Hot answers tagged etymology
11
豚 is pronounced tun2 in Mandarin and tyun4 in Cantonese.
The only word I know which still uses it is 海豚 hai3tun2 "dolphin". The Japanese reading is ton (on), buta (kun), as I'm sure you know.
豚 was the original character (with the meat radical on the left hand side), while 猪 meant a wild pig (which is suggested by its radical). Japanese borrowings from ...
8
It's the transliteration of the French word salon. It is equivalent to the English word saloon or salon (alternative spellings). The French word probably is derived from the Italian word salone meaning a large living area in the house or more generally a place where people gather to socialize. In China, the hairdresser's is often an unofficial social ...
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The gender neutral form of the term 先生 is an antiquated Chinese title used for addressing a knowledgeable person who is your senior. This person could be a teacher, a principal, a scholar, a professor or a doctor.
This term, which literally means "born (生) before (先)", has been in use for a very long time. Somebody who is born before you would be your ...
7
Reference Materials about the differences between / origins of the 2 confusing words:
from online newspaper - 光明网
conclusion in translation:
one should use "待在" to express "to stay"
from research materials - 中国知网
a Chinese blog containing the full-text of "中国知网" paper
conclusion in translation:
the 2 Chinese characters are different in meaning
...
7
The answer is in this article:
从"出洋"、"游学"到"留学"——晚清"留学"词源考
It is really a complicated history, but in short: During the Tang Dynasty Japanse students came to China to study. These were called 留学生 in Japan. During the Late Qing Dynasty 留学 was taken over in China and became more and more popular.
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Yes. It is an issue. But 姐 or 大姐 is not very appropriate sometimes.
You can use 姐 or 大姐 to call a lady who is elder than you. But they'd better be not very young.
To call a young lady, 美女 is popular now in cities, though maybe they are not really very beautiful.
If there is some context, like to call a waitress, just use 服务员 or other address expressing ...
6
Is this story true?
Sorry, but no. If it helps you remember how to write the characters, then knock yourself out. In fact, there is a whole book of such mnemonics (as well as an unfavorable review of said book, followed by a fascinating discussion in the comments)
If not, what's its etymology?
That depends on what you mean by etymology (a term often ...
6
I can only provide a partial answer:
Many of the characters used in the names of non-Han ethnic groups were originally derogatory. After the founding of the PRC, the government conceptualized New China as a 多民族国家, and they changed many of the characters that were perceived as derogatory. I don't know if this process started under the 国民党, as you suggest, ...
5
On http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en you can see how a character evolved, the simplified and traditional characters. For example for 目.
Another similar website is http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx . Their result for 目.
Zdict is completely in Chinese: http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE7Zdic9BZdicAE.htm
Here is another website in ...
5
先生 is an address with long history. But it is important that this address is only for male during a very very long time. Here are part of them (may have relevance to this question):
Original meaning is literal, first born. 《诗·大雅·生民》：诞弥厥月，先生如达。 朱熹 集传：“先生，首生也。 Later extended as father or elder brother. 《仪礼·有司》：其先生之脀，折胁一。 郑玄 注：先生，长兄弟。
Older and learned ...
5
As recorded in Baidu, this unique pronunciation of “和” as "hàn" actually originates from the Old Beijing dialect. Extracted from the blog article titled 台湾人为嘛把“和”读作hàn?, it says the following:
1945年10月台湾光复，日语的“国语”黯然退出，台胞急着要回复祖国的语文，要说国语，要认汉字。
...
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Taiwanese like to use the word "三八" to describe female behavior bordering on craziness such as frivolous actions or doing reckless things. It appears that the word originates from the Cantonese or Minnan dialect, but in reality it is not. In fact, "三八" is the authentic Central Plains vocabulary.
刘福根, author of 《汉语詈词研究》 combed through "A Short History of ...
5
I believe it is understood throughout China, but it may sound 'Southern' to Northerners and it wouldn't be their word of choice when they want to express the same meaning.
There are two possible origins:
According to Baidu Baike, 三八 means 三八妇女节 (International Women's Day on March 8th), which is extended to refer to women in a derogatory sense, most ...
5
It should be 放我一马. 马 here refers to the rider rather than the horse itself. It's from 三国演义.
出自三国演义。赤壁之战，曹操大败，欲从华容道逃走，被关羽逮个正着，立马堵住去路。关羽念及往日旧恩，让开马位，使曹操得以逃脱。“放你一马”，比喻手下留情。即出于此。
Source: http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/2156078.html
English version of the story (wikipedia)
4
It is definitely transliterated from Malay (it's noted on the zh Wikipedia as well).
Baba and Nyonya (pronounced /ɲoɲə/) are descendants of Hokkien Chinese who migrated to Malaysia centuries ago. They have come to refuse to be recognized as descendants of the Chinese and instead, identified themselves as British subjects (as per Bahasa Malay WP entry).
...
3
When I lived in Guangzhou I was told the expression came from Hong Kong and stood for "Algebraic Average".
That also doesn't sound like something a native English speaker would come up with, however I don't think that's a reason to discount it (or even the other suggestions) if it came from Hong Kong where non-native English speakers come up with all sorts ...
2
In the article 论国名与国号 it is mentioned that 英国 stems from 英格兰.
On Wikipedia they mention that it comes from 英吉利 (English) and 英格兰 (England):
The written form of Yīngguó in Chinese is made up of two characters: 英国. The first 英 (yīng) as an adjective means "outstanding" and "fine", and as a noun means "flower"; the second is 国 (guó) which means "country", ...
2
No.
《尔雅 释天》：「载，岁也。夏曰岁，商曰祀，周曰年，唐虞曰载。」
《爾雅 釋天》：「載，歲也。夏曰歲，商曰祀，周曰年，唐虞曰載。」
Translation:
载/載 means 岁/歲.
In Xia dynasty, it's called 岁/歲;
in Shang dynasty, it's call 祀;
in Zhou dynasty, it's called 年;
when 尧/堯 and 舜 were kings, it's called 载/載.
All of these mean "year".
Then you can see, 年 is just a word describing year, no others. All of these are still ...
2
As Wikipedia mentioned, “老” is an empty prefix. Laowai is neither positive nor negative.
Actually, the word is often used to refer to a variety of races like Caucasians, Indians, Africans and Middle Easterners, who look drastically different from Asians. You will rarely hear a Chinese person call Japanese, Koreans and Filipinos 老外. That's why you hear some ...
2
其の他 can also be read as "sono hoka" in Japanese, both consisting of native Japanese morphemes. In "sono ta", only the "ta" (他) is borrowed from Chinese. Early citations for both expressions is c. 14th century. Japanese borrowed much vocabulary from Chinese. It is entirely possible that the reading "sono ta" or "sono hoka" developed from the Chinese 其他. ...
2
Your question is totally wrong on itself!
“犭”（反犬旁/犬部） is a radical of Chinese Characters (Han-Zi,汉字) which is only for forming/making up some single Chinese Characters.
In the creating era aka ancient times, people used “犭”(a radical, the variant of 犬 i.e. dogs) to make some Characters which is with some relation to beast such as ...
2
Nope. The radical was simplified from 玉 (jade), originally referring to a polished sphere of jade. 求 is the phonetic component.
For reference, Baxter's Old Chinese reconstruction has 求 *grju, and 球 *grju. In this particular case, 求 has remained a good phonetic for three millennia!
The sense of 'sounding stone made of jade' can be seen in the Kangxi ...
1
This means a kind of ability of saving money or get more or cost little than others.
For example, you buy a coco-cola, the waiter will add some ice to the cup. Ice is cheaper than coco-cola. If you ask the waiter not add ice at all, then you cost the same amount of money as other people but buy more valuable thing. This kind of action could be said 鸡贼。
1
先生 has a very long history in Chinese. it refers to different kinds of people during its development.
At the very beginning, it refers to fathers or brothers.
《论语·为政》：“有酒食，先生馔。”注解说：“先生，父兄也。”意思是有酒肴，就孝敬了父兄。
another semantics is for knowledgeably elders
《孟子》：“先生何为出此言也。”这一“先生”是指长辈而有学问的人。
From knowledgeable elders, it derives to an address for ...
1
It depends. It can be dangerous if you are not familiar with use of it.
In my experience, when 小姐 mean hooker, the 姐 often has a neutral tone. Normal 小姐 would never have a neutral tone. Instead, when someone uses 小姐 to call others, 姐 would be more emphasized than 小。
Secondly, when 小姐 is used to call someone, it seldom has the meaning hooker. The meaning ...
1
一般来说中文里会用“待在”而不是“呆在”，“待在”强调的是“stay”这种状态，强调的是身体，而“呆”强调的是“mind is empty”，强调的是思维停滞。
不要过分相信iciba之类的网络翻译工具，有条件的话还是买一本纸质字典会更有权威
还有什么疑问欢迎继续留言共同探讨
Generally speaking, you can use 待在 or 呆在 in Chinese. 待在 emphasizes "staying" in the current state, while 呆在 emphasizes "emptying the mind".
Don't put too much faith in iciba and similar online translation services. ...
1
They both mean to "stay in." But one has better connotations than the other.
"待" means "to serve" or to "wait on." As such, it connotes a certain level of alertness.
To "待在" in cold weather is a smart, alert, thing to do.
"呆" means "stupid" or "idle." To "呆在" suggests that you are hanging or "idling" around, because you have nothing better to do, not ...
1
Yes, almost certainly a duplicate question.
But you raise an interesting question: why does 讀 have 賣 (mai4) on its right hand side?
In actual fact, the right hand side is a character pronounced yu4 (which looks similar to 竇 but which I cannot find in my IME) which was simplified to 賣 in the clerical script. Why does yu4 not sound much like du2? Well, ...
1
In this post I gave an overview of online resources:
On http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en you can see how a character
evolved, the simplified and traditional characters.
Another similar website is
http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx .
Zdict is completely in Chinese:
http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE7Zdic9BZdicAE.htm
...
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