Another Way Out

[Mark Yong]

SimL wrote:
I wasn't aware of the term "huan-lang". AFAIK, it's not used in Penang

Hi, Sim,

Nope, neither have I heard it in Penang. In fact, the only other variation I have heard, and this is from non-Penang Hokkien strains, is huan-a-kiaN.

[SimL]

Okay, I really, really feel this needs correction.

Hehe! You just beat me to it.

Indeed, this is what I too had in mind. And it's also one of the topics which has been covered before. This is the old link (towards the bottom, 1 Aug 2009): viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3269&p=24707&hilit=kalinga#p24707.

[SimL]

Even if they know how to speak hokkien, they won't know the exact meaning as they don't know the hanzi for it. A lot of chinese also don't know the original meaning of huan na let alone malays.

Indeed, this is a very valid point. I had no idea of any other meaning than "Malay" for all my youth. For me, it's not a racist term at all. In fact, it's quite neutral. (Well, as neutral as such a term could be, given the political situation.)

[xng]

http://www.visvacomplex.com/Keling_English_Version.html
http://www.sabrizain.org/malaya/keling.htm

Mark,

My internet readings and yours are different.

I have heard of many origins for this word 'keling' too and one of it was the 'cling' sound of their leg. I have also read about the 'kalinga' but I don't think it is the right origin for the following reasons:

1. The tamils come from many places in south india and not just one particular place call 'kalinga'. It is just like saying that all chinese are Hokkien even though they come from many parts of southern china.

2. If it is indeed a place name in india, why should the tamils feel offended when we call them 'keling' ? Unless it's related to a particular custom of theirs which is the bell.

3. If you argue based on majority of people from India, wouldn't it make more sense to call them 'tam mi' for 'tamil' ?

4. If you argue based on port of call, wouldn't all chinese be called 'chuan chiu' because Quanzhou was the main port of call for china ?

5. that article you quoted even have an error.
"the Malay language, the name 'Keling' which is a derivative of Kalinga, became the common name for all Indians. The Chinese call them as 'Kleynga' They usually add a suffix 'Ki' which means 'devil'. "

Ki doesn't mean devil ! What he means is most probably 'kia' which means person or child.

Anyway, I am not forcing my beliefs on you and you have the right to believe whatever origin you want.

I have also heard of conflicting views on the origin of bak kut teh, some say it is invented in china, some say klang, some say singapore.... so unless there's solid proof, i will just put it as 'unresolved'.

PS. We all have differing opinions so we agree to disagree and most importantly, NOT behave like that uncivilised Ah Bin.

[Mark Yong]

xng,

xng wrote:
My internet readings and yours are different.

Well then, to put the matter to rest, would you care to share them with us? I hope they are proper references, and not, say, informal blog or Forum postings. You have raised a sensitive topic here, so I would strongly recommended that proper references in defence of it are duly provided.


History is not perfect. For better or for worse, there are many unfortunate errors in standards, etymology and terminology that have been accepted as the norm over passage of time.

Columbus incorrectly referred to the American Continent as the "New India", and as a result, today we have inherited the erroneous term "Red Indians". Genetically, they are closer to East Asians (many millennia ago, when what we now know as Asia and the Americas were once a single continent).

Long before China was aware of nations apart from themselves, they thought they were the centre of the world, hence 中國. Now that we all know this to be untrue, would you want to tell China to change the two-millennia year-old name of their country now?


xng, I am not arguing about what is categorically right or wrong. What I am asking on behalf of the Forum is that you keep an open mind to possibilities - unless, of course, there is already sufficient facts and figures in the literature. I don't think any of us here are formally-trained archaeologists, historians or linguists who are in a position to declare or write-off anything. Going back to my main point: I want to caution on this specific and sensitive topic about the term 'keling' - we need to be careful about what we post as apparent 'fact' on this public Forum.

[xng]

xng,

xng wrote:
My internet readings and yours are different.

Well then, to put the matter to rest, would you care to share them with us? I hope they are proper references, and not, say, informal blog or Forum postings. You have raised a sensitive topic here, so I would strongly recommended that proper references in defence of it are duly provided.

I found it, read....so don't accuse me of simply saying things...

http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.a ... us/4092855

"There’s also another undocumented version of how Indian girls, especially dancers, wore anklets which produced the clinking sound and this eventually became identified with that particular community"

However, it also pointed out a few more origins.

I don't find the kalinga origin feasible, look at the map here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalinga,_India

The indians in SEA are usually of Tamil ethnicity (correct me if I am wrong). All tamils come from tamil nadu, so there is no overlap between kalinga and tamil nadu.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_Nadu

In ancient china, india was referred to as 'Thin Juk' or 'Chulia/chola', none of which is close to the sound 'keling'.

[Ah-bin]

PS. We all have differing opinions so we agree to disagree and most importantly, NOT behave like that uncivilised Ah Bin.

Just doing my job...and as I've said before I don't mind different "opinions", I just don't like people making up stories (still haven't got to the bottom of the "5000 year old character for 人".... or 處 meaning "opportunity"). I'm not accusing you of making this Kaling stuff up though. It's a commonly believed folk etymology, not your own creation, but I'm not surprised to find you repeating it.

I would also say that at least I am civilised enough to admit it when I make mistakes, instead of ignoring other people's counter-arguments and leaping to another subject when I can no longer justify my beliefs.

Anyway let's have a look at the flimsiness of some of xng's points:

1. The tamils come from many places in south india and not just one particular place call 'kalinga'. It is just like saying that all chinese are Hokkien even though they come from many parts of southern china.

Ah, but this actually happens a lot in the world. Finns call Estonians "Virulainen" when Viru is actually only a tiny part of Estonia (a province on the coast with which they had the most contact), In English people refer to the Netherlands as Holland, even though it is only one area of the country (again on the coast), and the Russians and Hungarians (and Uighurs, although they can get arrested for doing it) call Chinese "Khitai" which is the name of the people who founded the dynasty of the Liau 遼, even though the Khitai only ruled a tiny part of China. People in America call Britain "England" even whe referring to Scotland and Wales. Muslims called all Europeans "Franks" because the Franks were the main European kingdom they were fighting with. Want more examples closer to home? The other article talks about Bengali used as a reference for Punjabis!

2. If it is indeed a place name in india, why should the tamils feel offended when we call them 'keling' ? Unless it's related to a particular custom of theirs which is the bell.

People get offended by names for many different reasons, and the most innocent names can become offensive when there is friction between groups. Polish people are offended by "Polak" in the US, even though it is phonologically closer to what they call themselves than the word "Polish", and Jewish people usually don't like if you refer to them as "Jew" rather than "Jewish". There is nothing inherently bad in the etymology of "Polak" and "Jew" it is the social context in which these names are used that makes them offensive.
Other names (like Hoan-a) start out as offensive but can become the "normal" names if people do not know their origins. This is nothing to do with being literate in characters either. If I call you "twit" you don't need to know how to spell it or it's etymology to get offended. Offence through naming is not based on etymology alone.

3. If you argue based on majority of people from India, wouldn't it make more sense to call them 'tam mi' for 'tamil' ?

Well, it might, but when the name "Keling" was adopted the linguistic makeup of the sojourners to the Straits may have been different from what it is today. Once names are adopted they become receptacles for all sorts of people, whether they be linguistically related or otherwise, like "Indians".

4. If you argue based on port of call, wouldn't all chinese be called 'chuan chiu' because Quanzhou was the main port of call for china ?

The reason why this did not happen is perhaps because Choan-chiu was never the only port the ancestors of the Malays had contact with, or even the first port of call for the Malay world when they first began their intercourse with the Chinese Empires (this accolad belongs to Tongking), by the time Choan-chiu beame important, the ancestors of the Malays were obviously aware that Choan-chiu was part of a larger whole. Maybe they were less aware of this as regards the people from Kalinga, maybe it's because Kalinga referred to an entire region along the coast rather than a single port city.

5. that article you quoted even have an error.
"the Malay language, the name 'Keling' which is a derivative of Kalinga, became the common name for all Indians. The Chinese call them as 'Kleynga' They usually add a suffix 'Ki' which means 'devil'. "

Ki doesn't mean devil ! What he means is most probably 'kia' which means person or child.

I think the error here is merely one of poor spelling - he means "kui" 鬼 (in Sin-ning I believe it is actually pronounced closer to "ki" and the Sino-Japanese reading of the character is "ki"), and yes, whatever it may mean now (usually ghost) it has been commonly translated as "devil" as in "foreign devil".

Here is what the Oxford English Dictionary says about the origin of "Kling"

Malay Keling Tamil, < Kalinga an old name for a strip of coast along the Bay of Bengal.

I haven't checked the "Dictionary of Loan-words in Indonesian and Malay" yet, I expect it will come up with the same origin.

I'm sure the people who compiled the OED were more careful in checking out etymologies of words than a journalist at the Star. I also doubt there is any "academic" debate about the etymology of the term, more likely there is a lot of non-academic debate based on hearsay and carried on by people like xng.

[Mark Yong]

xng wrote:
I found it, read....so don't accuse me of simply saying things...

http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.a ... us/4092855

xng,

Please read the entire article in its full and proper context, and not just paragraph #5 in isolation to support the claim. For your information, I have also read this article before.

If you read the first five (5) paragraphs properly, you will find that the author listed the anklet proposition together with the equally "surprising common belief" that the word came from bells on cow's necks (paragraph #4). And did you not notice the qualifying phrase "undocumented version"?

xng wrote:
My internet readings and yours are different.

Readings different, yes. Message and proposition different, no.

For lo and behold - starting from paragraph #6, the author proceeds to cite (note: not quote) historical references pointing to Kalinga as the origin of the word.

The author's intention was first to list out the myths, and then debunk them with historical support to the contrary - can you see the flow?

I am not accusing you of simply saying things without providing citations. But this is a case of incorrect citation. Don't you think you have taken your nominated citation out of its proper context, and forced a square peg into a round hole? I don't think Mr. Yoga, the Star journalist who wrote that article, would be pleased to know that you quoted him as implying that the term keling did, in fact, originate from the sound of the dancers' anklets - which he did not. If you are going to quote a reference in support of the theory, then please quote one that categorically states so.

[Ah-bin]

I'm sure the people who compiled the OED were more careful in checking out etymologies of words than a journalist at the Star.

Well, I owe the Star journalist Mr. Yoga an apology for my disparaging remarks, that's what comes from not reading what he wrote in context and taking something xng said was an accurate quotation. Obviously Mr. Yoga has been doing his etymological homework after all.

[Mark Yong]

If I may add one more historical citation to cap this off:

Murray, John. "Transactions of the society instituted in Bengal, for inquiring into the history and antiquities, the arts, sciences, and literature of Asia, Volume 10". (1811). Page 171

Here is the link to the page:
http://books.google.com/books?id=uJMBAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA171

Quote: "...for the Malays, at this very period, know the Coromandel coast by no other name than Tana Keling, the land of Keling or Kalinga: a multitude of compositions, current among them, profess to be translations from the Basa-Keling, or Kalinga language..."

The key phrase here is "know...by no other name".

This is not a citation from a late-20th or early-21st century book, where one could dismiss it by arguing that the facts may have been lost over time. This essay was written in the early 19th century, "at this very period" when the term was in commonly-known use.

As you correctly point out, xng, you are free to disagree and choose what you want to believe. And so shall the rest of us.