunnan south to the Chinese border."

[AyG]

The common ancestor here is Middle Chinese

1 - not borrowed

2 - nzi

3 - sam

4 - si

5 - ŋagx

6 - ljuk

7 - tshjet

8 - pat

9 - kjəu

10 - zjep

Also borrowed are

100 - ljwi (meaning to bind or string together)

1000 - buan (meaning to coil up)

As discussed elsewhere in this forum Middle Chinese is also at the root of Thai's tonal system.

[snake24]

The common ancestor here is Middle Chinese

1 - not borrowed

2 - nzi

3 - sam

4 - si

5 - ŋagx

6 - ljuk

7 - tshjet

8 - pat

9 - kjəu

10 - zjep

Also borrowed are

100 - ljwi (meaning to bind or string together)

1000 - buan (meaning to coil up)

As discussed elsewhere in this forum Middle Chinese is also at the root of Thai's tonal system.

Could you be more specific what do you mean by middle chinese?

There are a huge number of southern chinese dialects like cantonese, teochew, hokkien and so on and suffice to say they were all in existence during the time of middle china so there isn't a specific dialect called "middle chinese"

Your numbering system there kind of looks like some mixture of teochew/hokkien hybrid.

[AyG]

Middle Chinese is what followed Ancient Chinese and was used from (approximately) 3rd century BCE to 10th century CE (but some would say later), though the earliest written example dates from 601 CE.

More information at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese

[AyG]

Mea Culpa. Hokkien and Teochew aren't derived from Middle Chinese. They're derived from Min, which in turn is derived from Ancient Chinese. (Mandarin, Wu, Xiang, Hakka, Cantonese and others are derived from Middle Chinese.)

The common ancestor between Hokkien and Thai numbers is therefore is Ancient Chinese, not Middle Chinese.

In other words, for Thai the (simplified) inheritance runs

Ancient Chinese -> Middle Chinese -> Thai

And for Hokkien it's

Ancient Chinese -> Min -> Min Nan -> Hokkien

The similarity in numbers is explained by the common inheritance, rather than a direct transfer from a modern language.

[snake24]

Mea Culpa. Hokkien and Teochew aren't derived from Middle Chinese. They're derived from Min, which in turn is derived from Ancient Chinese. (Mandarin, Wu, Xiang, Hakka, Cantonese and others are derived from Middle Chinese.)

The common ancestor between Hokkien and Thai numbers is therefore is Ancient Chinese, not Middle Chinese.

In other words, for Thai the (simplified) inheritance runs

Ancient Chinese -> Middle Chinese -> Thai

And for Hokkien it's

Ancient Chinese -> Min -> Min Nan -> Hokkien

The similarity in numbers is explained by the common inheritance, rather than a direct transfer from a modern language.

Firstly i never ever stated that thai came from hokkien. I just pointed out there were some similarities in them. middle chinese doesn't mean anything it's just like saying middle european.

So min and teochew came from anicent chinese and not middle chinese? That means they are more closely related to the true original chinese and yes in that dialect they call chinese as teng nan or tang ppl rather than the han and the tang dynasty existed before the han.

I noticed that the thai word for soap sa bu is the same as hokkien in singapore but singapore hokkien borrowed that word sap bun from malay. I wondered if thai borrowed it from malay.

Sofa kao ee is also the same in thai. We also have kway tiao.

Kai is chicken same as cantonese.

[Richard W]

I noticed that the thai word for soap sa bu is the same as hokkien in singapore but singapore hokkien borrowed that word sap bun from malay. I wondered if thai borrowed it from malay.

Why can't Thai and Malay both have borrowed the word from Portuguese sapu directly? Both received Portuguese merchants, and Siam had Portuguese mercenaries in its employ.