Interesting Burmese word origins
2007 July 16
A graphic I made, showing some of the linguistic diversity found in the Burmese language.
Burmese has a hodgepodge of words that come from other languages, some that would surprise most people, at least me. It’s a given that many Burmese words come from Pali (from Buddhism) or English (from colonial rule), but quite a number of words also come from obscure and seemingly unrelated languages to Burmese. I’ve compiled a list of the most interesting ones.
- The Burmese word for noodles, khauk hswe (ခေါက်ဆွဲ) comes from Shan ‘khauk hswoi’. Perhaps it’s just me, but I would have expected the word to have been native in Burmese, considering how ubiquitous it is in Burmese cuisine.
- The Burmese word for flag, a lan (အလံ) comes from Arabic ‘alam’. This one was shocking to me, because Arabic seems like a very unlikely language to have influenced Burmese. But I was mistaken, because Arab traders first made contact with Burma during the 1400s and their ships probably carried flags, a term not present in the Burmese language at the time.
- The Burmese word for fish sauce, ngan bya yay (ငပြာရည်) comes from Thai ‘namplah’. I always thought the ngan in ngan bya yay means “salty” (because salty is ‘ngan’ in Burmese), but I found out today, for the first time, they’re spelled differently in Burmese.
- The Burmese word for gun, tha nat (သေနတ်) comes from Dutch ’snaphaan’, which is a very primitive firearm. At first thought, one would wonder how a Dutch word became incorporated into the Burmese language. However, it is because the Netherlands’ Dutch East India Company first began trading in the 1600s with lower Burma and ended in the early 1700s. With the Dutch came their guns, and thus their word for gun was incorporated in Burmese. It’s also interesting to note that in Burmese, the ‘th’ sound represents the ’s’ sound (that’s why the Thai Songkran is Thingyan in Burmese), so back then, Burmese speakers might have said sanat.
- The Burmese word for pineapple, na nat thi (နာနတ်သီး) comes from French ananas. The French were not as intimately tied in Burmese history as the British, but they apparently did make come cultural contributions. I’m assuming that the French either traded pineapples or introduced pineapple cultivation in Burma during the late 1800s (according to the Burmese government website).
- The Burmese word for money, pat hsan, also pronounced paik san (ပိုက်ဆံ) comes from Hindi ‘paik sa’. I remember watching several Bollywood movies, including Taxi No. 9211 (which was a good film), where the characters constantly said ‘paik sa’ or something along those lines whenever the word ‘money’ popped up in the subtitles. Perhaps coincidence, I thought, but I was mistaken. Hindi lent Burmese the word for ‘money’, which one would assume is a very basic word. I assume that the word was probably was carried over when Burma was an British Indian province.
- The Burmese word for window, ga dwin pauk (ပြာတင်းပေါက်) comes from Mon ‘batang’. This one took me by surprise, in both its spelling and its origin. I always used to wonder why people say ga dwin pauk, even though it’s spelled pya tin pauk. But I guess a lot of architectural terms, even those as basic as window, come from Mon, because Burmans adopted a lot of Mon culture.
- The Burmese word for clothing or shirt, ein gyi (အင်္ကျေး) comes from Hindi ‘amgiya’. This is very interesting, because the modern Burmese longyi comes from India, the result of British colonization (beforehand, the Burmese longyi was more elaborate and looked similar to Thai sarongs). Apparently the Burmese borrowed more than the sarong from India.
- The Burmese word for foot (the measurement), pay (ပေ) comes from Portuguese ‘pé’. This was absolutely shocking. Myanmar is almost an anomaly in not using the metric system for measurements. It uses a wide range of traditional measurements like peiktha and English measurements like the pound. Originally, I assumed that pay was an attempt to sound out English “foot”, because Burmese has no equivalent sound for the “f” sound and usually substitutes the “p” sound. But, it’s interesting that the Burmese word for foot actually comes from Portuguese, and I have no idea how they introduced the word into Burmese. Also interesting is the Burmese word for water fountain/water tap, bone hmaing, also pronounced bone baing (ဘုံဘိုင်), which comes from Portuguese as well.
- The Burmese word for garage or warehouse, go daung (ဂိုဒေါင်) comes from Malaysian ‘godong’. I’m not sure how this word transferred into Burmese, but my guess is that during British rule, Malaysian shippers and traders who transported goods to and from Burma introduced this word into the general populace, or that because lower coastal Burma is so close to Malaysia that a few words such as garage slipped into the Burmese vocabulary.
Update: Sorry, the Zawgyi pseudo-Unicode doesn’t work on WordPress for some reason, at least for me.
Update 2: I’m using Unicode 5.1 for this. You just need to install the ပီတောက် font here: http://scripts.sil.org/Padauk.
Well, the Portuguese were as common the Bay of Bengal as the Dutch traders were. I read a lengthy article on the history of Arakan that I can’t find now, but was quite interesting and enlightening. At least during that time period, the Arakanese and Bangladeshi rulers had as much to do with Dutch and Portuguese in the area – who had settlements on some islands – as they did with the Burmans to the East. I would expect that a few Portuguese words had slipped in, and I imagine there are probably more either in Burmese or in the languages/dialects spoken around the Bay of Bengal. “Foot” was probably a common measurement back then, even if it wasn’t standardized like today. Although, there are also probably some words that just get adopted because they are easier/shorter/better sounding than the original word, and not necessarily because there was a specific need for it. American English also has lots of ‘hidden’ loan words that were brought back by soldiers during the wars. Ie. “Skosh”, is from tsukoshi – “A little bit”. We didn’t need the word, but it’s easy and fun and quickly became slang in many parts of the country.
I don’t know any Burmese, but your language posts are still interestin! It does show a lot about the history of a place.
Sorry – tsukoshi is Japanese in case that wasn’t obvious.
so interesting…I think Burmese itself is mix blood of Indian ancestors and Tibatan ( Chinese ) ancestors.
Yeah , you are right. First Burmese king was Anurahddhin ( known as King Anawrhata ). I dare not say this when my late predecessor arthuba ne win was in power because he declared he alone was a pure bamar race and the only one of the kind in Burma.
‘Tha Nat’ originated from Dutch?
Is it not the shorten’d form of ‘Thay naing thaw latt nat’? I might be wrong but…
Very nice!
Which dictionaries did you get the etymologies from?
I will be on the lookout for the earliest texts I can spot these words in, like U Kala’s chronicle or inscriptions.
The etymology for flag is particularly interesting since pennants were used in military battles and campaigns fairly early, I believe, will have to check the words they use for them.
Luce’s old Burmese word list is useful too because it cites Pagan era inscriptions using the syllable/word which is going quite far back in time.
Looking forward to seeing more of this sort of posting.
Might even start blogging these myself, since I’m going through the example inscription sentences in Luce’s word/syllable list right now.
jonfernquest: The dictionary I used was the “Myanmar-English Dictionary,” published by the Myanmar Language Commission along with an old copy of Tet Toe’s dictionary.
Very interesting . I’ve come across many of these myself .
A few thoughts though :
The term Khao soi in Tai ( Shan ) has no meaningful meaning and it would be interesting to know which tones are used . ( “Khao soi / Khauk hswoi” means “end of the lane” whereas there is some semblance of root origin in the Burmese term which might be from lit . “fold – pull” referring to the process of noodle making before the invention of noodle presses or a derivation from an original word “kauk swe” – meaning to pull “kauk” which is one Burmese word for rice . Kauk may have ultimately come from the Tai term “kao”. )
The signature dishes of Chiang Mai ( Lan Na ) both have Burmese provenance . The one-stop noodle soup meal Khao Soi seems to be a derivation of Ohn No Khauk Swe in it’s use of coconut milk , egg noodles and curry and Pork Heng Lay which is a corruption of Pork Hin Lay ( Jet ) . It is not clear whether the aquisitions are more recent or go back to when Lan Na was controlled by Pegu and then subsequently Ava in the 1550s – 1770s and therefore whether it came directly , via the Shan ( Tai ) or via Panthay ( Hui ) traders .
Although the language is Tibeto-Burman (Sino-Tibetan ) , the Burmese are made up of mainly Tibeto-Burman elements mixed with Austro-asiatic and some Tai . The identity was most likely a political invention in the 11th – 12th century to unite different ethnicities in the Bagan empire . There is some sprinkling of Siamese ( Mon-Khmer-Tai-Lao-Malay themselves ) , Indian , Chinese , Malay , Portuguese and probably original negrito and like any nation founded by empire building we are a mongrel race . Simply a hybrid of Indian and Chinese is an assumption that’s unfortunately popular but incorrect.
I have come across both Bangladeshi and Indian Bengali friends who tell me that longyi ( lon chi ) is a Burmese word like their term for “Burmese” style noodles which they call “Khaow suey” . Whereas it’s pretty clear that the cylindrical closed design is relatively modern and probably came from Bengal like the fashion for the ubiquitous plaid or checks , the name conforms to linguistic monosyllabism ( lon and chi both separate words combined to give an appropriate meaning – the name longyi though may be no more than 150 years old in keeping with when the Burmese acquired the design ) .
Ngan Pya is likely to be from Nam Pla but the Thai word “Kapi” comes from the Burmese “Nga Pi” ( lit. pressed fish ) . There is an edict from King Mongkut’s reign decreeing the name change from Nga Pi to Ka Pi .
It would probably be unlikely that older Burmese text / inscriptions would refer to common mundane items and issues in depth since most were either grandiose histories of monarchs or religious texts . There is even great difficulty searching for the etymological origin of Mohinga ( esp. why it is refered to as “kha” or bitter when the modern version isn’t ) .
There are probably more Mon and Tai words in Burmese than the average Burman would even guess. This is for obvious reasons not terribly surprising .
Thanks for all of the information. You have some very interesting comments. I really appreciate it.
I think ‘kauk’ in Burmese may have come from Tai-Shan. A friend of mine who speaks Thai said “sticky rice” is ‘kao hnyaw’ and in Burmese it’s ‘kauk hnyin,’ but I could be wrong.
And I believe Mon shares a lot of more root origins with Burmese than Tai, because they’re a lot less obvious in many instances. For example, I just recently learned that ’sa-nit’ (method) is from Mon, which caught me by surprise.
I have misplaced a research document which lists all the terms that various ethnic groups in SE Asia use in wet rice cultivation . It looked at the relationship between terms and whether this could link / confirm that the Tai-Kadai group were the original cultivators before Han expansion . There are many words that have similarity including kauk and hsan as well as sabah . It may well be that all these terms stem from Tai .
Kao is similar to the Burmese term Kauk and as you say Kauk Hnyin can be Kao Hnyaw, Kao Niew etc depending on the Tai dialect . Sticky rice certainly has its centre in Eastern Burma , Northern Thailand and North Western Laos ( the home of the “Shan” ) .
I am in no doubt that Kauk Hnyin is a Shan word . I’m just not very sure about Khauk Swe .
Then why don’t you use Unicode 5.0 encoding like Zinyaw
http://zinyaw.wordpress.com – see preface and learn something, a peice of cake after that.
please change” piece ” in correct spelling as it is a typing error
I doubt that ‘paik san’ (money) is derived from the Hindi ‘pehsa’. If you look at each syllable in ‘paik san’, it literally means ‘hold rice’. The inhabitants of ancient Burma would’ve used rice predominantly to barter for other essentials. So when the concept of money was eventually introduced to Burma, those notes and coins that comprised money came to be perceived as a kind of rice that can be ‘held’ and used to trade or barter.
However there are other Burmese words which are without any doubt derived from Hindi such as aloo(potato), gobi(cabbage), masala, palata(paratha), pankah(fan).
“Godown” is an indian term but not Hindi. It’s the other ethnic south-indian language. The original term is “gaḍaṅgu”.
“Ananas” for pineapple is a native american term. No wonder they have it in abundance in Hawaii.
“Longyi ” derived from Urdu lungī, from Persian, variant of lung.
The derivation of “Paik San” is obvious. Paik San, Paisa, Money, Money. You got my point. I really love the amazing creativity of the individual who posted the origin of the world so innovately.
The original word for Ein gyi is “Khamige” not ‘amgiya’ even though close enough.
New words for you.
The word “Namuna” as in trailers at the theaters is also indian “Namuna”.
I think, (nothing to back me up here), the word “Gar Wun” for frock for ladies is English “Gown”.
“Akkhaya” for alphabet is from “Akchara” org. Hindi.
That’s all for now. I’ll keep you posted as I recall back.
What about Potato? In Burmese we called “Ah Loo”. I think, it is from India because my friend from India also called Potatoe as “Ah Loo”.
What about “Pauk Se” in Burmese. I think from China, they call it “Pau” (Steam bun)
Also “Nan Pya” in Burmese, I think is is probably from India, Indian also called it as “Nann”(Flat Flour baked in the charcoal oven)(indian bread??)
That’s right.
Aaloo(Potato) is Aaloo in Hindi.
Gawbee(Cabbage) is also Gobi in Hindi.
Nan Pya is Naan in Hindi.
Palata is obviously Paratha.
Samusa is Samosa.
Masala is Masaala.
Zeera is Jeera
To Shay(Flat Indian Pancake) is Dosa
Gari Gari(Again and Again is Gari Gari
That’s all for now.
Why do burmese call the chinese tayoke (written with an r and a p) and indians kala?
Where do these words come from?
When did burmese stop pronouncing r?
In the written language rakauk is still distict from yapalet (e.g. kra: is to hear and kya: is tiger) and of course Mranma. Rakhaings still pronounce the r correctly and also in prayers in Pali the r is pronounced correctly (like in arahan )
Bodomar-
It’s interesting that you mention that. In older times, the Burmese word for “China” was “sein taing” (စိန့်တိုင်း), “taing” meaning ‘country’ and “sein” from Pali “cina” (where “China” comes from too). I’m not sure where “tayoke” (တရုတ်) comes from–it may be Pali or Sanskrit-derived. “Kala” (ကုလား) is from Pali ‘kula’.
Yakhaing people still pronounce the “r” because starting in middle Burmese, when the Yakhaing split from the Bamar and moved along the coast, they preserved that pronunciation while the Bamar merged it with the “y” sound. Some Pali words use “r” but others use “y” or “l”. Think of ‘taste’ (အရသာ), which can be “ayatha” or “aratha”. And ‘animal’ (တရိစ္ဆာန်) which can be “tareiksan” or “taleiksan”. I think this is because modern Burmese prefers the “y” and “l” sound to the “r” sound.
Also, on another note, many Burmese words are no longer pronounced as they are spelt. For example, the Burmese kyat (ka-gyi + ya-pin + pa-zauk + a-that) should be pronounced “kyap” with a “p” sound but that sound was lost in middle Burmese, similar to Chinese languages like Shanghainese (it used to have ending “k”, “p”, and “t” sounds like Burmese but they became glottal stops)
Anand Raj–
There’s also many other words
“namuna” (sample) from Hindi ‘namuna’
“bilat” (Britain) from Hindi ‘wilayat’
“bali” (mosque) from Hindi ‘balli’
“zani” (wife) from Hindi ‘jani’
“zagana” (tweezers) from Hindi ‘jagana’
“malaing” (cheese) from Hindi ‘mala’
“muli” (bolts) from Hindi ‘muli’
And a ton more.
I have a few more questions:
1. Is the burmese word for tea “laphek” (ka that) derived from a Mon or Palaung word?
2. The word for sugar “thakra” (pronounced thagya nowadays) is quite similar to sugar given the fact that burmese like to switch s to th (in Pali words that happens all the time like thamma thambuddatha)
3. What does “wadi” (wriiten wa ti) mean as in Erawadi (Ayeyawadi), Hanthawadi, Myawadi etc.?
4. Shouldn’t we retain the r in burmese at least in writing like Mranma instead of Myanmar (ra kauk instead of yapelet) Kra: (hear) is not the same as kya: (tiger) although we pronounce it the same way (except for Rakhaings and for religious words in Pali). Does the mon language have an r?
The Arkanese language/dialect seems to be getting alot of attention here. But another dialect of Burmese which I as a Bamar find it more fascinating, and even more difficult to understand than Arakanese is the Dawei or Tanintharyi dialect.
I’ve only heard the Dawei dialect spoken a few times in my life, and I’ll very quickly list some of the unique features of the Dawei dialect (Of course any Tanintharyi person here can correct any mistakes I made).
* Glottal stops in the standard dialect have been completely reduced to open vowels. eg. “louk” = to do/work —> “lo”
* Verb particle “de” or “te” has become just “e”. So “louk-te” –> “lo e”
* The ra-gouk in native Burmese words which is almost always pronounced in the standard dialect with a “y” is always pronounced with an “l”. eg “Pyan” = to return —> “Plan”.
* The “tha” consonant is always pronounced as an “s”. So “thwaa-de” = to go would become “swaa-e”.
* The nasalised vowel “in” in standard Burmese is always pronounced as “an”. eg “alinn” = light would become “alann”.
Of course there’re several more key unique distinguishing features of this dialect but I’m not a “Tanintharyian” so that’s all I can explain.
Bodomar –
Laphet might actually be Burmese. I know that ‘phet’ is another synonym for ‘ywet’ (leaf). But I’m not 100% sure about it.
Thagya is from Sanskrit, not Pali, but since the ’s’ sound became a ‘th’ sound in Burmese (but, as Yadana [below] said, ‘tha’ (the letter) is still pronounced ’sa’ in Dawei. That’s why Burmese ‘Thingyan’ (spelled ‘Sangkran’ (tha+nga+a-that + ka-gyi+ya-yit+na+a-that) is ‘Songkran’ in Thai, because the Burmese, Thai, Mon, Cambodian, Lao, etc. alphabets all originate from the same alphabet that Indian languages like Hindi use. Also, we can still see that the letter ‘tha’ still acts sort of as an ’s’ sound when British is spelled in Burmese: ‘bri-ti-sha’ (with the sha spelled ‘tha+ya-pin+ha-hto’, and the ‘th’ becomes an ’sh’ sound).
As for ‘wati,’ I know that Ayeyawadi comes from the name of a Hindu god ‘Iravati,’ so I did a little research and found that the root ‘vati’ (Burmese ‘wati’ ) is Sanskrit and means ‘flowing’ (http://vedabase.net/v/vati). So my guess is that Ayeyawadi means ‘flowing elephant river,’ (because Ayeya, or Erawan as the Thais call it, is an mythical elephant) Hanthawadi means ‘flowing hintha river’ and Myawadi means ‘flowing emerald river.’
And for spelling reform, of keeping or making obsolete the ‘r’ sound, I personally think that we should retain it, so we can trace word origins more easily. For example, although most Burmese pronounce jewel ‘yadana’ instead of Pali ‘ratana’ (which Thai uses), it’s more helpful for people to know the origins. Mon does have an “r” sound. Spelling reforms, however are common in Burmese language history. Until the 1600s, standard Burmese had a ‘la-hswe’ (just like the ‘wa-hswe’, except with the ‘l’ sound), when it was replaced with ‘ya-yit’ and ‘ya-pin’. Imagine people still pronouncing words like ‘kyaung’ (school) like ‘klaung.’ But isolated Burmese groups like the Dawei have retained these features in their dialects.
Yadana-
Thanks for the information.
It does make sense, though that the Dawei still have preserved the ‘la-hswe’ so that words like pyan become plan, because that was reformed in standard Burmese spelling in the 1600s, when the Dawei were geographically isolated from central Burma. The glottal stops that have become open vowels also makes sense. Many related languages like Shanghainese have undergone the same thing, and I expect the glottal stop will slowly disappear in the Burmese language (Burmese words were once pronounced completely, so words like ‘loke’ (work) were ‘loup’, now pronounced ‘lohh’ ) and people in the younger generation are now putting less emphasis on glottal stops.
Aye -
You say that “paiksan” (money ပိုက်ဆံ) means “hold rice,” (ပိုက် စန်) but the “san” (ဆံ) in “paiksan” means “hair” and uses ‘hsa-lein+thay-thay-tin’ (ဆလိမ်+သေးသေးတင်) not ‘hsa-lein+na-ngeh+a-that’ (ဆလိမ်+န+အသတ်)
Can someone enlighten me on the etymology or the origins of these everyday Burmese words which do not seem to be comprised of distinguishable Tibeto-Burman monosyllabic roots.
thinbaw – ship
pehso – male style sarong
htamein/htami – female style sarong
pareetbawga – furniture
ledah – vulture
hle-yak-sit – electricity
kalay – child
dedaa (tantaa) – bridge
degaa – door
nan-yan – wall
beji (pann-chi) – painting
hluttaw – parliament
thanteman – diplomat
I love the way how in the Burmese language compound words that are comprised of monosyllabic roots seem to sound as if they are unbreakable polysyllabic words as a result of voicing of consonants, and full vowels being reduced to a schwa. For example:
thu-taun-sa (beggar) –> thadaunzaa
sa-pwe-htoe (waiter) –> zabwedoe
ko-saa-leh (represetative) –> kozeleh
daa-pyah (armed robber) –> demyah
kuh-tin (bed) –> gedin
Finally, one of my favourite expressions in the Burmese language would have to be ‘kuli kumar’ which is a term for a shrewd deceitful person or act. I’m sure the term originated in the days when many Burmese had a distrust towards those Chettyar money lenders.
Yadana –
wall = nanyan = flank + to surround = “flank that surrounds”
ship = thinbaw = Sanskrit loan
furniture = paribawga = pari + bawga (wealth) = Pali loan
ladah/lindah = vulture = commonly prefixed to bird names + call = “bird who calls”
dada (tanta) = bridge = water + obstruct = “obstructing water”
daga = door = rod + waist= “??”
hluttaw = parliament = release + royal = “royal release” (referring to thatministers release the king from some duties)
thantaman = diplomat = embassy + messenger = “messenger of the embassy”
I’m not sure about hleyatsit (did you mean hlesitdat), bagyi (pan refers to one of 10 Burmese classical arts, pan se myo), pahso or htamein, both of which may not be native Burmese words. Kalay (child) may be Mon, a lot of words that start with ka originate from Mon but are indistinguishable as loans. This may explain why many Burmese say “khalay” instead of “kalay” except for the town of Kalay.
hle-yak-sit = e-lec-tric ??
simply just Burmese mispronunciaton
Oh in that case, hlyat = lightning, sit = pure and dat = energy.
Hi, i’m looking for the translation of the word chocolate in burmese. Can anyone help me please
Isn’t it just transliterated to “chawkalek”? Caramel is “nyaungsee”.
very interesting to know the roots of :Burmese words. Thank you for the discussion that you all have so far.
I am just wondering how about word like ” Love” ah chit come from and “hate” a mone? Does anybody know?
‘Ta-yoke’ might be derived from ‘ka-rake’ of Mon [literally 'kruk' (ka-kyi+ra-yit+
ta-chaung-ngin+ka-kyi+a-that] as many Mon words start with ‘ka’ sound used to be ‘ta’. Then no doubt ‘ka-rake’ in Mon used to be ‘ta-rake’ [literally 'truk' (ta-wan-poo+ra-yit+ta-chaung-ngin+ka-kyi+a-that)]! Here, the ‘ka-that’ ( ‘ka-kyi+
a-that’) in Mon might be changed into ‘ta-that’ (ta-wan-poo+a-that) or ‘pa-that’ (pa
-zoud+a-that) in Burmese. On the other hand, we can also say that Mons loaned this word from Burmese at the time of we-don’t-know. It’s up to you! To confess
honestly, I myself still need the confirmation and you may be the one who could confirm it for everyone!
fuck u all spoiled people.
Around the second world war, a European in China complained he was too tired of seeing people with the same face everyday. Ancient Mranma might’ve have viewed them the same way. That might be the reason why they are called Tayoke. I am not sure, though. Just my thought.
The equivalent of Godown in Malayalam, a south-Indian (Kerala State) language is Gudam. See the similarity.
But the Hindi word for money is Paisa. It is used throught India as equivalent to cash.
’sit’ may be derived from Sudh (Pure), a Sankrit word migrated to other Indian languages.
Vaikom Madhu, Kottayam, Kerala, S.India
Estuu,
That’s what I’ve always thought: Tayoke = different look (from Bamar).
Thant Myint-U writes in several of his books that the Burmese word for “Chinese” (tayoke) is a Burmese corruption of “Turk,” perhaps stemming from the fact that Mongol Turks (the Yuan dynasty) invaded Bagan in the late 1200s.
I rather doubt that since Turk is in English and Burmese call them Tu-ra-ki same as the country Turkey. The Mongol army that invaded Bagan was called Taruk later Tayoke. Did they call themselves Turk?
It’s plausible but I’m not completely convinced.
In TMU’s “The River of Lost Footsteps”, the Pagan invasions were led by a Turkic general named Nasruddin of Bukhara (from today’s Uzbekistan!) It’s well known that soldiers in the Mongol army were drawn from all parts of the Mongol empire–Turks from the Steppe, Han Chinese, etc.
So, the Burmese could have called them Tayoke. Still, it feels very much a conjecture on his part. Mongol invaded Pagan in 1270s and 1280s. It’s quite unlikely that the Burmese hadn’t given a name to the Chinese (only the most populous people on earth!) in the late 13th century. After all, the Burmans themselves came down from Yunnan/Nanzhao only a few centuries earlier. I have to think the Burmese language must have had a term for the paukphaws even then.
It’s a good guess, but just that, in my book.
Hi,
Tayoke – Ta= one, yoke=face so Tayoke= one face ( or ) same face.
Pyinthit = French, France. What about this ? Repair new ?
One thing, Khaukswe, Khauk= fold and swe=pull. Do you see how to make noodle by hand ? That’s it, Don’t think too far.
According to this link, Dr Than Tun’s definition of Tayoke is rebel.
http://navana07.blogspot.com/2009/04/blog-post_23.html
Thant Myint U’s Kalar definition is not correct. Kalar is black in Hindi.
http://utopianvision.co.uk/hindi/dictionary/word/black
Pyinthit is probably a Burmese corruption of ‘française’. Khaukswe has been discussed above.
You rebel against an overlord. I doubt it if we ever lorded over the Tayoke unless they got mixed up with the Shan. Interesting to learn kalar is black in Hindi but it was used for both the white man and Indian alike. Hpyu (white) for Europeans was only suffixed by people to distinguish the two later, not when they were first encountered starting from the Portuguese.
Mon say ‘preng-sit’ for ‘French’ or ‘Francaise’. It’s spelled pa-zout r-rit nga-that: preng, tha-way-htoh tha ta-that: sit so ‘preng-sit’. That might be a gap between Burmese ‘pyinthit’ and French ‘francaise’! In his well-known novel, Thu-kyun-ma-khan-pyi, Tekkatho Pon Naing used ‘paransit’ for ‘French’ or ‘France’.