[ezquire]

hmm..... Indonesian word for cockroach is incredibly similar. It's kecoak.

[xng]

lifezard, on Jun 3 2006, 01:57 AM, said:

Kangxi Dictionary may be compiled during the Qing Dynasty but its words are based on the earlier Guangyun and Qieyun dictionaries.. they contained lots of antique words that were no longer current for centuries and also some dialectal words..

There were words not standardised by Qin Shi Huang (more correctly Li Si) but I do not think the words you mentioned are amongst them. Actually some of the characters combination may have been used in Pre-Qin times, but its not used in the same meaning as Hokkien. Simply said, I have not seen enough proof from you that they are ancient characters or Sinitic words.
I m not here to dispute your other thread. (I share the view too Wu and Min are derived from a separate branch from other Chinese dialects), and I dun object that there are characters that are different from the standard (even Mandarin dialects has them). My point is certain Hokkien words (even if they have local characters or superimposed on available characters), do not seem to derive from ancient Chinese... standard and dialect alike... and they are not a few as you have mentioned...

Guangyun and qieyun are not dictionaries from before the 'qin' dynasty. Anyway, they are most probably derived from the standard 'imperial branch' . Where is your proof that all characters from all chinese branches were included by Li Si ? Not all historical records are complete. Didn't qin shi huang burnt a lot of books to destroy a lot of information ?

I am not in a position to prove to you but it is based on my observation from taiwanese songs/films, don't you think they are in a better position than you ? Usually, non sinitic characters have a mouth radical in front of them.

I am not denying that there may be some tai-kadai words (min yue words), but there are also really archaic characters that are not used in the imperial branch which some chinese characters may have been lost.

Those that have similar sound and similar meaning in tai-kadai as the equivalent in hokkien are most probably borrowed by the hokkien, those that do not (not present in tai-kadai) are 'lost' chinese characters.

There is another minnan forum in which a guy pointed out another min dictionary which has some characters not present in the 'standard' version. Maybe qrasy can point out to you.

[lifezard]

xng, on Jun 3 2006, 06:15 PM, said:

Guangyun and qieyun are not dictionaries from before the 'qin' dynasty. Anyway, they are most probably derived from the standard 'imperial branch' . Where is your proof that all characters from all chinese branches were included by Li Si ? Not all historical records are complete. Didn't qin shi huang burnt a lot of books to destroy a lot of information ?

Calm down, Read my words carefully... I ve never said all characters from all Chinese branches are included into the standard set by Li Si.

I am not sure about Qieyun but while Guangyun may be a Song dynasty work, it contains words whose antiquity stretches far back, and in fact some words that were not in current usage even those days anymore. It also recorded some dialectal words at that time that were not regarded as standard usage. If you are not happy to look at Guangyun, maybe you can look at Han time Shuowen Jiezi or even Fangyan, the earliest work on Chinese dialects...

xng, on Jun 3 2006, 06:15 PM, said:

I am not in a position to prove to you but it is based on my observation from taiwanese songs/films, don't you think they are in a better position than you ?

I ve not heard of any Taiwanese saying that the charcters they put into songs and film subtitles (I do sing Hokkien songs at KTVs) are very ancient and can be traced back to Pre-Qin times... and regarding whether they are being in a better position or not... I dun think they are in much a better position, unless they are specialise in researching the origins of these characters...

xng, on Jun 3 2006, 06:15 PM, said:

Usually, non sinitic characters have a mouth radical in front of them.

that is not necesary true .. and anyway, as I have said earlier they sometimes use a standard character that is identical in meaning to represent a word that otherwise have no characters

xng, on Jun 3 2006, 06:15 PM, said:

I am not denying that there may be some tai-kadai words (min yue words), but there are also really archaic characters that are not used in the imperial branch which some chinese characters may have been lost.

I dun deny that as well, I think the use of word tia(n) 鼎 as normal cooking vessel exemplifies the fact that Min contains very old words that were otherwise no longer used in other Chinese dialects. In fact, when I drew up that word-list earlier, I was more interested in finding etymology of them... and I believe one must keep an open mind wrt whether the words are sinitic or not in origin

xng, on Jun 3 2006, 06:15 PM, said:

Those that have similar sound and similar meaning in tai-kadai as the equivalent in hokkien are most probably borrowed by the hokkien, those that do not (not present in tai-kadai) are 'lost' chinese characters.
There is another minnan forum in which a guy pointed out another min dictionary which has some characters not present in the 'standard' version. Maybe qrasy can point out to you.

they could have been borrowed .. .. Words like t'ai kill and kia(n) are already in Hokkien before extensive contact with the Lao or Thai (both Tai groups) so it must be a Tai group much closer to home... as for the last part ... how many times must I tell you that having a character for a word does not necessary mean that it is Sinitic in origin? There are plenty of these type of dialectal dictionaries, not just Min alone

This post has been edited by lifezard: 03 June 2006 - 06:19 AM

[spadia]

Sorry Ngao is not Filipino
it is Cantonese similar to ngong

I also noticed the confusion between "D" and "L"
As mentioned Tay Li Jit here in Phils. we say Te di dit
lia or catch we say "dia"
ka lao or fell we do use "ka diao"
what about the word dragoN?ｉ is it dieng or lieng?

lifezard the cantonese ye or thing is available in Chinese嘢 ...such as 冇嘢 i just typed Mao Ye
off topic
the word for faster in Cantonese Fai di, I wonder if anyone knows what is the Chinese equivalent for di?
i saw some use 快D...it seems there is no character equivalent for it.

[qrasy]

xng, on May 31 2006, 07:55 PM, said:

No, I think ngao is not a hokkien word. Maybe it is a philipino word.

Difference in nasalization, perhaps.
I think there might be a difference like in Sia(n)mi(n)h vs Simmi(n)h.

Quote

更 is pronounced as King not kang !

The meaning dismatch is more important than sound dismatch. There could be some irregular pronounciation changes like 來->嚟.

lifezard, on Jun 2 2006, 02:52 PM, said:

A few? i would wonder what are the original chinese words for these Hokkien words below:

There's an expert on this kind of matter in the www.chineselanguage.org for Hokkien words

xng, on Jun 3 2006, 11:19 AM, said:

Siam - 閃
Kia - 仔
Bak - 肉 (non-literary sound)
Hiau (know) - 曉
Nu/Lu (you) - 汝

With Kia(n) and Bak very doubtful connection to the Chinese character youn provided.

Quote

Ka cua - This is the same characters used by cantonese for Kak Cak (cockcroach).

"Gaat Jaat 曱甴" looks like modern Cantonese invention, as it does not exist in Kangxi dictionary.
Interestingly Japanese has made a reading of "ou" and "sou" of these 2 cahracters... But the ending does not match. It's not "Aap Jaap" but maybe Cantonese change the ending from -p to -t like in 壓??

Quote

Like what I said, some others are ancient characters because hokkien branched off differently from the imperial branch for which the 'qin dynasty' unified all characters but obviously removed some.

There should be people trying to read the "ancient form" and put it into dictionary as an obscure character.
犭肖 and 攰 exist in Kangxizidian.

xng, on Jun 3 2006, 03:10 PM, said:

Kangxi dictionary is compiled in the ching dynasty. I am talking about ancient chinese characters
which existed before the 'qin dynasty'. When qin shih huang became king, he standardised most characters but not all.

Well, I think dialectical words may survive even after the standardization. I can't imagine a Qin person using 睇.

Quote

I have seen the characters for cockcroach ka cua or kak cak so these should be the original chinese characters as it occurs in most southern chinese langauges.

What are the characters?

Quote

Mandarin's 'jang lang' maybe a manchurian import ? (just my guess)

May be. 蟑 is not even in Kangxi dictionary or Japanese or Korean. 螂 exists, but in "螳螂"

lifezard, on Jun 3 2006, 03:57 PM, said:

Kangxi Dictionary may be compiled during the Qing Dynasty but its words are based on the earlier Guangyun and Qieyun dictionaries.. they contained lots of antique words that were no longer current for centuries and also some dialectal words..

ezquire, on Jun 3 2006, 05:13 PM, said:

Indonesian word for cockroach is incredibly similar. It's kecoak.

The English word "cockroach" is also somehow similar to kecoak.

xng, on Jun 3 2006, 06:15 PM, said:

Guangyun and qieyun are not dictionaries from before the 'qin' dynasty.

While the older ones might be far too simple to contain many characters.

spadia, on Jun 3 2006, 11:36 PM, said:

I also noticed the confusion between "D" and "L"

Similar situation in Pekanbaru. There's no "J" or "L", both are replaced by a "D".

Quote

lifezard the cantonese ye or thing is available in Chinese嘢 ...such as 冇嘢 i just typed Mao Ye

"Mao Ye" looks like Mandarin invention to accomodate Cantonese.

Quote

the word for faster in Cantonese Fai di, I wonder if anyone knows what is the Chinese equivalent for di?
i saw some use 快D...it seems there is no character equivalent for it.

Beijing Mandarin (?) = "快点儿".
Cantonese invention = 快啲.
Actually, this word also exist for the meaning of "a few", showing connection to Mandarin "点".

[xng]

qrasy, on Jun 4 2006, 12:40 AM, said:

"Gaat Jaat 曱甴" looks like modern Cantonese invention, as it does not exist in Kangxi dictionary.

What are the characters?

While the older ones might be far too simple to contain many characters.

Kangxi dictionary is not the comprehensive dictionary that everyone think it is, it is based mainly on the northern chinese language with some characters from other dialects but NOT all.

Those are the characters that I have seen in cantonese 曱甴. Usually those borrowed sounds have a 'mouth' radical eg. The 'ye' meaning thing in cantonese has obviously no chinese character.

The older ones may not contain as much new characters as the newer dictionary but it should contain more characters from the other chinese languages. Ask yourself, why are there no chinese dictionaries published before the qin dynasty ?

Did qin shih huang destroy those dictionaries when he destroyed confucius's books ?

This post has been edited by xng: 04 June 2006 - 05:58 AM

[qrasy]

xng, on Jun 4 2006, 06:56 PM, said:

Kangxi dictionary is not the comprehensive dictionary that everyone think it is, it is based mainly on the northern chinese language with some characters from other dialects but NOT all.

Based on Northern Chinese language? Nope. It's based on Shuowen, Qieyun, Jiyun, Tangyun, Guangyun, etc.
I've not seen "local Northern dialect word" in there. The compilers did not check whether the Fanqie suits Mandarin or not. I'm not even talking about the Ru tone characters. e.g. 付=方遇切, 乘=食陵切.
Almost unused characters may appear in there because of the Qieyun etc.

Quote

Those are the characters that I have seen in cantonese 曱甴. Usually those borrowed sounds have a 'mouth' radical eg. The 'ye' meaning thing in cantonese has obviously no chinese character.

Perhaps you should consider cases like "冚", "鎂" where 口 is obviously not used.
口 is there usually because there's no good description of what the thing being described is; and it doesn't need to be borrowed, may be merely a pronunciation change, e.g. 嚟.

Quote

The older ones may not contain as much new characters as the newer dictionary but it should contain more characters from the other chinese languages.

New characters were made from time to time, so it should contain less characters. And I think "other Chinese languages" may not have appeared by then, as the separation is too short to make considerable diversity. Are there any significant expansion of Chinese languages to the South before Qin?
Anyway, some Chu/Wu/Yue words are recorded, e.g. 睇 (a Chu 楚 word) and 儂 (a Wu 吳 word).
I think those characters are not described as being "from xx dialect" but rather from the ancient states.

集韻 contains more "dialectical characters", as 囝 (Min for child) and 攰 (Cantonese[?] for very tired) are recorded in there but not in others.

Quote

Ask yourself, why are there no chinese dictionaries published before the qin dynasty ?

Sorry, I don't remember the ages of the ancient books. Anyway, how do you think could people have a collection of Zhuanshu characters if not from dictionaries?

Quote

Did qin shih huang destroy those dictionaries when he destroyed confucius's books ?

Who knows?

[lifezard]

qrasy, on Jun 4 2006, 09:11 PM, said:

Sorry, I don't remember the ages of the ancient books. Anyway, how do you think could people have a collection of Zhuanshu characters if not from dictionaries?

well there were also the ritual bronze inscriptions and later the oracle bones....

[xng]

I found the chinese character for 'ka cheng' or butt.

Ka is actually leg in minnan.

It is the end of the spine where the leg starts (don't know why minnan call it leg instead of sacrum)

尻 川

[lifezard]

xng, on Aug 12 2006, 05:20 PM, said:

I found the chinese character for 'ka cheng' or butt.

Ka is actually leg in minnan.

It is the end of the spine where the leg starts (don't know why minnan call it leg instead of sacrum)

尻 川

yes .. the 1st character is the same as Japanese 'shiri'　尻 ... i m not sure how it is pronounced in mandarin..

but Hokkien 'K'a Chng' makes 1 think that it s more related to leg K'a which is mostly trancribed as "骨交" instead..

This post has been edited by lifezard: 12 August 2006 - 06:04 AM

[xng]

lifezard, on Aug 12 2006, 05:03 AM, said:

yes .. the 1st character is the same as Japanese 'shiri'　尻 ... i m not sure how it is pronounced in mandarin..

but Hokkien 'K'a Chng' makes 1 think that it s more related to leg K'a which is mostly trancribed as "骨交" instead..

In mandarin, it is pronounced as

K'ao first tone.

The meaning is

end of spine; buttocks, sacrum from

http://humanum.arts....Lexis/lexi-can/

Type hou for cantonese.

[lifezard]

xng, on Aug 12 2006, 10:56 PM, said:

In mandarin, it is pronounced as

K'ao first tone.

The meaning is

end of spine; buttocks, sacrum from

http://humanum.arts....Lexis/lexi-can/

Type hou for cantonese.

i dun have the cantonese system on my pc .. maybe sound insensitive but i m not really interested to get 1

[xng]

lifezard, on Aug 12 2006, 05:03 AM, said:

yes .. the 1st character is the same as Japanese 'shiri'　尻 ... i m not sure how it is pronounced in mandarin..

What is the meaning of japanese 'shiri' ?

[lifezard]

xng, on Aug 13 2006, 12:05 PM, said:

What is the meaning of japanese 'shiri' ?

it s most basic meaning is the same as hokkien 'k'achng' ... with a couple of literary terms associated to it ..

also it can be also use in the form "back of xxx" ..... there are a fair number of '-shiri' '-jiri' placenames all around japan ..

[xng]

pi_nong_tai_lao, on Oct 19 2006, 05:22 AM, said:

vernacular term translation literary reading
súi 漂亮 beautiful 美 bí
siáu 瘋 wild, crazy 狂 kông
sán 瘦 thin 瘦 só˙
koân 高 tall 高 ko
té 短 short 短 toán
hêng 還 return 還 hoân
koāi 齟齬 , 搶奪 go against 乖 koai
bah 肉 flesh 肉 jiók
thang 窗户 window 窗 chhong
tsa-po˙ 男人 man 査哺 tsa-po˙ [/b] [/i]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Tai
sui-beautiful
san-short=thin
tea-short/midget
hau-give
thaang-window

I am really surprised that taiwanese doesn't know some of the common minnan words which have chinese character equivalent. Here is my list below :

1. siūn 想 think 想 sióng

Siun is the verbal form when used alone. Siong is the literary pronounciation when used as a compound word.

Eg. Gua siun. 我 想
Su Siong 思 想

Other examples:

香 Hiun
上 Verbal - Siun, Literary - Siong

2. lâng 人 person 人 jîn

Lang is another ancient chinese character 儂.

3. lāu-pē 父親 father 老父 ló˙-hū

It is 老 爸. The same with 老 母 (lau bu) for mother.

These are colloquial form, 父親 is more formal.

4. khiā 站 stand 豎 sū

Khia is most probably 徛. Even cantonese don't use 站 but 企 (K'ei).




It seems that Sui, San, Tay are Daic in origin. I cannot confirm the rest.

This post has been edited by xng: 20 October 2006 - 12:18 PM