name?

[Nicoletta Romeo]

Dear all,

as for the name 'Mai Chaipp', I think it could be Burmese. I am unable
to provide you with any piece of information as to whether, at that
time, there actually were Burmese people in Java. What I may provide you
with, though, is a tentative solution based on  the phonetic resemblance
of the name to its possible  Burmese counterpart.
In Burmese, 'May' is a very common female name. Its pronunciation is
very close (if not identical) to the French 'Mai'.
'Chaipp' needs a more elaborate explanation. In Burmese, there are two
phonemes: 1)  /ts/ (voiceless palatal affricate) and  2)  /tsh/
(voiceless aspirate palatal affricate). From here the possible
assimilation with the French (post)alveolar fricative [s] (if we assume
that the French did realise /ts/ as [s]).
The segment -aipp could be the transcription of the cluster /-ai?/ (? =
glottal stop).
It's just and idea that has to be supported by evidence drawn from other
areas of investigation.

All the best
Nicoletta Romeo
PhD student and tutor - Dept. Linguistics - Sydney University

e-mail: nicoletta.romeo at italian.usyd.edu.au



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