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Mar
18
comment Why Cantonese is considered as a dialect of Chinese?
European politics does not favour separation. Look at all the countries, like France---possibly the most notorious example, that forcibly stamped out any non-standard language, dialect or variation ... What you're very right about is that all this is just politics, driven by political aims. It has not much to do with linguistic reality (other than trying to change it).
Dec
14
awarded  Yearling
Jun
20
comment Are there any online etymological dictionaries of Mandarin (not for characters but for spoken words)
Oh, this looks like it might be something very interesting! I'll definitely try to obtain a copy some way to check if it's what I'm looking for.
Jun
6
awarded  Nice Question
Jan
17
revised What is the rule for forming chinese names diminutives?
As I explained in the comments, this is not a diminutive. This answer completely misuses the term, so an edit is preferable to avoid spreading the confusion. Please see all my comments on the main question.
Jan
17
suggested suggested edit on What is the rule for forming chinese names diminutives?
Jan
17
comment What is the rule for forming chinese names diminutives?
Since the confusion and misuse of the term "diminutive" is ongoing in the answers, I'll add that the literal meaning of diminutive is "[a word] that makes something small" (think "diminish").
Jan
14
revised What is the rule for forming chinese names diminutives?
clarified suffixes
Jan
14
comment What is the rule for forming chinese names diminutives?
... now in Chinese there's no such thing as suffixes or inflection, but there may be another way to indicate the same thing. This is what I believe the question is about. I'd like to point out that diminutives are not honorifics (they're different). It may be that Chinese, like English, simply doesn't have this thing, or people don't use it (though name-doubling, like 俊俊 in @Huang's answer below, reminds me of it very much). In English the suffixes -ie or -y are quite similar, but not used nearly as widely as in other languages. Think bird vs birdie. I hope this explanation will help
Jan
14
comment What is the rule for forming chinese names diminutives?
@Huang & everyone else. I see from the answers you don't know what diminutives are. Many languages (including mine, but not English!) have a way to change a word (usually by adding a suffix) to make it sound smaller, cuter, more loveable. This can usually be applied both to names of people (typically used with children) and names of things. Example from my language: "alma" = apple, "alma" + suffix "-cska" = "almácska" = a small apple. It also implies that the apple is cute or loveable in some way. It's very common with names: "Kata" ("Cathy") -> "Katácska" ...
Jan
14
comment What is the rule for forming chinese names diminutives?
I think you should explain what a diminutive is. From the answers I can tell most people do not know this (the answers are not about diminutives). That's probably because English doesn't really have diminutives. The closest thing in Chinese that I know of is doubling single-character given names, but then I'm a beginner.
Jan
14
suggested suggested edit on What is the rule for forming chinese names diminutives?
Jan
13
awarded  Teacher
Jan
13
revised What digital illustrated dictionaries are available?
added 138 characters in body
Jan
13
answered What good resources are available to assist first time travellers to learn basic Chinese?
Jan
13
revised What digital illustrated dictionaries are available?
added 217 characters in body
Jan
13
answered What digital illustrated dictionaries are available?
Jan
11
comment Searching for characters by parts
What I was saying is that if I am searching for 木米女, I want to get 楼 (of course!!) but I don't want to get any of the rest of the character that page returns, because none of them have 木 separately from 米. Yes, of course decompositions are not unique, and it's not always as clear how to do them as in the case of 楼 ...
Jan
11
comment Searching for characters by parts
Regarding building my own tool, I'm using this which is both more usable and has more flexible licensing.
Jan
11
comment How are new words added to the Chinese language?
Most countries in Europe have a central agency (usually the national academy) that regulates that language (of course people will not always follow :) English is more like the exception that there's no regulation whatsoever, and there's no official authority that will say what is correct and what isn't. I'm also wondering how this works in China, and how much the language is officially regulated, especially since there are several countries which have Mandarin as an official language.