Posted by Philip Emery (60.228.121.161) on October 03, 2005 at 05:38:41:
In Reply to: posted by Mim Romero on September 02, 2001 at 07:02:02:
Australian context:
people at the Australia-China Historical socety tell me that 'ah' commonly arose in immigrqation exchanges where the offficial would ask an incoming Chinese immigrant/traveller his name with the query "You?" in place of 'and your name is?"
Reply would be "Ah Foo". [ie "me Foo"] and name would be thus transcribed.....does that make sense???