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Tuesday, October 22, 2013

More vocabulary from another ancient language

While walking along the Seogang Bridge today, there was a sign in between the road. It was "wiheom". (Danger). That got my mind thinking of other words that are totally or 95-99% similar sounding to Korean in the Teochew language.

Total usage/speakers:
Korean - 80-100 million speakers (including North Korea, and parts of China provinces that have Korean ancestries, and up to Russian territories, and recent Kpop culture fans worldwide)
Teochew - 15-20 million speakers (including Shantou region within Guangdong, plus scattered around disaspora in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia).

Words that are the same - Part 2:
1) 위험 - danger - approximately "ngui-hiem" (NOTE: this word is exactly the same in Vietnamese language as well)
2) 시간 - time - "sii gang"
3) 교 - bridge - "gyo" (with higher rising sound)
4) 쌍 - ssang - "saang"
5) 안심 - peace in the heart/secure feeling - "an sim"

Danger is nguy-hiem in Vietnamese as well!

Under the Mapo-gyo (마포교)


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