Talk:無

Buddhist meaning

"(Buddhism): The null set: neither yes nor no (in response to a koan or other question that mistakenly assumes an affirmative or negative answer)."

This is the opinion of some authors of popular books on Buddhism, rather than being a dictionary definition. It's a pop-culture meme, basically. --Mujokan (talk) 10:24, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Same as mu in English (who ever says that apart from someone who's just read the Jargon File?). Should we RFV them? Equinox ◑ 09:28, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Stroke order is wrong

First of all, it's semi-cursive script (行书), not cursive. Secondly, the stroke order is wrong. It's 3 horizontals, 4 verticals, then the 4 dots. You can clearly see that the verticals directly precede the dots due to the ink linking them. Just google 無 行书 for pictures. --Explosivo (talk) 09:12, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

• There may simply be differences in how different people write this character. This Chinese site shows at least one clear example, second row third from the left, where the last horizontal is clearly connected to the dots, rather than any of the verticals. In addition, this is the stroke order taught in Japanese education, as shown here and here. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 10:39, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Although there are several national standards, there is only one traditional way, identified by looking at historical calligraphy. Even the Ministry of Education of China failed to consider everything because promoting literacy was more important than historical accuracy in the 50s. They have been correcting stroke orders ever since. Children even prove their parents wrong as they learned it differently back then. This person illustrates the single strokes of this very character from 27:20 on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIstDUsmWUM. He talks about variations like combining the first two strokes, which is acceptable, but stroke order is never a matter of style. It may not matter in everyday life, but it irks calligraphers. I think it would be better to have several variations according to the respective standards in general, but this would a lot of work for all the articles. Showing a non-traditional stroke order in the translingual section should be prevented. --Explosivo (talk) 20:11, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

• @Wyang, @Anatoli, any other Chinese editors -- what input have you? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:09, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

  Both stroke orders are okay. Wyang (talk) 23:12, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

status of 無 for Min Nan bô

The MoE marks 無 with 替. I contributed {{theaji to represent this here, but this has since been deleted. Could a source be shared for simply marking this as colloquial (俗)? Thanks. Hongthay (talk) 01:56, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

It represents the colloquial reading from an earlier level of borrowing/inheritance (文白異讀), not a replacement (替字). MoE is inconsistent too; see for example this pdf which discusses the development of a 平聲虞韻 character「無」. Same is true for Min Dong 'mò̤' and Teochew 'bho5' (descended from an earlier level of reading). Wyang (talk) 02:43, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

Minnan Fangyan Da Cidian says that the original character is 毛... Not sure about that. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 00:00, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Reference of the cursive style

What is the reference for the cursive gif? Are there any other characters also showing the cursive stroke order? --Backinstadiums (talk) 16:40, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

查無資料

Some Taiwanese government websites (like the variant character dictionary) use the wording 查無資料. Does the entry cover this usage of 無? —Suzukaze-c (talk) 04:40, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Also 查无此人. Is 查無 a verb that needs an entry? —Suzukaze-c (talk) 01:47, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

@Suzukaze-c: Seems like a really formal way of saying things, but it's essentially "check and have no results", I think. 查無 definitely doesn't need an entry. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 02:04, 5 November 2020 (UTC)