Talk:細路

Etymology

@Wyang HFC doesn't directly say that 細路 comes from 細佬, but it says that the original character of 路 is 老/佬. I think it would make more sense to have lou5 than lou2 to give way for the current tone, since 濁(陽)上 changing to 濁(陽)去 is common across dialects. What do you think? — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 02:33, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

I reworded it somewhat... What I intended to mean was it came from a historical stage of 細佬, when it meant "child" and was easily interpretable as a compound of 細 and 佬. Somehow the tone shifted, and it became 陽去. Now that I think about it, the change 陽上 -> 陽去 in Guangzhou Cantonese is definitely more plausible phonologically than 陰上 -> 陽去, although I don't know of any other word in which 佬 is or was pronounced as 陽上. If the 小稱變調 tone change x-2 happened fairly recently, there may be some historical evidence that 佬 used to be lou5. Wyang (talk) 04:23, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

I don't think it's a recent tone change, since 佬 is also 陰上 in Taishanese. This lists lou5 only for 仡佬. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 04:31, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Indeed. It seems to be the primary pronunciation of 佬 in the mid-19th century already. For example, 《英粵字典》(1854) records it as 陽上, so does 《華英通語》(1867). I'm interested to see if it is universally 陽上 in Cantonese dialects. I tried 詹伯慧《廣東粵方言概要》, but it doesn't seem to have it. 小學堂 doesn't have it either. Wyang (talk) 05:44, 12 September 2016 (UTC)