Monkey

Discussions on the Cantonese language.
Kobo-Daishi

Monkey

Post by Kobo-Daishi »

Dear readers,
What is monkey in Cantonese? And would you supply the characters? Thank you.
Kobo-Daishi, PLLA.
Steve

Re: Monkey

Post by Steve »

馬騮
猴子

Re: Monkey

Post by 猴子 »

猴子
Thomas Chan

Re: Monkey

Post by Thomas Chan »

: 馬騮
I agree here with Steve. I'd also use this term
(ma5lau1) in Cantonese too, rather than the
hau4ji2 term.
Kobo, why do you ask? Is the Taishan term
for 'monkey' different?

Thomas Chan
tc31@cornell.edu
Kobo-Daishi

Re: Monkey

Post by Kobo-Daishi »

Dear readers,
Thanks to all who replied.
Thomas, in answer to your question, I was looking at a list of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac and was wondering what a monkey was called in Cantonese since in Taishan hua we call it a ‘mah laih’.
I would never have thought that the first character was the character for ‘horse’. We pronounce the character for horse ‘mah’ also, but its tone is different from the ’mah’ for ‘mah laih’ meaning ‘monkey.’
Now, here’s a question for you. What did you use to look up the Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation for duong and how did you make the graphic?
Kobo-Daishi, PLLA.
Kobo-Daishi

Year of the Horse

Post by Kobo-Daishi »

Dear Steve or Thomas,
Why do both the characters that make up the Cantonese word for monkey 馬騮 deal with horses.
The character 馬 (Mand: ma3, Cant: ma5; [1] [n] horse [2] a Chinese family name [3] Kangxi radical 187) and 騮 (Mand: liu2, Cant: lau4; a legedary fine horse) both deal with horses.
What does monkeys have to do with horses?
Kobo-Daishi, PLLA.
Steve

Re: Year of the Horse

Post by Steve »

: What does monkeys have to do with horses?
Beats me :)
Thomas Chan

Re: Monkey

Post by Thomas Chan »

: Thomas, in answer to your question, I was looking at a list of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac and was wondering what a monkey was called in Cantonese since in Taishan hua we call it a ‘mah laih’.
: I would never have thought that the first character was the character for ‘horse’. We pronounce the character for horse ‘mah’ also, but its tone is different from the ’mah’ for ‘mah laih’ meaning ‘monkey.’
Hmm, so the second syllable is somewhat different.
I guess the written form Steve and I would use
is based on the Cantonese term (and Cantonese
pronunciation). About horses--I don't know
either why it's written like that, although I've
seen the second syllable sometimes written
without the ma 'horse' 馬 radical (i.e., just
留), although 留 itself is not read as *lau1
(tone difference). But the tone doesn't always
have to match exactly in transliteration or
when borrowing characters phonetically (假借).

: Now, here’s a question for you. What did you use to look up the Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation for duong and how did you make the graphic?
I looked them in the "Zhongguo Baijiaxing Biao"
中國百家姓表 (Ba'ng Te^n Tra(m Ho. Trung Quo^'c)
appendix (934-943) of Hou Hanjiang 侯寒江
(Ha^`u Ha`n Giang) and Mai Weiliang 麥偉良
(Ma.ch Vi~ Lu+o+ng), eds., _Han-Yue Cidian_
漢越詞典 (Tu+` DDie^?n Ha'n-Vie^.t) (Beijing:
Shangwu 商務, 1997). ISBN 7-100-01454-9.
The graphic was made in Word using tables,
prtscrn'd, cropped, and saved as a graphic
file. I thought that'd be the most
compatible way of conveying the Chinese
characters and Vietnamese orthography on the
web.

Thomas Chan
tc31@cornell.edu
Thomas Chan

Re: Monkey

Post by Thomas Chan »

: pronunciation). About horses--I don't know
: either why it's written like that, although I've
: seen the second syllable sometimes written
: without the ma 'horse' 馬 radical (i.e., just
: 留), although 留 itself is not read as *lau1
I misremembered this part. I should have said
that both syllables of malau 'monkey' can be
written with 'dog' 犬 radicals (in radical
form, of course), i.e., {犬馬}{犬留}.

Thomas Chan
tc31@cornell.edu
Kobo-Daishi

Dog radical

Post by Kobo-Daishi »

<center><img src="http://www.mojikyo.gr.jp/gif96/020/020595.gif"></center>
Dear Thomas,
What’s the definition for the above character? I guess it’s pronounced the same as horse. I couldn’t find the character at Unicode. They’ve improved the look-up feature and definitions a great deal.
I did find the second of your characters at Unicode. The link to the information about it, at chinalanguage, are below. They don’t have a Jyut Pin pronunciation for it. I guess it would be lau4 as the one with the horse radical is.
What is the definition of no^m? Are they characters created by the Vietnamese for words in Vietnamese that are not derived from Chinese? Are they like the kokuji of Japanese? If not what do the Vietnamese call their kokuji? The Koreans?
How many of these characters are there? Japanese? Korean? Vietnamese? Approximately?
Kobo-Daishi, PLLA.
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