Malaysian Hokkien

[hong]

Dear Niu,
Thanks a lot for confirming that duit is from Dutch. mata is from a buddhist language called pali( also the same in sanskrit) -meaning -a view ,so I think malay just changed it to mean eye .we use eye to see things besides brain to think.Most Malay/indonesia have the same religion with thai ,burmese until they changed it to Islam.I don't think mata has anything to do with minnan.

[hong]

If Indonesian fixed Jawa language as official language,then we will have big trouble talking to indonesian workers in malaysia.
Niu,I think this is the benzi for kai
http://www.muh123.idv.tw/taigi/14.bmp

[hong]

one a free article on min by Ting Pang hsin
http://sunzi1.lib.hku.hk/hkjo/article.j ... sue=350011

[hong]

above article is interesting because he suggested there are two wu languages.

[hong]

I just found an article about malay language in above web site
http://sunzi1.lib.hku.hk/hkjo click accept then type malay language to search an article by lin lien-hsien.She also wrote about teochew language in here .Kahwin is persian ,she said.

[Niuc]

Alex, you misunderstood me I didn't say that "mata" (mat-/mak-) was borrowed from Hokkien but distantly related to Chinese "mak"/"bak". I agree that "mata" is a native Malay word. I did mention "not necessarily through borrowing from each other". I am not sure about Old Malay but in Indonesian "mata-mata" is spy and police is "polisi".

Hong, "mata" is definitely an Austronesian word, not borrowed from Pali. Eye is "mata" not only in Malay but also in Tagalog (Pilipino), Maori (New Zealand), Madagaskar and Taiwan aboriginal languages. It's "maka" in Hawaiian.

Another sample of distant connection among languages: in Mandarin, Manchurian word for mother and father are transcribed as "er-niang" and "a-ma", very similar to Tapanuli/Batak in Indonesia "inang" and "amang". I don't believe that one borrowed from another but that they are somehow distantly related.

[%sig%]

[hong]

Above link couldn't work but just go to the main page further above , click search to get the article .
Niu,It is not important to search where mata came from in malay.It doesn't concern us about min language studies.Above wu dialect article about min is more important.malay doesn't interested about which word they came from like sekolah is portugese.lampu is dutch,jam is persian ,etc.

[Peace of mind]

Eng Wai wrote:
>And could someone please tell the origin of lui (money)? Is it a modified loan word from duit (malay) or originally a chinese word
Alex Ng wrote:
>1. Lui is from the malay word "Duit" meaning money.

"Lui" is Cantonese and I am not from Malaysia, Singapore etc

[AlexNg]

>"mata" is definitely an Austronesian word, not borrowed from Pali. Eye >is "mata" not only in Malay but also in Tagalog (Pilipino), Maori (New >Zealand), Madagaskar and Taiwan aboriginal languages. It's "maka" in >Hawaiian.

This confirms the origin of the malay word "mata". All these languages belong to the "malayo-polynesian" group and they are all descendents from the same ancestors few thousands years ago.

[hong]

In free online article about hainan from chinese.pku.There is mentioned lui as money is a word from zhuang people and few others in china and vietnam.That is good enough to explain why cambodia using lui as money.It is not from portugese like duit from dutch in malay.
That article said hainan use lui maybe from duit in malay like liulian from durian.But I am not sure I can agree with that.It is just an accident for these two words to be viewed as same words from ducth..
Maybe people from hokkien mixed with zhuang and others on their way to siouth east asia 200 years ago.They just learnt the word
In putonghua dict there is mentioned money for singapore as 叻.