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I only disputed that 颱 was related to the meanings of "stand" or "platform". As for the meanings of "great" or "big", the OED and etymonline entries actually r
by Umofomia 16y ago
I only disputed that 颱 was related to the meanings of "stand" or "platform".
As for the meanings of "great" or "big", the OED and etymonline entries actually refer to a different character, 大, from the Cantonese pronunciation of 大風 (IPA: taːifʊŋ).
The Japanese and Chinese etymology of 颱風 is as convoluted as the English one that _delirium mentions above in a previous comment. It may have originated as a Western borrowing, be related to Taiwan as you have suggested, or be related to Cantonese 大風; it may have perhaps even been influenced by multiple sources.
- angus77 16y agoWell, to be fair, I was only disputing the assertion that the first character in "taihuu" meant "big" (I'm assuming the author of the post assumed it was 「大」, a natural assumption to make). Giving a translation of the character at all was a side point. It's not like I said that "taihuu" meant "platform wind" or anything, only that the character in question meant something other than "big". Further, you asserted that 「台」 was adopted into Japanese as a simplification of 「颱」, which I've shown to be false (it was adopted into Japanese as-is and wasn't simplified until 1956, and was also simplified in the same way in Chinese), yet people continue to upvote your incorrect assertion and downvote mine. Not that I hold that against you; you seem reasonable enough. But it does make me wonder what people's motivations would be.