Language Matters | How catty and tael entered the English language, along with picul, mace and candareen – Asian weight measurements

Those who frequent traditional retail outlets in Hong Kong (herbalists, goldsmiths, wet markets) will have dealt in weight measurements of the Cantonese kan/gāan and léung. These units – silver ingots in late imperial China weighed a nominal liǎng, equivalent to a léung – are used across East and Southeast Asia, with the trade names catty and tael respectively.

A catty – comprising 16 taels (since the 16th century; in the 14th century it was 20 taels) – is traditionally equivalent to one pound avoirdupois, formalised as 604.78982 grams in Hong Kong, with similar values for Singapore’s and Malaysia’s kati; but rounded to 600g in Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Thailand. China’s more specific market catty, the shìjīn, is rounded to 500g, distinguished from the metric catty gōngjīn, the kilogram.

Diversity lies not only in actual weight, but also in ety­mology: the words catty and tael come from the Malay and Javanese kātīīand tahil, respectively, with the latter entering English via the Portuguese tael. The Malay tahil may have derived from the Hindi tolā, meaning “weight of the new rupee”, from the Sanskrit tulā, or “weight”.

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