ănđòn (deserved punishment) 挨打: ăidă
ăntiền (win bet) 贏錢: yínqián
ănnhậu (have a drink) 應酬: yìngchóu
dêxồm: (lecherous) 婬蟲: yínchóng
hẹnhò (dating) 約會: yèhuì
đánhcướp (rob) 打劫: dăjié
đánhbài (play cards) 打牌: dăpái (Mand)
tầmbậy (tầmbạ, sàbát) 三八: tambát (SV), sānbà
chánngán (sick of) 厭倦: yànjuān
bậtcười (laugh) 發笑: fáxiào
bậtkhóc (cry) 發哭: fákù
banngày (daytime) 白日: báirì
bồcâu (pigeon) 白鴿: báigē
chạngvạng (at dusk) 旁晚 : bángwăn
cảgan (daring) 大膽: dàdăn
đụmá (fuck you) 他媽: tāmā
khờkhạo (foolish) 傻瓜: săguā
ấmcúng (warm) 溫馨: wēnqìng
muárối (puppetry) 木偶戲: mùouxì
xinlỗi (apologize) 請罪: qingzuì
mồcôi (being an orphan) 無根: wúgēn (Mand.) ~ 無辜 wúgù
chắcchắn (certainly) 一定 : nhấtđịnh (SV), yìdìng
đưađón (to see off and to pick up) 接送: jièsòng
chờđợi (wait) 期待: qídài
yêuđương 愛戴: àidài
thươngyêu (love) 疼愛: téngài
khôngdámđâu (not so)不敢當: bùgăndàng

NOTE: The implication of these basic and not-so-basic words of the same roots between Chinese and Vietnamese, in addition to those Sino- Sinitic-Vietnamese vocabularies which are indepensable in the Vietnamese language, is that Chinese is classified as a polysyllabic language, so is Vietnamese. To learn more about this please go to The Etymology of Nôm of Chinese origin.

APPENDIX B

The International Phonetic Alphabet in Unicode

APPENDIX C

Examples of some variable sound changes Thuận Nghịch Độc by Duc Tran

The author constructs an etymological analogy based a poem by Phạm Thái (1777-1813) which is written in "Thuận Nghịch Độc" form, that is, standard reading is for Sino-Vietnamese sound:

青春鎖柳冷蕭房 Thanh xuân khóa liễu lãnh tiêu phòng
錦軸停針礙點妝 Cẩm trục đình châm ngại điểm trang
清亮度蘚浮沸綠 Thanh lượng độ tiên phù phất lục
淡曦散菊彩疏黃 Đạm hy tán cúc thái sơ hoàng
情痴易訴簾邊月 Tình si dị tố liêm biên nguyệt
夢觸曾撩帳頂霜 Mộng xúc tằng liêu trướng đỉnh sương
箏曲強挑愁緒絆 Tranh khúc cưỡng khiêu sầu tự bạn
鶯歌雅詠閣蕭香 Oanh ca nhã vịnh các tiêu hương

while, as in old Chinese-based Nôm writing, Sintic-Vietnamese sounds can be also read in reverse (naturally some Sino-Vietnamese sounds, inseparatable part of Vietnamese vocabularies, are included also):

香蕭閣詠雅歌鶯 Hương tiêu gác vắng nhặt ca oanh
絆緒愁挑強曲箏 Bận mối sầu khêu gượng khúc tranh
霜頂帳撩曾觸夢 Sương đỉnh trướng gieo từng giục mộng
月邊簾訴易痴情 Nguyệt bên rèm, tỏ dễ si tình
黃疏彩菊散曦淡 Vàng tha thướt, cúc tan hơi đạm
綠沸浮蘚度亮清 Lục phất phơ, rêu đọ rạng thanh
妝點礙針停軸錦 Trang điểm ngại chăm, dừng trục gấm
房蕭冷柳鎖春青 Phòng tiêu lạnh lẽo khóa xuân xanh.

from these reading we can see clearly the relations between those Sino- ans Sinitic-Vietnamese words:

• Cẩm = Gấm
• Cưỡng = Gượng

  with this onset, we can apply the same patterns to other words:
  

• Cận = Gần
• Can = Gan
• Cân = Gân
• Cấp = Gấp
• Cổn = Gợn
• Các = Gác
• Kê = Gà
• Ký = Gửi
• Kỵ = Ghét
• Ký = Ghi
• Vũ = Múa
• Vũ = Mưa
• Vân = Mây
• Vạn = Muôn
• Vọng = Mong
• Võng = Mạng
• Tử = Chết
• Tự = Chùa
• Tự = Chữ (cái)
  and so on.

NOTE: Specifically with the above example, in the comments regarding Chinese ~ Vietnamese cognates, Duc Tran seems to see only the Sinitic-Vietnamese sound changes in comparison with those of Sino-Vietnamese on one-to-one correspondence within the monosyllabic words even though he did mention about the correlation of those Vietnamese sounds to those of Mandarin sounds: "Cái lạ ở chỗ các ví dụ trên phần theo chiếu theo tiếng Bắc Kinh hay Pinyin đều theo một luồng phụ âm đầu nhất định." (That means "the interesting thing about the words in the example is that all consonantal initials as said in Beijing dialect or Pinyin follow a certain pattern of correspondent initials.") This is how it has been done by most of specialists in the Chinese-Vietnamese etymological fields.

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APPENDIX D

The case of "sông"
by Tsu-lin Mei

江**krong/kang/chiang ‘Yangtze River’, ‘river’.

“river” in Mon-Khmer: VN sông; Bahnar, Sedang krong; Katu karung; Bru klong; Gar, Koho rong; Laʔven dakhom; Biat n’hong; Hre khroang; Old Mon krung. Cf. Tib. Klu ‘river’; Thai khlɔ : ŋ‘canal’.

Chiang has a Second Division final in MC, and according to the Yakhontov-Pulleyblank theory, this implies a model –r- or –l- in OC.** The OC reading for this word in Li Fang-kuei’s system is *krung.* * Further evidence for –r- consists of the fact that some words with as their phonetic have disyllabic doublets, whose first syllable has a velar initial and whose second syllable is lung: 空=窟窿 ‘hole, empty,’ 项=喉咙 ‘neck, throat,’ 鸿=屈龙 ‘wild goose.’** The final has been reconstructed as –ung by Karlgren and Tung T’ung-ho, -awng by Pulleyblank, and –ong by Yakhontov.** In spite of these minor differences, it is clear that the final had a rounded back vowel in OC.

It is immediately clear that the Mon-Khmer forms are related to the Chinese form. What remains to be discussed is the direction of the loan.

There are reasons for thinking that the Chinese borrowed this word from the AA’s. OC has four common words for names for rivers: 水 shui, 川 ch’uan, 江 chiang, 河 ho. The first two are general words; the last two are proper names, chiang ‘Yangtze River’ and ho ‘Yellow River.’ On the other hand, krong etc. is a general word for ‘river’ in AA. In borrowing, a general word for a descriptive term often becomes a proper name in the receiving language; witness Mississippi and Wisconsin, ‘big river’ and ‘big lake’ in Algonquin, which became proper names in American English.

The two general words for ‘water’ and ‘river’ in OC, shui and ch’uan, occur in the oracle bones and can be traced to Sino-Tibetan: ‘water’ Tib. ch’u; Bara, Nago dui; Kuki-chin tui; Chinese 水* siwər/świ/shui, 川* t’iwen/tś’iwän/ch’uan. The nasal final in ch’uan probably represents the vestigial form of a plural ending, and there is a phonological parallel in the sound gloss in the Shuo-wen 水，准也(准 **ń*wən); shui and ch’uan are therefore cognaes. OC 河 ˠɑ/g’*earlier * g’al or *g’*r, we suspect, is a borrowing from Altaic. **

Chiang is of relatively late origin. It did not occur in the oracle bones.** The bronze inscriptions contain one occurrence of this word, and the Book of Odes, nine occurrences, in five poems. When the word chiang acquired the general meaning of ‘river,’ its use as names of rivers was limited to south of the Yangtze. Both these facts again suggest that chiang was a borrowed word.

Other etymologies for chiang are less plausible. Tibetan had klu‘river.’ But a Sino-Tibetan origin of klu/krong is ruled out because chiang is a late word with a restricted geographic distribution, and because MC 2nd Division generally corresponds to Tib. –r- but not to –l-. Similarly, the basic word for ‘river’ and ‘water’ in Tai is na:m; khlɔ:ŋ is a secondary word restricted in its meaning to ‘canal’, with limited distribution in the Tai family; it is unlikely to be the source of Chinese * krong. The most plausible explanation is that both Tibetan and Thai also borrowed klu* and khlɔ:ŋ from AA.

We will now try to show that the Chinese first came into contact with the Yangtze in Hupei, anciently part of the Ch’u Kingdom. This must be region where the Chinese first came into contact with AA’s and borrowed chiang from them.

The Han River has its source in Shensi whence it passes through Honan and joins the Yangtze in Hupei. As the Chinese came down from their homeland in the Yellow River valleys, it was natural for them to follow the course of the Han River. This general conclusion is also supported by textual evidence. The word chiang ‘Yangtze River’ occurs in five poems in the Book of Odes. In Ode 9,204,262, and 263, chiang occurs in conjunction with han ‘Han River, ’ either in the compound chiang-han or in an antithetical construction wit han in the other part. The only poem containing chiang but not han is Ode 22. But his poem belongs to the section Chao-nan 召南, and this term is also what the Chou people used for the region which formerly belonged to Ch’u.** Moreover, according to several authorities, the term 江南(literally ‘south of the River’) as used during the Han dynasty refers to Ch’ang-sha 长沙 and Y-chang 豫章, in present Hunan and Kiangsi.** The implication is that chiang in chiang-nan refers to the middle section of the Yangtze and not the entire river.

The notion that the Chinese met the AA’s in the Middle Yangtze region of course does not exclude their presence elsewhere; it just gives a precise indication of one of their habitats. It is perhaps pertinent to mention that the Vietnamese believed that their homeland once included the region around the Tung-t’ing Lake 洞庭湖 which is in that general area.** Another Vietnamese legend states that their forefather married the daughter of the dragon king of Tung-t’ing Lake.**

Textual and epigraphic evidence indicates that the word chiang came into the Chinese language between 500 and 1000 B.C. Mao Heng’s Commentary to the Odes also assigned all poems celebrating the southern conquest to the reign of King Hsan (827-781 B.C.). The first half of the first millennium B.C. can therefore be taken as a tentative date for the AA presence in the Middle Yangtze region. Recently, however, archaeologists are increasingly inclined to the view that contact between North China and South China occurred as early as the Shang dynasty: artifacts showing strong Shang and early Chou influence have been discovered in the lower Yangtze region, and according to some scholars, also in the Han River region.

** If further investigations show that pre-Chou traffic between the North and the South was extensive and bi-directional, we may have to revise the date for chiang upward.

Source: http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/tm17/paper459.htm ]

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APPENDIX E

The case of "chết"
by Tsu-lin Mei

札**tsɛt 'to die’

In Cheng Hsüan’s commentary on the Chou-Li, the gloss 越人谓死为札“The Yüeh people call ‘to die’札” occurs.** Cheng Hsüan lived during the Eastern Han (127-200 A.D.) and there seem to be no grounds to doubt the authenticity of this gloss. According to Karlgren’s Grammata Serica Recensa the OC reading of the character was *tsă. This is Karlgren’s group II. There is good reason to believe that his reconstruction is erroneous. Tuan Yü-ts’ ai assigns this character to his group twelve, which corresponds most nearly to Karlgren’s group V.** Chiang Yu-kao places it in his 脂 group which also corresponds most nearly to Karlgren’s group V.** How do we explain this discrepancy? There are several ways to assign a given character to an OC rhyme group. It may be assigned on the basis of its occurrence in a rhymed text, but if it dose not appear as a rhyme word, then there are only two alternative methods for determining its proper membership: a few Middle Chinese (hereafter MC) rhymes all go back to a single OC category; this is the case, for example, with the MC rhyme 唐 which derives from the OC 阳 group in its entirety. For such MC rhymes, the assignment to an OC rhyme category is mechanical. Frequently, however, a given MC rhyme has more than one OC origin. This, in fact, is true of the character in question. 札 belongs to the MC 黑吉 rhyme; this rhyme derives from three different OC rhyme categories: 祭，微，and 脂 corresponding roughly to Karlgren’s II, V, and X. The only way to determine which ÓC rhyme category such words as this belong to is to examine their hsieh-sheng connections. In the Shuowen, is defined as follows: 札牒也，从木乙声. In GSR 505 a reading *•iɛt is given for; this is Karlgren’s group V. And in the Shih-ming, written by Liu His, a younger contemporary of Cheng Hsan, the sound gloss is 札，木节也(木节 *ts*，OC 脂 group).** Clearly 札 should belong to the same group as 乙; the proper reconstructions is tsɛt and not tsăt as given in GSR 280b. Tung T’ungho does not give this character in his Shang-ku yin-yün piao-kao,** but it is simple enough to place it where it belongs—viz. on page 215 in Tung’s 微 group; the proper form in Tung’s system is *tsət.

There can be no doubt that this word represents the AA word for ‘to die’: VN chết; Muong chít, chét; Chrau chu’t, Bahnar kˠcit; Katu chet; Gua test; Hre ko’chit; Bonam kachet; Brou kuchêit; Mon ch*t. More cognate forms can be found in Pinnow, p. 259, item K324f. The Proto-Mon-Khmer form has been reconstructed by Shorto as kcət,** which is extremely close to our OC form. There is even the possibility that Proto-MK* k- is reflected in the glottal initial of the phonetic 乙.

'To die' in other east and southeast Asian languages are: Chinese 死*siər; Tib. * ‘chi-ba, šhi; Lolo-Burm *šei;** Proto-Tai *tai; ** Proto-Miao *daih. ** Here Chinese goes together wit Tibeto-Burman, and Proto-Tai goes together with Proto-Miao. None of these forms has any resemblance to *tsɛt.

Source: http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/tm17/paper459.htm ]

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APPENDIX F

The case of "ruồi"
by Tsu-lin Mei

维虫 ‘fly’**

‘fly’ in Mon-Khmer: VN ruồi; Camb. Ruy; Lawa rue; Mon rùy; Chaobon rùuy; Kuy ʔaruəy; Souei ʔɑrɔɔy; Brurùay; Ngeʔ, Alak, Tampuon rɔɔy; Loven, Brao, Stieng ruay; Chong r*ɔʔy; Pear roy.

Cf. Proto-AA * ruwaj (Pinnow, p. 268, item 356).

The word 维虫 wei ‘fly , gnat’ occurs in the Ch’u-yü 楚语 section of the kuo-yü 国语: “It is as if horses and cattle were placed in extreme heat, with many gnats and flies (on them) 亡虫维虫之既多, and yet they are unable to swish their tails.” GSR 575 defines wei as ‘gnat’ and gives its OC value as *dwr. Karlgren’s definition ‘gnat’ (or our ‘fly’) fits the above passage, the locus classicus of this word. It is further substantiated by old dictionaries; the Kwang-ya 广雅 defines 维虫 as 虫羊, and the Fang-yen 方言 states that 羊(虫羊) is a dialect form of 蝇 ‘fly.’ Karlgren’s OC value, however, requires revision.

The OC value of 维虫 can be ascertained via its phonetic 维 wei; the form of the character indicates that it is the name of an insect pronounced like 维. The initial of wei in MC is 喻四, the yü initial. Li Fang-kuei has argued convincingly that the OC value of yü IV is a flapped r- or l-, somewhat like the second consonant of ladder in American English; he writes it as *r-. ** 乌弋山离 ‘Alexandria,’ a Han dynasty transcription, has 弋 MC (with a yü IV initial) matching –lek (s)-. The word 酉, one of the twelve earth’s branches, has *r- in Proto- Tai, still attested in several modern dialects. Sino-Tibetan correspondences point to the same value, for example, ‘leaf’ Chinese叶* * rap/*äp/yeh; Tib. lob-ma, ldeb (*dl-).

The final of wei has been reconstructed as –d by Tung T’ung-ho and Li Fang-kuei, and as –r by Karlgren. These are values for the earlier stage of OC. By the time of the Kuo-yü, which is relatively late, -d or –r had probably already become –i.

The Mon-Khmer forms have a wide distribution. More cognate forms, including some in the Munda branch, can be found in Pinnow, p. 268, item 356. VN rui etc., then, is a very old word in AA: it is also he general word for ‘fly.’ The standard word for ‘fly’ in OC is 蝇* * riəng, which was already attested in the Odes. The word 维虫 wei ‘fly,’ on the other hand, is a hapax legomenon. Clearly, wei ‘fly’ was borrowed from the AA’s into the ancient Ch’u dialect.

In Li’s system, the distinction between ho-k’our and k’ai-k’ou (with or without –u-/-w-) is non-phonemic in OC, and the OC value of 维 in his system is *rəd. In terms of our problem, there are two possibilities. Either OC had no –w- at all, phonemic or non-phonemic, in which case the best the Chinese could do to approximate the AA form (which has a rounded back vowel) is * rəi< * rəd; or else, OC had a non-phonemic –w-, in which case the OC form is * rwəi. We have chosen the latter alternative.

The two loanwords, chiang ‘Yangtze River’ and wei ‘fly’, suggest the following sequence of events. The Chinese came to the middle Yangtze between 1000 and 500 B.C., and there met the AA’s. Subsequently, some of the AA’s migrated toward the south, and some were absorbed into the Ch’u population. That is why this word shows up in the Ch’u-yü section of the Kuo-yü and nowhere else.

It seems appropriate to mention in this connection that the Ch’u people clearly contained non-Chinese elements. King Wu of Ch’u acknowledged that he was a southern barbarian; the poet Ch’ Yan lamented, “I was sad that the southern tribesmen could not understand me”; and the Lü-shih ch’un-ch’iu stated that “Ch’u was derived from the barbarians.”** In view of what has just been said, we know that one of the ethnic groups constituting the Ch’u people was AA.

Source: http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/tm17/paper459.htm ]

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APPENDIX G

The case of "ngà"
by Tsu-lin Mei

牙** ngra/nga/ya ‘tooth, tusk, ivory’

AA: VN ng ‘ivory’; Proto-Mnong (Bahnar) * ngo’la ‘tusk’;** Proto-Tai * nga.

Chinese ya has a 2^nd Division final in MC, which, according to the Yakhontov-Pulleyblank theory, calls for a medial –r- in OC.And it is our belief that OC *ngra was derived from an AA form similar to Proto-Mnong * ngo’la.

Our theory that Chinese ya was a loan is base upon the following considerations. (1) The oldest Chinese word for ‘tooth’ is ch’ih, which once had an unrestricted range of application, including ‘molar,’ ‘tusk,’ and ‘ivory.’ (2) Ya is of relatively late origin. When it first appeared, it was only used for ‘animal tooth’ and ‘tusk,’ which was and still is the meaning in AA. (3) While North China once had elephants, they became quite rare during the Shang and Chou dynasties, and ivory had to be imported from the middle and lower Yangtze region. Imported items not infrequently bear their original names, and by our previous argument, the Yangtze valley was inhabited by the AA’s during the first millennium B.C.

Ch’ih 齿 consists of a phonetic 止 and the remaining part as a signific.The latter is a pictograph showing the teeth in an open mouth. Ancestral forms of the pictograph occurred frequently in the oracle bones. Since adding a phonetic is a standard method for creating new graphs for old words, we can be reasonably certain the oracle bone forms cited represented ch’ih. The graph of ya, however, has no identifiable occurrence in the oracle bones and only one probable occurrence in the bronze inscriptions. This statement is based upon the fact that ya is listed neither in Li Hsiao-ting’s compendium of oracle bone graphs nor in Yung Keng’s dictionary of bronze graphs.**Karlgren cited a bronze form for ya in GSR (37b).But Kuo Muo-jo marked this occurrence of ya as a proper name, which makes it impossible to ascertain the meaning further.**

There are reasons to believe that the absence of ya from early epigraphic records was not merely accidental. The oracle bones contained many records of prognosis concerning illness, and among them tooth-ache.** The graphs used were always ancestral forms of ch’ih. The oracle bones also contained a representative list of terms for parts of the body, including head, ear, eye, mouth, tongue, foot, and probably also elbow, heel, buttock, shank**.The absence of ya under such circumstances is quited conspicuous.

A graph must first exist before it can become a part of another graph, and the older a graph, the more chances it has to serve as part of other graphs.By this criterion, ch’ih is much older than ya.In the oracle bones, ch’ih occurs as the signific of three graphs. In the Shuo-wen, ch’ih occurs as the signific of forty-one graphs, all having something to do with tooth; ya, only two graphs, one of which has a variant form with ch’ih as the signific. The Shuo-wen also tells us that ya has a ku-wen form in which the graph for ch’ih appeared under the graph for ya. What this seems to indicate is that when 牙 first appeared, it was so unfamiliar that some scribes found ti necessary to add the graph for ch’ih in order to remind themselves what ya was supposed to mean. 牙 also occurs as the phonetic of eight graphs (six according to Karlgren). But none of these graphs is older than 牙, and our conclusion is not affected.

The meaning of ch’ih in he oracle bones is primarily ‘human tooth’, including ‘molar.’On one shell, there occurred the statement……which has been interpreted , “Yn came to send a tribute of elephant’s tusks.”** But other interpretations are also possible. The use of ch’ih as ‘tusk, ivory’ in most clearly illustrated in Ode 299 憬彼淮夷，来献其琛，元龟象齿 “Far away are those Huai tribes, but they come to present their treasures, big tortoise, elephant’s tusks”; and not quite so clearly in two passages in the 禹贡 “Y kung,” both of which listed 齿，革，羽，毛 as items of tribute. Here ch’ih can mean either ‘ivory’ or ‘bones and tusks of animals,’ all used for carving.Lastly, ch’ih also applies to tooth of other animals, 相鼠有齿“Look at the rat, it has its teeth” (Ode 52).

Beginning with the Book of Odes we have unambiguous evidence for the use of ya. But in the pre-Han texts ya still did not occur frequently, and an analysis of this small corpus reveals that ya was never used for human tooth.Hence the Shuo-wen’s definition of ya as 牡齿, usually interpreted as ‘molar,’ seems to reflect a later, probably post-Ch’in, development.** The most frequent occurrence of ya in the sense of ‘tooth’ is in the compound 爪牙‘claw and tooth,’ and there the reference to animal tooth is quite clear.The Yi-ching contains a line in which the meaning of ya was ‘tusk’: ##豕之牙吉‘the tusk of a castrated hog:[the sign is] propitious.’The line in Ode 17 谁谓鼠无牙 probably means ‘who says the rat has no tusks?’ but some scholars prefer to interpret ya simply as ‘teeth (incisors).’

Elephants once existed in North China; remains of elephants have been unearthed in Neolithic sites as well as in An-yang.**  Ivory carving was also a highly developed craft during the Shang dynasty.**These facts, however, should not mislead us into thinking that elephants had always been common in ancient North China.Yang Chung-chien and Liu Tung-sheng made an analysis of over six thousand mammalian remains from the An-yang site and reported the following finding: over 100 individuals, dog, pig, deer, lamb, cow, etc.; between 10 and 100 individuals, tiger, rabbit, horse, bear, badger (獾) etc.; under 10 individuals, elephant, monkey, whale, fox, rhinoceros, etc.**The authors went on to say that rare species such as the whale, the rhinoceros, and the elephant were obviously imported from outside, and their uses were limited to that of display as items of curiosity.This view is also confirmed by literary sources.  In the Han Fei-tzu, it is said that when King Chou of the Shang dynasty made ivory chopsticks, Chi Tzi, a loyal minister, became apprehensive – implying that when as rare an item as ivory was used for chopsticks, the king’s other extravagances could be easily imagined.**  Importation of ivory in the form of tribute was also reported in Ode 299 and in the “Yü-kung,” both of which were cited above.

The history of ya and ch’ih can now be reconstructed as follows: The people of the Shang and Chou dynasties have always depended upon import for their supply of ivory.But during the early stage, ivory and other animal tusks and bones were designated by ch’ih, which was also the general word for ‘tooth.’  Items made of ivory were also indicated by adding a modifier 象 hsiang ‘elephant’ before the noun, for example 象##，象弭，象箸 ‘ivory comb-pin,’ ‘ivory bow tip,’ ‘ivory chopsticks.’**  Then ya came into the Chinese language in the sense of ‘tusk,’  Because a tusk is larger than other types of teeth, ya gradually acquired the meaning of ‘big tooth, molar’ by extension, thus encroaching upon the former domain of ch’ih.When later lexicographers defined ya as ‘molar’ and ch’ih as ‘front tooth,’ they are describing, though without clear awareness, the usage of the Han dynasty and thereafter.By further extension, ya also became the general word for ‘tooth,’ while retaining tis special meaning of ‘ivory.’

Some Min dialects still employ 齿 in the sense of tooth.The common word for tooth in Amoy is simply k’i.Foochow has nai3 which is a fusion of ŋɑplus k’i, i.e. 牙齿. This strongly suggests that in Min the real old word for ‘tooth’ is 齿 as in Amoy, the implication being that this was stil the colloquial word for ‘tooth’ well into Han when Fukien was first settled by the Chinese.The Japanese use 齿 as kanji to write ha ‘tooth’ in their language; 牙 rarely occurs.Both these facts provide supplementary evidence for the thesis that the use of ya as the general word for ‘tooth’ was a relatively late development.

In a note published in BSOAS, vol. 18, Walter Simon proposed that Tibetan so ‘tooth’ and Chinese ya 牙 (OC *ng*) are cognates, thus reviving a view once expressed by Sten Konow.  Simon’s entire argument was based upon historical phonology; he tried to show

(a) OC had consonant clusters of the type sng- and C-, (b) by reconstructing 牙 as sng*>zng >nga and 邪 as zˠ*>z**, one can affirm Hs Shen’s view that 邪 has 牙 as its phonetic, and (c) Chinese sng* can then be related to a Proto-Tibetan *sngwa and Burmese swa:>θwa:.

Our etymology for ya ‘tooth’ implies a rejection of Simon’s view; if ya is borrowed from AA, then the question of Sino-Tibetan comparison simply does not arise.And even if our theory is not accepted, there is no reason to adopt Simon’s analysis; ya is clearly a word of relatively late origin, and the fact that 邪 has 牙 as its phonetic can be explained by assuming that the z- of 邪 resulted from the palatalization of an earlier g-.**

Source: http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/tm17/paper459.htm ]

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