On Saturday, October 25, 2014 9:31:33 AM UTC-4, Moobthaibteb Moobtwmzeej wrote:
> Language evolves, does pebcaug no longer mean our knees but hilltop, hauvtoj? Yeah, that was just a stab at the multiple meaning of words, but aside from that is this pebcaug just a neologism for certain areas of the world, mainly in US/Canada and perhaps France/Austrailia? While those in China and Indochina might still make the distinction between what a pebcaug is to that of what a hauvtoj is, usage in the industrialized nations wise, hardly anyone even know or care to know what a hauvtoj is anymore. Are we using our knees (pebcaug) to stomp over the hilltop (hauvtoj)? What might be a suitable retronym to distinguish the two?
In another place and time there was a discussion about the proper way of chiseling the paper money for the dead at a funeral rite. I pointed out that that ritual is/was just a change/evolves as time past of how materialistic human nature are. While some say the paper has to be certain kind and the way to txaug it has to be certain way, I questioned why can't the paper just be any type, like any newspaper size with all types of prints already all over them or even a blank regular school textbook notebook size loose leaf paper rather than those silver and gold glitter paper that you could only get from the oriental store. They jumped at me for how ignorant I was of our culture. When I pointed out that while some may want to argue about whether paper was invented in China or invented in Egypt about 2,200 years ago, let us all just give it even more credit, the invention time, that it was 2,500 years ago. Since there are many claims that we, whether we choose to be known as Moob/Hmoob/Hmong/Mong/Mhong/HMong/Hmu/Ma/Miao/whatever had been a group as far back as 5000 years ago, then what did we use for those death rituals before the paper was invented? My point was while they concentrate only on the process/procedure, I question the original purpose of the whole thing to begin with.
Back to this whether it should be call hauvtoj or tsab [pebcaug], why are we so concern about the "when" should only be the appropriate time? I am just curious about if we want to pin pebcaug to only be allow to be use at the very end of the year, so it could and would represent the number 30 correctly. If we are going to argue about the purpose of 30 is to welcome the new year, are we just going to blindly ignore the very simple fact that December has 31 days and not only 30 days? If 30 is to welcome the new year, why didn't we call it 31 to begin with? If pebcaug is to welcome the new year, why should it only be in December instead of February? Anyone ever heard of Chinese new year? While the Thai solar calendar pretty much follow the Gregorian calendar, Thai lunar calendar has the new year celebration to be anywhere in mid April to early May. Thai lunar calendar is mainly used in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar--countries that we have migrated to for hundreds of years. If pebcaug is solely for the purpose of welcoming the new year, why didn't we do it in April or May?
Again, from the language angle, while other nations/ethinics have holy days/holidays, but for us, if pebcaug is being use widely to represent a social gathering event, will it one day be evolves to simply pebcaug=party that can be use anytime anywhere?