Category Archives: Chinese Language

The “Joss” in the Joss Paper 金紙的英文名字

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I never realized that the term for the “ghost or God money” (variously called 金紙、陰司紙、紙錢 and 冥幣 in Chinese) that we use in English, “joss paper”, is a Chinese-English pidginization of the word God in Portuguese “Deus”.

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It’s odd because I’ve used it so often without thinking to look up its origin. I guess I’d always assumed it was from Cantonese like other terms more commonly used in English like “pak choi” for 白菜 bai2cai4. Incidentally the Taiwanese for joss paper is kim-chóa. The reason there are so many different names for it in Chinese is because different kinds of paper are burned for different kinds of spirits, whether they be ancestral ghosts, deities or the ghosts of the recently deceased.

Update: The Oxford dictionary states that the term came from Dejos, the Javanese corruption of the now obsolete Portuguese word for god Deos, which in turn came from the Latin Deus. It was first used in the early 18th Century. Not sure if was just the term “joss” to refer to god was coopted in reference to China by the Portuguese in Macau as one commenter (Keoni Everington) suggested or how it came to be used in the West. It says that it refers to Asian religions though. Would love it if anyone has any details on this.

Shamelessly Ashamed: 「不恥」 or 「不齒」 Part 2

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This is an update to a former post that you can check out here. The previous post described the use of the term 「不恥」(bu4chi3) in a short story by a Taiwanese author. I later came across the term again in 《馬橋詞典》 (A Dictionary of Maqiao), a book written by a mainland Chinese author:

buchi

The phrase containing it in Chinese reads:

（二）三耳朵做過很多人所不恥的惡行[……]

(2) Sanerduo had done some pretty despicable things[…]

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Which is prettier 「媺」 or 「美」?

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My coworker referred me to 媺 [女山山大 / ㄇㄟˇ / mei3 / unicode u5ABA ] a variant of 美 [廿土大 / ㄇㄟˇ / mei3 / unicode u7F8E , though she didn’t provide the context in which she found it.

If anyone comes across any variants in every day life (ie not just hidden in the obscure sections of your dictionary) then you can submit it in the comments sections.

A legless night in Taipei! – The font that made 夜 lose its left leg

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I found this version of 夜 in Roan Ching-yue’s 《哭泣哭泣城》 The Sobbing City, from which I translated ‘The Pretty Boy from Hanoi’ in a previous post:  10893635_10101789003486449_205092612_n

Does anyone know what font this is? All the fonts I have on my computer have both their legs – I like the elegance of this form of 夜 though. Anybody familiar with it? Comment below.

By the way, I’m planning a few more translations from this collection of short stories, so look out for them over the coming months.

For Chinese font watchers, I recently came across this book in a Taipei book store.

getImage

I had a little flick through – though budget constraints prevented me from buying it yet. From what I saw it explains variations in the use of font in shop, road and MRT signs, looks to be an interesting read.

Dafont has some additional Chinese fonts for those interested.

Crosswords in Chinese 橫豎字謎

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Photo via Wiki Commons

Photo via Wiki Commons

I’ve been eager to start a Chinese version of cryptic crosswords for some time, but it’s a pretty challenging feat.

There is already a tradition of the Chinese character riddle or 字謎.

Examples of this kind of riddle, taken from this helpful site are as below:

1. 真丟人 (The solution and an explanation follows in white, highlight it to reveal) You take the  「人」shaped two strokes off the bottom of 真 to get 直 which is the solution.

2. 見人就笑 (The solution and an explanation follows in white, highlight it to reveal) This is where the algebra component of 字謎 comes in. 人+ x=笑 hence 笑-人=x hence x=竺

3. 千古恨 (The solution and an explanation follows in white, highlight it to reveal) This references a popular saying taken from 《隋唐演義》 which goes 一失足成千古恨 (one step out of place can spawn hatred for a thousand years), here it means you combine 失 and 足 to get the character you want, 跌

4. 禮義廉恥 (The solution and an explanation follows in white, highlight it to reveal) These are the four social bonds 四維: propriety, justice, integrity and honor, if you were to put these into one character, 四 can be put on top and 維 put on bottom to make 羅.

5. 二小姐 (The solution and an explanation follows in white, highlight it to reveal) Another word for secondary is 次 and 小姐 indicates a woman, 次 and 女 can be combined into one character 姿 meaning posture.

6. 存心不善，有口難言 (The solution and an explanation follows in white, highlight it to reveal) This is algebra again, x + 心 = 不善 and x + 口 = 難言, so we have to think of a character that when it has a heart radical means not good, and when it has a mouth radical means “hard to say”, the solution is 亞, as 惡 means evil (not good), and 啞 means mute, which would make it hard to speak.

7. 寶島姑娘 (The solution and an explanation follows in white, highlight it to reveal) The 寶島 can only be 台灣, specifically the 台 and the 姑娘 is 女, which together make the character 始.

Try some of the clues yourself, or at least try to suss out how you get the answers.

I’ve blacked out the answers in this Google Doc.

I like it a lot better when the solution is hinted at in the clue, and think that it could be extended to longer clues, making a crossword. Unfortunately I lack the programming skills to make it happen.

I tried to make up my own cryptic Chinese clue a while ago, wonder if anyone can guess it.

不善之冷欠古人錢，傳說似反斤?
(答案爲兩個字）

Hint: 不令 is a synonym for 不善

Variants in literature: 犟嘴 for 強嘴 jiang4zui3 To talk back/to give lip

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犟 jiang4 (/qiang3)

I found this variant of 強 in a traditional character version of a mainland Chinese novel (《馬橋詞典》 Dictionary of Maqiao by 韓少功 Han Shaogong). This character is not listed in the Taiwanese Ministry of Education dictionary although it is listed in the variant dictionary. I was surprised to see the character in a traditional character book, because it incorporates the simplified version (or variant) of 強: 强 above 牛 (ox). Lots of simplified characters were adapted from variants or commonly used shorthand however, so it’s not overly unusual. At first I thought it might be an amusing glitch thrown up in the process of transcribing the simplified characters into traditional characters, but after checking the original on Google Books, it seems to have been a choice by the author:

simplified

In the Taiwan variants dictionary it is weirdly listed as a variant of standard character  c07107 although this character cannot be typed – as it automatically switches back to 犟 when typing in zhuyin 注音 and Cangjie 倉頡.

Neither are listed as variants of 強 either. So I can only assume that Taiwan chose to replace this character with 強 in daily usage, although it still exists in its simplified form.

When is it 裡 and when is it 裏? Commonly used variants in action!

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I recently posted a list of Chinese character variants and the Taiwanvore blogger posted an additional pair of variants to the list in the comments section – one in very common usage in Taiwan, specifically 裡 (for Cangjie fans that is 中田土) and 裏 (卜田土女). This variant pair is quite a rare example in modern Chinese as both are in regular usage, although according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Education, 裡 is the standard character (正體) and 裏 is the variant (異體).

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Wanted dead or alive – mysterious character 目+忽

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Someone recommended Shi Zhecun (施蟄存) a writer and translator from the 新感覺派 or New Sensationalist Movement in Shanghai in the thirties and forties. I remember looking at some of these writers in a class on Modernism with Lee Ou-fan (李歐梵), and they’re quite cool for the time. While reading I came across a character as shown in blue below:

muhu

I’ve tried looking it up and typing it to no avail – Continue reading →