Yap Ah Loy

Yap Ah Loy (Chinese: 葉亞來; pinyin: Yè Yàlái; Cantonese Yale: Yip A-loi; Hakka: Ya̍p Â-lòi; 14 March 1837 – 15 April 1885), also known as Yap Tet Loy and Yap Mao Lan. He is widely regarded by as the founding father of Kuala Lumpur, he developed Kuala Lumpur as a commercial and mining centre during the 19th century. Yap Ah Loy became a Kapitan Cina and the headman of a settlement of Chinese inhabitants. After the independence of Federation of Malaya from the British Empire on 31 August 1957 and later the Formation of Malaysia in 1963, Kuala Lumpur became the capital of Malaysia. Today, there is a street named after him in the heart of Chinatown in Kuala Lumpur, known as "Jalan Yap Ah Loy" or "Yap Ah Loy Road".

Background

Yap Ah Loy was born in Guangdong (formerly known as Canton) province, southern China on 14 March 1837. His parents lived in the town of Danshui/Tamsui (Chinese: 淡水; pinyin: Dànshuǐ) in Kwai Yap district, Huizhou prefecture. He was a Hakka of the Fui Chiu clan. Yap Ah Loy left China via Macau for British Malaya in 1854. On his arrival in Malaya, he found the place very different from China. The scenery, with tall coconut and betel palms, and the small Malay houses with atap (nipah thatch) roofs, was a new and fascinating experience to him.

Yap

Yap or Wa′ab (Yapese: Waqab) classically refers to an island—the Yap Main Islands—located in the Caroline Islands of the western Pacific Ocean, and a part of the Federated States of Micronesia. The name "Yap" in recent years has come to also refer to the state within the Federated States of Micronesia, inclusive of the Yap Main Islands and its various outer islands.

The Yap Main Islands is considered to be made up of four separate islands: Yap Island proper (Marbaq), Gagil-Tamil, Maap (Yapese: Maap′), and Rumung. The four are contiguous, though separated by water and are surrounded by a common coral reef. They are formed from an uplift of the Philippine Sea Plate, and are referred to as "high" islands as opposed to atolls. The land is mostly rolling hills, densely vegetated. Mangrove swamps line much of the shore, although there are beaches on the northern sides of the islands. Yap's indigenous cultures and traditions are strong compared to other states in Micronesia.

Colonia is the capital of the State of Yap which includes the Yap Main Islands and the Yap Neighboring Islands—the outer islands (mostly atolls) reaching to the east and south from the Yap Main Islands for some 800 km (500 mi), namely the atolls of Eauripik, Elato, Faraulep, Gaferut, Ifalik, Lamotrek, Ngulu, Olimarao, Piagailoe (West Fayu), Pikelot, Sorol, Ulithi, and Woleai, as well as the islands of Fais and Satawal (see map). Historically, a tributary system existed between the Neighboring Islands and the Yap Main Islands. This probably related to the need for goods from the high islands, including food, as well as wood for construction of seagoing vessels.

Yap (company)

Yap Speech Cloud was a multimodal speech recognition system developed by American technology company Yap Inc. It offered a fully cloud-based speech-to-text transcription platform that was used by customers such as Microsoft.

The Company was a contestant at the inaugural TechCrunch conference and was subsequently acquired by Amazon in September 2011 to help develop products such as Alexa Voice Service, Echo, and Fire TV.

See also

References

Ye (surname)

Ye is the pinyin romanization of the Chinese surname written 葉 in traditional character and 叶 in simplified character. It is listed 257th in the Song dynasty classic text Hundred Family Surnames, and is the 42nd most common surname in China, with a population of 5.8 million as of 2008.

Ye is also romanized Yeh in Wade-Giles; Yip, Ip, and Jip in Cantonese; Iap, Yap, Yapp, and Yeap in Hakka and Minnan; and Diệp in Vietnamese.

Pronunciation

In Middle Chinese, Ye (葉) was pronounced Sjep (IPA: [ɕiɛp]). As late as the 11th-century Guangyun Dictionary, it was a homophone of other characters that are pronounced shè in modern Mandarin and sip in modern Cantonese.

Distribution

As of 2008, Ye is the 42nd most common surname in China, with a population of 5.8 million. It is the 22nd most common surname on Taiwan as of 2005.

None of the romanizations of 葉/叶 appeared among the 1000 most common surnames during the 2000 US census.

Origin

Ye means "leaf" in modern Chinese, but the name arose as a clan name referring to the city of Ye in the State of Chu during the Spring and Autumn Period of ancient China. The city gave its name to the present-day Ye County in Henan Province.