4 ms·

Ghost characters reveal something about the joint semantic and phonetic nature of most Chinese characters. I know 彁 isn't real: but it still insists on a pronu

by retrac 2mo ago

Ghost characters reveal something about the joint semantic and phonetic nature of most Chinese characters. I know 彁 isn't real: but it still insists on a pronunciation: ka in Japanese, (gē or gé Mandarin). And it hints at meaning: bowed weapon, sound, elder brother; but your guess is as good as mine!

thaumasiotes 2mo ago
> I know 彁 isn't real: but it still insists on a pronunciation: ka in Japanese, (gē or gé Mandarin). Huh? How do you pronounce 切? > And it hints at meaning: bowed weapon, sound, elder brother; but your guess is as good as mine! Why is "elder brother" a meaning hint if you've already assumed that 哥 is the phonophore?
- matvore 2mo ago
  A component can contribute meaning as well as pronunciation. 沌 is pronounced like 屯 and they both have a kind of "gather" "clog" meaning
  - thaumasiotes 2mo ago
    That is not a method of character construction. It could happen, but you would never expect it. Also... there is no "gather" or "clog" sense of 沌? There's a "gather" sense of 屯...
    - matvore 2mo ago
      According to https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%B2%8C-2789579#goog_rewarded https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%B2%8C-2789579#goog_rewarded 沌 has a meaning "gather, water gathers" There are other meanings to it. I admit I had a hard time finding an example.
      - thaumasiotes 2mo ago
        > I admit I had a hard time finding an example. Where did you get the original 'example' of 沌 / 屯 from? Most people prefer to use examples that they have some kind of personal knowledge of. > There are other meanings to it. [沌] Not as many as you might expect. It's (part of) a mythological term referring to the state of the universe before it took the form we can observe today. It has a couple of other metaphorical meanings coming from that, or from traditional sayings related to that. I see that wiktionary lists 沌がる as an alternate spelling of 塞がる "be blocked" [塞 - obstruct / block / plug], which looks like the closest thing we're likely to find to your earlier claim. Obvious problems using this to support your comment are: - There's still no "gathering" or "accumulating" sense. (Nor is there an "obstruct" sense of 屯.) - This is a meaning assigned long after the character came into existence, which means it cannot have informed the construction of the character.
        matvore 2mo ago
        I learned about 沌 quite a while ago when I studied the first few chapters of Genesis in Japanese (混沌 was used to describe the earth in Gen 1:2) and something jogged my memory when I was looking for examples. The dictionary link I posted had あつまる、水があつまる in the first definition. I don't know if that's a reliable dictionary. Maybe you think it's not? > - This is a meaning assigned long after the character came into existence, which means it > cannot have informed the construction of the character. I don't know anything about which meanings were used first and which were added later, but what you say sounds believable. > - There's still no "gathering" or "accumulating" sense. (Nor is there an "obstruct" sense of 屯.) Let me clarify. Even without the first sense for 沌 in the above dictionary (あつまる、水があつまる) some of the other definitions for 沌 had "gather" included in it conceptually, namely clog and joined together without distinction. This phenomenon we are talking about is called 会意兼形声文字 and this site seems to have a lot of accurate examples: https://okjiten.jp/20-kaiikenkeiseimoji.html#google_vignette https://okjiten.jp/20-kaiikenkeiseimoji.html#google_vignette I confirmed a few, and they seem correct. I thought 界 was the most easily understood example. 介 means being between two things and contributes the pronunciation. 界 means region, span, separate, division.
pezezin 2mo ago
It is true that most hanzi are phonosemantic compounds; however, Japanese-created kanji are mostly semantic compounds. You can still guess the meaning, but good luck trying to guess the pronunciation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokuji https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokuji

by retrac 2mo ago

thaumasiotes 2mo ago

> I know 彁 isn't real: but it still insists on a pronunciation: ka in Japanese, (gē or gé Mandarin). Huh? How do you pronounce 切? > And it hints at meaning: bowed weapon, sound, elder brother; but your guess is as good as mine! Why is "elder brother" a meaning hint if you've already assumed that 哥 is the phonophore?

matvore 2mo ago
A component can contribute meaning as well as pronunciation. 沌 is pronounced like 屯 and they both have a kind of "gather" "clog" meaning
- thaumasiotes 2mo ago
  That is not a method of character construction. It could happen, but you would never expect it. Also... there is no "gather" or "clog" sense of 沌? There's a "gather" sense of 屯...
  - matvore 2mo ago
    According to https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%B2%8C-2789579#goog_rewarded https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%B2%8C-2789579#goog_rewarded 沌 has a meaning "gather, water gathers" There are other meanings to it. I admit I had a hard time finding an example.
    - thaumasiotes 2mo ago
      > I admit I had a hard time finding an example. Where did you get the original 'example' of 沌 / 屯 from? Most people prefer to use examples that they have some kind of personal knowledge of. > There are other meanings to it. [沌] Not as many as you might expect. It's (part of) a mythological term referring to the state of the universe before it took the form we can observe today. It has a couple of other metaphorical meanings coming from that, or from traditional sayings related to that. I see that wiktionary lists 沌がる as an alternate spelling of 塞がる "be blocked" [塞 - obstruct / block / plug], which looks like the closest thing we're likely to find to your earlier claim. Obvious problems using this to support your comment are: - There's still no "gathering" or "accumulating" sense. (Nor is there an "obstruct" sense of 屯.) - This is a meaning assigned long after the character came into existence, which means it cannot have informed the construction of the character.
      - matvore 2mo ago
        I learned about 沌 quite a while ago when I studied the first few chapters of Genesis in Japanese (混沌 was used to describe the earth in Gen 1:2) and something jogged my memory when I was looking for examples. The dictionary link I posted had あつまる、水があつまる in the first definition. I don't know if that's a reliable dictionary. Maybe you think it's not? > - This is a meaning assigned long after the character came into existence, which means it > cannot have informed the construction of the character. I don't know anything about which meanings were used first and which were added later, but what you say sounds believable. > - There's still no "gathering" or "accumulating" sense. (Nor is there an "obstruct" sense of 屯.) Let me clarify. Even without the first sense for 沌 in the above dictionary (あつまる、水があつまる) some of the other definitions for 沌 had "gather" included in it conceptually, namely clog and joined together without distinction. This phenomenon we are talking about is called 会意兼形声文字 and this site seems to have a lot of accurate examples: https://okjiten.jp/20-kaiikenkeiseimoji.html#google_vignette https://okjiten.jp/20-kaiikenkeiseimoji.html#google_vignette I confirmed a few, and they seem correct. I thought 界 was the most easily understood example. 介 means being between two things and contributes the pronunciation. 界 means region, span, separate, division.

pezezin 2mo ago

It is true that most hanzi are phonosemantic compounds; however, Japanese-created kanji are mostly semantic compounds. You can still guess the meaning, but good luck trying to guess the pronunciation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokuji https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokuji