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Wednesday 17 June 2015

Nuts and Bolts: Hmong.

English is called English because it developed in the land where the Angles settled.

Deutsch comes from the Old High German thiota, from an older word that was something like theudo, which meant people, or nation or folk.

Spanish might be from a Punic word meaning island of the hare or hidden land; or from a pre-Roman place name, Hispa; or from the Greek Heliopolis, city of the sun; or from the Phoenician spal, which means lowland; or from the Basque word Ezpanna, which means border or edge.

And Hmong? Hmong is a Chinese language which comes in various dialects, all more or less mutually intelligible. As well as in China it's spoken in Laos, Vietnam and the USA.

There's White Hmong; Green or Blue Hmong; Black Hmong;  Small Flowery Hmong and Large Flowery Hmong.

And why are they so called? 

It's because of the traditional colour of the ladies' dresses.

Isn't that wonderful?


There's apparently also something called Horned Hmong.

My mind was boggling, quite frankly: but it seems to be something to do with the ladies' head-dresses. 




Word To Say Today: Hmong. I find this really difficult.








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