Thanks for your feedback.Mark Yong wrote:Actually, odd as it may be, it is very likely to be 第一.
1. 北魏•賈思勰 《齊民要術•陽羊》: "常以正月, 二月預收干羊矢, 煎乳第一好."
2. 唐•沈既濟 《沈中記》: "性頗奢蕩, 甚好佚樂, 后庭聲色, 皆第一綺麗."
tĕ 第 has a low-flat tone, whereas īt 一 has a middle-flat tone. The contraction of these two individual characters, plus the eventual loss of the voiced consonant ending -t ending, could explain why té, as we know it today, has a rising tone. Also, I have noticed that when some people pronounce té, they say it with a rising tone that drops abruptly at the end - which seems to suggest vestigial remains of what was once a voiced consonant ending.
Unfortunately, 至 - while the best fit in terms of meaning, does not quite cut it with the fanqie 反切 readings:
1. 《唐雲》《集韻》《韻會》 脂利切
2. 《正韻》 支義切
The former would give an initial of ch-, and the latter ch- or t- (to use Minnan readings). And both would have -i endings. Even in the case of (1), a vowel shift for the ending 利 would result in -ai, not -e.
Much as I would like to, I don't think we can do a one-to-one match with Mandarin/Cantonese in this case.
Like I said, I'm not sure of 至 because it was not supported in ucla website. Ti (quanzhou hokkien) can be pronounced as Te (zhangzhou) hokkien Eg. 鄭 but the problem lies in that quanzhou hokkien also pronounce it as Te.
Its possible its a contraction of 第一 and due to lazy sound, the 't' is dropped. I wonder why taiwanese don't use this contraction but use Siong.