Questions tagged [history]
Questions related to the history of the Chinese language(s).
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Word for “planet”
This Wiktionary article mentions that the term for “planet” is 行星 and that it was “[c]oined by Alexander Wylie and Li Shanlan in 1859,” from characters meaning “travel” and “star,” which makes sense ...
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Where to find official documents that introduce the Wubi 86 input method?
Table of contents
The context
The input method I'm learning
Variant Chinese characters
Font used by the creator of Wubi 86
The version of Wubi I'm learning
What I'm looking for
The question
The ...
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4
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How did Chinese develop so many different classifiers?
One of the weirdest things about Chinese is the classifier. It's 一栋楼, not 一个楼, and 一只鱼, not 一个鱼. My question is: how (and why) did Chinese develop so many different classifiers? It makes sense to me ...
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1
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Where to find official documents that introduce the four-corner input method?
Table of contents
The context
Information about the input method
The questions
The context
I'm interested in learning how to use the Four-Corner Method. I've started making some graphics of the ...
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2
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The Chinese readings of 朴 (Korean surname)
The character 朴 is used in modern Mandarin in the following ways:
pò 朴樹 'Chinese hackberry, Celtis sinensis', 厚朴 'Magnolia officinalis'.
pǔ [simplified from 樸] 'simple, plain, rough, unpolished'.
...
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2
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What’s the deal with the xing-type readings for 行?
How come did the readings of the xing-category appear for 行?
They make no sense. The Early Middle Chinese for “to walk” is γæng, which should give héng – and so it does, in 胻, 蘅, 桁 – even with the ...
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3
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Interpreting a line from Li Shangyin -- 鶯花啼又笑
The full poem is as follows:
早起
風露澹清晨
簾間獨起人
鶯花啼又笑
畢竟是誰春
I was discussing this with a friend who speaks Chinese, and they translated this line:
鶯花啼又笑
as "Birds and flowers cry and laugh". ...
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votes
1
answer
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Historical background in 《亮剑》 relating to organization of National Revolutionary Army
I am trying to understand the exact meaning of the military terms used in the text at the very beginning of the first episode of the show 亮剑 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WAnpfEbR5s), and in ...
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Why does 即使 mean even if?
Usually when two characters combine I can puzzle through how they obtained their combined meaning.
However, even after years of study I have no idea why 即使 means even if.
I’m looking to better ...
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4
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1
answer
139
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A Cantonese-influenced Old National Pronunciation (老國音) system
I need advice/help on creating a system similar to the Old National Pronunciation system/language for a worldbuilding project called Roses, Tulips, and Liberty.
Some background: Imagines, it's a world ...
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Who is the creator of Chinese language?
Who is the creator of Chinese language? When I googled "Who is the creator of Chinese language?" it didn't show what I expected. I will be very grateful for any answers.
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1
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Who was 赵王 after 赵奢 in 赵国?
This is from the Standard Course Book of HSK5, chapter 15:
几年后，赵奢去世了。这一年正好秦国军队来打赵国，赵国派老将廉颇带20万大军迎战。
...
这时，赵王正因廉颇闭门不战而生气呢，听到外面的那些谣言，果然上当了，他派赵括去换回廉颇。
So I wonder, who was 赵王 after 赵奢 in 赵国? Did he have ...
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3
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What language did 咖啡 reach Chinese from?
"Coffee" is originally an Arabic word that reached the English language through Turkish at some point in the 16th century. Does anyone know the history of the word 咖啡 in Chinese? When did it ...
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4
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What are the oracle-bone characters for 后 and 司 which led to confusion in naming 司母戊鼎 (or 后母戊鼎)?
My grade-7 Chinese history textbook describes the gigantic bronze ding called 司母戊鼎, and adds a footnote saying it's also called 后母戊鼎:
(alternative image source: 1 2)
Wikipedia writes:
The ...
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3
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Why is it 放学 and 下班, instead of 放班 or 下学?
I know that there is also the variant 放工 but I don't think this is typical usage.
The use of 下 is so common, but yet in the instance of a school we use 放 instead.
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1
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Is Chinese language influenced by sanskrit and vice versa?
India and China are neighboring countries, in ancient India sanskrit was spoken and in ancient China Chinese was spoken.
So could these two languages have influenced each other in any way.
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Is the number 4 really considered unlucky because it sounds similar to the word for "death"?
From what I've Googled so far, there are lots of claims that the number 4 is considered unlucky in Chinese. 四 is understandably considered unlucky in Japanese and Korean because it sounds identical to ...
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3
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Is it fair to assume that 站 and 占 are the same word?
It seems that the meanings "to stand" and "to occupy" are semantically related, and considering the pronunciation is exactly the same, is it fair to assume that the difference in ...
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2
votes
2
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What is the origin of 名堂？Compound or loanword?
Does anyone know of the origin of this word?
It feels like it must be a loan word from another language as I can't find the semantic connection to 名 and 堂。Any ideas?
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1
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How/why was western-style punctuation inherited into Mandarin?
How was it decided what aspects of Western language Mandarin would inherit and why?
Ex: Western punctuation (! . ?), left to right writing style (in the mainland at least), pinyin vs bopomofo, etc.
...
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votes
1
answer
149
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女 in 嫩 : combining characters
So I just learned a new vocabulary called 嫩. An example from a YouTube channel was given as 这块儿牛肉非常嫩 to mean “This piece of beef is very tender”.
As I understand many Chinese characters can come ...
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6
votes
1
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What were the court/administrative languages of various dynasties?
It's called "Mandarin" (and 官话) precisely because it was the language of courtly officials at a time when there was no unified national language of China. This was the case in both the Ming ...
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1
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Creation of Chinese characters throughout history?
The Shuowen Jiezi, compiled around 100 AD, contain entries for some 10,000 Chinese characters. The Kangxi Dictionary, compiled almost two millennia later, contain over 47,000 characters. Of the ...
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Does this phrase 斩草除根 exist in dramas only?
So, I have been watching quite a bit of 古代 dramas。 I will say most if not all of them have the situation where this phrase comes up.
Does this phrase exist in the dramas only or did this actually ...
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汉长安城的未央宫中的“前殿”是一幢房屋，还是几幢建筑在面积宽大的布局里？
首先得说，我明白现代人对古代的殿、殿堂、皇宫等建筑的样子只不过是考古上的推测。那么，根据某几个词典（现代汉语规范词典、汉语大词典、萌典、两岸通用词典），一个“殿”绝对是单独的房屋；“前殿”是“正殿”，而“正殿”就是一种殿（皇宫中的主殿）。
我在网上看到的一些对未央宫的前殿的复原设想图就大不一致。且看下面的图一和图二。
图一：陕西西安汉长安未央宫遗址前殿复原设想鸟瞰图（来源：https://...
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2
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Meaning of early written versions of 地 and etymology?
The glyph origin section of https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%9C%B0 shows characters that look nothing like the modern "地" (with the exception of the "Small Seal Script" in "...
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Any hypothesis to remember 刑?
Any easy way or background why
Well + knife is Punishment? Knife is related punishment, but after killing with knife any history to through them in the well?
wikitionary details about 刑:
Originally ...
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1
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Trying to translate signature and stamp for Chinese print (Characters identified: 戊午九月石年)
Trying to find the origin of this print and the translation of the signature and seal.
2
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2
answers
214
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How the 4 tones originated?
My native language does not have tones. Why tones are part of Chinese language? How the tones were started initially?
Is it because they do not have so many words?
In my native language full sentences ...
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2
votes
2
answers
203
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What is the etymology of 斥
Learning the word 斥 chì to blame,to reprimand, to expel, (of territory) to expand. What is the etymology and how it is to blame?
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votes
1
answer
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Is syaku an ancient Chinese unit of measurement (Suanfa tong zong)?
According to multiple sources the following problem would be found in Suanfa tong zong (like on cut-the-knot)
Two reeds of equal height project 3 syaku above the surface of a pond.
If we draw the top ...
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2
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How did 漢 come to represent the Han people and civilization?
It appears that this character consists of a meaning part and a sound part: a water radical (i.e. section header for water in Kangxi dictionary) for meaning, and the character 𦰩 for sound.
Radical - ...
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2
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How old is Chinese grammar? [closed]
Anyone here knows how old Chinese grammar is? In my memory, I never read the term "语法" in all the historical works, especially those of Tang and Song dynasties, the peak of Chinese ...
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3
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Why does Mandarin Chinese have a smaller inventory of unique syllables?
From How languages compare with the number of different syllables from all words?, considering the 20,000 most frequent words in each language, Mandarin Chinese has 1274 different syllables (see also ...
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Besides the radical, what meaning does the rest of a Chinese character have (especially when it was originally created)?
I am a beginning student of Mandarin Chinese. There is a key thing about Chinese characters that I am trying to understand. Besides the radical, what purpose does the rest of a character have? Was it ...
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Is there an ancient chinese name for Asia?
The Chinese word for Asia is 亞細亞 (yaxiya).
The root of these words seems to be the greek word "Asia", derived from the Akkadian "asu" which means "to rise".
Thus, Asia is ...
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1
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258
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Different accents/dialects applicable to the pinyin "r" sound
When I first began learning Mandarin and was struggling with some of the different pronunciations I heard 2 different representations of the "r" sound in pinyin. The first representation suggested to ...
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4
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Insight into 你好
My textbook says that ''until recently, 你好 was only used to greet foreigners, but now even native speakers use it to greet each other.''
Wow, so when was 你好 invented/added to the Chinese lexicon ?
...
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3
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How old is the expression “老百姓”？
I have searched on line text bases, especially for 三国志 since the 2010 television version of that is what made me wonder. But I do not seem to get reliable results that way. Perhaps if I understood the ...
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2
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Why isn't the Vietnam War called e.g. 抗美战争 ("Resistance War Against America") like in Vietnamese?
The Vietnam War is considered by some (most?) Vietnamese people as a fight against US-led invasion of Vietnam. Hence...
The Vietnam War (Vietnamese: Chiến tranh Việt Nam), also known ... in ...
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2
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Are the Asian girls in this music video Chinese or Malaysian, and are they singing in Chinese?
https://youtu.be/BuAULI7PbRw?t=7
They are obviously Asian, and I seem to recognize some of the letters as being Chinese. Also, the song itself seems to be a famous/classic Chinese song which I've ...
3
votes
1
answer
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What exactly is an ancient Tang dynasty 壺?
Note: I have now asked this question on the History Stack Exchange also.
There are at least 33 types of ancient sacrificial, wine, food and water ritual bronze vessels of ancient China, none of which ...
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What did Eastern Han Chinese sound like?
As I was improving an answer to this question in the History SE, I discovered that the prestige Luoyang dialect of the Eastern Han and Three Kingdoms period didn't actually fall under Old Chinese but ...
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2
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229
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How did three characters for _de_ emerge?
I understand that there are three characters for de depending on the usage:
跑得快
快地跑
快的车
Would anyone know how it evolved into different characters when the purpose and pronunciation are similar?
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What title did Qing China use for US presidents?
What title did Qing China use for the US president, given that US presidents are periodically "deposed"? Certainly not 王 as the office is not hereditary and could not be held for life.
I am ...
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What musical instrument does "敫" refer to?
I found the character 敫 whose definition apparently is "ancient musical instrument" according to Wiktionary.
However, the English Wikipedia's List of Chinese musical instruments doesn't seem to ...
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1
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What is the origin of 火黑暗?
What is the origin of 火黑暗?
According to wikipedia it comes from the Zangshu, "Book of Burial", but no where in that book (or anywhere else) can I find this supposed phrase:
"Qi vapors in the fire, ...
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2
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310
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How to find earliest usage of a term?
This question could be split into two types of terms: new expressions & old expressions.
For new expressions one could open Google &/or Baidu go to "News" (资讯) and then "Order By Date" (按时间排序)...
Mou某♦
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Are there web-site with description of visual meaning of symbols?
I'm interested in explanation of why certain symbol means what it means, in other words what object or scene it depicts. There is some books about that, like "Origin and evolution of...", but I wonder ...
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2
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The name of the California high school fraternity, Hi Tow Tong
Honor societies and fraternities are a fixture in U.S. colleges. Most often they use Greek letters for their names, and some have names in English. However, the men's honor society of Santa Cruz High ...
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