kev
Volapük
editNoun
editkev (nominative plural kevs)
Declension
editWhite Hmong
editEtymology
editFrom Proto-Hmong-Mien *kləuX (“road, way”).[1] Cognate with Western Xiangxi Miao [Fenghuang] geud, Iu Mien jauv.
Possibly related to either Old Chinese 街 (OC *kreː, *kreː, “street, way”) or 道 (OC *[kə.l]ˤuʔ) (B-S), though whether via borrowing or via inheritance from a common source is unclear.
Pronunciation
editNoun
editkev (classifier: txoj (lengths), tsem (sections of road), ceg (sections or directions of a journey))
- road, street
- matters, business, affairs
- Koj muaj kev dab tsi? ― What is your business? What do you want?
Classifier
editkev
- used to nominalize the word it modifies, used to indicate "the way of ...": -ness
- kev mob kev tuag ― sickness and death
References
edit- Heimbach, Ernest E. (1979) White Hmong — English Dictionary[1], SEAP Publications, →ISBN, pages 80-1.
- ^ Ratliff, Martha (2010) Hmong-Mien language history (Studies in Language Change; 8), Camberra, Australia: Pacific Linguistics, →ISBN, page 275.