Chinese `buy' and `sell' and the direction of borrowings between Chinese and Miao-Yao

Laurent Sagart (1)

1 CRLAO - Centre de Recherches Linguistiques sur l'Asie Orientale

A critique of a theory of Haudricourt and Strecker that agriculture is not an original element in Chinese culture, but was acquired when the earliest speakers of Chinese, allegedly nomadic pastoralists speaking a language closely related to Proto-Tibeto-Burman, descended "with their flocks of sheep" from the interior regions of Asia into the irrigated coastal plains, there coming into contact with Hmong-Mien peoples who -Haudricourt and Strecker reason- were already settled agriculturalists. The center of the argument revolves around whether or not the Hmong-Mien words for 'buy'and 'sell' are Hmong-Mien substratum words in Chinese, or, as argued here, Chinese loans to Hmong-Mien.

Mots clés: Chinese; Hmong-Mien; agriculture; loanwords

Domaines: Linguistique

Laurent Sagart. Chinese `buy' and `sell' and the direction of borrowings between Chinese and Miao-Yao. T'oung Pao/通報 , 1995, LXXXI (4-5), pp.328-342. ⟨halshs-00105097⟩