The phenomenon of synonymous element using together in Buyi language

The Puyi language is the language which is used by the nation of Buyi in China. A quite special phenomenon in the Puyi language is the existence of the synonymous element using together.

The so-called the phenomenon of synonymous element using together in Buyi language has the meaning of using several synonymous elements simultaneously in a linguistic unit to express a concept or sense.

The phenomenon of synonymous element using together in Buyi language can divide into several kinds as follow.

1．Using two synonymous morphemes to compose the compound word which expresses an identical meaning. For example:
(note: In this article all Buyi language will use the Latin alphabet writing form. )

eeux（home）+raanz（home）=eeuxraanz(home)
jodt（cold）+nidt（cold）=jodtnidt（cold）
xidt（loes）+xeel（lose）=xidtxeel（lose）
roongh(bright)+seeus（bright）=roonghseeus（bright）

2．Using two synonymous words to compose the idiom . For example:

mbidtreeux mbiedtreeuh (crooked)
(crooked) (crooked)

aangsyaangz aangsyaangsh (cheerful)
(happy) (happy)

waanglweengz waanglweengh (in disorder)
(acroos ) (acroos )

3．The phenomenon of synonymous element using together in the phrase. For example:

Soongl bil goons soongl bil ndux (two years before)
(two years) ( before ) (two years) (before)

4．The phenomenon of synonymous element using together in the sentence . For example:

bohlaaux bohlungz haail banalbol gueh nazdabraath
(uncle) (uncle ) (assart) (mountainside) (make) (terraced field)
(Uncle quarries a mountainside to make the terraced field .)

ndael saml deel aangs leeuy , xih aaus masdaauz xeel 。
(at heart) (it) (happy) (very) (undertake) (throw) (peach) (throw)
( It throws the peach because it is very happy in the heart.)

From the analysis above , we can see the phenomenon of synonymous element using together in Buyi language has a widespread existence.It can appear in each leve system of language ; namely in the word, idiom, phrase, and sentence. This kind of semantic structure in the Puyi language often has the function of emphasis or exaggeration.

The national identity of semantics

Semantics closely related with thinking. And the thinking of mankind has common features . So ,the semantics has the universe general characteristic. For this reason , one language can translate into other languages .For example,“/mɯ:³³/(มือ) ” translate into English is “hand”, and translate into Chinese is “/ʂou:²¹⁴/”;“/a:³³ʦa:n³³/ (อาจารย์) ” translate into English is “teacher”, and translate into Chinese is “/lao²¹⁴ʂi³³/” ,and so on .

While ,at the same time ,language is always associated with specific socio-cultural and specific historical tradition. Different ethnic group users who come from different socio-cultural and historical traditional environment will have different ways and point of views of knowing things in the world . Therefore , The semantics also has the nationality's individuality characteristic .For example ,in Chinese ,the word “/ɕi²¹⁴/”,which means washing something ,translate into Dai Le language will be translate into six different word .

Chinese：

洗/ɕi²¹⁴/(washing something)

Dai Le Language：

soi³³ (na¹³ ) wash (one’s face)
saʼ⁵⁵ (ho⁵⁵ ) shampoo (one’shair)
a:p³⁵ (nam¹¹) take a (bath)
sak³³ (pʰak³³) wash (clothes)
saʼ³³ (pʰak³³) wash (vegetable)
la:ŋ¹¹ (wa:n¹¹) wash (bowl)

In this table we can see the difference of semantics summarizes between Chinese and Dai Le language clearly. “/ɕi²¹⁴/(Wash) ” in Chinese is considered that is the identical action. Thus, using the identical word summarizes its semantics. But in Dai Le language is considered that these are different actions, which are not able to use the identical word to summarize their semantics, but need to use six different words to summarize its semantics separately. This case is manifesting the semantic’s national identity.

In addition, the semantics’s national character also displays that the broad scope of a word meaning will be different in dialect of a identical language. For example, in Chinese “/ʂou:²¹⁴/(hand)” only means the part from wrist to the finger in the dialect of Beijing ,but in the dialect of Sichuan it also means the arm. If a Beijing people says: “my hand pains.” is means the part from the finger to the wrist pains. But if a Sichuan people says: “my hand pains.” ,except the same meaning which is the Beijing people refer to ,also probably refers to the arm pains. Such example is too numerous to mention in Chinese. eg, the Chinese southerners said eating meal, generally refers to eat the rice, does not including eating the wheaten food .But the northerner said eating meal, will includ eating the wheaten food, and so on.

Meaning change of “home” and “village” in Thai language

                About five years ago the time when I began my study in Thai and linguistics , the professor had ever told me that , both Zhuang language which is the native language of nationality Zhuang in southeast part of China and Thai language which is the official language of Thailand  are belonged to Tai group of Chinese-Tibetan language family. There was a differentiation between these two languages because of national migration and the influence from nationalities they adjacent to about three thousand years ago. Thai was affected by Khmer, Sansakrit and Pali and Chinese via Buddhism, politics, and economics, while the Zhuang was on another progress of change. But there are still a plenty of evidences to prove that Thai and Zhuang are brothers including basic core vocabulary. Since several thousand years has past, the meanings of the words involved lexical meaning, functional meaning are both changed in a certain way. And will see the way of change of the word “home” and “village” in Thai and Zhuang.

             In order to meet this problem , we have to the prove that the word “home” and “village” are the basic words before Thai and Zhuang  divided through comparing the two words’ pronunciations in Thai , Lao , Zhuang , Tai , Maonan , Shui , Puyi which are also belonged to Tai group languages .

	Thai	Lao	Zhuang	Shui	Maonan	Tai	Puyi
home	[ba:n41]	[kua:b41kua:45 ]	[ra:n231]	[ra:n31]	[ja:n33]	[hən51]	[za:n11]
village	[mu:11ba:n41]	[ba:n452]	[ba:n33]	[ba:n31]	[ba:n31]	[ba:n51]	[ba:n31]

           From the table we can see that, the word which means “home” should be [ra:n^xx](the tone will be different , and consonants [j][z] are the varieties of [r] ) , and the word which means “village” should be [ba:n^xx] (the tone will be different). To contrast with Thai, we can find something interesting, such as:

          (1) The word which means “home” in Tai-group languages has another lexical meaning in Thai – a shop. [ra:n^xx] which means “home” lost its original meaning and was filled with another meaning “shop , a house used to do business” , a semantic transfer had happened on this word. Ancient Chinese who lived in Guangdong, Fujian, and Hainan province entered Thailand and brought their unique business model into Thailand at the same time. They took their first floor of the house as a shop to sold food, cloth, or other kind of handicrafts, the second and third floor to live. The house was not only a place to live, but also a place to conduct business, it had the same function as a shop. Matter of course, [ra:n^xx]’s meaning was increase from one to two , “home ” and “shop”.  As time went by, more effect Chinese had in Thailand, more competition between two meanings of [ra:n^xx]. At last, “shop” had won the game.

             (2)The word which means “village” in Tai-group languages means“home” in Thai. Meaning of the word was narrower than before. We can explain this change by a meaning table of “home” and “village”.

	home	village
A place to production and living ,  to have rest	+	+
A place of emotion attribution	+	+
A place where can live one or more than one families	+/-	+

Because of lack of words to name “home” since [ra:n^xx] was used to name a “shop”, people had to find a new word to name “village”,  from the table we can see that it was not random to chose  [ba:n^xx] (village) to name “home”, they are synonyme for at least two word concepts are the same.

“village” of Thai = many/group + “home” of Thai

To see the word form of “village” of Thai, logically, I think it a new-established word from two parts [mu:¹¹](“many/group” in Thai)+[ba:n⁴¹](“home” in Thai). Since the word [ba:n^xx] (village) was to used to name the village people had to find another word to name the village. This time Thai people chose the way establishing new word by combining two meanings and word forms together to name “village”.

           This kind of meaning change just one tip of the iceberg, during development of language, there too many forms of meaning change. Besides, while the language is on the process of change, the cultures must play an important role.