Re: Blue grass and skies

On Wed, 9 Aug 2000, H. S. Teoh wrote:

> I've been noticing a strangely close correlation between certain Hokkien
> and Korean words, esp. in the pronunciation.
Mandarin is the most "radical" of the Sinitic languages: it has drifted
furthest from the Middle Chinese base.  The Chinese loanwords in Korean
(and Japanese too) preserve something much closer to M.C.

Minnan on the other hand is the most "conservative" Sinitic language;
it doesn't have /f/, which all the others do, for example.  So it is
not surprising that it matches fairly well with archaic forms in
Korean.

--
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
C'est la` pourtant que se livre le sens du dire, de ce que, s'y conjuguant
le nyania qui bruit des sexes en compagnie, il supplee a ce qu'entre eux,
de rapport nyait pas.               -- Jacques Lacan, "L'Etourdit"