Etymology of 若 vis-a-vis 如果

Question

I came across 若 from my lessons today, as in

若天下雨，我就出发。

Being familiar with 如果, I immediately assumed 若 is just a short/abbreviated/spoken form of 如果.

However, I broached the idea to my Chinese colleagues and they immediately pointed out instead that 若 in practice is a bit more stodgy version of 如果 primarily used among "elite" or pretentious types (more "formal" was their wording).

Nevertheless, this left me wondering if perhaps there's some historical truth to my initial suspicion.

Answer 1

It's not likely that 若 is a contraction of 如果, because 若 came first by a thousand years or so.

Nor is it likely that 如果 is a splitting of 若, because 果 is real. Long before 如果 there was already 若果, and before 若果, 果 was already grammaticalized to mean "ultimately" ("bear fruit" -> "ultimately", see 果然, 果真).

So 若果 was a legitimate, intensified version of 若. As for how 若果 became 如果, we can speculate that it was an easy phonetic and etymological transition: 如果 [nja kojʔ] and 若果 [njak kojʔ] would have sounded almost identical even before the loss of stop finals post-MC, and 如 ("follow" -> "compares with/likens to") and 若 ("obey" -> "as if/if") are grammaticalized in similar, if subtly different ways.

Answer 2

This is an example of “分音词”, literally "a word that split the pronunciation". The new words are created using "反切".

Some examples:

• 若(ruo4)/如果(ru2 guo3) (if)
• 孔(kong3)/窟窿(ku1 long0) (hole)
• 块(kuai4)/坷垃(ke1 la0)（a solid piece of something, 坷垃 only exists in some dialects）

I would recommend these pages on Chinese Wikipedia: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%88%86%E9%9F%B3%E8%AF%8D (分音词) https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%8D%E8%BE%85%E9%9F%B3 (复辅音, the reason why this would happen)

Answer 3

This is interesting, I never realize 如果 sounds like 若. But I don't think it is a contraction.

We can find 若 in very old book.

若反国,将为乱。——《史记·赵世家》 (about B.C. 90)

We all know multiple-characters words arise in modern Chinese. We can not find 如果 in classical text.

儒林外史．第十六回：「如果文章會做，我提拔他。」 (about A.D. 1749)

There is a more old-fasioned word than 如果, 若果.

这英莲受了拐子这几年折磨,才得了个路头,若果聚合了,倒是件美事。——《红楼梦》 (about A.D. 1744)

Answer 4

As a Chinese, I would like to say that there are big difference between 若 and 如果. 若 comes from traditional Chinese in the history, and it represents IF. After we have been in moderntime, we use 如果 as an oral communication way. And it is not welcomed to use 若 in daily life, as you said that is has a meaning of ELITE, which means I KNOW MORE THAN YOU. PS. In fact not everyone can do well in tradition Chinese, because it is difficult for we Chinese as well. Of course, if you are in a formal occasion, it is ok.