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Very little is known about Austronesians or the people who would become Austronesians. I think Chinese chronicles speak of 'barbarians' south of the Yangtze who were scantily clad and had tattoos. These people were probably similar to the Taiwanese aborigines of today. If they spoke Austronesian they were pushed out, and many were genetically assimilated into the Southern Han today. If you see a Chinese person with a nose as broad as this:
Bolo Yeung has extremely clear Mon-Khmer facial construction of flat broad face+flat broad nose+strong squarish jawline+strong prominent cheekbone.
He came from Guangzhou, China of South-eastern China. People of South-eastern China has some degree of Mon-Khmer mixing(from original/true Vietnamese).
By the way, people of South-western China will have more of Tai-Kadai mixing(from Lao/Thai/Dai/Zhuang who are still majority of the area of South-western China today).
I really can't understand why Vietnamese seem to hated Mon-Khmer heritage of original/true Vietnamese so much? But on another they are extremely proud of the heritage that the Han-Chinese invader brainwashed them to follow?
There is so much irony in this quote that I can't help but laugh at it. Replace 'Vietnamese' with 'Thai-Siamese' and 'Han-Chinese' with 'Tai' and you'll see just how ridiculous you sound .
It's a shame you aspire to be 'pure' Tai like a Vietnamese and not of your true Mon-Khmer heritage, who in my opinion are much more accomplished than Dai-Vietnamese people are.
You say it is impossible for a minority people to shift a language? How about the most popular and well known language of them all: English. Did you know that that the genetic impact of Anglo-Saxons on the British Isles was minimal but that their language replaced all of the native language including Brittonic-Celtic, Irish, Welsh, and Scottish Gaelic? Not only that but English has penetrated throughout the world and will eventually become the world's primary language if current globalization rates continue. Think about it, the language of a small island country in Northwest Europe of about 50 million has influenced 775 million people worldwide, and will continue for the foreseeable future until it becomes the dominant global language.
In all likelihood, Tai tribes probably invaded parts of Southeast Asia, became the dominant economic force and/or establish kingdoms leading to the language shift we see today as commoners learned the language of their conquerors. I can draw many parallels between Thai-Siamese and modern day mestizo Mexicans in which a foreign people invaded, conquered, and mated their women leading to a population which has mixed native origins but speak the language of their conquerors. Only in the Thai-Siamese case, native Mon-Khmer ancestry make up the majority while the reverse is true of Mexicans (on average).
Funny, how you insist on modern Vietnamese being a fusion of natives and Chinese and yet the language never shifted towards a Sinitic one. It really must speak volumes on the relative strength of the native civilizations especially when compared to the pre-Taiified Siamese who essentially allowed poor immigrants fleeing Yunnan to dominate their economy and nation. The same immigrants who in Vietnam are regarded as poor uneducated mountain minorities. We shouldn't be surprised at this fact because Siam/Thailand is now currently dominated by poor immigrants who fled Fujian and Guangdong, China. Looks like you were again successful in forcing your Tai language, heritage, and culture on these people too because they seem to speak and identify as Thai nowadays.
Be honest with yourself. There's no way Thai-Siamese could be 'pure' Tai/Dai or anything other than a Mon-Khmer and Dai mixture much like your Laotian brethren.
You mean why didn't the Vietnamese start speaking Chinese despite 1000 years of occupation? Well like Korea and Japan, it was heavily sinified, and Chinese did heavily influence it even though they maintained their own language. It's no different to say Yue/Cantonese, except Yue is closer to Middle Chinese and has it's roots in Chinese.
Bolo Yeung has extremely clear Mon-Khmer facial construction of flat broad face+flat broad nose+strong squarish jawline+strong prominent cheekbone.
He came from Guangzhou, China of South-eastern China. People of South-eastern China has some degree of Mon-Khmer mixing(from original/true Vietnamese).
By the way, people of South-western China will have more of Tai-Kadai mixing(from Lao/Thai/Dai/Zhuang who are still majority of the area of South-western China today).
Yes, and his look isn't actually that unusual in Guangdong or Hong Kong today.
Well they say Sichuan has the most beautiful women in China. I notice many of them do have very pretty faces, a bit more sculpted than your typical Shanghai girl.
I can't help but notice that you seem extremely obsessed with Vietnamese, every post you made you tried to compare with them, while I never paid attention to who they are, I careless about it. I speak on the behalf of Austronesians and AustroAsiatics in general. I just call you out for your obsession with skin tone But I can understand why you are obsessed with comparing to Vietnamese, simply because they are usually seen as the lighter-skinned (if not the most) southeast asians, so you have to dig who they were a few thousands ago. Well, most people don't see who they were, they only see who they are now
Back to the topic, Tai-Kadai speakers do not have connection with AustroAsiatic and Mon-khmer people? lol . They share the same halogroup, idiot! Tai-Kadai speakers were assimilated AustroAsiatics. How do you know the original Khmer people were dark before they were mixed with Indians in the past 4000 years? If you don't think "pure" Tai-Kadai speakers are dark now, then it's probably the Mon-Khmer people weren't either!
Last edited by eugene_allen; 04-07-2014 at 01:31 AM..
As you should know, language and genetics often do not correlate. Hungarians don't speak an Indo-European language, yet they're obviously closer to Czechs or Poles genetically than the Sinhalese or Sri Lanka or Bengalis from Bangladesh and West Bengal in India.
The Vietnamese in Hanoi clearly look very similar to the ethnic minorities of S.China and the Southern Han Chinese in places like Yunnan, Guangxi, Guizhou, Guangdong, Fujian even. Even the other Mon-Khmer speakers probably came from China in the last 4000 years at the latest. Negritos inhabited that area before then. Some even include such far-flung languages as Munda in India as Austro-asiatic. The relationship between Vietnamese and Khmer is questionable. My Vietnamese friend says she can understand almost no Khmer. Should they really be in the same family?
The core of the language like numeral system of Khmer and Vietnamese are quite similar, but very very different from Han-Chinese and Tai-Kadai(Lao/Thai/Dai/Zhuang).
Khmer(Cambodian)
Vietnamese
Obviously, 1-5 of Vietnamese and Khmer are very similar to each other.
There is so much irony in this quote that I can't help but laugh at it. Replace 'Vietnamese' with 'Thai-Siamese' and 'Han-Chinese' with 'Tai' and you'll see just how ridiculous you sound .
It's a shame you aspire to be 'pure' Tai like a Vietnamese and not of your true Mon-Khmer heritage, who in my opinion are much more accomplished than Dai-Vietnamese people are.
Siamese/Thai culture seemed to be influenced mostly by Khmer and Burmese, Vietnamese by Chinese. Champa/Funan were culturally similar to Khmer but also had things in common with the Srivijaya kingdom of Malaya.
The core of the language like numeral system of Khmer and Vietnamese are quite similar, but very very different from Han-Chinese and Tai-Kadai(Lao/Thai/Dai/Zhuang).
Khmer(Cambodian)
Vietnamese
Obviously, 1-5 of Vietnamese and Khmer are very similar to each other.
Yes I believe that although Thai has fewer Chinese loanwords it is structurally closer to the Sinitic language branch of the Sino-Tibetan family than Vietnamese is.
I started to ask the same question, why do you seem to hate your Austronesian and AustroAsiatic roots so much despite you are it? Besides, why do you seem to hate your Mon-Khmer mixing so much despite being mixed with them and basically praticing their culture? Central Thais don't even understand Lao Issan language
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