Chinese languages

Thanks for pointing out that there isn't necessarily an equivalent Mandarin word/ideogram or the mistake of equating mei with sui rather than bi. I thought bi was perhaps the literary as opposed to colloquial word. It isn't even a matter of reminding because I am starting from ignorance not forgetfu...

Can someone enlighten me? I've just read Russell Jones' Chinese loan-words in Malay and Indonesian (University of Malaya Press, 2009) which is for me an informative book about the various Hokkien subdialects of those who migrated to the Nanyang. But Jones states there is no Mandarin/Chinese charact...

Thank you very much to all for replies. I am curious about this DNA study on Hokkiens - is there a published source?

Can someone enlighten me? I've just read Russell Jones' Chinese loan-words in Malay and Indonesian (University of Malaya Press, 2009) which is for me an informative book about the various Hokkien subdialects of those who migrated to the Nanyang. But Jones states there is no Mandarin/Chinese characte...