Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
In their Notes d'Etymologie Taï, published in 1926 in the Journal of the Siam Society, vol. xx, pt. i, MM. J. Burnay and G. Coedès have compared the various Taï words meaning “a hundred”. Ahom pāk, Shan pāk1, Khamti pāk1, White Taï pdk1, Thô pāk1, Nùng pāh1, Dioi pā1—all go back to a form *pāk, which is very close to the sixth century Chinese (pak).
page 667 note 1 Karlgren, Analytic Dictionary of the Chinese, Language, s.v. pai, Nos. 685.
page 667 note 2 Grierson, Linguistic Survey of India, vol. iii, pt. i.
page 667 note 3 Epigraphia Birmanica, vol. i, pt. i, p. 23 (Myazedi Inscr., Pillar A, 1. 2).
page 667 note 4 We can hardly question the common origin of the Tibeto-Burman and Taī-Chinese forms, in view of the closely similar series for the number “eight”, which is in classical Tibetan brgyad; in eleventh-twelfth century Burmese het, yhat, hyat, or rhac; in sixth century Chinese pwat, in Siamese from the thirteenth century pèl.
page 668 note 1 Houghton, Essay on the Language, of the Southern Chins, p. 88, s.v. p‘yá.
page 668 note 2 Duroiselle, Ep. Birm., vol. i, pt. i, p. 27.
page 668 note 3 JRAS. 1913, “Note on the numeral Systems of the Tibeto-Burman dialects,” p. 331 ff. Cf. Linguistic Surrey of India, vol. iii, pt. i, p. 622.
page 668 note 4 Qr *parugyak; for in view of such forms as Mikir p‘áró, Aka phogwa, purrua, E. Dafia lüg, Chulikata Mishmi malū, it still seems doubtful if Siamese ròy, Laotian and Black Taï hòy, do not themselves go back to the same common origin as pak.