{"id":461,"date":"2006-04-12T22:50:31","date_gmt":"2006-04-13T06:50:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.krunk4ever.com\/blog\/?p=461"},"modified":"2006-04-17T19:23:43","modified_gmt":"2006-04-18T03:23:43","slug":"google-%e7%a9%80%e6%ad%8c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.krunk4ever.com\/blog\/2006\/04\/12\/google-%e7%a9%80%e6%ad%8c\/","title":{"rendered":"Google (\u7a40\u6b4c)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Google\u2019s \u2018old dog\u2019 taught Chinese tricks<\/a> (from Ars). Apparently Google in Chinese is written as \u53e4\u72d7 [gu gou] (literally translates to old\/ancient dog). Not wanting to sound old and unhip, they renamed themselves to \u7a40\u6b4c [gu ge]. They say this means ‘harvest song’, but literally, it translates to grain song, which I guess is close enough.<\/p>\n

Speaking about Chinese characters and the Cantonese Dialect, I had an interesting discussion with someone through email recently:<\/p>\n

I had lunch over at Chan\u2019s caf\u00e9 on 152nd the other day, and I noticed that both the sign on the front of the building and the menu had the characters:<\/p>\n

\u98df\u597dD<\/p>\n

Now the first two I know from studying Japanese, so I asked the waitress what the significance of the D is. She seemed to have trouble trying to explain it in English, but as far as I could understand, the way the D would be pronounced was a homonym for some word specifically in Cantonese. So can anyone explain what word the D is supposed to represent, what character it would be, and are there any other connotations of using a roman letter there?<\/p>\n

Thanks,
\nMatt<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

D is used because there isn\u2019t really an official standard written Chinese character for this Cantonese word, but some people write it as \u5572. The meaning of \u5572 corresponds to the standard written Chinese word \u4e9b. Also, Cantonese uses \u98df instead of \u5403 for the verb \u2018to eat\u2019. So \u98df\u597dD essentially means \u5403\u597d(\u4e00)\u4e9b (meaning: eat a little better) in standard written Chinese.<\/p>\n

-Clyde<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another way of saying it is: \u98df\u597d\u4e00D. You can also see it as \u5403\u597d\u4e00\u9ede (chi hao yi dian). I think that\u2019s where the D sound comes from.<\/p>\n

\/\/Toland (^_^x)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Actually, there is a slight difference in meaning between \u9ede and \u4e9b. The usage D corresponds more to \u4e9b (in all cases where D is used, \u4e9b can be substituted, but the same cannot be said for \u9ede). Also, linguistically the D sound is more likely derived from \u7684 rather than \u9ede.<\/p>\n

-Clyde<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I was wondering in which cases you were thinking about where \u4e9b would work but not \u9ede. And as you noted, \u5572 isn\u2019t actually a real character. The way that word was created was because it sounded like \u7684, and hence adding the mouth in front of it. Most words that have that aspect have nothing in common with the word they use. This is the case where the character was derived from the sound, and not the meaning.<\/p>\n

Although I agree, that \u4e9b can be used in place of \u9ede.<\/p>\n

\/\/Toland (^_^x)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here\u2019s one example where the use of \u4e9b is much more preferable over \u9ede:<\/p>\n

Cantonese: \u55f0\u5572\u4eba (meaning: those people)<\/p>\n

Standard written Chinese: \u90a3\u4e9b\u4eba (\u90a3\u9ede\u4eba is only marginally acceptable by some speakers)<\/p>\n

One piece of evidence indicating that \u5572 [di] is more likely derived from \u7684 [dik] rather than \u9ede [dim] is the use of this Cantonese phrase: \u7684\u5481\u591a [dik gam do] (meaning: only a bit so much), which corresponds to the standard Chinese \u4e00\u4e9b\u90a3\u9ebc\u591a. \u7684\u5481\u591a can also be spoken as \u5572\u5481\u591a [di gam do]. If \u5572 was instead derived from\u9ede, then *\u9ede\u5481\u591a [*dim gam do] would be possible, but it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

Note that the usage of the character \u7684 itself as a particle is only a recent invention. The written character \u7684 was co-opted during the language reforms of the early 20th century to represent this particle. So when I say that \u5572 is derived from \u7684, what I really mean is that it\u2019s derived from the particle that \u7684 now represents. In Mandarin, this particle evolved into the possessive particle that is now familiar in standard written Chinese; in Cantonese, it evolved into the indefinite plural measure word \u5572. Another thing that strengthens this connection is the fact that all measure words in Cantonese can also be used as possessive particles.<\/p>\n

-Clyde<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You are right \u4e9b would work better in those cases, but I don\u2019t think your argument about D coming from \u7684\u5481\u591a exactly works, since the \u7684 in there doesn\u2019t exactly carry the original meaning. Instead, just like \u5572, it appears to just be phonetic.<\/p>\n

I was looking up origin information for the word, but didn\u2019t find much:<\/p>\n

\u5572 – Wiktionary<\/a>
\nCantonese (linguistics)<\/a><\/p>\n

Many characters used in colloquial Cantonese writings are made up by putting a mouth radical (\u53e3) on the left hand side of another more well known character to indicate that the character is read like the right hand side, but it is only used phonetically in the Cantonese context. The characters [2] \u35ce, \u53fb, \u5413, \u5414, \u5443, \u5481, \u5497, \u54a9, \u54c2, \u54cb, \u5514, \u5525, \u5527, \u5571, \u5572, \u5590, \u55a5, \u55ba, \u55f0, \u5605, \u561c, \u561e, \u5622, \u5625, \u569f, \u56a1, \u56bf, \u56d6 etc. are commonly used in Cantonese writing. As not all Cantonese words can be found in current encoding system, or the users simply don’t know how to enter such characters on the computer, in very informal speech, Cantonese tends to use extremely simple romanization (e.g. use D as \u5572), symbols (add an English letter “o” in front of another Chinese character; e.g. \u35ce is defined in Unicode, but will not display in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0. hence the proxy o\u67b6 is often used), homophones (e.g. use \u679c as \u55f0), and Chinese character of different Mandarin meaning (e.g. \u4e5c, \u4fc2, \u4ffe etc.) to compose a message. For example, “\u4f60\u55ba\u55f0\u55a5\u597d\u5587, \u5343\u7948\u54aa\u641e\u4f62\u5572\u5622\u3002” is often written in easier form as “\u4f60o\u4fc2\u679c\u5ea6\u597d\u5587, \u5343\u7948\u54aa\u641e\u4f62D\u91ce\u3002” (character-by-character, approximately ‘you, being, there (two characters), good, (final particle), thousand, pray, don’t, mess with, him\/her, (genitive particle), things’, translation ‘You’d better stay there, and please don’t mess with his\/her stuff.’)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Language is a funny thing and definitely a living thing. \u7684 (meaning wise) would never work in any of the examples listed. Even in \u7684\u5481\u591a, as I mentioned, it\u2019s only used as a sound and not the meaning. If you\u2019ve ever tried to teach your Chinese speaking parent English, you\u2019ll notice for words they can\u2019t enunciate, they\u2019ll write in a string of Chinese characters that make similar sounds (just like \u7684\u5481). If I had to make a guess on the origin of \u5572, it\u2019d still be \u9ede, but after its usage became common in everyday speech, it just took off on its own and got inserted into other areas where the original character didn\u2019t. \u4e9b just happened to better match its old and new usage better than the original.<\/p>\n

Another point I\u2019d like to make is that D is half of \u9ede [dim], which is really pronounced more like di-mm. People get lazy and drop off the mm and what we end up with is D. The same doesn\u2019t work with \u7684 [dik], dropping of the k sound doesn\u2019t leave you with D.<\/p>\n

\/\/Toland (^_^x)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

since the \u7684 in there doesn\u2019t exactly carry the original meaning<\/em><\/p>\n

However, the particle that \u7684 represents in \u7684\u5481\u591a does carry what I assert to be the original meaning, which is an indefinite plural measure word (basically the same as the modern \u4e9b), not to be confused with the meaning that \u7684 currently has in modern standard written Chinese, which is not the original meaning.<\/p>\n

\u7684 (meaning wise) would never work in any of the examples listed<\/em><\/p>\n

I think you\u2019re again confusing the meaning of \u7684 in modern Chinese with the meaning of the historical particle that I\u2019m asserting. The historical meaning, which is the indefinite plural possessive (since all measure words in Cantonese, and probably the historical dialect(s), can be used as possessive particles), would work in that example (though actually the modern meaning of\u7684 would work there too, since a general possessive sense would work too).<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the relationship I\u2019m asserting for this theorized historical particle, which I will call D:<\/p>\n