From: fstawit@icomp01.lerc.nasa.gov (Tawit Chitsomboon)
Subject: Re: linguistic root of "thai"
Organization: Institute for Computational Mechanics in Propulsion-NASA LeRC
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 22:07:13 GMT


In article <1e7hooINNh3c@ariel.ucs.unimelb.EDU.AU> 
kxc@ariel.ucs.unimelb.EDU.AU (Khuanchai Chooboonraj) writes:
>
>Siam is not a Thai word. Back 100 of years ago when Thai called themself "thai",but when Western/White fleets arrived at Malaya, they asked local ppl there
>about a nation up north of Malaya and were told that "Siam" lived up there.

This is interesting. Another theory (proposed by our die-young genius,
Jit Phumisak) is that Siam is an ancient word; the root of which can be
traced back to the word 'ahom' and 'yueh'. Yueh (or something like that)
is an advanced ethnic group in Southern China whom many experts believe
to be the forefather of the various Tai groups.

>Siam means "Black People". Possibly referred to Khom who lived in Suwannaphum

Funny huh. How WHITE were the Malay people back then? :-)
Thais' color skin vary almost linearly with the latitude, being very dark
in the South to very light in the North. As for the language, a researcher
(Chea Yanchong, who was born in Southern Thailand and now with a Chinese
ethnic research team in Yunnan) has said that the Thai Southern dialect
is strikingly similar to the dialect of (Tai) Lue in Yunnan (China).
He said the two groups can probably talk to one another without a translator.
This is weird since most central Thais would have hard time understanding
their Southern compatriot dialect. How could this leapfrog jump be 
explained?


>there are 60 million Thais in Thailand, 
>100 million Thais in Burma, 

Either this is a typo or you remember incorrectly. Burma has a total 
population of 40 millions including all ethnic minorities. The Shan-Thai
,being the largest minority group, numbers around 10 mill.

>100 million thais in India 

Another typo, should be 10 mill.
Some scholars count these people out as Tai because they seem to have
been fully Indianized and Hindunized. Recently, however there seem
to be a movement to preserve their ancient cultural identity.
I remember (from reading a book) that these people always showed
eagerness and were very helpful to the author once they knew that
she was a Shan Tai. They would always said " Oh! You are my relative."

>and _possibly_ another 100 million Thais in Sothern China.

Now, this is closer. But still about 70 mill off :-)
However, I suspect that the Kwangtung (Cantonese) people might have
shared common heredity with Tais. Their physiques seem different from
the Northen Hans but more similar to Tais (rounder eyes -still
almond shaped in Western standards :-) The ancient Kwangtung language
is similar to Tai languages not only in vocabs but also in its structure.
For example they would put adjectives behind nouns like 'table red'
instead of 'red table' like the majority of other Chinese dialects.
If you included the Cantonese, the 100 mill that you quoted
would be a lot closer.

Could expert in CHinese language tell me what is the meaning of
'kwang' as in kwangtung and kwangsi? It sounds close to Thai word
'KwAAng+' which means a conglomeration of provinces. Laos still
uses KwAAng+ system to partition their country.

If my speculation was true, then the Chinese that emigrated to Thailand
could be our long lost relatives since they all came from KwAAng+Thung" :-)
So, might as well love each other more. (If sharing the same earth is
not a good enough reason.)

I also  suspect that the two large cities in North Vietnam Langson
and Coabang have Tai names. Lang+San+ = On top of the Mountain.
Coa+Bang- = Shielded by the mountain. But I see no Thai scholars
pointed this out. They always tried to distort the pronunciation to
sound as non-Thai as much as possible, notwithstanding the fact that
Tai (NV called Tho) people are majority in that area, even nowadays.

I have much more to say but I know some of you're already itch to type K.
So bye for now.

-Tawit

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