14
votes
Is “文化” borrowed from Japanese?
The usage of the characters 文化 as the translation of the modern, Western concept of culture does come from Japanese usage. Although the word 文化 existed in Chinese, its meaning was related but not ...
- 722
12
votes
Chinese words with non-Chinese letters / characters?
There are lots of them, here's what I can recall:
T恤衫，T-shirt
X光片，X ray image
卡拉OK，karaoke
K线图，Candlestick chart
A型血，Blood Type A
P图(v.)，Photoshop an image
维生素C，Vitamin C
O型腿，Blount's diseas
...
- 386
12
votes
Accepted
Is this Chinese and what is the meaning: 阿ㄘㄟˊ
It is Amis／Pangcah (阿美族語), the language of one of the Taiwanese aborigines (台灣原住民).
阿ㄘㄟˊ ( ā céi ) means "ridiculous; crazy; unreasonable; nonsense; goofy; outrageous; nuts".
阿ㄘㄟˊ: You are nuts!
...
- 1,974
11
votes
Accepted
Is “文化” borrowed from Japanese?
Japanese people created many new words consisting of morphemes of Chinese origin, and created new meanings of some pre-existing words of Chinese origin. Some of these words, or new meanings, were ...
- 246
8
votes
Accepted
How are new element names/characters decided?
4 new elements = 4 new Chinese characters? I also know that 4 new elements = 4 new English words.
Actually these new elements have no relationship with China:
113: Nihonium (Nh) is from Nihon, ...
- 366
7
votes
Loan words borrowed from the middle/end of original word?
This article (p. 60-61) provided the reason 氡 (radon) is based on the latter syllable. In summary, this was the result of an argument between Chinese chemists appointed to element naming in the early ...
- 5,595
6
votes
Are there loanwords from Portuguese used in Macau Cantonese?
Mostly food? The below examples are from Words.hk:
马介休
loanword from "bacalhau" in Portuguese; Portuguese-style salted fish
馬介休撻
maa5 gaai3 jau1 taat1
bacalhau tart
亞東
「亞東」喺澳門叫法, ...
Mou某♦
- 35.7k
5
votes
Accepted
History of the pronunciation of 辰
There is no contradiction. The formal Sino-Vietnamese readings of 辰 are thần [tʰən˨˩] and thìn [tʰin˨˩], which correspond nicely to the Middle Chinese [d͡ʑin] (Pulleyblank-Miyake), Old Chinese [djɨn] (...
- 966
5
votes
Accepted
Is 邏輯 a phono-semantic matching of the English word logic?
No, it's a transliteration.
The Chinese term「邏輯」first appeared in a Chinese translation of John Stuart Mill's A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive. The Chinese translation title is 《穆勒名學》 ...
- 22.2k
5
votes
Accepted
The origin of 水母
Wow it's a fascinating question. I have never thought about that before and this question intrigues me. Because it's a two characters word, meaning that it definitely has an origin, not like the word ...
- 248
4
votes
Chinese words with non-Chinese letters / characters?
I'm not totally sure if this is what you are looking for but apart from A-Z, there are examples like:
π节
Where the pi symbol is used.
Alpha is also often used:
α其 (alpha phase)
α状态 (alpha state)
...
Mou某♦
- 35.7k
4
votes
Accepted
Chinese words with non-Chinese letters / characters?
We can obtain the entries in CC-EDICT using the command awk '$1 ~ /^[0-9a-zA-Z]/ { print }' cedict_ts.u8. The following is the results (CC-EDICT timstamp 2020-01-03T04:26:45Z).
It follows the format ...
- 15.9k
4
votes
Accepted
Did the Chinese 獅子 = "lion" originate from the Persian شیر (šīr)?
The mainstream consensus is that the Chinese word for lion was earliest attested as 「師子」 (Zhengzhang OC: /*sri ʔslɯʔ/) in literature roughly contemporary to the Book of Hàn:
《漢書・西域傳》
烏弋地暑熱莽平，其草木、畜產、...
- 22.2k
4
votes
Is 泵 the only transliterated loanword with its own logogram in all of Chinese?
a related example may be 砼, but even more complicated in terms of the etymology and phonology.
泵 is wholly made up for the word pump, defined to sound like it, but the composition of the character is ...
- 91
4
votes
Is the Cantonese word 冧巴 a loanword from English?
冧把/lam1 baa2/ is a loanword for "Number" In Hong Kong
If a term is used in Hong Kong, it would inevitably spear to Guangdong
冧把 is the noun for 號碼 or 號數. Wherever you can use the word "...
- 77.1k
3
votes
Loan words borrowed from the middle/end of original word?
The most famous example, I believe, is 美利堅。America used to be transliterated to 亞美利堅。Pretty soon, it is shortened to 美利堅。亞 was dropped. It is further shortened to just 美, 美洲、美國。
- 960
3
votes
Chinese words with non-Chinese letters / characters?
In Hong Kong, most imported terms are officially transliterated, there's no need to use any English alphabet in these terms.
For example:
store = 士多
toast = 多士
taxi = 的士
bus = 巴士
Also in Hong ...
- 77.1k
3
votes
Why does "meta-" translate to “元-”?
A basic meaning of "元" is "primary/first".
"metadata" - a set of (existing/primary) data that describes and gives information about other data.
"meta-analysis" -...
- 12.1k
2
votes
The origin of 水母
in the book "嶺表録異" by 劉恂 of 唐 dynasty (618-907)
水母
廣州謂之水母﹒閩謂之蛇[疑駕切]﹒其形乃渾然凝結一物﹒有淡紫色者﹒有白色者﹒大如覆帽﹒小者如盌﹒腹下有物如懸絮﹒俗謂之足而無口眼﹒常有數十蝦寄腹下﹒咂食其涎﹒浮汎水上﹒捕者或遇之﹒即歘然而沒﹒乃是蝦有所見耳
which gives a clear description of ...
- 15.1k
2
votes
The origin of the word chopstick
The original character is actually 箸, not 著. The latter is a derivative character of the former, and the former is not used anymore in Mandarin Chinese as a word for 'chopsticks', but is still used in ...
- 22.2k
2
votes
Chinese loanwords whose characters also carry the corresponding meaning
Here are some examples of those
基因 - gene
嬉皮士 - hippies
脱口秀 - talk show
霸凌 - bully
流明 - lumen
黑客 - hacker
对偶 - dual
蕾丝 - lace
费 - fee
And some others
席梦思 - Simmons
可口可乐 - Coca Cola
必应 - Bing
翡冷翠 - ...
- 3,089
2
votes
Accepted
Why does 哆啦A梦 use an alphabet instead of an equivalent Chinese character?
Why not simply use a word equivalent for ‘A’, such as: 哆啦欸梦
IMO that's because 欸 is rarely used in Chinese writings, despite its very common use in spoken language. I've never seen any foreign word ...
- 1,074
2
votes
Why does 哆啦A梦 use an alphabet instead of an equivalent Chinese character?
Why is the use of Chinese characters and letters mixed in the rare translation of Doraemon? This is a set of katakana and hiragana shuffling from the original text.
So, why is the original name of ...
- 371
2
votes
Which came first? Chinese 蘑菇 or Mongolian мөөг?
Thanks to @水巷孑蠻, I've updated this answer.
Anecdotal
My Mongolian teacher thinks 蘑菇 is borrowed from мөөг.
After a brief search in Chinese, all I see is that 蘑菇 is borrowed from Mongolian. But those ...
- 4,485
2
votes
Accepted
In which dialect of Mandarin can I see or hear 乳酪?
乳酪, pronounced ru3 luo4 (not lao4) in Taiwan, is kind of the official technical term for cheese, it would be on an ingredients list, for example, but this term is not commonly used in casual speech, ...
- 512
2
votes
In which dialect of Mandarin can I see or hear 乳酪?
Your Taiwanese friend said 奶酪 is more popular than 乳酪 in Taiwan, then it is probably true.
When I say '芝士' is the term Hong Kong Chinese most commonly use to describe 'cheese' you should believe me ...
- 77.1k
2
votes
Chinese words with non-Chinese letters / characters?
I would be thrilled if anyone found examples that included something
other than the Roman letters as used in English (i.e., A-Z). On the
other hand, I doubt there are such cases.
The Japanese ...
- 801
2
votes
How to translate "meme" in social media in Chinese?
Looks like it is translated as a loanword, in the same way as humour:
模因;
模仿传递行为(通过模仿等非遗传方式传递的行为)
It even has a science!
模因论揭示了人类文化传播的规律。
Memetics reveals the Law of Human Cultural Communication.
The ...
- 17.4k
2
votes
How to translate "meme" in social media in Chinese?
TL; DR: 梗 and 迷因 is similar but they have a little difference. Meme can be translated into these two different words depending on the context, and sometimes mixed.
The correct—but uncommon—word for 梗 ...
- 140
2
votes
Accepted
What is the origin of 名堂？Compound or loanword?
Although the exact origin is not determined, it's considered an inherently Chinese compound word.
1) 明堂 (mainstream view)
The mainstream view is that 名堂 comes from 明堂. In short, 明堂 is where ancient ...
- 4,485
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