must have spread from China to the nations nearby. I noticed that when I was in college by hearing how some students pronounced the numbers in their own languages whom I met on campus and had come from Vietnam, Korea and so on.
But I always had mixed feelings about so-called "cultural influences". Imagine an intelligent people happened to live next to China. Since they were smart, and smart people were more willing to learn, consequentially they would pick up a lot from the Chinese. But that also means they missed the oportunity of creating a different culture.
