Talk:臺灣

semi-simplified form 台灣

MoE and guoxuedashi.com both have an entry for 臺灣 but not 台灣. zh:汉字规范 says 台 is a "vulgar character" zh:俗字 being used in place of 臺; originally they were two different characters. I think a source better than simply the newspaper article would be appropriate to help us represent the current situation better. Hongthay (talk) 23:07, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

@Hongthay: Here's the current situation AFAIK:

• Most people use 台 instead of 臺 in both Hong Kong and Taiwan.
  • Google "台灣" -"臺灣" -"台湾" vs. "臺灣" -"台灣" -"台湾"
    • Hong Kong only: 8,910,000 vs. 823,000
    • Taiwan only: 67,700,000 vs. 32,900,000
• 台 is the standard in Hong Kong. (Search 台 here.)
• Dictionaries following the standards set out by the MOE would never use 台 in 臺灣.
• At Wiktionary, we are not supposed to be prescriptive, i.e. we don't need to strictly adhere to any "standard". We are instead descriptive, i.e. we describe what people use.

Hope this clears things up for you. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 03:05, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: Given the evidence, shouldn't the lemmatised entry be 台灣? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:06, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge, Justinrleung, Hongthay, Wyang: I think the reason for lemmatisation at 臺灣, rather than the more common traditional 台灣 or the simplified 台湾 is based on the principle Chinese entries are lemmatised at traditional in the first place, rather than simplified forms. It's easier that way, both etymologically and technically. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 05:30, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

But 台灣 is also traditional. We have to make the choice to avoid duplication, so we chose Traditional. There is then a subchoice of which traditional variant to lemmatise, and I think we should do it based on descriptive principles (i.e., what's most common). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 06:06, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

臺灣 is the form favoured by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan, and all of its dictionaries, websites, documents use this form. There is not even an entry for 台灣 in Ministry of Education's Chinese Dictionary to acknowledge that it is a variant form, unlike many of the other variants. This was debated on the Chinese Wikipedia before for a long time, and the consensus was to use 臺灣 as the article title/traditional form. Wyang (talk) 06:23, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge: Like I said, it's easier that way, both etymologically and technically. Etymologically, since 臺 is the original form. Technically, since the conversion from traditional to simplified is far easier, than the other way around. 台 has too many etymologies, and is itself a traditional form. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 08:10, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

@Wyang MoE's Guoyu Cidian doesn't have 台灣 because it has been standardized as 臺灣, just like it doesn't have 衞生 or 麪包. @Metaknowledge While it is true that 台灣 is probably more common, I think an additional factor to consider for Chinese entries is the notion of "orthodoxy", i.e. which form is considered "standard", which I'd say is still within prescriptivism since people need to know which form is considered standard. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 14:55, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree that people should know which form is standard, and indeed documenting that is part of descriptivism. (That's why there has to be a usage note for this entry.) I will of course concede to whatever the Chinese editors prefer, but I personally see adherence to another dictionary's orthodoxy as rather in contravention of the descriptive approach we use at Wiktionary. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:58, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

It should be 臺灣. And I doubt 台灣 is more common in Hong Kong. The indicated dictionary simply treats 臺 and 台 as variants. You should be careful with 台 being "also traditional". The truth is the divide between traditional and simplified doesn't exist. They are all Chinese characters. Different regions apply different standards, and the usage of these characters are correct within the respective standards. Hong Kong/Macao and RoC usages are also different. Users of traditional claim to use "purer/older/more traditional" Chinese, but the same people use 台灣 instead of 臺灣 because they themselves are too lazy to write out the characters. It all comes down to a political argument. These people probably never read any ancient texts. Character substitution is a very common practice throughout Chinese history. In fact, many characters today don't represent what they graphically stand for. The problem with 台 is that in a traditional setting, it is usually not pronounced tái. The mainland city of 台州 is pronounced Tāizhōu, that's why it stays 台 in both simplified and traditional. I have a problem with 臺山 (Táishān) claming that 台山 is more common in traditional Chinese. The Wikipedia article doesn't even mention the traditional form 臺山. 台山 is a mainland city, and mainland China has also defined their set of traditional characters, which don't coincide with RoC usage. --89.246.121.221 17:25, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Teochew aspiration

Lim Hiong Seng has unaspirated dai5 uang5, like Hokkien — obsolete pronunciation? —Suzukaze-c (talk) 18:38, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

@Suzukaze-c: Probably borrowed from Hokkien if such a pronunciation did exist. RcAlex36 (talk) 17:56, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

RFV discussion: May–June 2021

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臺灣

Rfv-sense: "Taiwan Strait". --沈澄心✉ 09:56, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Pinging @Geographyinitiative, who added this sense in this diff. Is 臺灣 (without 海峽) ever used to mean the strait? — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 21:02, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

I would agree that the word '臺灣' does not refer to the Taiwan Strait directly. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 21:06, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

• RFV failed. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 02:35, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Bring Up Common Error to Defeat It: Defeating the Monosyllabic Myth

@Equinox‎, Justinrleung Demonstrating the frailty of Online Etymology Dictionary and the English-speaking world's grasp of Asia (someone SHOULD have corrected this), we see a poor, common and 'obvious' explanation of the etymology of the word 'Taiwan'.
OED says: "Taiwan literally "platform bay" (perhaps with a sense of "port"), from Chinese tai "terrace, platform" + wan "bay.""
I love the part where he says "(perhaps with a sense of "port")". What brilliant and insightful speculation! Surely a true scholar contributed that! 'Platform' meant 'port' to the Chinese people who made this name! They should have thought about naming the island 港湾!
The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy would probably see OED's etymology as derived from what he calls the monosyllabic myth.
I see 台湾 Taiwan and 吉林 Jilin as two character singular morphemes, like 蝴蝶 butterfly.
I would like to add info into Wiktionary's etymology here to preempt this kind of garbage and thereby in the debunking focus the reader on the real etymology. Once they see the wrong etymology identified as wrong, they'll just remember that until they can explore the real one. So I suggest adding the wrong info to the bottom of the etymology here, then saying "it's wrong" or something. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 21:17, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't understand why you pinged me on this. I've got almost zero knowledge of Asia, I'm afraid. Equinox ◑ 03:39, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Use of 台湾 in Taiwan

		phonetic
trad. (臺灣/台灣)		臺/台	灣
simp. (台湾)		台	湾

In Taiwan, there are a few 'simplified' characters in common use (probably from Japanese?) that were later adopted as Simplified Chinese in mainland China (as I understand it). This is different from the status of 台 in Taiwan. The two most prominent examples of what I'm referring to are 湾 and 区. I don't think it's enough for this Wiktionary page's zh-forms on this page to say "simp. (台湾)" and be done with it, because "simp." links to a page that says that the characters were "introduced by the PRC as script reform". This obscures the history of the use of 台湾 by the Taiwanese. I think an additional usage note, ideally linked in zh-forms, should explain the use of 湾 in 台湾 among Taiwanese persons. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 19:55, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Dutch

@Geographyinitiative 大員 is attested in 東番記 [1602]. Your claim that the word is borrowed from Dutch is doubtful. RcAlex36 (talk) 17:38, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

If I made such a change, I apologize. I do not know the origin of the word. I remember making an edit to the effect that the word was a phonetic loan into Chinese characters from another language, but I don't remember specifying a source language. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 17:41, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

@RcAlex36 Hey, please check out my recent edit at Taiwan [1] and modify or remove as appropriate. I think that my edit will help English speakers better understand the word Taiwan and help journalists avoid spreading fake etymologies. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 13:42, 23 March 2022 (UTC)