Tai-Viet linguistics question

[Yuphaphann Hoonchamlong]

Dear sealang-ers,
I am forwarding a very interesting query from Prof. Liam Kelly for the Tai and Viet linguists on the list.
Please post your replies, comments to the list and also send your reply to Liam directly at liam at hawaii.edu since he is not on the list.
Thank you.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Liam C. Kelley" liam at hawaii.edu

>     I have a linguistics question which I cannot resolve (since I'm not a linguist), and have not had much luck finding scholarship which enables me to resolve it. I've writen my question below. Do you have any advice?  
> Liam
 
>      I am trying to figure out if a certain Vietnamese word is actually from a Tai language. There is a lot of evidence for linguistic contact between the Vietnamese and Tai in ancient times. There is no question about that. However, there is one word that is used in place names which I’m not sure about.
>      After the Chinese conquered the region around 100 BC, they wrote down place names in Chinese [place names in Chinese usually consist of 2 characters]. A lot of these names started with a character which had a “g” sound (or what we would use a “k” to transliterate in Thai), such as gu, go, gua ["go" is not in modern Mandarin, but is how gu may have been pronounced back then]. You find these same place names used in what is today northern Vietnam and southern China. Chinese scholars have said that these all derive from the Tai word for “person” = “khon.” So a place name like Gu X, would mean “the place where the X people live” or “the place where the people of X live.”
>      At the same time, sometimes the Chinese made names which were 100% their own invention, and had no relation to any indigenous language. Interestingly though, alongside some such place names in Vietnam, the Vietnamese maintained vernacular names, most of which began with a word pronounced “ke” (sounds like แก in Thai). These names were almost never written down, but were passed down orally.
>      There is a Taiwanese scholar who wrote a very good article almost 60 years ago where he demonstrates that this term meant “person” or “people” and he argued that it was also derived from an ancient version of “khon,” and was thus related to whatever word the Chinese were transliterating when they wrote down all of these place names that started with characters that were pronounced like gu, go, gua, etc.
>      My problem is this. I’ve looked at Li Fang Kuei’s “A Handbook of Comparative Tai” (pg. 219) and see that the origins of the modern term “khon” are in words like kun, kon, can, etc. I don’t see how "ke" can be derived from any of those terms. The initial sound is fine, but why do all of those others maintain the final n, while ke does not?
>      It does make sense that the Chinese would have transliterated these terms as go, or gu, as there is no final n after those vowels in Chinese [only ng]. However, Vietnamese can have an n after an o. So where does ke come from, when they could pronounce words like kon [con, in Viet.], kan [can, in Viet], etc.? [I don't know Chinese historical linguistics, but I think the gist of what I am saying here is correct]

>      Finally, I don’t know of examples from the Tai world where place names are made up by writing “Khon + X.” Are there any?
 
> In summary:
> 1) can ke come from kon, kan, kun, etc.?
> 2) are there examples of Tai place names like kon/can/kun/khon X?
 

________________________________________________________

Post to SEALANG-L:  send mail to sealang-l at listserv.linguistlist.org

Unsubscribe: send the message "unsubscribe sealang-l" to  listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org

Subscribe: send the message "subscribe sealang-l Your Name" to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/sealang-l/attachments/20080916/741ec297/attachment.htm>