New answers tagged etymology
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Why does Mandarin Chinese have a smaller inventory of unique syllables?
Why does Mandarin Chinese have a smaller inventory of unique syllables? What are the possible historical/linguistic reasons behind this? Is there some relationship with the writing system, as Mandarin ...
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I am trying to understand 写
The meaning of writing is: "write on paper; create (literary works)". Because Chinese is a pictographic character, my understanding is: "attention" is like a piece of paper, like a ...
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I am trying to understand 写
写 is the simplified form of the character, and simplified characters often have no relation whatsoever to etymology. (This is why Chineseteacher_Henry's answer is wrong, the simplified form has ...
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I am trying to understand 写
Mate, this is a simplified character, so it is normal that you cannot understand how it works. If you really wanna learn Chinese better, you should learn traditional Chinese. See how zagracha ...
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I am trying to understand 写
Etymology can help you understand and comprehend Chinese characters, but not every character follows its etymology. Additionally, there are many simplified characters that are quite different from ...
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I am trying to understand 写
There is absolutely nothing wrong with interest in etymology, I often find myself looking into such things like the source of terms. Please note that such things are often only theorized and will not ...
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I am trying to understand 写
I looked it up in the Outlier Mini Traditional Characters dictionary (OTC) in Pleco. I also checked using Wiktionary.
For questions of etymology / character origin, you'll need to consider ...
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How does 斡旋 mean "to mediate"?
Nowadays this is a rather official word used in situations between two countries. Actually, it is rarely used. People using it may just show that they were well educated.
Anyway, I think it's OK that ...
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How does 斡旋 mean "to mediate"?
The subject to be "mediated" is naturally "conflict"
To turn and revolve around (the conflicted parties) = to mediate (the conflict)
Example:
为中美贸易冲突斡旋 - Mediating the US-China ...
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What’s the deal with the xing-type readings for 行?
TL;DR: vowel shift + possible colloquial-literary split.
行 has the reading 戸庚切 relevant to this meaning of "to walk", reconstructed as /ɦaɨjŋ/ by Pulleybank and /ɦˠæŋ/ by Zhengzhang. The ...
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What’s the deal with the xing-type readings for 行?
to start-- there is no official answer, because we don't actually know how middle chinese sounded. we have educated guesses, but its always good to keep in mind that at least some of the world's ...
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