Re: tonal languages

>On Wed, Jan 15, 2003 at 07:53:39PM +0000, wayne chevrier wrote:
>>  "H. S. Teoh" nevesht:
>>  [snip]
>>  >
>>  >Interesting. I wonder if these variations correspond with different
>>  >regions in Fuqian province? My grandparents are from Xiamen area. My
>>  >grandmother always referred to China as "teng3 su~a1", if that means
>>  >anything to you. :-)
>>  >
>>  Is that the some as |tian shan| "Heavenly Mountain"?
>[snip]
>
>No, the Hokkien word for "heaven" or "sky" is /t_hi~1/. "Heavenly
>Mountain"  would be /t_hi~3 su~a1/ (tone 3 due to sandhi).
>
>/teng3/ here, sandhied from /teng5/, means "long". (Or it could be
>something else, I'm not 100% sure.)
Actually, it's Mandarin "tang2" as in Tang Dynasty "tang". "sua~1" is
indeed "mountain". Tang Mountain was a name used by (older)
(pre-liberation?) Taiwanese and "Hua2qiao2" (overseas Chinese) to
refer to China.

Kou

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