Benzi/Original character

[xng]

xng wrote:
恬 - Tiam / Silent

This one has also had me puzzled for quite a while.
The 說文解字 gives 恬 as "安也從心甛省聲"
However, another character also seems to fit both definition-wise and pronunciation-wise, i.e. 扂. 《集韻•掭韻》 徒念切; "扂, 所以止動也"

Perhaps someone with better knowledge of tones can help me out here.

If you look at the entry here http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUniha ... =%E6%81%AC

恬和 means quiet and gentle. So the single character 恬 means quiet.
恬不(為)怪 not surprised at all (because he's quiet)

[xng]

mark

What does your dictionary say about 刣 ? The modern dictionary meaning is quite different from 'kill', and the sound is way off too but the strange thing is that the ucla website shows this as T'ai. The literary sound Ziong is too far from T'ai so I don't think this is the colloquail sound.

宰 has a correct meaning and closer sound. Some 'C' consonant in cantonese/mandarin usually translate to 'T' consonant in minnan except that this T is actually T' (aspirated). eg. 張- Tio, 珍 - Tin

[SimL]

http://www.internationalscientific.org gives the pronunciation of 刣 as "thai5" too. It gives the pronunciation of 宰 as "chai2" (it uses a POJ-like system, so this is an unaspirated affricate). I don't know to what extent this site strives to find the "real, original characters" for the pronunciations it gives, or whether it's quite happy to just give a character for a particular pronunciation, if that's the character commonly accepted for writing it, irrespective of the etymological relationship.

[Mark Yong]

Unfortunately, my dictionaries have proven to be more confusing than elightening!

For starters, 周長楫's 《閩南方言大辭典》 gives 刣, but further states that it is a 方言字 dialected word.

He gives 治 as a possibility by some scholars:
1. 《說文》: "魝, 楚人謂治魚也."
2. 《送高閒上人序》: "庖丁刣牛."

Interestingly, if you check 康熙字典, it defines 宰 as 治. But it's kind of a circular argument, because apart from the references above (which do not actually give an explicit reference to killing the fish or ox per-se), I cannot find a single definition for 治 that even suggests 'to kill' as a definition.

Then he gives 夷 as another possibility by some scholars:
1. 《廣韻•脂韻》: 以脂切. "夷, 滅也."
2. 《後漢書•班固傳》: "禽獸殄夷." 李賢注: "殄, 尽也; 夷, 犹殺也."

夷 is definitely closer in meaning than 治, but I cannot reconcile the t- initial.

I looked up 康熙字典, and it quotes 《篇海》音鍾, 刮削物也., which does not really work well ('to pare / to shave / to scrape').

So, in summary, I don't have a conclusive answer for this one!

[xng]

So, in summary, I don't have a conclusive answer for this one!

This is one of the mystery characters that have yet to be solved.

[xng]

http://www.internationalscientific.org gives the pronunciation of 刣 as "thai5" too. It gives the pronunciation of 宰 as "chai2" (it uses a POJ-like system, so this is an unaspirated affricate). I don't know to what extent this site strives to find the "real, original characters" for the pronunciations it gives, or whether it's quite happy to just give a character for a particular pronunciation, if that's the character commonly accepted for writing it, irrespective of the etymological relationship.

The literary sound and colloqual sound can't be too far apart

1. Ciong and T'ai are too far apart for 刣

whereas

2. Cai (literary) and T'ai (colloquail) are much closer in sound for 宰

eg. 像 is Siong (literary) and C'ionn (colloquail) which has a shift in consonant/initial but are still close in sound.

It is just like for meat

3. Hiek and Bah are too far apart to say that Bah is the colloquail sound for 肉

I suspect 刣 is a 假借字 borrowed character because it has 台 character on the left side.

[xng]

Does anybody know whether which of these character is the original character for 'crazy'/ 'siau'

Because both are close in sound and close in meaning.

犭肖or 痟

[SimL]

I too have always used 田 for "chan5". But, the Sumatra Hokkien article gives 塍 as the character to use for "chan5". I'm a bit suspicious of it. It's character #10,000+ (in a frequency count of characters, where character #1, #2, and #3 are 的, 是 and 不 respectively, so the higher the number, the more rarely the character is used) - i.e. it is a dialect or rather obscure character. But it's not the obscurity which makes me doubtful. More because Unicode gives the pronunciation and meaning as "cheng2: a raised path between fields, a dike", so both the pronunciation and meaning don't match very well.

Does anyone else have an opinion on this one?

You should ask this in the benzi/original character thread instead of here. I've some idea.

[SimL]

Hi all,

Does anyone use this word "han3" (or "han7")? I use it to mean "to force (someone to do something)". For example: "i han wa ciah ci(t)-ciah thang" (= "he forced me to eat a worm"), "i e bO han i tak-tak-jit chua i khi be mih-kiaN" (= "his wife forces him to take her shopping every day").

I can't find it in Douglas, Barclay, nor can Ah-bin find it in a number of Mandarin-based Minnan dictionaries.

Thanks.
PS. Please forgive the sexism in the second sample sentence...

[xng]

I too have always used 田 for "chan5". But, the Sumatra Hokkien article gives 塍 as the character to use for "chan5". I'm a bit suspicious of it. It's character #10,000+ (in a frequency count of characters, where character #1, #2, and #3 are 的, 是 and 不 respectively, so the higher the number, the more rarely the character is used) - i.e. it is a dialect or rather obscure character. But it's not the obscurity which makes me doubtful. More because Unicode gives the pronunciation and meaning as "cheng2: a raised path between fields, a dike", so both the pronunciation and meaning don't match very well.

Does anyone else have an opinion on this one?

田 is borrowed for its meaning and its not the original character because its literary sound is 'Tien', its colloqual (if different from literary) should be Tinn.

The UCLA website said that 塍 is the correct character but the literary sound is 'Sing', so its colloqual sound should be either ('Cing' or 'Cia' or 'Sia') and not 'Chang'. So I cannot confirm that this is the correct character too. It could be non-sinitic.