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Posted

You'd really need to know context and purpose of the the translation. There are different meanings of the word in English, and if you are looking for say, a translation of a text on say, the Latin American hacienda system, you'll need a different version from if you just need a word that means 'poor guy who does manual work' for a story.

Posted
苦 ku3

*

I suspect that the English-Malay word 'coolie/kuli' originates from Chinese with that ku3 as the first character. What's the 2nd character (li)? Thx

NB

It's possible that coolie doesn't originates from Mandarin but from another Chinese dialect.

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Posted
I suspect that the English-Malay word 'coolie/kuli' originates from Chinese with that ku3 as the first character. What's the 2nd character (li)?

It's "苦力". Interesting. Didn't know it came from Chinese.

苦力

kǔlì

[hard labor;toil]∶艰苦的劳动

白出苦力

[coolie;cooly]∶旧时对体力劳动者的蔑称

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