<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xml:lang="en-gb"> <link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/app.php/feed/topic/57646" /> <title>Chinese languages</title> <subtitle>Chinese languages</subtitle> <link href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/index.php" /> <updated>2012-05-02T10:27:10+00:00</updated> <author><name><![CDATA[Chinese languages]]></name></author> <id>http://chineselanguage.org/forums/app.php/feed/topic/57646</id> <entry> <author><name><![CDATA[SimL]]></name></author> <updated>2012-05-02T10:27:10+00:00</updated> <published>2012-05-02T10:27:10+00:00</published> <id>http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84719#p84719</id> <link href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84719#p84719"/> <title type="html"><![CDATA[Re: Names of the Radicals]]></title> <content type="html" xml:base="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84719#p84719"><![CDATA[ Hi FutureSpy,<br><br>Very thoughtful of you to try and keep things on topic. But don't worry <em class="text-italics">too much</em> about it... discussions go off-topic all the time on this Forum <img class="smilies" src="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/images/smilies/icon_mrgreen.gif" width="15" height="15" alt=":mrgreen:" title="Mr. Green">. (But still worthwhile trying to avoid, of course!)<br><blockquote class="uncited"><div>Just some off-topic note: I remember having seen 讠 in handwriting by elder Japanese people living here in Brazil</div></blockquote>Haha, ok, perhaps off-topic, but quite closely related to my other point on character simplification. Namely: up to the early 1900's many of these forms existed side-by-side, in print, in handwriting, etc. I have an old scroll, recording the intended marriage of my (Baba!) grandparents (must have been written in the early 1920's). It's a very formal affair, hand-written in beautiful calligraphy, and written more or less in Classical Chinese. <em class="text-italics">On it, one can find abberrant forms and "simplified" forms</em>. Even in the preface to the Kangxi Dictionary (mine is a facsimile edition, so showing how it looked in the late 1800's), <em class="text-italics">one can find abberrant forms and "simplified" forms</em>. <br><br>The idea of "one standardized traditional set" only slowly arose as computers gained ground (Big5 was one of the first standards, and once that had been established, the form of writing each Big5 character also started to get standardized by font designers). [Again, everything I say always has to be qualified, because nothing is black and white. Even long before computers (say between 1800 and 1970) there must have slowly been movements towards greater standardization (with the coming of the daily newpaper, for example). But it was nowhere near the degree of standardization which we are used to nowadays.]<br><br>See, I've managed to move this thread slightly off-topic <img class="smilies" src="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/images/smilies/icon_mrgreen.gif" width="15" height="15" alt=":mrgreen:" title="Mr. Green">.<p>Statistics: Posted by <a href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=977">SimL</a> — Wed May 02, 2012 10:27 am</p><hr /> ]]></content> </entry> <entry> <author><name><![CDATA[FutureSpy]]></name></author> <updated>2012-05-02T04:34:43+00:00</updated> <published>2012-05-02T04:34:43+00:00</published> <id>http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84716#p84716</id> <link href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84716#p84716"/> <title type="html"><![CDATA[Re: Names of the Radicals]]></title> <content type="html" xml:base="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84716#p84716"><![CDATA[ SimL, thanks for sharing all these invaluable infos. Since when I learned Japanese I never bothered learning about radicals (my teacher went through them so that we could use 漢和辞典 [it's how Japanese call a kanji dictionary] and I still remember a few names, but I can only barely guess what's the radical of a kanji) 'cos there were already enough online aid-tools back then such as mouse input on Japanese IME, and then I could easily look up characters on online dictionaries.<br><br>Anyway, I'm thinking now of properly learning hanji and radicals. I already have a list of hanji appearing on the first lesson of one of my textbooks with their corresponding radicals. Now I just need to look up every character to get colloquial and literary pronunciations in Taiwanese. [EDIT: I removed part of this post and created a new thread 'cos I don't want to disturb the on-going here with something off-topic. Sorry <img class="smilies" src="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif" width="15" height="15" alt=":D" title="Very Happy">]<span style="font-size:50%;line-height:116%">I read on Wikipedia that Quanzhou has a third pronunciation they call "vulgar pronunciation". Anyone has any clues if there's such a thing in Taiwanese too? And if not, how useful could it be learning them from Quanzhou sources?</span><br><br>Just some off-topic note: I remember having seen 讠 in handwriting by elder Japanese people living here in Brazil, and some traditional characters such as 會 and 學...<p>Statistics: Posted by <a href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=14689">FutureSpy</a> — Wed May 02, 2012 4:34 am</p><hr /> ]]></content> </entry> <entry> <author><name><![CDATA[SimL]]></name></author> <updated>2012-04-28T05:41:31+00:00</updated> <published>2012-04-28T05:41:31+00:00</published> <id>http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84687#p84687</id> <link href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84687#p84687"/> <title type="html"><![CDATA[Re: Names of the Radicals]]></title> <content type="html" xml:base="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84687#p84687"><![CDATA[ Hi Yeleixingfeng,<br><br>Haha! You go much further than me, wanting a standardized 字根表, whereas I only wanted a standardized set of <em class="text-italics">names</em> for the already standardized list of 214 Kangxi radicals. <br><br>[At this spot I would normally have written a diatribe against the simplification committee for not producing a standardized list of simplified radicals, but I've stopped feeling that in the past few months. Ah-bin explained - right here in this topic - that at the time of the reform, the intention was to ultimately get rid of the characters, so nobody thought that it was important to produce such a standardized list. Ever since having received this insight, I still find it regrettable that such a list doesn't exist, but I do understand the historical reasons for this. And hence no diatribe: "Tout comprendre rend très-indulgent" ("To know all is to forgive all").]<br><br>Yes, I too would love to have a standardized 字根表.<br><br><blockquote class="uncited"><div>In fact, why should the idea 部首 exist? [...] why do we even need to categorize characters into 部首s? To facilitate dictionary-consulting? Don't get me wrong, I warm-heartedly welcome Chinese enthusiasts. Nonetheless, should a language be modeled to appeal the needs of new learners or its indigenous users?</div></blockquote>Well, even native-born Chinese (including great and learned scholars) need to look up obscure characters once in a while. And that is specifically the situation where one doesn't know the pronunciation, so a non-sound-based method needs to be used. The 部首 happens to be one of them, has existed (in its 214 radical form) for 200-300 years, so I'm all for it (or for a modern, rationalized, standardized replacement for it).<br><br>Your 尙-example is indeed a very good one, illustrating where the simplifiers destroyed a previously very nice unity. I do regret this too. But - as you may know - I'm still a supporter of the simplification. To compensate for this, there are also some instances - but only of specific characters, I admit - where the phonetic was vastly improved. I can't think of a single example at the moment, but perhaps I should memorize 3-4 of them, for use in discussions with opponents of the simplification <img class="smilies" src="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/images/smilies/icon_razz.gif" width="15" height="15" alt=":P" title="Razz">.<br><br><blockquote class="uncited"><div>Simplified C is plain blind and arbitrary. </div></blockquote>This is a point often raised by opponents of simplification. My only reply to this is: yes that's true - or at least, it <em class="text-italics">appears</em> to be true. From the point of view of a standardized set of traditional characters, the simplified set looks completely chaotic and arbitrary. [I mean here the "one-off" changes, not the "characters simplified by analogy" (类推简化字), which I will mention later. These latter are <em class="text-italics">not</em> chaotic and arbitrary.] So, I can't dispute that the "one-off" changes appear chaotic and arbitrary. <br><br>BUT (and this is for me a very important but), I would ask the opponents of simplification to look more deeply into the detailed history of Chinese characters and the simplification. Opponents of simplification often portray the simplification process as: "Oh, we had this beautiful, regular, standardized system 'traditional characters', and then those stupid reformers (the phrase "CCP stooges" comes to mind <img class="smilies" src="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/images/smilies/icon_mrgreen.gif" width="15" height="15" alt=":mrgreen:" title="Mr. Green">) came along and wrecked it. It's something I believed for years too. <br><br>But the reality was quite different. <br><br>As far as I understand it now, up to the mid-19th century, there was a proliferation of forms. Not only was there variation between handwritten characters and printed characters, but even printed characters appeared in a large number of variants. And a native-speaker living in China in 1900 would have been familiar with many of the variants, and just coped with them as best they could. So, even before the simplification, there were already movements to try and get this sorted out. All that the simplification did was to pick a particular subset of this huge variation as the proclaimed standard. <br><br>Now, there's no denying that a lot of the choices they made were in opposition to the then commonly used printed forms. For example, they explicitly chose for the "calligraphic" versions 讠, 钅, 饣, 马, etc (because of the fewer number of strokes, obviously), and these were - prior to the simplification - not at all acceptable in printed usage. But they would have been familiar to everyone at the time (and to us now, even if we're only starting to learn Chinese, as these are regular correspondences: all 馬 were standardized to 马 , and all 訁 *when written on the left* were standardized to 讠, etc, etc - the "characters simplified by analogy" (类推简化字) mentioned above). <br><br>As for the "one-off" changes, as I said above, these were also (often) already known variants used in handwriting (or even print). I mention in another reply elsewhere on this Forum that the process of selection of the variant was quite a long, consultative process, and factors like 'is this variant known at a wider level than 1-2 regions?' (e.g. provinces), 'is this variant not restricted to just a particular class or profession in society', etc. Such factors were taken into account before proposing a simplified character as the new standard. And then, after the proposal had been made, there was consultation as to the acceptability of the proposed character. As I did the last time, I would recommend the book "Modern Chinese: History and Sociolinguistics" by Ping Chen, which gave me my best insights into the historical process of simplification. It was this book which finally made me stop disliking the simplified characters, and started me accepting that it was part of a natural (and good) process.<br><br>I can try and find two other good references to more in-depth material to illustrate my point, but that will have to be later, as I have run out of time to post now.<p>Statistics: Posted by <a href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=977">SimL</a> — Sat Apr 28, 2012 5:41 am</p><hr /> ]]></content> </entry> <entry> <author><name><![CDATA[Yeleixingfeng]]></name></author> <updated>2012-04-27T17:37:27+00:00</updated> <published>2012-04-27T17:37:27+00:00</published> <id>http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84682#p84682</id> <link href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84682#p84682"/> <title type="html"><![CDATA[Re: Names of the Radicals]]></title> <content type="html" xml:base="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84682#p84682"><![CDATA[ I like Chinese etymology, A LOT. Nonetheless, I don't see the need for a <em class="text-italics">standardised</em> name for radicals. In fact, why should the idea 部首 exist? (Sorry, SimL... I really appreciate your efforts though. Hear me out first. >.<) <br><br>SimL, you are actually demanding for the standardised name for 字根, (character roots). I'm not sure how people define radicals, but roots are fundamentally components that make up a character. Take 明 for example, its roots are 日 and 月. The sun and the moon are the only natural source of light, thus 明 meant brightness - it was neither bright(adj) or light(n). Since we are on the topic, 光 is 火 on top (where the legs of 火 are flattened into a single horizontal stroke) with 儿(not 兒) meaning human - this fire is lit to aid in seeing, thus light.<br><br>One of the vague rules of Kaishu is, the left being semantic while the right being phonetic. Words formed post-Kaishu predominantly obeys this rule whenever possible. So, in 鷌 I assume the semantic is 鳥, and its pronunciation is around ma. This might seem confusing to Hanji learners, but you will eventually get accustomed to guessing. Like 沐(mu4), 裊(xiao1), 碼(ma3), 扣(kou4), 迷(mi2) and 敗(bai4), it is clear which is the 偏旁(semantics) and which is the 聲旁(phonetics). And, when searching for the word in the dictionary, the Chinese community (the majority I know) instinctively look up its 偏旁, not 聲旁, although 裊 indeed is listed in 鳥部. 飾(shi4), 錦(jin1), 問(wen4) etc forms the exception where we look up its phonetic - but that is mostly because 食(shi), 金(jin), 門(men) respectively "look" like its semantic. This seldom occurs, and often when it does, the average Chinese cannot and do not see the need to differentiate. <br><br>Well, in the above example, the roots consists of both semantics and phonetics, so we know where to look up the character. In some contexts, however, the roots contribute semantically to the overall meaning of the characters, like the aforementioned 光 n 明. Recently, 光 forms a new root - so that's not a problem. 明, should be available in both 日 and 月, although normally I would search under 日 - because it is at the left.<br><br>Now, the big looming question is, why do we even need to categorise characters into 部首s? To facilitate dictionary-consulting? Don't get me wrong, I warm-heartedly welcome Chinese enthusiasts. Nonetheless, should a language be modeled to appeal the needs of new learners <em class="text-italics">or</em> its indigenous users? Like now, it doesn't really matter what 部首 能 falls under, because once I know its pronunciation, the 2nd and 3rd time I feel the need to re-consult the entry I would simply just go under 'neng2'. The higher level hanji-s are usually in left-right or up-down position, and the 部首(偏旁) often are obvious - so it doesn't pose as a problem. <br><br>Maybe I'm speaking from a native speaker's perspective, as you mentioned yourself, I am perfectly fine with a non-standardised nomenclature. Equipped with my knowledge of etymology however, I see the necessity of promulgating an established and meticulously arranged 字根表, a root list. <br><br>The problem with Hanji is its complexity, and the problem is gravely worsened with Simplified C. Simplified C is plain blind and arbitrary. Consider the following sets:<br><br>1. 嘗(chang2), 當(dang), 黨(dang3) and 常(chang2), 棠(tang3), 掌(zhang3), 裳(shang3). The phonetic here is 尙, and the semantics are below it. Fricative or not, the words are more or less palatal. SC transformed 嘗 to 尝, 當 to 当, 黨 to 党 - severing the 尙 ties, rendering SC practitioners to memorise. <br><br>2. 懷, 壞 and 環, 寰, 還, 鬟. The differing component here is subtle but vital. 褱 produces the huai-stream of characters, while 睘 produces the huan. By merging them to 不, there is no explaining 怀(huai) to 环(huan) to 盃(bei). <br><br>Anyway, to lubricate learning, the more effective way would be, to explain why a Hanji is written such, and hard-wire Hanji-learners' mind to analyse a new learnt character before resorting to memorising. For example, understanding 火 being a depiction of fire, thus the 火 in 光, and the phonetic value of 翟 in 耀. 典 is actually 冊 plus 廾. 廾 depicts two hands extending from either side of the hieroglyph. So, 典 essentially means the book that everyone supports/respects/recognises - classics. 舞 is phonosemantic, with 無 being the phonetic and 舛 the semantic. 舛 however is written such because 夊 and the right part of 舛 both are feet. This can be compared to the lower component in 韋, which primarily is the "prototype" for the character 圍 and 衛. <br><br>Thus, I'm saying, 夊, 止, (without the top)疋 should all fall under 止, whereas 又, 彐 should fall under 又. Similarly, 光 should belong to 火. <br><br>Yeah, but this is too idealistic to be true. In fact, Hanji is more crippled than we would like to admit...<p>Statistics: Posted by <a href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=9351">Yeleixingfeng</a> — Fri Apr 27, 2012 5:37 pm</p><hr /> ]]></content> </entry> <entry> <author><name><![CDATA[amhoanna]]></name></author> <updated>2011-12-28T01:34:42+00:00</updated> <published>2011-12-28T01:34:42+00:00</published> <id>http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84075#p84075</id> <link href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84075#p84075"/> <title type="html"><![CDATA[Re: Names of the Radicals]]></title> <content type="html" xml:base="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84075#p84075"><![CDATA[ I don't have a link, Sim. I just heard it on the grapevine. There've been some clashes btw the people and the police in the hoklophone parts of KT lately. Maybe KT is brewing up a fresh toppling of a northern dynasty.<br><br>Good pt re punji fetishes, Ahbin. <img class="smilies" src="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif" width="15" height="15" alt=";)" title="Wink"><p>Statistics: Posted by <a href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=7909">amhoanna</a> — Wed Dec 28, 2011 1:34 am</p><hr /> ]]></content> </entry> <entry> <author><name><![CDATA[Ah-bin]]></name></author> <updated>2011-12-25T00:11:32+00:00</updated> <published>2011-12-25T00:11:32+00:00</published> <id>http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84070#p84070</id> <link href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84070#p84070"/> <title type="html"><![CDATA[Re: Names of the Radicals]]></title> <content type="html" xml:base="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84070#p84070"><![CDATA[ <blockquote class="uncited"><div>Related notes. Ah-bin, U seem to question the longevity of the PRC characters. How dare U? <img class="smilies" src="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/images/smilies/icon_lol.gif" width="15" height="15" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing"> I'm curious where U get your faith. I heard that the PRC is rolling out an ambitious program to rid Kwongtung / Kúiⁿtang of both Cantonese broadcasts and pre-PRC kanji at one fell swoop!</div></blockquote>The fate of the simplified characters is still tied to Chinese politics, and doesn't yet have complete support from PRC intellectuals. Many at the top level of the CCP still consider simplification as one of their great cultural achievements, but without the CCP behind them their position is uncertain. Another factor is the attitude 'Taiwan uses them, and we are more progressive than Taiwan', but not everyone thinks like that, certainly not the people I have talked to in Chinese universities. <br><br>The most highly-educated experts in Chinese language and literature in the PRC not only have no problem reading the traditional script, many have supported its return to the extent of getting a proposal to the People's Congress that traditional characters be re-introduced into the educational system last year, although the proposal was defeated. This is a movement towards the traditional script amongst people of a generation that did not have to learn them. In the future, when there is a new or reformed Chinese regime whose leaders no longer believe that simplified characters are their own great contribution to Chinese civilisation, and they go to consult the experts on Chinese language, I believe they will still find a favourable attitude towards the traditional script, they may well be reintroduced to some extent. <br><br>Many issues in the PRC are still a matter for debate, although this mostly occurs behind closed doors as the party likes to present a united face to the outside world. One example is how Chinese are supposed to think of Confucius. The Confucius-worship faction gained the upper hand for a time, and had his statue erected in Tiananmen Square, and then another faction managed to get rid of it. <br><br>The fate of the characters is the same. The spirit of reform in Chinese culture has quickly turned to a spirit of conservatism and interest in the classical past, and once this interest outweighs the belief in the greatness of the CCP's cultural achievements, there may well be a rehabilitation of the traditional script. <br><br>What is happening or might happen in Kwongtung is simply the enforcement of the PRC language and script law, that was passed eleven years ago. What happens all depends on whether the local authorities can be bothered to enforce it, and this can change as local administrators change. <br><br>The question of dialect use and of character use are separate, I think even though they are legislated for in the same law, highly-educated Chinese often have different attitudes towards them. The traditional script has prestige from its connection to the classical past, where the spoken Chinese languages do not. I would say this attitude is one of the explanations for the popularity of searching for 'original characters', since it is an attempt to connect non-prestigious spoken language back to the prestigious classical past, and is a result of the ingrained attitude in traditional Chinese culture that the written word is superior to the spoken. <br><br>Another funny story, a PRC Chinese saw me reading a book in traditional script on the bus and told me "Mainland Chinese can;t read those any more". I told the PRC Chinese at the library and they all laughed.<p>Statistics: Posted by <a href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=1174">Ah-bin</a> — Sun Dec 25, 2011 12:11 am</p><hr /> ]]></content> </entry> <entry> <author><name><![CDATA[SimL]]></name></author> <updated>2011-12-22T13:50:41+00:00</updated> <published>2011-12-22T13:50:41+00:00</published> <id>http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84067#p84067</id> <link href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84067#p84067"/> <title type="html"><![CDATA[Re: Names of the Radicals]]></title> <content type="html" xml:base="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84067#p84067"><![CDATA[ <blockquote class="uncited"><div>Sim, I came across a pretty long list of radical names in Hoklo a few yrs ago. I think it was in a 19th century textbook (scanned, PDF) I found off Iûⁿ Ún'giân's site. If I see this kind of thing in the future, I'll post a link here.</div></blockquote> <br>Great, thanks!<br><blockquote class="uncited"><div>Related notes. Ah-bin, U seem to question the longevity of the PRC characters. How dare U? <img class="smilies" src="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/images/smilies/icon_lol.gif" width="15" height="15" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing"> I'm curious where U get your faith. I heard that the PRC is rolling out an ambitious program to rid Kwongtung / Kúiⁿtang of both Cantonese broadcasts and pre-PRC kanji at one fell swoop!</div></blockquote>Bastards! Thank god they can't do that in Taiwan! Could you post some information on this Kwongtung move...? [I may be pro simplified characters, but I'm pro traditional characters too <img class="smilies" src="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/images/smilies/icon_mrgreen.gif" width="15" height="15" alt=":mrgreen:" title="Mr. Green">.]<br><blockquote class="uncited"><div>Back to the radicals, kind of. Some Sinophone friends came to visit me in southern VN. One showed interest in learning VNmese, so when we went to the bookstore, I thought I'd show him which dictionaries to buy too. All the Han-Viet dictionaries were arranged by Mandarin and Pinyin. The friend (from TW) seemed kind of "nonplussed" ... is that the word? Radical tables and brush strokes were actually his weapon of choice. No cigar, though, they were all Mandarin/Pinyin. </div></blockquote>I like the PRC dictionaries, with their pinyin order, but radicals and brush stroke indexes are obviously essential as a supplement to these, for when one doesn't know the pronunciation of a character. <br><br>My one grumble about the "radicals index + (remaining) stroke-count index" approach is that the character index always gives only one of two things - either the page number where you'll find the character listed, or the pronunciation. In the former case, you then have to actually go to that page number in order to find the pronunciation; in the latter case, you have to then go to the section of characters with that pronunciation and then comb through it looking for your desired character. This is the case in every Chinese-English dictionary I've ever come across. It seems to me to be very little trouble to have 3 columns (character, pronunciation, page number) in the character index itself, to get rid of these annoyances.<br><br>I'd <em class="text-italics">almost</em> go as far as to say that I'd like to see the "radicals index + (remaining) stroke-count index" approach modified, i.e. extended. What I would like is for some characters to be listed under more than one "radical". Like, "明" could be listed under "日" and "月"; "厚" could be listed under "厂", "日" and "子"; "鷌" could be listed under "鳥" and "馬"; etc. This would save a lot of "guessing" (and re-lookup, after the wrong guess). But I make such a statement very tentatively. Which characters would be multiply listed? Where does one draw the line - i.e. when is it ' obvious' that it belongs under a particular radical? Such an approach would make the character index 2-3 times longer (making it harder to use, because one has to comb through more characters to find one's desired one, etc).<p>Statistics: Posted by <a href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=977">SimL</a> — Thu Dec 22, 2011 1:50 pm</p><hr /> ]]></content> </entry> <entry> <author><name><![CDATA[SimL]]></name></author> <updated>2011-12-22T12:11:12+00:00</updated> <published>2011-12-22T12:11:12+00:00</published> <id>http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84066#p84066</id> <link href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84066#p84066"/> <title type="html"><![CDATA[Re: Names of the Radicals]]></title> <content type="html" xml:base="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84066#p84066"><![CDATA[ Hi niuc,<br><br>You've no idea how happy I was to read that you were interested enough in the radical posting to ask for a copy of the original documents, so that you could have a proper electronic version of the documents (searchable, cut-and-paste-able, etc). I'll be delighted to send it to you.<br><blockquote class="uncited"><div>And I haven't read everything in details, but what do you mean by "camp"? I got two definitions for "camp" as adjective from dictionary.cambridge.org but not sure whether any of them is the meaning you're referring to.</div></blockquote><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_%28style%29" class="postlink">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_(style)</a><br><br>"[...] When the usage appeared, in 1909, it denoted: ostentatious, exaggerated, affected, theatrical, and effeminate behaviour, and, by the middle of the 1970s, the definition comprised: banality, artifice, mediocrity, and ostentation so extreme as to have perversely sophisticated appeal. [...]" <br><br>Actually, in Australia until about the mid 80's, it was just a synonym for "gay" (in the modern sense of the word). I guess most people reading this would realise that I had a certain podcaster in mind when I made my original statement <img class="smilies" src="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/images/smilies/icon_razz.gif" width="15" height="15" alt=":P" title="Razz">.<p>Statistics: Posted by <a href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=977">SimL</a> — Thu Dec 22, 2011 12:11 pm</p><hr /> ]]></content> </entry> <entry> <author><name><![CDATA[niuc]]></name></author> <updated>2011-12-22T10:52:19+00:00</updated> <published>2011-12-22T10:52:19+00:00</published> <id>http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84062#p84062</id> <link href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84062#p84062"/> <title type="html"><![CDATA[Re: Names of the Radicals]]></title> <content type="html" xml:base="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84062#p84062"><![CDATA[ Thanks everyone for the enlightening postings about those radicals.<br><br>Sim, do you have those in doc or pdf? If yes, please send me one copy. I'd love to have yours & Ahbin's & Amhoanna's postings here as a doc/pdf for keeping! <img class="smilies" src="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/images/smilies/icon_cool.gif" width="15" height="15" alt="8)" title="Cool"> <br><br>And I haven't read everything in details, but what do you mean by "camp"? I got two definitions for "camp" as adjective from dictionary.cambridge.org but not sure whether any of them is the meaning you're referring to.<p>Statistics: Posted by <a href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=527">niuc</a> — Thu Dec 22, 2011 10:52 am</p><hr /> ]]></content> </entry> <entry> <author><name><![CDATA[amhoanna]]></name></author> <updated>2011-12-21T12:42:42+00:00</updated> <published>2011-12-21T12:42:42+00:00</published> <id>http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84051#p84051</id> <link href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84051#p84051"/> <title type="html"><![CDATA[Re: Names of the Radicals]]></title> <content type="html" xml:base="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84051#p84051"><![CDATA[ Sim, I came across a pretty long list of radical names in Hoklo a few yrs ago. I think it was in a 19th century textbook (scanned, PDF) I found off Iûⁿ Ún'giân's site. If I see this kind of thing in the future, I'll post a link here. <br><br>Related notes. Ah-bin, U seem to question the longevity of the PRC characters. How dare U? <img class="smilies" src="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/images/smilies/icon_lol.gif" width="15" height="15" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing"> I'm curious where U get your faith. I heard that the PRC is rolling out an ambitious program to rid Kwongtung / Kúiⁿtang of both Cantonese broadcasts and pre-PRC kanji at one fell swoop!<br><br>Interestingly, today I rode past the printing presses of 西貢解放日報 (Saigon Liberation News?), a Chinese-language paper. I've never read this paper or even heard of it. I stopped to look at the block kanji on the side of that building and sure enough, there were in pre-PRC kanji. I guess the Chinese-language audience was so bougie (bourgeois) that the Vietcong had to let it slide. <br><br>Back to the radicals, kind of. Some Sinophone friends came to visit me in southern VN. One showed interest in learning VNmese, so when we went to the bookstore, I thought I'd show him which dictionaries to buy too. All the Han-Viet dictionaries were arranged by Mandarin and Pinyin. The friend (from TW) seemed kind of "nonplussed" ... is that the word? Radical tables and brush strokes were actually his weapon of choice. No cigar, though, they were all Mandarin/Pinyin. <br><br>Now, I picked up a pair of Viet-Han and Han-Viet dictionaries in Saigon back in 2007 that were just great, but I haven't seen any as good recently. The PRC flavor of the new offerings seems to get stronger every year. There also don't seem to be a lot of Viet-Han dictionaries designed with the Han-proficient reader in mind, unlike the one that I bought in '07. The best such dictionary I've seen this yr was actually a Viet-Jap dictionary!<p>Statistics: Posted by <a href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=7909">amhoanna</a> — Wed Dec 21, 2011 12:42 pm</p><hr /> ]]></content> </entry> <entry> <author><name><![CDATA[SimL]]></name></author> <updated>2011-12-20T18:20:19+00:00</updated> <published>2011-12-20T18:20:19+00:00</published> <id>http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84048#p84048</id> <link href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84048#p84048"/> <title type="html"><![CDATA[PS]]></title> <content type="html" xml:base="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84048#p84048"><![CDATA[ While trying to find the Wikipedia article on the 說文解字, I came across the article <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi_%28television_program%29" class="postlink">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Ji ... n_program)</a>. <br><br>This prompted me to go looking for clips of this program on youtube. I didn't manage to find any, but this other amusing link turned up. Not really anything special, but it's in Hokkien, so just posting here to share... <br><br><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRgTnq-DVwk&feature=related" class="postlink">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRgTnq-D ... re=related</a><br><br>BTW, why is it that there are so many Hokkien people on the net who are so "camp"? <img class="smilies" src="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/images/smilies/icon_mrgreen.gif" width="15" height="15" alt=":mrgreen:" title="Mr. Green"> [Nothing wrong with being "camp", I hasten to add - I just wondered why there seems to be a statistically larger proportion of such people <img class="smilies" src="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/images/smilies/icon_razz.gif" width="15" height="15" alt=":P" title="Razz">.]<br><br>PPS. Maybe it's just me, but here are two more, one in Mandarin, and another one in Hokkien:<br><br><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=KnGPW1qGgCw" class="postlink">http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=en ... nGPW1qGgCw</a><br><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgU2DeKrfbE&feature=related" class="postlink">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgU2DeKr ... re=related</a><br><br>Neither would really win a "John Wayne Masculine Man of the Year" award <img class="smilies" src="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/images/smilies/icon_mrgreen.gif" width="15" height="15" alt=":mrgreen:" title="Mr. Green">.<p>Statistics: Posted by <a href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=977">SimL</a> — Tue Dec 20, 2011 6:20 pm</p><hr /> ]]></content> </entry> <entry> <author><name><![CDATA[SimL]]></name></author> <updated>2011-12-20T19:25:11+00:00</updated> <published>2011-12-20T18:08:03+00:00</published> <id>http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84047#p84047</id> <link href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84047#p84047"/> <title type="html"><![CDATA[Re: Names of the Radicals]]></title> <content type="html" xml:base="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84047#p84047"><![CDATA[ <blockquote class="uncited"><div>BTW bushou existed long before Kangxi, the Han dictionary Shuowenjiezi 說文解字 had them too, over 500 of them, the dictionary Zhongwen Zipu 中文字譜 is organised according to this system, I think). This means "section head" and properly refers only to the radicals by which a dictionary is organised. 水, 邑, and 辵 are 部首. This name is more traditional. </div></blockquote>Thanks very much for pointing this out. <br><br>For many years, I thought that the Kangxi dictionary was the first one to use radicals. Then (about 2 years ago) I read in a Wikipedia article that a dictionary about 100 years earlier - the 字彙 [<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zihui" class="postlink">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zihui</a>] - was an earlier example. I had heard about the Kangxi dictionary for more than 20 years, but this article was the first time I had heard about the 字彙. So, this article corrected something which I had previously believed. From that point onwards, I believed that the 字彙 was the first dictionary to used radicals. <br><br>In my reading about the 說文解字 (in the last few months), I had also read that it had over 500 部首, but I didn't realise that this obviously contradicted my "new" belief that the 字彙 was the first dictionary to use radicals.<br><br>So, I've gone back and re-read the respective articles, and this has emerged:<br><br><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi" class="postlink">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi</a> (my italics): <br><br>"Although not the first comprehensive Chinese character dictionary (the Erya predates it), it was still the first to analyze the structure of the characters and to give the rationale behind them (sometimes also the etymology of the words represented by them), as well as <em class="text-italics">the first to use the principle of organization by sections with shared components, called radicals</em> (bùshǒu 部首, lit. "section headers")."<br><br>whereas, in contrast, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zihui" class="postlink">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zihui</a> (again, my italics and bolding):<br><br>"The work is divided into 14 fascicles (juan 巻 "scrolls") and contains a total of 33,179 Chinese characters. It was <em class="text-italics">the first dictionary to introduce the <strong class="text-strong">modern</strong> radical-stroke system</em>."<br><br>So now all the facts fit nicely together, and I (think I) understand what's what. But it was your remark about the 說文解字 using 部首 which made me go back and check everything, so thanks for this.<p>Statistics: Posted by <a href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=977">SimL</a> — Tue Dec 20, 2011 6:08 pm</p><hr /> ]]></content> </entry> <entry> <author><name><![CDATA[SimL]]></name></author> <updated>2011-12-20T14:45:49+00:00</updated> <published>2011-12-20T14:45:49+00:00</published> <id>http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84044#p84044</id> <link href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84044#p84044"/> <title type="html"><![CDATA[Re: Names of the Radicals]]></title> <content type="html" xml:base="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84044#p84044"><![CDATA[ Hi Ah-bin,<br><br>Thanks for your very informative reply. <br><br>Yes, you saw on closer reading that I was aware of the problem of the existence of different systems of simplified radicals. But you're quite right, I should have said "<em class="text-italics">a</em> simplified system of radicals" rather than "<em class="text-italics">the</em> simplified system of radicals".<br><br><blockquote class="uncited"><div>It's because simplification was carried out only as a stop-gap solution before getting rid of the characters entirely and using some phonetic system. etc</div></blockquote>Indeed, in my earlier reading about the "history of the Chinese language", I had come across the information that - initially - the Communists had envisaged character simplification as only a temporary measure - with the grand and ultimate goal being their eventual abolition, with replacement by pinyin. I also remember reading that this last goal had died a very quiet death. [In fact, from memory, I think I even read an article in the 80's or 90's which explained that at some stage (in the 60's or 70's) Zhou Enlai had been interviewed, and in that interview he had been asked what the progress was on the issue of abolishing Chinese characters, and he had either given a very neutral answer (e.g. "not one of our top priorities"), or perhaps even explicitly confirmed that the goal had been abandoned by the PRC government. (Note: the interview itself wasn't in the 80's or 90's, as Zhou Enlai died in the mid-70's - the 80's or 90's was when I read the article, referring to an interview from much earlier.)]<br><br>But, despite having known this for a long time (both the original intention to completely abolish characters, as well as the abandoning of this plan in the course of the 60's and 70's), I hadn't made the connection between the original policy and the lack of a standardized system of simplified radicals. Indeed, this is an excellent explanation for the current state of things, so thank you. Understanding why things are as they are - due to insights into the history - are always beneficial <img class="smilies" src="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/images/smilies/icon_razz.gif" width="15" height="15" alt=":P" title="Razz">.<br><br>I can only hope that the PRC government gets its act together and *starts* (or continues) working on such a system (of simplified radicals), which they can then promulgate. I am in general against authoritarianism, but in some cases (e.g. language standardardization), I'm sometimes in favour of it. I mean, <em class="text-italics">having</em> a standard is IMHO (almost) always good; and then one should always be free to not use it <img class="smilies" src="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/images/smilies/icon_mrgreen.gif" width="15" height="15" alt=":mrgreen:" title="Mr. Green">.<br><br>Again, I qualify my statement of this perceived need as being something from my own very Western perspective. I remember explicitly reading in one of my many books "about" the Chinese language (written in English, of course), that, for example (and I paraphrase, obviously, as it's something I read years ago): "In fact, the <em class="text-italics">numbers</em> of the radicals themselves are more an artifact of Western learners learning Chinese, not something embedded in Chinese culture. The average Chinese person [of the ones familiar with the Kangxi system, i.e. from Taiwan or Hong Kong], while being perfectly aware that "言" is a radical, would not be able to tell anyone that it is radical #149. As an analogy, most native English speakers would not be able to tell anyone that 'J' was the 10th letter of the alphabet." I found this insight to be quite a useful one, and that's the reason I've remembered it.<br><br>[The other thing which I wish the PRC government would get on with is declaring Unicode code-points for characters like <span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%">譟</span>,<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 謢</span>,<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 誏</span>,<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 詄</span>;<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 騄</span>,<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 駖</span>,<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 驒</span>;<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 鵰</span>,<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 鵟</span>,<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 鴗</span>;<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 鐽</span>,<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 銂</span>,<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 鎯</span>;<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 纔</span>,<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 綑</span>,<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 綩</span>,<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 紘</span>,<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 纮</span>,<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 鋹</span>;<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 闇</span>,<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 閤</span>,<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 閰</span>,<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 閞</span>;<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 纇</span>,<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 顗</span>;<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 餽</span>,<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 餬</span>;<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 鮀</span>,<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 鮆</span>,<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 魽</span>,<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 鰡</span>,<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 魠</span>,<span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%"> 鱆</span>, etc. These currently don't have simplified equivalents. To be sure, they are very obscure characters, but all below character #6000 in a ranking which was done in the 1990's (with #0001 being the most commonly occurring character, #0002 being the second most commonly occurring character etc). I've read over and over again that 4,000 characters is sufficient for most (even quite highly educated) written Chinese, but still, I think 6,000 is a reasonable figure which the PRC government could strive to get code-points for in simplified characters, if they conform to some sort of standard simplification (i.e. <span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%">糹</span>-><span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%">纟</span>, <span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%">見</span>-><span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%">见</span>, <span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%">車</span>-><span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%">车</span>, <span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%">釒</span>-><span style="font-size:150%;line-height:116%">钅</span>, etc).] <br><br><blockquote class="uncited"><div>The other term which the Chinese teachers from China seem to prefer now is 偏旁 bianpang</div></blockquote>Yes, this is the term used in the Chinese Wikipedia article I quoted (and learnt) a lot from.<br><br>However, even while I was trying to understand that article (and it took me and a friend about 6 hours to "decode" it - looking up unfamiliar and non-transparent 詞語, and trying to decipher (for us) complex sentence structures like "由於最早將漢字以部首加以分類的《説文解字》還是以小篆為標準字樣的,所以「心」、「忄」與「⺗」是相同形狀。"), it "irritated" me that they chose a term like "偏旁", when obviously (from what is <em class="text-italics">said</em> in the article), the term covers not just "left-" (木, 氵, 牜, 犭, etc) and "right-" radicals (刂, 卩, 邑, 鳥, etc), but also "top-" (宀, 竹, 艹, 癶, etc) and "bottom-" (心, ⺗, 灬, etc) radicals (not to mention the ones which "surround from top-and-left", "surround from left-and-bottom", "surround from left-and-right", "surround from top-and-left", "surround from 3-sides", etc). In that sense, I prefer the term "部首", even though this too is limited, in the sense that it isn't intrinsically about the character itself, but only (as you too point out) about which heading the character is classified under, in a list of characters (e.g. in a dictionary).<br><br>PS. For the sake of simplicity, I say "top-", "bottom-", "left-", "right-", etc radical, but I'm of course aware that it's not the radical itself which is (intrinsically) a "top-", "bottom-", "left-", "right-", etc radical, but only that it's the <em class="text-italics">form</em> the radical "takes", when it's in the "top-", "bottom-", "left-", "right-", etc position (though some do of course have <em class="text-italics">only</em> a "top-", "bottom-", "left-", "right-" position, and many have a <em class="text-italics">preferred</em> "top-", "bottom-", "left-", "right-" position).<p>Statistics: Posted by <a href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=977">SimL</a> — Tue Dec 20, 2011 2:45 pm</p><hr /> ]]></content> </entry> <entry> <author><name><![CDATA[Ah-bin]]></name></author> <updated>2011-12-18T22:45:51+00:00</updated> <published>2011-12-18T22:45:51+00:00</published> <id>http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84019#p84019</id> <link href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84019#p84019"/> <title type="html"><![CDATA[Re: Names of the Radicals]]></title> <content type="html" xml:base="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84019#p84019"><![CDATA[ Wow, thanks SIm, you have put a lot of work in there. Now I haven't gone back to read the whole thing yet, but as I skimmed right down to the end, this sentence struck me:<br><blockquote class="uncited"><div>All the more reason to support the simplified system of radicals!</div></blockquote>Don't you mean "a simplified system of radicals"? Since each simplified dictionary seems to have its own system. Chinese dictionaries are in a huge mess at the moment. Only Taiwan and Hong Kong have a standard, and that is the Kangxi system. <br><br>Okay, now I've read the gripes I see you've addressed this point, so I've added this bit:<br><blockquote class="uncited"><div>As a last (and separate) point, it seems to me to be almost criminal negligence to have introduced the simplified system of characters while not – at the same time – introducing a (new) standard system of radicals to cover them. The (IMHO) *disastrous* consequence of this is that there are now *several* systems of “simplified radicals”, used by the various dictionaries which use simplified characters. </div></blockquote>It's because simplification was carried out only as a stop-gap solution before getting rid of the characters entirely and using some phonetic system. This is little-known in China, but I read it in a Peking Review from 1952, I think when they introduced the first batch of simplified characters. One quote I remember from it was that "learning Chinese characters will still be helpful for reading the phonetic Chinese of the future" or something very similar. No-one bothered to make a standardised form for the first simplification, because a second one was on the way, and then a third (although this last one was not adopted). Lack of certainty over the retention of the present system of simplified characters is probably what makes people drag their feet over the issue in China. My guess is that when the most highly-educated Chinese control the education system in China, the old system will come back to some extent.<br><br>As for the lack of standardisation of radical names in spoken varieties of Chinese. A standardised name for each Kangxi radical did exist, but many were restricted to the written language and not used in speech.<br><br>The Chinese literati of the past were happy just to write 虫部 for the insect radical, even though the word "hui" (the original reading of this character) doesn't exist in ordinary spoken language, nor did "yi" 邑 for city, (written as 阝) so people just used their own easy-to-remember descriptions for the purpose of learning, substituting the everyday word 蟲 chong, adding -zipang -字旁 for the descrition of the written form, or a description like 耳朵旁 erduopang. Colloquialisms were beneath the interests of the literati, who considered them as vulgar. <br><br>(An analogy I can think of in English is that no serious chess book will refer to the rook as the "castle" or the knight as the "horse", even though many people use these terms to describe chess pieces.)<br><br>Although they might employ them for didactic purposes, the literati would never deign to use spoken terms in their own writing, and since the book language was the universal in pre-modern China, and spoken languages merely localised, I am not so surprised that the colloquial names for radicals were often localised (or even restricted to certain classes of people) as well.<br><br><br>Another thing I have thought of is that there are actually two words for "radical" in Mandarin. I notice both words are mentioned above. <br><br>One is the traditional 部首bushou, of which 214 are now usually counted (BTW bushou existed long before Kangxi, the Han dictionary Shuowenjiezi 說文解字 had them too, over 500 of them, the dictionary Zhongwen Zipu 中文字譜 is organised according to this system, I think). This means "section head" and properly refers only to the radicals by which a dictionary is organised. 水, 邑, and 辵 are 部首. This name is more traditional. <br><br>The other term which the Chinese teachers from China seem to prefer now is 偏旁 bianpang, which refers to those written forms that compose parts of written characters, which are usually those which have the colloquial names, such as 氵,阝, and 辶. I am guessing that they are encouraging the use of this name because according to the PRC no true bushou system exists any more except historically, but the bianpang are still useful for remembering and learning characters. <br><br>Finally, I can think of a few Japanese names offhand that were different from the Mandarin names. <br><br>氵 = sanzui "three water" 三水<br>月 = nikuzuki "meat moon" 肉月<br>門 = mongamae "門構え <br><br>Now to go back and read Sim's posts!<p>Statistics: Posted by <a href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=1174">Ah-bin</a> — Sun Dec 18, 2011 10:45 pm</p><hr /> ]]></content> </entry> <entry> <author><name><![CDATA[SimL]]></name></author> <updated>2011-12-18T21:15:45+00:00</updated> <published>2011-12-18T21:15:45+00:00</published> <id>http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84017#p84017</id> <link href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84017#p84017"/> <title type="html"><![CDATA[Re: Names of the Radicals]]></title> <content type="html" xml:base="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=84017#p84017"><![CDATA[ Two final remarks.<br><br>Despite the lack of any confirming evidence from Douglas (or anywhere on the internet), from the same period when I remember my mother referring to the “辶” radical as “cau2-be2” (走馬), I also remember her referring to the “氵” radical as “saN1-tiam2-cui2” (三點水). Sadly, I never heard her say “si3-tiam2-h(u)e2” (四點火).<br><br>+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-<br><br>>> and in some cases – e.g. 能, it’s difficult to see which one <br>>> it belongs to [i.e. to the 月-radical or the ⺼-radical] even <br>>> after one knows the meaning<br><br>I consulted a book on the etymology of characters***, and – apparently – the ⺝ in 能 is neither the moon-radical (月) nor the meat-radical (⺼). Instead – apparently – 能 used to be the word for “bear” (nowadays written 熊, as we all know), and the ⺝-part was originally a drawing of the mouth (and possibly sharp teeth)!<br><br>All the more reason to support the simplified system of radicals!<br><br>***: “Illustrated Account of Chinese Characters” (Chinese-English bilingual edition) [漢字圖解]; compiled by Guanghui Xie [謝光輝]; publisher 三聯書店, Hong Kong; ISBN: 978.962.04.2088.7.<p>Statistics: Posted by <a href="http://chineselanguage.org/forums/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=977">SimL</a> — Sun Dec 18, 2011 9:15 pm</p><hr /> ]]></content> </entry> </feed>