RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653
112

BOOK REVIEWS

to light a rich collection of Stone Age tools and of fossils of mammalian fauna. Some of the implements are represented in beautiful drawings in the article (pp. 160-182). Two shorter reports, "Prehistoric Pakistan" by Ahmad Hasan Dani and "Prehistoric Archaeology in Ceylon" by P. E. P. Deranivagala, conclude this section.

Most articles include drawings and many photos.

IV. Special Taiwan Section

This part is introduced by guest editor Kwang-chih Chang. Taiwan can be regarded as being of particular interest to pre-historians as it is an important link between the East Asian continent and the islands of the Western Pacific, more specifically speaking, between the archaeology of the mainland and the ethno-logy of the Pacific. C. C. Lin in “Geology and Ecology of Taiwan Prehistory" deals with the Quarternary Period in Taiwan. Pin-hsiung Liu reports on excavations in Ta P'en K'eng and other prehistoric sites in Taiwan in 1962 and 1963. Naoichi Kokubu presents an analysis of the prehistoric Ryukyu Islands and deals with questions different from those in Erika Kaneko's report listed in Part III.

Other contributions by Kwang-chih Chang and Wilhelm G. Solheim II deal with the relationships of Taiwan in prehistoric times with China (Chang) and Southeast Asia (Solheim). Isidore Dyen's linguistic study on "The Position of the Malayopolynesian Languages of Formosa" concludes the articles in the Taiwan section. A "Selected Bibliography of Taiwan Archaeology : 1953 - 1962” is appended.

Hong Kong University Press must be thanked for the excellent printing of this valuable volume, including its many photos and drawings.

K. Bünger

IN

SOUTHEAST ASIA : ILLUSION AND REALITY POLITICS AND ECONOMICS. LENNOX A. MILLS. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. 345 pages HK$32.

In the introduction to his recent work entitled, The Revolution in Southeast Asia, Victor Purcell writes, "The view generally held
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811
164

NOTES AND QUERIES

and transcribed in a variety of ways by native-speakers of Cantonese.

The origins of words such as amah are hidden in the obscure labyrinths of time but are still as fresh as a new-born babe. Such words contain the elements of English mammy, ma, French maman, Latin mater and so on, for they represent the infant mouth opening to bawl and sometimes the closing of the tiny lips over the mother's teat. Such words exist in all languages even as a rejecting, spitting series for the father: pater (in Latin), English daddy, Cantonese papa mimic the child's rejection of his father's milkless breasts.

It is unnecessary to derive Cantonese amah from an Arab source. Similar forms, demonstrably not of Semitic origin, occur in many languages; in those of the Iberian peninsula, ama may or may not be an Arabism. In India, it was one of the common Indo-Portuguese words for a children's nurse. It is this word which came to Canton either in the Portuguese lingua franca which preceded pidgin English as the jargon of the China coast or in pidgin English itself. The documents of the nineteenth century are rich in derivatives of this word and even today wash-amah and baby-amah are widely used expressions in Hong Kong. Chow-amah (wet-nurse) disappeared at the introduction of patent infant formulae.

The only problem is whether amah, which sounds as exotic in Cantonese as kowtowing once did in English, entered the dialect directly from a Portuguese dialect or was introduced by way of English. My understanding is that amah is seldom used by the Hong Kong Portuguese in the sense of servant and that the word, though Portuguese in origin, is an early English loan to Cantonese, the forerunner of pa-si (bus), mhodhang nreoezir (modern girl), bheazao (beer) and the hundred and one other loans found in the Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong today.

Until more evidence is forthcoming, the derivation of sz tsai and sz tau will seem far-fetched. Nor is there enough proof to convince that fa wong is a calque (translation) of Urdu malik, even though the semantic extensions of wong and malik appear to coincide. I cannot tell which are the foreign words from which we are supposed to derive kwuntim, sz-naai and tai pan and have yet to be convinced that Cantonese natuk is in fact the
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g
406

OBJECTIVE REACHED

This evening the Eighth Army statement reports that the 35th Regiment of the American task force operating in the south has occupied the high ground east of Chinju, which was the objective of the limited counter-attack launched on Monday. There are reports that Chinju is being evacuated. The Marines have simultaneously occupied the town of Kosong, 17 miles south-west of Masan, against strong North Korean resistance. Pockets of bypassed North Koreans are still giving trouble and are being steadily cleaned up.

This is some of the most encouraging news of the campaign to date, and shows that where numbers are not too desperate the American troops are more than a match for their opponents. It has to be seen, however, in relation to the complete picture.

The statement also reports that the North Korean bridgehead just north of Waegwan, which, although resolutely attacked and reduced in size by the South Korean 1st Division, was never finally liquidated, is again being expanded. The North Koreans have again brought tanks into the bridgehead, which American pilots today attacked with unknown results. The pilots report that the North Koreans have built a causeway of sandbags, across the river about 18in. under water (a favourite engineering practice of the Russians in the last war) which is difficult for aircraft to knock out.

In spite of continued American counter-attacking no progress has been made in reducing the North Korean bridgehead in the loop of the Naktong about 30 miles south of Waegwan. A delayed message from our Special Correspondent in Korea is on page 3.
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