[SEALANG] Tai-Viet linguistics question CONTINUED

[Pittayawat Pittayaporn]

Dear Prof. Kelly and the list,

I forgot to mention in my previous posting the the nom character for 
Vietnamese 'kẻ' is 几. The Nguyen Van Khon's Dictionary gives the 
meaning of "individual, man or person, thief" for this word. We find 
this word in compounds like 'kẻ cấp' (person+steal) = theif, and 'kẻ cả' 
(person+elder) = old person. (I would like to thank my colleague John 
Phan for looking this word up for me and supply me with these examples). 
I personally I doubt that the place-name 'kẻ' is the same etymon as this 
'kẻ' for 'person' but certainly more investigation is needed. One way to 
approach is to see what kind of modifiers are found with 'kẻ' in place 
names. If the two 'kẻ' are really the same, the modifiers should be 
limited to ones that can be used described human beings.

Best,
Joe Pittayaporn
Cornell University


Liam C. Kelley wrote:
> Dear list,
>
> I finally received a copy of the book on Zhuang place names: Zhang 
> Shengzhen, ed., Guangxi Zhuang yu di ming xuan ji [Collection of 
> Guangxi Zhuang Place Names] (Nanning: Guangxi minzu chubanshe, 1988). 
> It is an interesting but problematic book. From what I can gather from 
> the brief introduction, some officials who worked for various 
> organizations in the Zhuang Autonomous Region decided in the early 
> 1980s to collect together all of the Zhuang place names in the region 
> and to explain them. The problem is that none of them appear to have 
> been trained as linguists or historians. They admit that they did not 
> really know what they were doing when they collected the names, and 
> then they spent several years trying to decipher and make sense of the 
> material they had collected. . . Hence, I find that some (or many?) of 
> their explanations are guesses more than anything else.
>
> That said, one thing that is clear is that many place names began with 
> the word Gu 古 [ku/kuə/kɔ in old Chn, co in Viet.], and as I mentioned 
> previously, some of the earliest texts (15th cent.) to record 
> geographical information (in Chinese) in Vietnam demonstrate that 
> there were many districts in Vietnam which also began with this word.
>
> According to the Zhuang place name study, gu 古 [ku/kuə/kɔ in old Chn, 
> co in Viet.] is the equivalent in Chinese to ke 棵, which is “a 
> numerary adjunct for trees.” Gedney’s Comparative Tai Source Book (pg. 
> 77, entry 0105) has kɔɔ and koo under the entry for “tree, plant” and 
> indicates the following more specific meaning: “clump, as of bamboo.” 
> The SEAlang dictionary offers the following info for Thai: 
> กอ(WEBRANK:2) ˈkɔɔ 1 C clump (of growing plants, trees)
>
> Hence, you have place names like the following:
>
> Gubu 古卜 [Gobug in Zhuang]. Bug = pomelo. (I came across an article 
> on the web on Zhuang and Tai place names by Maneepin Promsuthirak 
> which also lists this name)
>
> Gulou 古婁 [Roraeu in Zhuang]. Lou is said to be Zhuang for “raeu,” 
> meaning “maple.” Hence, a place where there were a lot of maple trees.
>
> Gukun 古昆 [Gogoen in Zhuang]. Goen is a kind of bamboo 山竹.
>
> Gunian 古念 [Gonim in Zhuang]. Nim = myrtle 桃金娘
>
> There are some cases where the Zhuang name seems related to a Chinese 
> term. Since some of the villages listed in this book were established 
> as late as the 18th century, this could make sense. The following is 
> example, although no date is given for when this village was founded:
>
> Gubi 古筆 [Gobit in Zhuang]. Bit = duck. The explanation: because this 
> village had a lot of 鴨腳木. This is the Chinese name for the ivy tree 
> (Schefflera heptaphylla). The Chinese name literally translates as 
> “duck foot tree.” So was the Zhuang name created in reference to a 
> knowledge of the tree’s Chinese name??
>
> There are other cases were the term “gu/go” is not explained, but is 
> just said to be the name of the village, such as the following:
>
> Guhuo 古火 [Govuj in Zhuang]. Says that “go” is the name of the 
> village and “vuj” means “hardship.” Because the village is in an area 
> which often floods, the people there suffer lots of hardship.
>
> Guhu 古胡 [Goruz in Zhuang]. “Ruz” = boat, and “go” has no 
> particularly meaning. The shape of the village is like that of a boat.
>
> From looking at this material (without buying all of their 
> explanations), my hunch now is that this term kɔɔ and koo, which means 
> “a cluster” of some kind of tree/plant in Tai languages was used in 
> that sense in some village names, but also came to serve as a kind of 
> adjunct numerary used in village names where it was placed alongside 
> other terms.
>
> This latter function is precisely how the Vietnamese term “ke” (which 
> I am trying to understand) appears to have functioned. As for the 
> second word in ke place name compounds, since they are only one 
> syllable, it’s very difficult for me to determine what language(s) 
> they are from (especially if some, like the Zhuang examples, are 
> specific botanical terms):
>
> Ke Ao, Ke Som, Ke Bac, Ke Lap, Ke Blou are some names which Western 
> missionaries recorded in the 17th century.
>
> ***My main question, however is this: does it make any linguistic 
> sense that ke could be a Vietnamese adoption/pronunciation of a 
> Zhuang/Tai term kɔɔ/koo? Is it logical for those vowels to change in 
> that manner as the term moves from one language to another?
>
> And yet one other minor question: some Zhuang place names (and old 
> place names in Vietnam) begin with the word duo 多 [ta in old Chn, da 
> in Viet.]. According to the Zhuang place name study, this refers to 
> “land.” The SEAlang dictionary has the following entry which seems the 
> closest in sound:
> ตระ(WEBRANK:3) trà 1 N a piece (used in reference to land), portion; plot
>
> However, Li Fang-kuei said that “Siamese also shows tr-, but it exists 
> chiefly in Cambodian and Sanskrit loans.”
>
> Question: What Tai word for “land” could duo 多 [ta in old Chn, da in 
> Viet.] be an attempted transcription of?
>
> Many thanks for any ideas,
>
> Liam Kelley
> University of Hawaii
>
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