Re: pa.tipatti

Hi, Amara:
(I) Thank you very much for your extensive explation to clear
my vague question.

(ii) With respect to the lexical similarities between Thai and Khmer
words, as you said, it is a well known fact that Thai borrowed many terms
on Royal rites and rituals from Khmer. But I didn't know that there are
many lexical similarities in such commonly used words as: 'keet "to be
born" and 'saat' "to be clear".

(iii) As for the words for numbers (e.g, 20, 30, 40, etc.), I cannot
remember precisely, which words are simily between in Thai and in
Khmer (since I do not have (a lobrary copy of) the book I had looked
at now. But when I looked at the book, I was suprised by the fact that
there are commonality among number terms betwen Thai and Khmer.

(iii) At any rate, as you mentioned, the borrowing must have been
bi-directional, given the gegraphical proximatory of Thailand and
Cambodia.

(iv) Here I have anohter question. It is on Mon. I learnt a bit about
the history of Mon people and langauge. They used to live in the area
which we now call "Burma". They were very educated and practiced
the Theravada Buddhism. When they lost their country to Burmese, the
Mon taught various things to the (Burmese) conquerors, including
the Buddhim. I read somewhers saying that there are still
nearly one million Mon people living in SEA asia. And more interestingly,
they are well regraded/respected by the Thai. Is it true that
the Thai have a favourable feeling toward the Mon people, who
are basically a home-less/country-less people for a long long time.
tadao