Unanswered Questions
131 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
6
votes
0answers
287 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 ...
6
votes
1answer
267 views
How did “kitsch” (刻奇) come to stand for emotional contagion in a group?
刻奇 is said to be a loanword from English meaning:
kitsch
Kitsch in short is said to be:
Kitsch is garish and sentimental art or other objects.
In long it is defined as:
Kitsch (/kɪtʃ/; ...
5
votes
1answer
240 views
Pronounciation of 腺
Quoting Wiktionary, the glyph origin of the character 「腺」 is as follows:
A 国字 (kokuji, “Japanese-coined character”) coined in the late 1700s–early 1800s by rangaku scholar Udagawa Genshin as a ...
4
votes
0answers
129 views
How did 秘 “bi” become “mi”?
I came across this comment just now:
“秘”声符是“必”没问题，但是并不是说“秘”和“必”一定同音，“秘”这个字是北京话读错了，其实应该读bi，“秘鲁”一词还残存bi的读音
Which got me thinking.
秘 is still read "bi" in:
surnames
transcriptions (e.g.: Peru)
...
3
votes
1answer
135 views
What is the Chinese equivalent of the English morpheme 'e-' indicating “digitalization”?
For instance, "email" (or "e-mail") is one that has been essentially canonized (e.g. it has been added to various canonical dictionaries), but what about other instances of the addition of this ...
3
votes
0answers
91 views
Please help identify traditional Chinese painting
I've inherited a Chinese cloth painting from my ancestors. I'd be grateful if you could help me know more about the artwork through the signature and seal.
Regards,
VinayakFull artwork
3
votes
2answers
369 views
Can anyone translate this Seal Script into english for me?
I played this game called Sleeping Dogs that I really loved! It took place in Hong Kong and the main character Wei Shen has this tattoo on his arm that I thought would be cool to have. After doing ...
3
votes
0answers
111 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 ...
3
votes
1answer
239 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
6answers
216 views
Can I split up time phrases and adverbs?
If there is more than one part to a time phrase (e.g. both 今天 and 八点) can I place one of them before the subject and one after? Is there any situation in which this would be okay?
他今天八点要去看电影 (not ...
2
votes
1answer
51 views
What's the meaning of “刀不长眼”? Is it proverb or something like that?
I was watching the movie "fearless (2006)" starring Jet Li and the character said to his friend "After all these years of friend ship, you still don't know me?" and then he goes with this phrase : "...
2
votes
1answer
72 views
xiǎng xiǎng ‘keep on thinking’ vs xiáng xiǎng ‘think for a moment’
According to Wiedenhof's A Grammar of Mandarin, page 25,
xiǎng xiǎng ‘keep on thinking’ doesn't show tone sandhi because the tones belong to separate clauses, unlike [xiáng xiǎng] ‘think for
a ...
2
votes
3answers
120 views
“管你是[surname] + [name]还是[same surname] + [different name]”
There's a set phrase that goes something like:
(我)管你张三还是李四
I've seen variations on it like:
我管你张静还是李静呢
I'm trying to remember one where the surname stays the same though, something like:
...
2
votes
0answers
89 views
Is there a Chinese name for the initiality theorem?
This is a very specialized question. There is a branch of mathematical logic called Homotopy Type Theory in English, and in Chinese 同伦类型论. There is a Baidu page on it baike.baidu.com/item/同伦类型论. A ...
2
votes
0answers
101 views
Can someone tell me if this script is correct?
I'm trying to write in full cursive with my own personal style and this is one of my first letterings.
I'm quite happy and I think that it does look readable, but I'm afraid that the two long line I ...
