4 ms·

It's interesting that "hui" has exactly the same meaning as in Chinese. A quick search revealed this article: https://fr-fr.facebook.com/NewZealandChinese/pos

It's interesting that "hui" has exactly the same meaning as in Chinese. A quick search revealed this article: https://fr-fr.facebook.com/NewZealandChinese/posts/when-hui-and-much-more-is-same-for-maori-and-chinesethe-maori-of-new-zealandsong/1167217290054492/ https://fr-fr.facebook.com/NewZealandChinese/posts/when-hui-...

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
Any two languages will have some words of the same meaning that look alike, but this will be coincidence. Your linked article is utter pseudoscience. Modern Mandarin is an artifact of the last millennium, Middle Chinese looked completely different. Similarly, Maori is known to go back to a Polynesian proto-language that also looked different. So, in neither language was the word "hui" just a few centuries ago. Also, the two words are not actually pronounced alike.
yorwba 6y ago
That article seems to suggest that the resemblance is related to the Austronesian migration out of what is today China. But that happened thousands of years ago, so it's unlikely that any word remained exactly the same over such a long time. Partially, the similarity is just orthographic: the pronunciation of Mandarin huì is written [xweɪ̯⁵¹] in the international phonetic alphabet, while the IPA transcription of Māori hui is apparently just [hui]. Additionally, both words derive from forms that were even less similar: the Mandarin word is reconstructed to come from Old Chinese /* m-kˤop-s/ or /* ɡoːbs/ https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9C%83#Pronunciation_1 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9C%83#Pronunciation_1 while the Austronesian Comparative Dictionary relates the Māori term to Proto-Oceanic * pui, referring to a cluster e.g. of fruit: https://www.trussel2.com/acd/acd-s_p.htm#4023 https://www.trussel2.com/acd/acd-s_p.htm#4023

4 ms·

It's interesting that "hui" has exactly the same meaning as in Chinese. A quick search revealed this article: https://fr-fr.facebook.com/NewZealandChinese/pos

by throwaway3722 6y ago

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
Any two languages will have some words of the same meaning that look alike, but this will be coincidence. Your linked article is utter pseudoscience. Modern Mandarin is an artifact of the last millennium, Middle Chinese looked completely different. Similarly, Maori is known to go back to a Polynesian proto-language that also looked different. So, in neither language was the word "hui" just a few centuries ago. Also, the two words are not actually pronounced alike.
yorwba 6y ago
That article seems to suggest that the resemblance is related to the Austronesian migration out of what is today China. But that happened thousands of years ago, so it's unlikely that any word remained exactly the same over such a long time. Partially, the similarity is just orthographic: the pronunciation of Mandarin huì is written [xweɪ̯⁵¹] in the international phonetic alphabet, while the IPA transcription of Māori hui is apparently just [hui]. Additionally, both words derive from forms that were even less similar: the Mandarin word is reconstructed to come from Old Chinese /* m-kˤop-s/ or /* ɡoːbs/ https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9C%83#Pronunciation_1 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9C%83#Pronunciation_1 while the Austronesian Comparative Dictionary relates the Māori term to Proto-Oceanic * pui, referring to a cluster e.g. of fruit: https://www.trussel2.com/acd/acd-s_p.htm#4023 https://www.trussel2.com/acd/acd-s_p.htm#4023