User talk:Justinrleung/Archive 36

㹺

I just stumbled on the 㹺 entry and it has a definition of "犬食". Since I'm not totally sure of the intended meaning (and the possibility of it referring to, well, a kind of meat...), I decided to ask about it. Bumm13 (talk) 15:41, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

@Bumm13: It's considered a variant of 狧, which means "(of a dog) to eat". I think you don't need to ask me about specific characters like this if you're not sure about definitions. Many of the characters you've been working on are usually rare and not quite urgent. The category for requested definitions will be examined from time to time. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 17:08, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

廊廡

Hi, are you able to check the entry, please? I found multiple definitions and not 100% sure they are all valid. Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 11:02, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

紋身

Do you have an opinion about whether 紋身 or 文身 should be the head entry? 文身 seems to be the standard form, on the mainland at least. ---> Tooironic (talk) 11:35, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

@Tooironic: Tough one. I have only seen 紋身 in modern writing in traditional Chinese. 國語辭典簡編本 has 紋身. While 现代汉语规范词典 proscribes 纹身, 现代汉语词典 doesn't completely ban it. I think we should probably have the main form at 紋身 and have a usage note saying that 文身 is preferred in Mainland China. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 16:57, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. I have added the usage notes. Please make adjustments as you see fit. Thank you. ---> Tooironic (talk) 00:12, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Kinmen Hokkien tone sandhi

Hi, my friend told me that the tone sandhi before 仔 (仔前變調) of Kinmen Hokkien produced by {{zh-pron}} is weird and sent me this video. I am not sure if the module actually handles the 仔 case specially for this. Can you help fix that? By the way, what is the reference for Kinmen Hokkien's pronunciation? TongcyDai (talk) 17:32, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

@TongcyDai: Thanks for letting me know. Do you have an example entry that has Kinmen 仔前變調? — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 19:46, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, for example:

• 陰平 (1): 磚仔 should be /t͡sŋ̍⁴⁴⁻³³ a³³/ instead of /t͡sŋ̍⁴⁴⁻²² a⁵³/;
• 陰上 (2): 筍仔 should be /sun⁵³⁻¹¹ a³³/ instead of /sun⁵³⁻²⁴ a⁵³/;
• 陰去 (3): 鋸仔 should be /kɯ³¹⁻⁵⁵ a⁵⁵/ instead of /kɯ¹²⁻⁴⁴ a⁵³/;
• 陰入 (4): 粟仔 should be /t͡ɕʰiɪk̚³²⁻⁵⁵ a⁵⁵/ instead of /t͡ɕʰiɪk̚³²⁻⁵⁴ a⁵³/;
• 陽平 (5): 牛仔 should be /ɡu¹³⁻¹¹ a¹¹/ instead of /ɡu²⁴⁻¹² a⁵³/;
• 陽去 (7): 袋仔 should be /tə²²⁻¹¹ a¹¹/ instead of /tə²²⁻¹² a⁵³/;
• 陽入 (8): 麥仔 should be /be(ʔ)⁵⁴⁻¹¹ a¹¹/ instead of /be(ʔ)⁵⁴⁻¹² a⁵³/;

according to the video. For the original tone value (本調調值), please refer to this article.TongcyDai (talk) 08:59, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Pinyin Sources

Hey man- I am really trying to "pin down" the origins of a lot of these Mandarin derived words (is it pinyin? is it Wade? etc) to the best of my ability. I found some words with old origins like Fo-chan, Shanghai and Shanghae recently, but I feel like before I really go too far into the deep fog of history, I need to solidify the core base of words that are from pinyin and Wade. To do that, I would like to not just make guesses by 'following the sources' (ie if a word doesn't exist before 1979, is consistent with pinyin and is inconsistent with older schemes, its probably pinyin, etc.) but also add in authorities that come out and say "this is pinyin" or "this is wade" (see what I've done at Zhengzhou, Cheng-chou, An-yang, A-t'u-shih, etc.) Also, sometimes people like to remove pinyin from an etymology and if you have a source buffeting it, I imagine it would be harder to remove it- see diff. Are there any authoritative databases that I can cite to? Do you have any suggestions about how to accomplish these kinds of goals? Check out the fruit of Theknightwho's excellent work here: Category:English terms derived from Hanyu Pinyin. Any suggestions or thoughts appreciated. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 12:25, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

@Geographyinitiative: You'd probably know more than me on what sources to look at for these place names. I'm not aware of any database like you're describing. For things like Zhengzhou, I think it's pretty obvious that it's from Hanyu Pinyin because of the <zh> combination, but otherwise, it's just hard to know for certain. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 09:47, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

The <zh> is a kind of marker that is a seemingly unassailable proof of the pinyin origins of an English language word. My assessment is not merely based on the comparison of romanization schemes in the abstract (the obvious), but my actual experience with the sources: there just aren't any <zh> forms before the 1958-1978 period (see Citations:Guangzhou for some pre-1979 <zh> instances), and <zh> is part of pinyin. But like you say, just because there are some seemingly unassailable markers like <q->, <x->, and <zh->, there is an unwieldly section of words whose origin is hard to determine at a glance. Another twist is that some words are consistent with Wade-Giles (or some other scheme), but can be shown to be generated by other schemes- see for instance Sansha, where I see one of the definitions as Wade derived and one of the definitions and pinyin derived. For me it is an interesting exploration combining fact and theory, yet absolutely no one cares. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 10:57, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

@Geographyinitiative: I think sometimes, it could be both W-G and pinyin, depending on when people are writing. Words can enter English multiple times, and for place names especially, when they're not necessarily part of the everyday lexicon of most English speakers, it's probably just often taking the word from Mandarin directly every time. Sansha is probably a case where people were using basing it on whatever's they're used to at the time. I would not tie it down to W-G in etymology 2 because I doubt South China Morning Post‎ was switching from W-G then to pinyin in the same sentence. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 19:25, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your response, it means a lot to me. You write: (1) "Words can enter English multiple times"- I definitely agree with this sentiment. If you or anyone can show me an example (in the form of some concrete Wiktionary entry's etymology section(s)) of how some other word with "multiple entry" is handled (hopefully a word unrelated to Mandarin, anything else beside Mandarin really), I would like someone to point me to it so I can learn from such a model. I can't imagine exactly how it would look within Wiktionary. (2) "it's probably just often taking the word from Mandarin directly every time." I totally agree. A partial counterexample would be words like K'o-shih where people continuously use an incorrectly derived term. Which words have a 'legacy' that is passed down within English itself, and which are just incidental? (3) "Sansha is probably a case where people were using basing it on whatever's they're used to at the time." I agree on that, too- I will call this "continuous re-entry". (4) "I would not tie it down to W-G in etymology 2 because I doubt South China Morning Post‎ was switching from W-G then to pinyin in the same sentence." The SCMP is unquestionably using words consistent with the standards of the Hanyu Pinyin Fang'an, BUT that this fact did not affect my judgment about the question of the derivation of the word 'Sansha' into English and I do not mean to imply that they had any notion in their minds that the word 'Sansha' was from WG. As I see it, to be consistent with a system of romanization means nothing with respect to derivation. In this way of thinking, one might go so far as to say that Harbin is understood as Hanyu Pinyin by many people, and hence it's part of the etymology or overrides the original etymology. I want to deal with the legitimate concerns you raise of "multiple entry" and/or "continuous re-entry" in a responsible and reasonable manner, but I don't know how that would be done properly. Thanks again for your work on making Wiktionary a great place. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 20:40, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

@Geographyinitiative: I see what you're getting at with what you're saying about the SCMP's usage, but I think to be consistent with what we seem to agree on - that is words can come into English multiple times - then there is not just one "derivation" of the word into English, but many "derivations" that seem to converge. It would be wise to say something like "Wade-Giles or pinyin" rather than taking a stance on one. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 21:19, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

In diff, something like what you are mentioning was proposed.
It's too difficult for me to understand this situation without a concrete example of a Wiktionary entry (hopefully outside the scope of Mandarin-derived words) where this is already an established practice for etymologies. Surely we don't mean to say that Mandarin-derived words will be the first on Wiktionary that show the "multiple entry" or "continual re-entry" etymologies? I need a reference point and something to ground the discussion. Also, I have reached four comments for this discussion and even though it is a fun discussion, I have learned that things get wild & nasty after four comments, so I automatically end any conversation there to protect the 99.999% good edits I make from the danger of 0.001% bad interactions that can sometimes happen. Thanks again for your great work. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 17:41, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

刣人vs刣儂

Please note that 人 is another form of 儂 according to the Ministry of Education of Taiwan. Mahogany115 (talk) 07:04, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

@Mahogany115: For the purposes of the dialectal synonym modules, 人 and 儂 are differentiated because they are etymologically different. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 07:18, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Meaning of 子

Nei Hou Leung, I notice you reverted an edit from an IP.

I'm not sure the edit was entirely wrong though. While it is true that it can be a diminutive suffix, a lot of the time it isn't. There are normal sized objects which do use this character.

From my understanding it works like a noun suffix most of the time. It's used to disambiguate words that sound the same, as most Chinese words are bi-syllabic, unlike in Classical Chinese. Rolando 1208 (talk) 13:41, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

@Rolando 1208: Thanks for pointing this out. It was a mistake on my part. I have expanded the entry. (I know people often say it's used for disambiguation, but I think it's not clear to me whether this is completely true so I have not mentioned it in the entry.) — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 02:04, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

By the way, I know there's not a lot of written Cantonese. But from what you've read, is 子 used less often as a noun suffix? Or does it have about the same frequency? Rolando 1208 (talk) 08:10, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

@Rolando 1208: It's not normally used in colloquial Cantonese. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 19:09, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

假聖人

Hi Justin. Would you mind checking the Min Nan example sentence in this entry? It currently only displays Hanyu Pinyin. Cheers. ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:47, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

@Tooironic: Sorry for the late reply. The example is not in Min Nan. (The example is actually taken from somewhere, so I've added a reference.) I've updated the entry accordingly. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 07:24, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Many thanks! ---> Tooironic (talk) 07:46, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Thesaurus:紛亂

Any idea why 挐亂 is simplifying as 拿乱 here? ---> Tooironic (talk) 07:56, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

@Tooironic: diff. Chuck Entz (talk) 08:13, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

@Tooironic: Fixed — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 20:12, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. ---> Tooironic (talk) 22:29, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

藥膏

On the definition for 藥膏 it is currently claimed that it can also be expressed as 膏藥 in Min Nan, however the entry for 膏藥 does not list that sense. Would you mind cleaning this up when you get a chance? ---> Tooironic (talk) 22:54, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

@Tooironic: I'm thinking it's the "poultice" part that's shared between the two, but I'm not entirely sure. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 00:08, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

No worries. We can leave it there for now. ---> Tooironic (talk) 00:51, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Dialect table for 蓋/修/建

Which character do you think we should use for the verb "to build"? I know in mainland China, people say 蓋房子 for building a house, but 修路 for building a road. In Singapore, it's more common to say 建屋子 for the former, so I don't know if that's standard, or if is a non-standard way of saying it that is unique to Singapore. The dog2 (talk) 19:51, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

@The dog2: I've created the module at 蓋 for "to build (a building)". — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 04:34, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

麻糬 vs 麻糍

I was just wondering, is there evidence of Taiwanese use of the latter? My Taiwanese friends always write this as 麻糬 whether they are referring to the Hokkien style or the Japanese style, and they in fact consider them to be variants of the same thing, with the Hokkien style being considered more traditional and the Japanese style being considered more modern. Most Singaporeans think the Taiwanese style was derived from the Japanese style, but when I showed Taiwanese friends photos of the Hokkien style that we have in Singapore, they told me that they have the same style too and it is considered the most traditional form of the dish. The dog2 (talk) 15:44, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

@The dog2: It's used for Taiwanese Hokkien [1]. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 15:50, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Should we add a second definition to 麻糬 then, since it is also used when referring to the traditional Hokkien muah chee, and not just to Japanese mochi? The dog2 (talk) 15:52, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

@The dog2: Probably, or we could just have one definition encompassing both, as both are the same kind of thing. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 16:09, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Do you want to give it a go? The dog2 (talk) 16:23, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

@The dog2: I took a stab at it. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 19:09, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Incredible Situation

Hey, I wanted to share my experience with you and see if you have any feedback. I have recently created or expanded about thirty entries which are Taiwan Wade-Giles location names. Examples include Kukeng, Juisui, Hsinyi, Makung and similar. Anyway, these entries and words are precious to me because they are words that have cites from the 2020's, yet the words don't appear on English Wikipedia as alternates or variant names. I would like your opinion:: what the hell is happening? How could this have been passed over and missed for so long? Why I am the only one kicking ass on this issue? How do you see it? I want to go all the way and hit every word in this list; I'm sure they can all hit three cites, at minimum! But I just don't understand. Surely some Taiwanese person would have done this before me! The only conclusion I can reach is that all the people who wanted to do this before me were blocked. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 00:10, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

@Geographyinitiative: Well, I guess people weren't as interested in showcasing all orthographic variants in those entries. Wikipedia is spotty sometimes, so thanks for your work into this to allow us to have better coverage of these variants. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 01:05, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

If the issue is as simple as you put it, namely, that one of the reasons these orthographic variants haven't been documented has been that no one has shown enough interest, then by God I plan to proceed with documenting these orthographic variants! Could it all be that innocent? Wow! Thanks for your response. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 07:06, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

排泄

When you get a chance could you please check which sense the Min Nan synonym refers to (one sense, or both)? Cheers. ---> Tooironic (talk) 12:33, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

@Tooironic: I've removed it for now. I'm not exactly sure what it means. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 02:48, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

No worries. Thank you. ---> Tooironic (talk) 10:13, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

New anon Chinese edits

Hi, just thought I'd like to bring this to your attention. There's a new anon making some Chinese edits so I thought you might like to take a look, see if everything is ok and give them pointers if needed. Acolyte of Ice (talk) 09:27, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Dialects table for 巧克力

The rollback itself was an error. There are precedents for the added terms:

• 朱古律:Found in novel 濃得化不開（星加坡）by 徐志摩. (朱古律的誘惑── 《濃得化不開》（星加坡）中的欲望苦旅)
• 之古律:Used in early 20th century Hong Kong. (【語文求真】(ISBN 978-962-04-2742-8)・三 字詞熟語・二十世紀初香港詞彙舉隅・食品、飲料、器具、錢財・221頁)

205.189.94.9 21:54, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi, for 朱古律, I have an issue with the formatting in the "Formal" row of the table - your edit would just include 朱古律 in that row, which would be very misleading. I also don't think it's still really used in modern Singaporean Mandarin. The table in the Chinese Wikipedia article seems a little dubious. As for 之古律, is there more attestation than that book? I guess it could be added back, but if it's just from one book, I'd kind of be hesitant to. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 00:11, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Actually there is also the use of 之古律 by Lu Xun in wikisource:zh:無題 (《熱風》), referring 'Chocolate apricot sandwich' as 黃枚朱古律三文治. The dubious part is not whether it is 'Formal', but why there is no fallback for dialect-independent colloquial Chinese field in the table. 205.189.94.9 00:54, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Umm, you mean Lu Xun used 朱古律, right? The dubious part I meant was Singapore's modern usage of 朱古律, which does not seem to be right. It is also a problem that our module doesn't really deal with early modern forms of the languages very well. In reality, I don't think there is such a thing as "dialect-independent" colloquial Chinese, but perhaps colloquial Putonghuas of different regions. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 05:13, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

斷乳

Hi Justin. When you get the chance, would you mind checking the non-Mandarin readings here and cleaning up the page? Mar vin kaiser created this page but put the wrong pinyin and hanzi. @Mar vin kaiser Please be more careful in the future. I would do this myself, but I would need you to check the non-Mandarin readings anyway. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:01, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

@Tooironic: Sorry. I'll be more careful. The wrong part here is the hanzi. I'll edit it. --Mar vin kaiser (talk) 01:03, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

@Tooironic: Oh wait, not sure now how to fix. Wait. --Mar vin kaiser (talk) 01:04, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

@Tooironic: It seems like the nèng here in Min Dong is for 奶, so I transferred dâung-nèng to 斷奶／断奶 (duànnǎi), and filed 斷乳／断乳 (duànrǔ) for deletion. --Mar vin kaiser (talk) 01:06, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

@Tooironic, Mar vin kaiser: I've speedied the page as "created in error". — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 06:29, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

@Justinrleung, Mar vin kaiser: Are you sure that's a good idea? There are plenty of hits on Google Books for 断乳. ---> Tooironic (talk) 07:00, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

@Tooironic: Feel free to recreate the page. I deleted it because 斷奶 was what Marvin intended. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 13:26, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Will do. Thanks. ---> Tooironic (talk) 22:07, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

@Tooironic: Sorry! I didn't realize that 斷乳 was also a word in Standard Chinese. Thanks for creating it! --Mar vin kaiser (talk) 02:54, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

No worries. ---> Tooironic (talk) 04:01, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

差使 and 差事

Hi Justin. I have a question I'm hoping you can help me with. My understanding is that 差使 as "official post" (and related senses) can also be written as 差事 with the same reading, in Mandarin at least. The dictionaries suggest that 差事 is but a variant form, however the non-Mandarin 'lects appear to have different readings, so should we regard them as synonyms instead? ---> Tooironic (talk) 08:22, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

@Tooironic: Yes, they should be kept separate and regarded as synonyms. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 08:27, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

OK. I have made some changes. Please take a look. Cheers. ---> Tooironic (talk) 22:28, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

短暫性腦缺血發作

Hi Justin. Could you take a look at this page? It's coming up with a lua error, but I have no idea why. Thanks. ---> Tooironic (talk) 10:07, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Saw this on CAT:E. My guess, without having looked at the code yet, is that it's because the cmn-pron module can handle only one Han character inside the pinyin representation (which then gets assigned different values depending on the dialect). The pinyin input on that page has two such characters. 98.170.164.88 07:35, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

I've played around with deleting different parts in preview: you can eliminate everything but the two Han characters without getting rid of the error, but remove either of the characters and nothing else- and everything returns to normal. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:51, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

I think I may have figured out the specific problem. To use very minimal fake examples that I took from Module:zh/data/cmn-tag, {{zh-pron|m=拈 寧}} and {{zh-pron|m=諷 芣}} work, but {{zh-pron|m=暂 血}} and {{zh-pron|m=薟 漦}} don't work. I think it's because in the first two examples, both Han characters have pronunciations for the same two Standard Chinese variants (Mainland & Taiwan). For the last two, there are variants for the second character that don't match up with the first character.

While it would be good to fix the modules to handle this case better (I guess this is related to straitdiff in Module:cmn-pron), is there a quick workaround we could use to just hardcode the standard Mainland and standard Taiwan pronunciations here, preferably while maintaining those labels in the expanded pronunciation details? 98.170.164.88 08:43, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

@Tooironic: This is a 2-to-3 problem, where 暫 has two readings and 血 has three. This needs to be fixed manually because the module doesn't know how to pair up the readings. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 07:14, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing the problem. ---> Tooironic (talk) 09:59, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Singapore Teochew 房間

Just for your reference, you can hear it here (1:08:21). Also, it's listed on this page. The dog2 (talk) 17:35, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

@The dog2: Thanks. The page on Learn Teochew is based on a paper that I also checked. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 17:38, 27 December 2022 (UTC)