Crazy eights: Once again, with feeling

The "ship" or "boat" character, according to zhongwen.com.



When I click on the phonetic to see what it is and where it came from, I get this:



So then I click on the "division/separate/etc" glyph to see what it is and where it came from, and get this:



That's the "ba" character, otherwise known (as seen above) as "eight."

That should end all discussion, but it won't, because some people don't like to live in the land of reality. That's the end of it for me, though, so enjoy.

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  Sorry, Nicky. You just don't get it, do you? You can start all the threads you want, in a desperate attempt to get away from it, but you're wrong. First off, even by your own site, the modern interpretation would be, at best, "eight" and "ravine" or "drainage outlet". Not "eight and mouth".

  Someone helpfully posted Kalgren's etymology here, which traces the etymology back to Ancient Chinese (four or five thousand BCE, IIRC). The most ancient form depicts a gully and it's opening. A marsh.

  As the man who helpfully posted Kalgren noted on a Usenet post:

  Something his page from Kalgren verifies, as does (suprise!) the copy I managed to snag from my local university library. Feel free to look it up yourself, Nick. Analytic Dictionary of Chinese and Sino-Japanese, p. 94.

  All you've proven so far is that you have a hard time using the Zhongwen site (And ignore the bits you don't like), and you have no idea how far back the Zhongwen site's etymologies go.

   Feel free to check out the authoritative work on the subject. I've helpfully given you the name and page number. Go fish.

 

And click on the "ravine" glyph and you get this:



That is, for those who live in the land of reality.

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  Good Nick! He can start following etymologies. Let's see. It also means "opening" and "entrance". Here's the hard part...let's look at the Ancient Chinese and see what we see! Oops! It's 'marsh at the foot of the hills'. The mouth of a gully. Sorry, Nick. "Human mouth" doesn't work, but "opening" does. How crazy is that?

  You  keep using the modern forms and trying to make it ancient meanings and it doesn't work.

  I notice you keep refusing to discuss Kalgren's work. Why is that, Nick? Don't you think the specifically on-topic work of a noted expert in this very field is relevant?

 

  Oh, and top right character? It's not 'ba' in Mandarin. It doesn't even look roughly like an eight until the KangXi dictionary (and then the bottom character is obviously gully, and not kou. Different shape). The "Four Styles of Chinese Calligraphy" is quite instructive, as the character is shaped utterly differently in each style (the first looks like ji, the fourth ba).

   Even a modern dictionary shows both varients, but only one (ji) is supported by etymology.

  Is there any reason you're avoiding Kalgren's work, Nick? Don't like what it says, do you?

 

First of all, the zhongwen site is designed to let you trace the etymology, so when you end up with "mouth" as the last step that can no longer be traced further back, you've discovered the origin, not the modern character. "Gully" is more recent than mouth, not the other way around, as you have it.

Second, refuse to discuss Karlgren's work? I embrace it! It's a wonderful etymology that takes you back to the phonetic. And it even confirms the progression of development of the glyphs "eight" and "mouth" from their early origins as two strokes and a mouth-like curve to the current versions of "eight" and "mouth". For example, here are some of the changes that "mouth" went through (look at the bottom).



And here's how Kalgren shows it:



Which ends up as the modern:




The only problem with the link you provided is that it only goes back as far as the phonetic. It does not address what you do with the two glyphs that comprise the phonetic. Zhongwen DOES tell you where they came from, as I demonstrated above.

You say that Karlgren disagrees, but you haven't provided ANY quotes or references to demonstrate that Karlgren disagrees -- and your word is about as good as a 3 dollar bill -- so as far as you've provided anything for this discussion, everything agrees perfectly with eight+mouth.

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  I gave you the reference, Nicky. Why don't you go look it up? It's not my job to spoon feed you.

   And from the very site I gave you, the etymology of ien (the phonetic) is marsh at the foot of the hills, and it's the phonetic used in flow, lead and boat. Asking for the meaning of the glyphs is stupid, as they were chosen for sound, not meaning and stupider as, since they were a phonetic, they'd have been chosen together, not apart. And even stupider as Kalgren specifics the etymology to be gully (top character) and opening (bottom), together meaning marsh at the foot of the hills.

  Did you somehow not see the very first thing on the page? Or are you hoping that the lurkers don't actually check the link for themselves?

  Oh, and the Zhongwen etymology only goes back to the Shuowen, as you yourself claimed, which dates 100 BCE to 121 AD by Xu Shen. That is not the full extent of the etymology. It's a nice assumption you make, but it's not.

  And anyways, the Shuowen etymology is clearly "gully" as the seals show.

  Sorry, Nick.

This is what makes obsession scary; there is simply no field of study which can't be corrupted by the all-consuming need to prove that you know what God did better than anyone else. The driving need to find support for a belief everywhere you look, rather than in places that would have made sense, is terrifying.

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I follow Christ; therefore I am
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. I affirm the Nicene Creed.
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. -- Romans 8:38-39

  And the weird part is, Kalgren (expert on subject) says "A". Kalgren has absolutely no bias in this whole subject, because he did his work on etymologies a decade or more before the AiG guy wrote it up.

  AiG guy (and now Nick, who must support AiG guy, apparantly) says 'B'. AiG guy admits to no formal or informal education on Ancient Chinese, and apparantly was chosen for his ability to use a Chinese dictionary.

  Yet somehow Nick feels AiG guy's opinion is more valid than Kalgren's.

What are you talking about? I don't speak Chinese.

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Moving to Iceland in 2003