Benzi/Original character

[xng]

I have looked at the list of the taiwanese govt standard characters and some of them are wrong !

I will list the benzi here which was found after much research and are different from common usage in both Mandarin and Cantonese.

Although cantonese use 行 but mandarin use 走, minnan use 行(Kia) so this is not listed because cantonese uses it commonly.

Character - Sound / Meaning

汝 - Lu, Ly / You
伊 - Ee / He,she
毋 - Mm / Not
使 - Sai / Can
拍 - P'ak / Hit
逐 - Tak / Every (day etc)
掠 - Lia / Catch
寒 - Kua / Cold
偌 - Lua / How (much, big etc)
濟 - Cay / Many, numerous
較 - K'a / Compare
緊 - Kin / Fast
箸 - Tu / Chopstick
鼎 - Tia / Wok
著 - Tiuk / Correct
抹 - Bua / Apply (medicine etc)
呸 - P'ui / Spit
拭 - C'it / Wipe with cloth
扛 - Keng / Lift with shoulders
飼 - C'i / Feed
凊 - C'in / Cold (water)
厝 - C'u / House

戇 - Gong / Stupid
枵 - Iau / Hungry
晡 - Po / Afternoon
糜 - Muei / Porridge
與 - Ho / Give
共 - Ka(ng) / Together, with
蟳 - Cim / Crab
烏 - O / Black
吼 - Hau / Cry
疼 - T'ia / Painful
愈 - Nu / More
曉 - Hiau / Understand, Know
炊 - C'ui / Steam (food)
歕 - Pun / Blow (wind)
摻 - C'am / Mix (food etc)
沃 - Ak / Pour water, irrigate
懸 - Kuan,Kui / Tall
冗 - Ling / Loose
拄 - Tu / Meet (somebody)

犭肖 - Siau / Mad
刣 - T'ai / Kill

綴 - Tue / Follow
恬 - Tiam / Silent
轉 - Teng / Go back
縛 - Pak / Tie (a string etc)
歇 - Hio / Rest
睏 - K'un / Sleep
頂 - Ting / Last (time), Upper (floor)
潐 - Ta / Dry (quote from modern dictionary 水盡)
趖 - Sou / Walk or do things very slowly similar to dragging the feet
捋 - Lua / Comb (hair)
捍 - Hua / Uphold
故 - Kou / Again
褪 - T'eng / Remove
芳 - P'ang / Fragrant
曝 - P'ak / Dry by sun (clothes etc)
翁 - Ang / Husband or Old man
姥 - Bo / Wife or Old woman
囝 - Kiann / Child

毋會 - Bay (Combination of Mm and Ay) / Cannot
毋通- Mm T'ang / Don't
毋愛 - Mai (combination of Mm and Ai) / Don't want
相同 - Siang (combination of Sio and Tang) / Same
許 - Hi, Hy / That
許一 - Hit (combination of Hi and It) / That
之一 - Cit (combination of Ci and It)/ This

否 - P'ai / Bad
否勢 - P'ai Say / Sorry
暗瞑 - Am Mi / At Night
合意 - Ka Ee / To like
臭焦 - C'au Ta / Burnt, scorched
攏總 - Long Cong / All
灶骹 - Cau K'a / Kitchen
夭壽 - Iau Siu / Short life (for scolding people)
跋倒 - Pua To / Fall down
淡薄 - Tam Puk/ A little
細膩 - Say Li / Careful
閃開 - Siam K'ui / Move away
目屎 - Bak Sai / Tears
底時 - Ti Si / When
雞婆 - Kay Po/ Busybody
逐遍 - Tak Pien/Everytime
土骹 - T'ou K'a/Floor
湊陣 - Tau Tin/Together
漏氣 - Lau K'uui/ Lose face
見笑 - Kien Siau / Shameful

尻川 - K'a C'eng / Buttocks
卵 - Neng / Egg
卵鳥 - Lan Jiau / Penis
卵脬 - Lan P'a / Scrotum (陰囊袋 - Sack containing sperms)

Some was based on classical chinese and example verses can be found in

http://solution.cs.ucla.edu/~jinbo/dzl/lookup.php

Any further words are welcome.

[Mark Yong]

xng,

If you don't mind, I have to dispute a couple of entries from your list:

這一 - Cit (combination of Cia and It) / This
This is quite unlikely, as 這 for "this" is a late 假借 borrowing in Mandarin from a character that originally meant "to go towards".

卵鳥 - Lan Jiau / Penis
The Hakka pronunciation for lan is lin (I am convinced that both share a common Chinese character), which does not quite square with 卵, which is pronounced lon in Hakka. There is an entry in Kangxi [尸+粦] in which the fanqie and meaning comes closer (it makes a direct reference to the Minnan definition for 'penis').

Counter-arguments welcome.

[tadpole]

I have looked at the list of the taiwanese govt standard characters and some of them are wrong !

They have a forum, too. You can bring up your findings with them there.

http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/testforum/forums/list.page

[xng]

xng,

If you don't mind, I have to dispute a couple of entries from your list:

1. 這一 - Cit (combination of Cia and It) / This
This is quite unlikely, as 這 for "this" is a late 假借 borrowing in Mandarin from a character that originally meant "to go towards".

2. 卵鳥 - Lan Jiau / Penis
The Hakka pronunciation for lan is lin (I am convinced that both share a common Chinese character), which does not quite square with 卵, which is pronounced lon in Hakka. There is an entry in Kangxi [尸+粦] in which the fanqie and meaning comes closer (it makes a direct reference to the Minnan definition for 'penis').

1. If we look at the modern sound and meaning, this is the right character. We don't know when the ancient meaning was changed and when the hokkien borrowed the new meaning.

I got this from http://solution.cs.ucla.edu/~jinbo/dzl/lookup.php and I agree with that entry as the sound and modern meaning is correct.

2. There are ancient (colloquail) and modern (literary) sounds for the character 卵 so Leng (lin), Lan (lon) is quite close. Please check http://solution.cs.ucla.edu/~jinbo/dzl/lookup.php for example verses in classical chinese.

【備註】金瓶梅‧第二回：聽信你兄弟說，空生著'卵鳥'嘴，也不怕別人笑耻

Although that UCLA website doesn't have everything correct, but most of it are correct and it substantiates it with classical chinese verses. Anyway, I can't find that Kangxi character anywhere on the internet and I suspect that the one who compiled the kangxi dictionary didn't know the original character and simply make it up with a new character (body radical and phonetic 'lun')

If you think about it, 卵 means sperm or ovum, so
卵鳥 would mean the birdie/penis carrying the sperm outside.
卵核 would mean the testicles ie. nut of the sperm.

So the meaning is quite correct.

3. Do you know what's the original character for 'Ti' meaning which. eg. Ti Si

In the ucla website, it writes as 底時 but the modern meaning is wrong and they didn't substantiate with classical chinese verses. The MOE taiwan uses another character which is doubtful too.

PS. I have added a few more entries that I left out in my first post. If you have any other contributions please do so. I've avoided putting those doubtful characters which are not substantiated.

[xng]

They have a forum, too. You can bring up your findings with them there.

http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/testforum/forums/list.page

I hate to read all those postings, can you please help out by posting there for me instead ?

[Mark Yong]

xng wrote:
Anyway, I can't find that Kangxi character anywhere on the internet and I suspect that the one who compiled the kangxi dictionary didn't know the original character and simply make it up with a new character (body radical and phonetic 'lun')

You will find it in Page 303 of 康熙字典 under the radical 尸 and 13 residual strokes. Quoting the entry:
[字彙] 良慎切音吝閩人謂陰也 [正字通] 按方俗語有音無字陰不必別名(尸+粦).

[xng]

You will find it in Page 303 of 康熙字典 under the radical 尸 and 13 residual strokes. Quoting the entry:
[字彙] 良慎切音吝閩人謂陰也 [正字通] 按方俗語有音無字陰不必別名(尸+粦).

Quote '有音無字', it means the person compiling the dictionary doesn't know the correct character, so I suspect it's a make up character during that time.

Anyway, contrary to popular belief, 'Lan' doesn't mean penis but sperm/ovum similar to the original meaning of egg in 'old' chinese. It is "jiau" 鳥 that mean penis. There's another phrase for penis which is 'Ku ku jiau' so there are no 'lan' here.

Minnan use 卵 for egg and not 蛋.

The modern character of 精子 means 'essence' and not sperm in 'old' chinese.

[xng]

I have been watching a lot of taiwanese shows with theme songs and it's a pity that many of the words printed on the screen are not the original character.

They just simply find another character with similar sound or meaning alone and substitute for it.
eg. 彼甲 and other new characters like 'bay' .

Imagine these are taiwanese and not overseas chinese who are supposed to know more about chinese language than us.

Onto another topic, I suspect that all these new characters that taiwanese are inventing such as In, Gun etc are actually these:

Gun / We = 我人 (combination of Gua and Lang ie. Gu-ng)
In / Them = 伊人 (combination of Ee and Lang ie. I-ng)

[Ah-bin]

I have been watching a lot of taiwanese shows with theme songs and it's a pity that many of the words printed on the screen are not the original character.

Unless it's for a song, the Taiwanese shows usually just translate the Hokkien into Mandarin and don't make any attempt to translate it.

Gun / We = 我人 (combination of Gua and Lang ie. Gu-ng)
In / Them = 伊人 (combination of Ee and Lang ie. I-ng)

Robert L. Cheng had an article about this called "Sub-syllabic morphemes in Taiwanese" 1985 Journal of Chinese Linguistics. 13.1, 12–43. Can't remeber his conclusion though.

Even if they are contractions, the Chinese writing system demands that one character represent a single syllable, so these new characters are a necessary invention if Hokkien is to be written completely in characters.

New characters or new meanings for old characters is not so unusual even in Mandarin. 也 and 都 have nothing to do with their original meanings and 們 is a relatively "new" character, not found in Classical Chinese texts.

[xng]

I have been watching a lot of taiwanese shows with theme songs and it's a pity that many of the words printed on the screen are not the original character.

Unless it's for a song, the Taiwanese shows usually just translate the Hokkien into Mandarin and don't make any attempt to translate it.

They do translate it (eg. Chu for house) but not all are translated correctly.