ศาลาชุมนุม

[thaitom]

Hey all,

Just wanted to start a new thread on specifically on Chinese vocab that has entered the Thai language. I thought it might be interesting. I’ve got a lot of questions since I’ve started to learn Mandarin just recently.

First off what does “Tae Chew” mean? Does this refer to a dialect in Chinese or a way Chinese people often speak Thai? I’m little confused because when I looked it up on the net mostly I just find advertisements for stuff like “Tae Chew Shark's Fin Restaurant.”

Also, as another topic, does anyone know what dialect (or language within Chinese) has had the greatest influence on Thai? I ask because I’ve noticed that the southern languages of the Chinese Language Family sound a lot more similar to Thai and have a lot more words and pronunciations in common to Thai than say the Mandarin that is currently spoken in Beijing. My guess is that in the past languages like Cantonese had a greater influence on Thai, and that today due to the economic, social and political realities of modern China, Mandarin is the Chinese dialect (or language) that is often pursued by Thais who want to learn Chinese. Like I said I'm just starting to learn about this subject. Any guesses?

Looking at this map can anyone tell me which one of the dialects may have had the greatest influence on Thai? Just curious...



I’ll let someone else start a forum or thread for Indian, Khmer or English influences on Thai...

Thanks everyone!

ThaiTom

[David and Bui]

ThaiTom,

In Phuket, the predominant Chinese dialect is Hokkien, not Tae Chew. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia regarding Min Nan, the parent language of both Tae Chew and Hokkien:
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Min Nan is spoken in the southern part of Fujian province, two southern counties of Zhejiang province, the Zhoushan archipelago off Ningbo in Zhejiang, and the eastern part of Guangdong province (Chaoshan region). The Qiong Wen variant spoken in the Leizhou peninsula of Guangdong province, as well as Hainan province, is classified in some schemes as part of Min Nan and in other schemes as separate.

A form of Min Nan akin to that spoken in southern Fujian is also spoken in Taiwan, where it has the native name of Tâi-oân-oē or Hō-ló-oē. The (sub)ethnic group for which Min Nan is considered a native language is known as the Holo (Hō-ló) or Hoklo, the main ethnicity of Taiwan. The correspondence between language and ethnicity is generally true though not absolute, as some Hoklo have very limited proficiency in Min Nan while some non-Hoklos speak Min Nan fluently.

There are many Min Nan speakers also among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. Many ethnic Chinese emigrants to the region were Hoklo from southern Fujian, and brought the language to what is now Indonesia (the former Dutch East Indies) and present day Malaysia and Singapore (formerly Malaya and the British Straits Settlements). In general, Min Nan from southern Fujian is known as Hokkien, Hokkienese, or Fukien in Southeast Asia, and is extremely similar to Taiwanese. Many Southeast Asian ethnic Chinese also originated in Chaoshan region of Guangdong province and speak Teochew, the variant of Min Nan from that region. Min Nan is reportedly the native language of up to 98.5% of the community of ethnic Chinese in the Philippines, among whom it is also known as Lan-nang or Lán-lâng-oē ("Our people’s language").
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Information regarding the Chinese influence on Thai can be found in "หลักภาษาไทย" by กำชัย ทองหล่อ, pages 327 - 329. It is available in many Thai bookstores, along with similar texts. (Brian of this forum recommended this book to me several years ago; this forum has been very helpful to my learning experience.)

Perhaps someone with more knowledge in this area can help elaborate for us. Thanks.

[thaitom]

Thanks David of Phuket,

I'm gonna check out that book next time I'm in BKK, sounds interesting.

I'm gonna look into this more, it really is fasinating!!

--thaitom

[David and Bui]

I urge you to look at the Thai language section of the bookstores. There are several major books on Thai language for Thai high school and college students which discuss language origin.

[Nan]

thaitom,

To answer your question, Teochew is a Chinese dialect which used within some districts in Guang Dong province(in the southern China). There are more than two hundred dialects in China. In Thailand, people who have Chinese origin mostly came from Guang Dong province. That's why teachew dialect have a great influence on Thai language.

Teochew dialect in Mandarin is Chao(2)Zhou(1)Hua(4) (潮州话).

There are also other Chinese dialects used by Thai people who have Chinese origin, such as, Guang Dong, Hokkien, Hainan. I'm not sure whether there are Thai words came from these dialects or not since I can speak only teochew.

As for Hokkien and Teochew, both dialects are quite similar. If you can understand Hokkien you might be able to understand Teochew too but not all, and vice versa. So, Hokkien might have an influence on Thai language as well.

Mandarin is the national language(普通话) in China. If compare it with Thai language, it's like central Thai language which every people is supposed to understand it.

[Glenn Slayden]

We also have a category of Taechew words. Let me know if there are more you'd like to add or existing words in our dictionary which should be included there.

Glenn

[David and Bui]

The Royal Institute online website has a short article regarding the influence of Chinese languge on Thai, and, surprisingly, vice versa. I'll send the article as an attachment to an email to Glenn.

[Rikker]

There's a 1983 Master's thesis (in Thai) from a Chula student on Chinese loanwords in Thai, Thai title คำยืมภาษาจีนในภาษาไทยปัจจุบัน. I have a photocopy of it, which I've been meaning to delve into for a while now.

Here is a link to the abstract in both languages, along with some other info.

I'm all for discussing the nitty-gritty of specific words, I find it fascinating.

In looking at the influence of Chinese in Thai, we have to distinguish between land-born and sea-born loans. It's not entirely that simple, but it's an important distinction.

The land-born loans are much older, and thus don't "feel" Chinese to Thais. Loans like the Thai numbers, สอง สาม สี่ ห้า หก เจ็ด แปด เก้า, or horse ม้า, or (I suspect) grammatical words like แล้ว, or many other old Chinese words which are hidden within Thai compounds. Ajarn Prapin of Chula has suggested that, for example, จัก in รู้จัก comes from Middle Chinese *sjek "to know, recognize", or that ผาก in หน้าผาก comes from Old Chinese **blag "forehead."

Nearly all newer loans come from Min Nan dialects, predominantly Teochew and Hokkien. These are "sea-born," because they came to Thailand with immigrants who sailed to Thailand mostly within the last two centuries (but dating back in smaller numbers much farther). Many Thais can recognize these loans because they are more recent and more obviously Chinese.

Of the more recent sea-born loans, we can often see the sound changes of Min Nan dialects, like the /f/ to /h/ sound change. That's why the word for "feng shui" in Thai is ฮวงจุ้ย, or why Thais call the province Fujian ฮกเกี้ยน. Hokkien is the local pronunciation, Fujian is the Mandarin pronunciation (just like Peking/Beijing--Thai still uses ปักกิ่ง, showing the Southern influence).

If I'm way off base in anything, somebody let me know. I'm only a hobbyist in this area.

[David and Bui]

Rikker,

How may one take you up on the offer of a copy of the Chula paper? Is it in pdf format?

[Rikker]

It's in the to-scan pile (which is still very large). I have access to a document feeder scanner, so it's just a matter of letting the machine do its job and then compiling the images to PDF and/or DjVu. I'll let you know what I manage to get it done.