Unanswered Questions
35 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
11
votes
2answers
183 views
What's a good place to look up the etymology of certain Chinese words that aren't immediately obvious?
Many Chinese words make a lot of sense when you consider the meanings of individual characters. However, others aren't quite as obvious at first glance.
For example, Why does 有机 as in 有机食品 mean ...
7
votes
1answer
530 views
Unknown Traditional Chinese characters on lacquered boards
I'm a East Asian preparing to celebrate the Lunar New Year and have been given these pictures of lacquered boards from my father.
The first picture I suspect contains stylized Seal scripts. I cannot ...
4
votes
1answer
324 views
Help identifying characters on a memorial coin
I recently got my hands into this coin
No idea how it got here, nor where it came from, I've tried to identify the text with some chinese speaking friends but we are unable to fully comprehend.
So ...
3
votes
0answers
55 views
Similarities between Japanese 四字熟語 and Chinese 成语?
I have been learning Japanese 四字熟語 as a paste time for sometime and I would like to know whether most of them can be used verbatim in Chinese or if there are Japanese-made yojijukugo which cannot be ...
3
votes
1answer
179 views
How did 黑鍋 “black wok” semantically shift to mean “blame for a crime”?
https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/38716 spurred this question. 黑鍋 - Wiktionary
(literally) black wok
(figuratively) blame for a crime
How did "black wok" semantically shift to mean ...
3
votes
0answers
116 views
Has there ever been an English translation of 《輶軒》“Fangyan”?
《輶軒使者絕代語釋別國方言》has a couple of different names including《方言》and《揚子方言》.
In English it mostly just gets called Fangyan.
The entire Chinese text has been put up on ctext.
As
the first Chinese ...
3
votes
1answer
159 views
The number of “components” (potentially) to define a Chinese character typeface
This post goes into some hypotheticals on how long it might take to design a Chinese font compared to a Latin font.
It shows an image of potentially some "radicals" which could be used as the base ...
2
votes
1answer
59 views
Are there Chinese spoken language games? (like Ubbi Dubbi)
Ubbi dubbi is a language game spoken with the English language. It was popularized by the 1972-1978 PBS children's show Zoom. ... Ubbi dubbi works by adding -ub- /ʌb/ before each vowel sound in a ...
2
votes
0answers
339 views
Translations of “共欢新故岁，迎送一宵中” by Li Shimin?
The poem 守岁 by 李世民 ends with the following line:
共欢新故岁，迎送一宵中。
It's apparently a well-known line and even Chairman Xi used it in one of his speeches:
“共欢新故岁，迎送一宵中。”忙碌了一年，一家人一起吃年夜饭，一起守岁，享受的是天伦之乐、生活之美。...
2
votes
0answers
151 views
What did Liu Cixin mean here?
In a postscript to the American edition of The Three-Body Problem / 三体, the author says:
In science fiction, humanity is often described as a collective. In
this book, a man named “humanity” ...
2
votes
0answers
65 views
Is there a breakdown of the simplification scheme into methods?
For the second round of simplification (actually, its second part), there is a scheme dividing the processes into classes by the method used, such as:
leaving only part of the character that leaves ...
2
votes
0answers
117 views
Any evidence for z(h)uang (这么) and luang (那么)?
I keep hearing:
zuang [tsuaŋ]
and
luang [Ĩuaŋ]
for 这么 and 那么, respectively.
I believe it is Minjiang dialect (岷江话, 岷江小片).
I've flipped through a couple of books I have but I haven't been able ...
1
vote
1answer
25 views
How comes the word 偶像 is related to worship?
As I read the Bible, 偶像 means the idols made by man and being worshiped. As I know there are 3 meaning of the word 偶像:
木偶 & 雕像, used in different proposes such as decoration art performance
the ...
1
vote
0answers
27 views
Do 和 and 跟 have different grammatical functions？
Thinking about the Difference between 与，和 and 跟?, I was wondering if it can be argued that 和 (hé) and 跟 (gēn) have different grammatical functions. I understand 和 corresponds in English to the ...
1
vote
1answer
64 views
Did 謠's phonetic component (䍃) semantically shift it away from 言?
You can spot that (the left-hand side of) 謠 originates from 言. I screenshot Yellowbridge.
Did the phonetic component 䍃 spawn, or have anything to do with, the semantic narrowing from 言 to 謠?
If not,...
