Analyzing crazy eights for seebs

Morat

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  I spoke to a Chinese student about it today. She stated: "In general, the left-hand radical gives meaning. The right-hand radical gives pronunciation hints. In this case, the left-hand radical means "boat", and the link (Nick's) claims it derives from a picture of a dugout canoe. The right-hand radical is a combination that lends it the pronunciation chaun. It doesn't mean anything in relationship to ships".

  Also, she states that Nick's site indicates that ba is an abbreviated form of water as well.

 
 
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Originally posted by Morat
I spoke to a Chinese student about it today. She stated: "In general, the left-hand radical gives meaning. The right-hand radical gives pronunciation hints.

That is how it is taught TODAY. That has nothing to do with the etymology of the characters and glyphs.

Originally posted by Morat
Also, she states that Nick's site indicates that ba is an abbreviated form of water as well.

ROFL!! What an imagination. It's an abbreviated form of water that just so happens to miraculously track the glyph for "eight" even in today's fonts. Sure, that's credible.

You know what amazes me most about all of this denial? The BEST evidence for evolution is purely circumstantial, and there is precious little evidence for evolution where you'd expect to find it (fossil record). In spite of this, you guys buy that fairy tale hook, line and sinker. But when everyone demonstrates solid evidence for the etymology of a Chinese character, you dream up every possible way to ignore it.

I'm getting the impression you won't believe ANYTHING unless it lacks evidence and requires a fairy tale to explain.

I give up. You guys are beyond hope.
 
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Morat

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  Nick, that claim of "an abbreviation for water" comes from the very site you were using.

   It's odd that it's a great site when it supports you, but it's "imagination" when it doesn't.

  I'm getting the impression that "accuracy" and "imagination" are words you apply to sources you agree with and disagree with, respectively.

 
 
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Originally posted by Morat
  Nick, that claim of "an abbreviation for water" comes from the very site you were using.

   It's odd that it's a great site when it supports you, but it's "imagination" when it doesn't.

  I'm getting the impression that "accuracy" and "imagination" are words you apply to sources you agree with and disagree with, respectively.

 

Well, here's how we can sort out your "impression." First, show us where it explains that "eight" is an abbreviation for "water". Then show when that abbreviation for water became part of the language. Then explain how it is possible that the abbreviation for water tracks the stylistic changes for the glyph that represents eight even in modern usage. Then show us that the historical use of the same glyph as an abbreviation for water preceded the use of that glyph for the number eight, so that there is some evidence for its preferred use as "water" in the etymology of the glyph and the phonetic.
 
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Morat

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  Why should I do that? I pointed to your own source, and noted that "ba" when followed off the word for ship, mentioned it was an abbreviation for water.

   I'm not providing the rest of it until you do, Nick. I used your own source. Are you claiming it's suddenly no longer reliable?

 
 
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Originally posted by Morat
Are you claiming it's suddenly no longer reliable?

ROFL! No, I'm saying YOU aren't. You toss out one random assertion without demonstrating anything about it or explaining why it has any relevance to the discussion of etymology and then huff and puff. And THAT for a guy who makes claims that Ken Ham talked about a pelvis in a radio spot, was humiliated when Ken Ham never actually said anything about the pelvis, and then refused to admit you never actually listened to the spot before you made your accusation. So when it comes to reliability and you, they just don't mix.
 
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Morat

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  Here, I'll break down exactly how to get there. I would have thought you could navigate your own reference based on simple comments, but we'll try this like you were a child, okay?

 Go to http://zhongwen.com/

  Type in ship.

   Click the one we've been discussing (you know, the one with the "maybe eight" on the right side.

  On the right side of the screen, you see the definitin of chuan.

 Click the hyperlink of the phonetic. You'll note it says "Seperate (ba symbol) or instead an abbreviation for water (some symbol).

  Here's the fun part. Look on the bottom right side. There are three words that use that phonetic.

  Yan, water flowing along a ravine. Qian, metal that flows in a mold/ravine, and ship which is labelled as "boat" with a phonetic.

   It's odd how that works. Your own site clearly lists the ba symbol as a simple phonetic. The other two words which use it are clearly identified with flowing liquid.

 

 
 
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Originally posted by Morat
  Here, I'll break down exactly how to get there. I would have thought you could navigate your own reference based on simple comments, but we'll try this like you were a child, okay?

 Go to http://zhongwen.com/

  Type in ship.

   Click the one we've been discussing (you know, the one with the "maybe eight" on the right side.

  On the right side of the screen, you see the definitin of chuan.

 Click the hyperlink of the phonetic. You'll note it says "Seperate (ba symbol) or instead an abbreviation for water (some symbol).

  Here's the fun part. Look on the bottom right side. There are three words that use that phonetic.

  Yan, water flowing along a ravine. Qian, metal that flows in a mold/ravine, and ship which is labelled as "boat" with a phonetic.

   It's odd how that works. Your own site clearly lists the ba symbol as a simple phonetic. The other two words which use it are clearly identified with flowing liquid.

 

 

Cool. Now let's see if you can graduate kindergarten, too. Entire characters are subject to etymology, but phonetics are subject to etymology, too, which (if you could read yet) you would have noticed from my analysis earlier in this thread. So no matter what you establish about the phonetic, it is only meaningful from the point in history when the phonetic emerged going forward.

Going backward, however (as you'd also discover for yourself if you clicked on the glyph in that phonetic to see where it came from), you find that the upper half of that phonetic originated as the glyph for "eight" and the bottom half of the phonetic originated as "mouth".

So what have we succeeded in doing? We've succeeded in walking you through everything we've covered at least 3 times already. Congratulations. Now go learn how to read and you won't need to have people repeat these things for you again and again.
 
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Morat

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  And, if you were capable of reading up on Chinese etymology, you'd realize that sound was why phonetics are chosen. Not meaning. Which means, at the time of the invention of the word ship, they would have chosen something to give the sound of the word.

Ship (chuan) is decomposed into left and right portions, of which the left
is the radical or signific meaning boat or vessel. The right portion is
actually a phonetic (composed of what looks to be eight + mouth), which at
the time of its invention would have rhymed or sounded close to the word
which meant 'ship', d'i<w>En. This "eight + mouth" is explained as being
"marsh at the foot of hills - [the seal depicts a gully and its <mouth>
opening: drainage, marsh] which the Sinologist Karlgren mentions in Analytic
Dictionary of Chinese and Sino-Japanese, p. 94. He gives the Old Chinese
reading *di<w>En for the gully, the initial was later lost which explains
the yan /ien/ reading in modern Mandarin.

  And lookit! References! Go play amongst yourselves, nicky.

 
 
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seebs

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I still want to know why my normal dictionary (which did me just fine for a year of living in China) draws that more like ji, and less like ba. Probably because it makes no difference, since everyone "knows" what the word is anyway.
 
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seebs

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zhongwen says that the right-hand side of the character is probably something over a kou, and that it's either a ba (meaning separation) or a simplification of shui (meaning water). What's interesting is that they have a picture of the phonetic which is clearly using a 'ji', and then clicking on it shows you a different version that's clearly a 'ba'.

Pretty strange; I suspect it's regional, but since everyone knows what chuan means, no one cares.
 
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Originally posted by Morat
And, if you were capable of reading up on Chinese etymology, you'd realize that sound was why phonetics are chosen. Not meaning.

What you presented is how it is explained NOW. That is not a full etymology of characters and glyphs or even phonetics for that matter.

Chinese isn't enough like English or most other languages to draw an exact parallel, but here's an example of how similar changes occur. The origin of the word "checkmate" is Farsi, promounced shah-k-mate, which means "the king is dead." As a result of common usage of the term from the game, the word "check" has taken on a meaning of jeopardy that is used outside of chess. But the root of the word is obviously based in "king" and has nothing whatsoever to do with being in jeopardy. It took on that meaning only after it was commonly used in combination with other phonetics in a different context.

In other words, a full etymology of the word "boat" clearly shows that it originated as "vessel+eight+mouth" and there's no amount of hand waving you can do to make that origin go away. All you can do at this point is speculate that at some point people started using the combination of eight+mouth as a phonetic that could in some cases mean "water", based on its historical connection to its origin in the word "boat". But that in no way undermines its earliest origins as eight+mouth, it just adds some interesting aspects to the development of the language.
 
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Morat

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  Oopsie. I must have forgotten to quote that bit discussion the etymology of the word, complete with reference. Otherwise Nick wouldn't have repeated himself without addressing it.

  Oh wait! I did quote it. I guess Nick just wants to pretend it's not there.

  And it's really funny that Nick refuses to admit that the right side is phonetic only, and that it's chosen entirely by sound, not meaning.

 
 
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Originally posted by Morat
  Oopsie. I must have forgotten to quote that bit discussion the etymology of the word, complete with reference. Otherwise Nick wouldn't have repeated himself without addressing it.

  Oh wait! I did quote it. I guess Nick just wants to pretend it's not there.

  And it's really funny that Nick refuses to admit that the right side is phonetic only, and that it's chosen entirely by sound, not meaning.

 

I didn't say it wasn't an etymology. I said it wasn't the FULL etymology. And that site confirms MY conclusions, not yours, because the site is designed to let you drill down into the etymologies. So, yes, you can stop drilling when you get to the phonetic. But you can also keep drilling and find out that the phonetic comes from eight+mouth.
 
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Morat

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  And, amazingly enough, Karlgren disagrees with you. And he's an expert. And you don't even speak Chinese, do you?

   Oopsie. I'll take his informed opinion over your uniformed one. Especially when your own site lists it as an abbreviation for water, or at most "seperation".

 
 
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seebs

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'k. I'll happily look at any proposed etymology. I have dictionaries, online resources, and, perhaps most interestingly, a reasonable background in comparative religion. :) (e.g., if someone showed me a word for "create" that could be read as "cow + salt", I would know to point out that this supports one version of the Norse creation myth.)
 
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