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The Sinitic Word for "million" in Southeast Asian Mandarin

Language Log 2024-08-10

[This is a guest post by Mok Ling about the Sinitic word for "million" in Southeast Asian Mandarin in general, and Indonesian Mandarin in particular.]

I recently had a conversation with a Mandarin-speaking Chinese-Indonesian friend who used the word 條 tiáo to mean "million" (as in 1 000 000) in the place of the more universal 百萬 bǎiwàn. After asking our other Southeast Asian Mandarin-speaking (mostly Singaporean and Malaysian) friends, we found that none of them have ever said 條 tiáo for "million" — all of them say 百萬 bǎiwàn. Now I know for a fact that Indonesian Hokkien has a similar-sounding word for "million" — 兆 tiāu/tiǎu (Wiktionary says the first reading is more common in Xiamen/Amoy and Zhangzhou/Changchiu while the second is more common in Quanzhou/Chinchiu). This use of 兆 for "million" is also recorded in 華夷通語 Huâ–Î Thong-gú, an 1883 (Kangxi 9) dictionary by a Chinese-Malay translator named 林衡南 Lim Heng-nam (image available upon request), glossed as 寔撈突轆沙 sit-la-tut lak-sa (Malay: seratus laksa — "laksa" is obviously from Sanskrit; modern Malay no longer uses myriads, but millions "juta". Note also that the circle under 轆 on the image signifies a vernacular reading, that is lak, rather than the literary reading lok).

I've also noticed that in Quanzhou Hokkien (at least according to Wiktionary), the pronunciation of 兆 tiǎu is homophonous with 條 tiǎu, as in the famous Hokkien rice noodle dish 粿條 kué-tiâu. I believe it's not very far-fetched to say this homophonic confusion is where the "million" sense of 條 tiáo originates. I'd be interested to know what Language Log readers think of this little theory.

Another friend theorized 條 tiáo may be from Hokkien 吊 tiàu, especially considering the connection to the late Qing/early Republican denomination of currency — 1 吊 is a string of 1000 cash coins, though not always. I find this less likely than my 條-兆 conflation theory, mostly because it does not explain the use of 條 tiáo outside financial contexts.

I happen to be a native speaker of Hainanese (海南話), in which 條 and 兆 are both /ʔɗiau²²/ in my personal idiolect (in Hainanese, the Middle Chinese 陽平 and 陽去 tones have merged). Just shows that this word is not only present in Hokkien.

[end of guest post]

 

Addendum:  Etymological and usage notes on Indic "lakh"

A lakh (/læk, lɑːk/; abbreviated L; sometimes written lac) is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand (100,000; scientific notation: 105). In the Indian 2, 2, 3 convention of digit grouping, it is written as 1,00,000.c For example, in India, 150,000 rupees becomes 1.5 lakh rupees, written as ₹1,50,000 or INR 1,50,000.

It is widely used both in official and other contexts in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. It is often used in Bangladeshi, Indian, Pakistani, and Sri Lankan English.

In Indian English, the word is used both as an attributive and non-attributive noun with either an unmarked or marked ("-s") plural, respectively. For example: "1 lakh people"; "lakhs of people"; "20 lakh rupees"; "lakhs of rupees". In the abbreviated form, usage such as "₹5L" or "₹5 lac" (for "5 lakh rupees") is common. In this system of numeration, 100 lakh is called one crore and is equal to 10 million.

The modern word lakh derives from Sanskrit: लक्ष, romanized: lakṣa, originally denoting "mark, target, stake in gambling", but also used as the numeral for "100,000" in Gupta-era Classical Sanskrit (Yājñavalkya Smṛti, Harivaṃśa).

(Wikipedia)

 

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