User talk:Justinrleung/Archive 31

Module:zh-dial-syn/check-presence

(Also pinging @Suzukaze-c, Erutuon, who have edited this module earlier in the year). As you know, this periodically shows up in CAT:E with a module error due to exceeding the allowed execution time. It's usually easy to clear with a null edit. On July 23, however I noticed a different error: "Lua error in Module:zh-dial-syn/check-presence at line 14: bad argument #1 to 'ipairs' (table expected, got string)". My guess is that there's some incorrectly-formatted data that the system can't parse as being part of a table.

My usual technique in such cases is to look for what has changed since the last time the problem wasn't there, and thus narrow down where to look for the cause. That doesn't work very well here, since there are over 500 modules involved, many of which are being edited every day.

After spending way too much time on this (what can I say- I'm stubborn) I realized that only about half of the submodules in Module:zh-dial-syn/check-presence/list show up in the transclusion list when you edit and preview Module:zh-dial-syn/check-presence/documentation. What's more, the module went through the list in order, so all of the modules before the last one in Module:zh-dial-syn/check-presence/list are in the transclusion list, but none of the ones after. That means that the module error happened either while it was going through Module:zh/data/dial-syn/番茄 or before it got to the next submodule. Sure enough, you made a substantial edit to that file less than 24 hours before I first noticed the error.

Working backward through the terms in that file, the Chinese term in Line 757: ["Guzhang-WX"] = { "醬辣子" }, is missing from the transclusion list, but the first term in Line 733: ["Shibei"] = { "洋番椒", "洋柿" }, shows up (I'm ignoring all the terms that also occur earlier in the file). If I'm interpreting this right, that means that the bad data is somewhere after line 733 in Module:zh/data/dial-syn/番茄.

That said, I can't spot any difference between the lines before and after that point. It might be something invisible, like a Chinese fullwidth double quote instead of the standard one, or I could be completely wrong. I looked at an entry that used the data submodule and there didn't seem to be anything wrong with the display- but I don't know the data well enough to be sure.

One way to check would be to undo back to the May 8, 2021 edit on the data submodule and see if the problem clears up. If it doesn't, that complicates things. I hope it doesn't require troubleshooting 500+ modules! Chuck Entz (talk) 23:17, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz: I looked for where the module could be trying to call ipairs on a string ipairs in Module:zh/data/dial-syn/番茄, and discovered that Module:zh-dial-syn/check-presence/list was trying to call ipairs on every field besides "meaning" and "note", but a "title" field that is a string was added recently. So I added "title" to the fields that aren't iterated over. That fixes the problem at least until another field is added. — Eru·tuon 23:43, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Replaced that with a more future-proof solution: only call ipairs on a table. — Eru·tuon 23:49, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz, thanks for letting me know, and @Erutuon, thanks for fixing the module. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 23:50, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

So I completely misdiagnosed the problem, but my data helped narrow down the search for the real problem. It's good to know I didn't completely waste my time. Ironically, that only added 4 more submodules to the transclusion list- I wonder if it will ever run all the way through again. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:58, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

tantalos

Hi: the etymology of 忐忑 was from the article 龙小同. "“忐忑” 的由来." 咬文嚼字 10 (2008). MNXANL (talk) 15:43, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

@MNXANL: I read the article, and it doesn't provide any solid evidence supporting the hypothesis. AFAICT, this journal is not peer-reviewed, so it's not necessarily reliable. I also find the hypothesis doesn't hold much water when we look at when the word was first attested. The first dictionary that records this word AFAIK is 五音集韻, which is from 1212. 忐 is recorded as 吐敢切, and 忑 is 他德切. At that time, the final consonants should still be "intact", so 忐 would have had *-m and 忑 would have had *-k. 龙小同 claims it's from some sort of "root" tanta (which doesn't exist AFAIK), which might match okay with Mandarin, but not quite with the pronunciation in the 13th century. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 19:20, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Help me fix Module:zh L423

" <span style=\"font-size\:80%\">(" .. annotation .. ")</span>" -> ' <span style="font-size:80%">(' .. annotation .. ')</span>'. I'm recently testing running some scripts locally, and lua think '\:' error. EdwardAlexanderCrowley (talk) 12:25, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

@EdwardAlexanderCrowley: Sorry, I think I missed this. Thanks for pointing it out. I just fixed this. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 02:25, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

挨班

Hi Justin. Is there a way to indicate this is verb + object like at 睡覺? The Xiandai Hanyu Cidian marks this as āi//bānr. Seems we can't do it right now with an adverb entry. ---> Tooironic (talk) 12:56, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

@Tooironic It's strange that 挨班 is treated as an adverb in Xiandai Hanyu Cidian. It clearly can take 着, which should not be possible if it's a real adverb. I think it should be a verb, but I'm not entirely sure. @RcAlex36, what do you think? — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 15:42, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Looks like a verb to me, but I'm not sure. RcAlex36 (talk) 16:08, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you both. ---> Tooironic (talk) 12:14, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

By the way, I note that the dictionary also treats 按理 as an adverb ("按照情理"), and marks it as àn//lǐ. Could it be that Chinese adverbs can also be verb+object in construction? ---> Tooironic (talk) 12:26, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

@Tooironic: Maybe, but they could be analyzed as verb or prepositional phrases to me. @沈澄心, Frigoris, any thoughts on this? — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 23:57, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I personally can't understand this word without examples because I don't hear it very often. Can we show some example usage with 挨班? I did some search for the term in Zh Wikisource, and got some hits like this:

1. 合省官員挨班稟見 《于公案》
2. 施公 […] 隨同朝臣，挨班朝賀 《施公案》
3. 這兩天事情忙，過幾天我還要挨班傳見 《官場現形記》

So it seems to me that at least in earlier-than-modern Mandarin novels it is indeed used as an adverb describing the manner in which an action is done.

It's really funny when I was pinged while creating the entry अनुलोम (anuloma) which means the same thing. Also I personally am against putting grammatical-analysis marks inside the headword, since such analyses are usually ambiguous, imperfect, and not necessarily connected organically to actual usage. But since this practice seems to have caught on, I'd like to see how it plays out with the dictionary users. --Frigoris (talk) 08:32, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

噯酸

Hi Justin. To your knowledge, is 噯酸 the same as 反酸? I wasn't sure. ---> Tooironic (talk) 13:19, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

@Tooironic: I don't think I know either term. I usually say 胃酸倒流. @RcAlex36, do you think they're synonyms? — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 15:46, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Sorry I'm not familiar with this compound. @沈澄心, any thoughts? RcAlex36 (talk) 16:05, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure neither. --沈澄心✉ 16:16, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you both. ---> Tooironic (talk) 12:14, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

冤冤相報何時了

I created the entry for 冤冤相報 yesterday as a chengyu entry. I was wondering if we should create an entry for this longer form, or even the full saying 冤冤相報何時了，得饒人處且饒人 The dog2 (talk) 22:29, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

@The dog2: I'm not quite sure. Maybe 冤冤相報何時了，得饒人處且饒人, which could a proverb. @RcAlex36, any thoughts? — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 02:28, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

(Penang?) Hokkien for 盯

Asked my dad what the word for stare is in Hokkien. Was told it was siong(3/7). Any idea what word this might be? Side note: I installed the IME, restarted the laptop, put off using it till yesterday, and quickly realised I didn’t know how to type the tones or the o*. — Fredrick Campbell (talk) 09:57, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

@Fredrick Campbell: I'd say it's 相 (siòng). As for the IME, you can read the instructions manual for details, but basically, you should be able to type something in Tâi-lô (with the tone as a number at the end of a syllable) and it would get you the POJ. You press Shift + [the number of the word you want on the output list] to get the POJ rather than the Chinese characters. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 16:54, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

中央

In an attempt to understand what a RFV is, I ended up on the Requests for Verification page and found 中央 as one of the entries in the list. This is definitely an existing phrase. How can it be verified? — Fredrick Campbell (talk) 14:59, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

@Fredrick Campbell: This case is an RFV-sense, where a particular sense is being requested for verification. We need three independent durably archived quotations for the sense in order for it to pass verification. See WT:ATTEST for more details. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 16:54, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: What is considered "clearly widespread use"? Just a search on Chinese Wikisource gives you 31075 results, one of which is from the 唐 dynasty. — Fredrick Campbell (talk) 14:37, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

By RFV-sense, you mean a certain definition of this phrase? — Fredrick Campbell (talk) 14:39, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

@Fredrick Campbell: Yes, verification is requested for the definition of "centralized". — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 14:43, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

外道, 杆子

Hi Justin. Would you mind checking the non-Mandarin readings for these entries when you get a chance? Thank you. ---> Tooironic (talk) 00:01, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

@Tooironic:  Done. For 杆子, the second reading should be 桿子 in traditional. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 18:08, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Many thanks! ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:16, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Ho Chi Minh City Teochew

Do you think this video series can be used as a source for the Teochew spoken in Ho Chi Minh City? To my knowledge, Teochews are the second largest Chinese dialect group in Ho Chi Minh City after the Cantonese. And even in New York Chinatown, there is a Vietnamese Teochew restaurant that I used to frequent when I was living there. The dog2 (talk) 17:13, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

@The dog2: Is there any mention that it is actually Ho Chi Minh where the YouTuber is from? — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 17:55, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

I just know he's from Vietnam, and the YouTube account indicates that he is based in Vietnam. I'm not absolutely sure which city he's from, but I thought Ho Chi Minh City is most likely given that that's where most of the ethnic Chinese community of Vietnam lives. The dog2 (talk) 17:56, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

@The dog2: I would be inclined not to be too hasty about including this. I don't think we should assume where someone is from. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 17:59, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

”Improper Cantonese” in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

I encountered this on Quora. I thought this may be of interest to you. Chio May Ling says that it would help if proper Cantonese is spoken in the first post. — Fredrick Campbell (talk) 06:53, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

@Fredrick Campbell: I would disagree with calling those "improper". They are perfectly valid KL Cantonese words. I think we have most of those documented, but I'll check. Thanks. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 06:59, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: You're welcome. The person who wrote this were probably considering a certain Cantonese dialect the proper one. — Fredrick Campbell (talk) 07:09, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

峇都 for ba-tû

There is a place in Penang called Batu Lanchang. In that area, you will see quite a few places with the characters 峇都兰璋. If you look online for 峇都, you will find more examples like 峇都加澚 or 峇都交澚 for Batu Kawan, 峇都 for Batu, a place in Kuala Lumpur, 峇都丁宜 referring to Batu Ferringhi and others, 峇都知甲 for Batu Tiga being another example. — Fredrick Campbell (talk) 04:56, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

@Fredrick Campbell: If you're telling me this because of your edits on MOD:zh/data/dial-syn/石頭, 1) I think you wrote 岩都 in the module, which looks like a typo. 2) We should probably use the same orthography for both Penang Hokkien and Singaporean Hokkien for cognates. 新加坡閩南話詞典 writes the word as 麻突. We could switch both to 峇都 if you think it's more appropriate. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 16:56, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: I tried to look into Singapore place names and found one Gali Batu with the transcription 卡利巴株. That's the only transcription of batu I can find for Singapore. Obviously, there may be something I am missing. While looking into 峇都, I also looked into 麻突 and didn't find anything. I also found that 峇株巴轄 is the transcription for Batu Pahat in Negeri Sembilan. Considering that there are de-facto standard I know of for the transcription appears to only apply to Penang, my opinion is that the dialectical synonyms should reflect the differing local standards. — Fredrick Campbell (talk) 07:03, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

From my expeditions, it appears the first syllable is transcribed either 峇 or 巴 while the second syllable is transcribed 都 or 株. Do note that the transcription of these places may not even be in Hokkien anymore since I am taking data points from Sarawak (1 instance), Singapore (1 instance), Kuala Lumpur (1 instance) and Penang (numerous instances just through a web search). — Fredrick Campbell (talk) 08:12, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

What I have found so far is that starting going south Eastern Malay Peninsula, the second syllable is transcribed 株. In Singapore, the only example I can find also turns 峇 into 巴. Also, it appears Penang has the most cities with corresponding Chinese names coming from the transcription of batu between Sarawak, Perak, Negeri Sembilan, Kuala Lumpur, Johor and Singapore. Except Sarawak, I literally found only 1 city with a transcription of batu in its name for each of these areas. — Fredrick Campbell (talk) 09:16, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

What I meant to say is "starting at Negeri Sembilan and going south the Western Malay Peninsula," — Fredrick Campbell (talk) 09:18, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

@Fredrick Campbell: These are place names, which might be helpful to consider but not necessarily "standards" for words per se. Place names often have particular orthography different from common words. And it seems like there isn't one way to transcribe "batu" in different place names, as you've shown. In general, the dialectal synonyms should not use different characters for cognates in different varieties unless the transcriptions for each place are established and/or the pronunciations are substantially different.

On another note, the Speak Hokkien Campaign seems to recommend 礣砥. I'm not sure if we should follow this. Another option is to just leave it as "batu" (in the Latin alphabet). — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 12:40, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: I think we should just leave it in the latin alphabet. As of right now, there is no standard. Should the tones be included?

I also had a look at 都's pronunciation. As there is no one I know that can read the chinese characters in Hokkien's coloquial or literary pronunciation, I do not know if Penang has a pronunciation of its own or the transcription is supposed to result in a slightly different sound from "tu" as 都's sound is listed as to͘ here. — Fredrick Campbell (talk) 13:42, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

@Fredrick Campbell: In loanwords, there could be unique pronunciations because there may not be a character that exactly matches. If we go for the Latin alphabet approach, we would probably just use Malay orthography "batu". — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 14:57, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: That is fine by me. — Fredrick Campbell (talk) 03:14, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

惡霸

Could I ask, does this term also mean 厲害 in Cantonese? ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:06, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

@Tooironic: Not to my knowledge. Pinging @RcAlex36 to confirm. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 01:09, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Hongkew

Hey, hope you are doing well. I think 'Hongkew' is the only or among the few English terms derived from Wu Chinese attested on Wiktionary at this time, but I'm not sure if my guess about the etymology is actually correct. I'd like to run this edit past whoever is a leader on Wu stuff (if there is anyone) and maybe see if there are any English words from Wu I could help with citations for. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 17:21, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

@Geographyinitiative: I think we can say it's from Shanghainese to be more specific. Pinging @Shen233, ChromeGames, Thedarkknightli to check if the etymology makes sense and if the Shanghainese pronunciation looks good (and if so, perhaps to add it to the Chinese entry at 虹口). — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 17:29, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

@Geographyinitiative, Justinrleung: I think Shanghainese origin is plausible, but I'm not totally certain. If it is Shanghainese, it would be good to find whatever Shanghainese romanization systems would have been used at the time, and confirm that Hongkew could result from one of them. On the other hand, the Wikipedia page Hongkou District lists Hongkew as the Postal romanization of 虹口. This isn't a system I'm most familiar with, but from what I gather it seems to be based on Nanking/Jianghuai Mandarin. I can't speak much to that dialect but it's possible that their pronunciation of 虹口 is similar to that of Shanghainese, but then etymologically that would be the source if true. ChromeGames (talk) 19:11, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

One thing I have never fully "locked down" is the dividing line between the murky depths of the original pre-Wade-Giles words used in England for Chinese geography and the postal romanization system- for instance, Peking is clearly a postal romanization word but it is also clearly an ancient term (if I remember). There seem to have been adoptions into English from Portugese and French usages. Is there an earliest date for postal romanizations? I found something like an 1860 or maybe 1850's reference for Hongkew (see Talk:Hongkew), but I don't know when 'postal romanization' began- maybe 1878? If it's earlier than that system, then the word was adopted, and not created, by postal romanization. Also: there is at least one attested Shanghainese-English loan word: Zikawei. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 19:23, 20 September 2021 (UTC) (modified)

@Geographyinitiative, ChromeGames I think while the most placenames in Postal Romanization came from Nanking, I think there are also plenty that come from local varieties, like Swatow and Luichow, which come from Teochew and Cantonese respectively. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 20:13, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

@Geographyinitiative, Justinrleung: Those are good points, it's definitely plausible that the word originally came from Shanghainese then. I don't have a firm grasp on early romanization systems either (including for Shanghainese), but the Wikipedia article seems to suggest Nanking became the postal standard in 1906 at the conference. So if Hongkew was used before then and it wasn't Wade-Giles, then is there something else it could have been other than Shanghainese, or can other systems be effectively ruled out? But either way based on the references you provided it does seem reasonable to say that Hongkew precedes postal romanization. ChromeGames (talk) 06:58, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

五香粉

Yes. I am sure that a total of 5/5 people I have asked pronounce it ngó͘-hiong-hún in my family. — Fredrick Campbell (talk) 08:09, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

@Fredrick Campbell: Just to be sure, you are all Penangites? If so, feel free to add that in as well (but leave the hiang pronunciation in there). — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 14:00, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: Yes, we are. I just talked to another one of my aunts who just visited us less than an hour ago as of the time of writing this and she asked my dad "哈物來的?" (what is it?) when I said "ngó͘-hiang-hún". When I switched to "ngó͘-hiong-hún", she confirms that the 'correct' pronunciation is "ngó͘-hiong-hún" and said that I reminded her that she needs to get some. My dad proceeded to contest that it should be "gō͘-hiong-hún" while my aunt continued to insist that the correct pronunciation is "ngó-hiong-hún" before the topic was switched to the things she came to pass our family.

Note: My dad also pronounced it "ngó-hiong-hún" before I talked with him about it some months ago, after which, he and two of my aunts (neither one the one that just visited) started to consider "gò-hiōng-hún" the correct pronunciation since it is supposed to be five spices. I don't know how prelevant this reinterpretation is and I don't know if those two aunts are still using this new pronunciaition.

Finally, I would like to ask if we should consider this a reliable resource for Penang Hokkien.

Postscript: I wrote this on the 1st of October, but I just checked for grammatical errors today. Sorry for the late reply. I was too busy to edit it earlier.— Fredrick Campbell (talk) 08:31, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Dictionary Page Specification

I decided to mark where in the Dictionary of the Foochow Dialect I got certain readings. --Apisite (talk) 12:05, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

on 瞓、 𰥚 [U+3095A] 、𰥛

𰥛 is obviously not related to 瞓. Meanwhile, 𰥚 is long accepted as a simplified version of 瞓.

I made the edits cuz I wanna fix the current error that mistakes 𰥛 as 𰥚. Problem is, I don't know how to change the upper right word picture of the 𰥛 page.

- Vc06697, 15:00pm, HK time, 8/10/2021

@Vc06697: I think you might have installed a font with the wrong glyphs. See the official Unicode charts. 𰥚 [U+3095A] is ⿰禾目 and 𰥛 [U+3095B] is ⿰目训. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 07:08, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

You are right. The "MyExtG" file I got from glyphwiki is not accurate. Do you know of any good Ext-G font file? Vc06697 (talk) 08:39, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

@Vc06697: You can check this out. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 13:50, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Using Penang Hokkien Dictionary as a source for Penang Hokkien pronunciation

Should we entirely rely on Penang Hokkien Dictionary as a source for Penang Hokkien pronunciation? — Fredrick Campbell (talk) 07:48, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

@Fredrick Campbell: It is one source that we often use. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 14:10, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Point taken. Fredrick Campbell (talk) 04:28, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

nià/niā

There is this Hokkien word in Penang with the same meaning as the Mandarin 只是. I have no idea which character would represent this word, however. Do you have any idea? It is usually pronounced with the third/seventh tone, but I don't know if it is sandhied.— Fredrick Campbell (talk)

@Fredrick Campbell: That would be 爾 (niā). — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 14:08, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. Fredrick Campbell (talk) 04:28, 19 October 2021 (UTC)