Talk:Sino-Japanese vocabulary

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[edit] Chart of Correspondences and General Issue regarding accessibility

For the general enthusiast, I suggest this chart is esoteric. In the same vein as some people have brought up whether or not the mapping should be to medieval southern dialects or modern northern ones, is not the solution that one should defer to the 'accessible' option? I.e. can this chart be reformulated, or at least, explained briefly so that an educated reader, and not only a scholar, would be able to read it?Wilgamesh 06:30, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

With all due respect, this is far from encyclopedia-grade material. I'm not expert enough to be able to rewrite this, but the importation of Chinese words into Japanese has been extensively studied, and it's quite clear that they were almost entirely imported from the southern dialects -- trying to draw parallels to modern (northern) Mandarin is, from a scholarly point of view, not sensible.

The title is also wrong: "Sino-Japanese" is not and has never been a 'language' of its own. As a language, kanbun (which is still studied in Japanese schools to this day) is written classical Chinese, just pronounced with Japanese readings. "Sino-Japanese vocabulary", perhaps? -- Jpatokal 13:07, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well, you're free to do what you think best, of course, including editing and deletion, but I disagree with your critiques. The ostensible fact that the onyumi readings derive from medieval southern dialects does not prevent us from comparing them to the modern northern dialect, unless you think there is no correspondence between northern and southern Chinese. I think it is manifestly apparent that that a comparison is possible because I have done it -- the (so far incomplete) list shows correspondences that are really there between Mandarin and sino-derived Japanese vocabularies. If you can think of more patterns, please add them to the list -- if you think a pattern I listed is incorrect, then let's discuss that specifically.
As for the title, I was attempting to follow the terminology that Jerry Norman used in Chinese, but I don't have that in front of me to refer to so I might have gotten it wrong. I suppose Sino-Japanese is a language roughly the same way that Cantonese or Fukienese are languages. That is, they are what is normally called dialects of Chinese. But it doesn't really matter, I am amenable to moving the article to "Sino-Japanese dialect" or "Sino-Japanese vocabulary".Nat Krause 15:16, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but Sino-Japanese isn't a "language" in any sense. It's more like the body of Latinate loans in English. On the other hand, Cantonese and Fukienese are real (and separate!) languages. Although they are often called "dialects," that term is misleading. Mandarin speakers don't understand Cantonese--how is that a dialect? Quite simply, it's not. (22 Dec 2004)

(back to Jpatokal)

I think the article is also wrongly titled, since it isn't a language per se. Sino-Japanese, in the linguistics jargon, refers to a set of readings of Chinese characters as used in Japan. I think "Sino-Japanese readings" in line with on-yomi (literally sound readings) is much better.

It is also rather unusual, though more accessible, to compare modern Mandarin with Sino-Japanese, which are the sounds of kanji characters borrowed 1500 years or so ago. It is like comparing an apple and a pear. Similar, but very different. It would be better to compare it with a stage in historical Chinese from the time when the borrowings were taken, Middle Chinese. I am thinking of re-writing your contribution, but a lot of the stuff written so far would go completely, since it has little to do with what Sino-Japanese is, for instance, kanbun, the way classical or literary Chinese is read in Japanese. [1]

Dylanwhs 18:47, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you for the comments. I would suggest simply "Sino-Japanese" as a title, and Kanbun could be sloughed off into its own article. For comparison purposes, I think it would be very interesting to show Japanese readings, Middle Chinese, modern Cantonese and modern Mandarin side by side... but do we have any linguistics experts around? Jpatokal 02:27, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well, I think it is most useful and informative to show comparisons between modern Japanese vocabulary and modern standard Chinese vocabulary, because most people have a lot more access to this information than to information on archaic Chinese or even on modern Cantonese. By all means, it would be great to also lay out comparisons to Cantonese and archaic Chinese. I'm not up to such a task personally.

As for the stuff about kanbun, feel free to move that someplace else if you think it improves this article. I never intended to write about kanbun, but it seemed necessary to explain what I was talking about re: Sino-Japanese. -- Nat Krause 05:41, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

From a linguistic perspective, I think inclusion of Middle Chinese is almost necessary for this article. Including modern Mandarin is probably a good idea for the accessibility reason you cite. Unfortunately I'm not up to the task either. Should any of the material I wrote for kanji#on'yomi be moved over here and linked? --Aponar Kestrel (talk) 17:54, 2004 Sep 5 (UTC)


Middle Chinese would be very nice, but it's not quite necessary. Some of your on'yomi material would probably be useful. - Nat Krause 11:53, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)


I have to say, the phonetic discussion is not as useful as it could be -- even ignoring the problems of comparing Japanese derivations with an unrelated dialect of modern Chinese, which is a bit like discussing Latin-derived vocabulary in English but referring only to the modern Spanish forms of the words!

For example, consider 'a major sound-shift occurred in Mandarin during the last 400 years in which the "g" or "k" sound, when immediately preceding an "i", "y" or "ü" sound, became "j" or "q"'. I can't comment on the accuracy of this statement, but to an English speaker with little knowledge of Chinese, this looks like you are talking about [ɡ] and [k] becoming [ʤ] and [kʷ], which is just wrong. Maybe [ʨ] and [ʨʰ] are a little too technical for most people, but if they are, you should either specify that you are talking about the sounds represented in PinYin by those letters, or at the very least use the English phonetic equivalent "ch" for /q/.

The correspondense of 日: r (pinyin) - ny (Jp. Goon, 呉音, "*Ngu/Wu sound") - ji- or ze- (Jp. Kan'on, 漢音, "Han sound")

[edit] Reading the table of correspondences

The table of correspondences does not explain how to read itself. Am I correct in assuming that the MC row is the source, the Go row shows how borrowings were made in the 5th and 6th centuries (and some subsequent changes), and the Kan column is how they were borrowed in the 7th and 9th centuries (again with subsequent changes)? —Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 07:55, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Article is misleading

The article as it stands is misleading. It appears to state that on'yomi = 'Sino-Japanese' = borrowings from Chinese. This is simply incorrect. Not all on'yomi words are borrowings from Chinese. There are many words that were created in Japan from Chinese elements, in different periods of Japanese history (Edo period and Meiji period coinages are quite different in nature). There were also words that crossed over from kun'yomi to on'yomi, like 'rippuku'.

The first section needs to be rewritten. Bathrobe 03:03, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Have rewritten large sections of the article. Sino-Japanese is equivalent to kango, not on'yomi. Thanks to JALockhart for additional material. Bathrobe 09:00, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merger proposal (Sino-Japanese compound and Sino-Japanese

The two articles are virtually identical in the area they cover. The problem was that the original Sino-Japanese article was poorly written and misleading.

The article on Sino-Japanese forms a set with Sino-Vietnamese and Sino-Korean, so ideally the article should be titled 'Sino-Japanese' rather that 'Sino-Japanese compounds'.

I've already taken some material from Sino-Japanese compounds and put it into the Sino-Japanese article. It fits in without a trace, which demonstrates that the two articles really do cover exactly the same ground. Bathrobe 14:53, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

There has been no response, so I've made Sino-Japanese compound into a redirect. Bathrobe 03:32, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I did not respond because I didn't have any objections and I wanted to see what you would do. Also, I wanted to refresh my memory on kango and its scope and definition, by poking my nose into some of my books.
But things are starting to get out of hand with some of the examples, and especially with the literal translations (e.g., that for 世話 sewa), which are beginning to border on the silly. What's the purpose of these, to show how quaint and exotic Japanese word formation is? For instance, with sewa, the meaning of the kanji are unrelated to the word's meaning. Actually, 世話 is not even a kango--it's a native word written with kanji (ateji). When citing literal translations of kanji strings, I think it is important to ensure the cited etymologies are accurate and significant for understanding the formation of the compound; folk etymologies and ones based on article authors' whims (or nosing into a kanji dictionary and drawing quick-and-dirty conclusions) ought to be eschewed.
It might be time to start checking (and citing) some sources for some of the claims in the article (such as that purporting that 60% of Japanese vocabulary consists of kango, and that Chinese plays a bigger role in Japanese than Latin in English). Several POV constructions (using words like "unfortunately" and "ironically", which express the authors' sentiments, not any objective fact) need to be dealt with as well. The sentences comparing 改める and 検める and that characterization implying that the use of 改 in 改札口 is "incorrect" is itself incorrect, since 改 also means "to inspect." 改 may have been used to distinguish between 改札 and 検札, which are different actions.
Also, with reference to kokuji than were eventually assigned on'yomi, I had originally written "were given on'yomi as they came to be used in compounds"; the distinction that I was seeking to express (i.e., that they did not originally have on'yomi, and that assignment of on'yomi came much later as the kokuji themselves came to be used in the formation of new compounds, new compounds that were necessitated by the emergence of new concepts).
The article also makes no distinction between real kango and other jukugo (熟語—which, btw, is the more common term in the vernacular for kanji words), which I also see as a shortcoming.
Looking forward to further improvements, and HTH, Jim_Lockhart 01:55, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Please go ahead and fix the article. I agree that some of the ateji examples are perhaps out of place here, although they can be (and are) referred to as 'wasei kango'. (You will also notice that I pointed out they were ateji, with a link to the article ateji).

The point of the section about 働 (and 馬,梅 etc.) was to show that "Sino-Japanese" as a category is not ipso facto equal to "Chinese". I understand where you are coming from on 働 and have no objection to your changing it. I did have a problem with these statements, however:

  • "There are in fact many characters, called kokuji (国字?), that did not originate in China but have on'yomi." Question: How many kokuji have on'yomi?
  • "Characters like these that were created in Japan usually do not have on'yomi readings, but were given one when they came to be used in forming compounds with other characters, such as... 腺炎 sen'en ("adenitis")." Question: What is the kun'yomi for 腺?

As for the use of "ironically" etc., is there a problem with saying that it is "ironic" that many Sino-Japanese words were coined for purely Japanese phenomena? It is a shorthand way of saying: "One might expect that Japanese words would be used for Japanese phenomena, but in fact even the Japanese felt it was better to come up with Chinese-style compounds". Similarly for "unfortunately" in this case, because the effect is not what the coiner intended. Is it possible to take sensitivity to "POV" too far?

With regard to 改 meaning 'inspect', I don't believe that is the case, but I don't have a Kanwa Jiten with me at the moment to confirm that. If the example in question is actually mistaken, please go ahead and delete it.

You have pointed out the word 熟語 (="Sino-Japanese compound words") and I agree that some mention should be made of this term. There is also a need to make clearer the distinction between 'real' kango and 'other 熟語'.

At any rate, I am quite happy for you to go ahead and improve the article. I am only doing my best to make it more complete (compared to what it was). If you can fix up errors of fact or emphasis, that would be great. Bathrobe 03:02, 17 March 2006 (UTC)


First, as for making changes, I'll wait to see the direction current edits take and for them to settle down before I do, for two reasons: 1) I have more pressing deadlines at the moment, and 2) I see no reason to duplicate effort and work at this point. You're doing well enough right now. My purpose with the foregoing comments was to indicate problems that I see emerging.
Question: How many kokuji have on'yomi? I'm not sure that there is a "fixed" number to refer to, but there are eight included among the 常用漢字: 働、畑、峠、込、匁、枠、塀、and 搾; of these, 働 and 搾 have on'yomi and 塀 has a pseudo on'yomi (and is, in this sense, similar to 腺). (Source: 漢検　漢字辞典【第一版】, 2001) Kokuji are also called 和字. Fwiw, I have also read of 和字 that had Chinese twins—i.e., ad-hoc kanji that developed in China parallel to and independently of a character of the same composition as a 和字, sometimes with even the same meaning—but I can't remember where I read it (and since I cannot attribute this to a source, I won't be adding it to any articles).
Question: What is the kun'yomi for 腺? There is none. It was given only an on'yomi reading. It is an exception to the general rule. I hope you're not under the impression that all on'yomi are purely derived from Chinese pronunciation, because many (especially the 慣用音) are not. Japanese on'yomi, while on the surface very similar to Sino-Korean and Sino-Vietnamese readings and sharing many characteristics with them, is not the same in all respects as these counterparts (which probably also manifest characteristics different between themselves, as well—don't know enough about them to really comment, though). When considering on'yomi, the Japanese perspective (mentality behind their use) on on'yomi is essential to understanding how they are applied, and caution should be exercised in applying to them a Sino-centric view or Western notions of consistency.
改 and "inspect." 改める is the official 書き換え for 検める, and the あらためる kun'yomi is, e.g., not taught in schools as a reading for 検 (neither is しらべる, for that matter). That said, the 改める of 改札 carries nuances of checking to be sure something is okay or the way it should be (確かめる), whereas 検める of 検札 comes from the opposite approach and is more closely associated with checking for faults or problems (糾す）. (Same source, different page; also 新明解国語辞典　第五版, 旺文社国語辞典［第九版］, 広辞苑第五版, and 日本語大辞典　第二版 agree on this. I haven't checked other sources.)
Also, do you have a source for words written with ateji being classified as kango? I don't recall ever seeing this claim made before, so I suspect it might be an plausible misconception. Later, Jim_Lockhart 04:36, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Jim, I don't intend making any further substantive changes to the article, so please go ahead, in your own time, of course.

I pointed out the problems with 働 and 腺 because I felt that the two statements were wrong. There is a very small number of kokuji with on'yomi, so you shouldn't say that there are 'many' (which is maybe not what you meant, but it is what you said). And 腺 is a case that doesn't fit in with your statement that kokuji only got on'yomi after they were used in compounds. 腺 was an on'yomi from the start. I think that needed to be made clear and not just lumped in with the 働 example.

I'm not under the impression that "all on'yomi are purely derived from Chinese pronunciation". That is why I started making changes to the article, because it was so simple-mindedly phrased as though kanji on'yomi = Sino-Japanese = Japanese words from Chinese.

"改める is the official 書き換え for 検める": This may be the problem. I don't want to be Sinocentric here :), but strictly speaking you have to go with the correct meaning of the character, not a 書き換え, officially approved or not. That means using a Kanwa Jiten, not a Kokugo Jiten. But I'm not in a position to check this at the moment as I don't have any reference materials with me.

My source on 'wasei kango' was a website, which is not a good recommendation :) Perhaps that section should be deleted, or else be retained as an example of what not to treat as 'kango' (i.e., words that look like 'kango' but in fact are ateji.

Thanks for your comments, and I hope that the result will be a much better article!

(Incidentally, a lot of the changes that I made to this page grew out of a discussion on the Talk:List_of_English_words_of_Chinese_origin, where one particular editor seemed to be citing on'yomi as a criterion for deciding 'Chinese origin' -- in fact, he wasn't, but I still feel that he had an overly simplistic notion of on'yomi, which led me to rewrite this page.) Bathrobe

The problem you pointed out with 働 and 腺 is only a problem when one expects perfect consistency in how kokuji got their on'yomi, but you certainly are correct as far as the way I presented that material, and 腺 should not be just lumped in with 働. I agree with you about the problem inherent in the notion that kanji on'yomi = Sino-Japanese = Japanese words from Chinese.

"改める is the official 書き換え for 検める": This may be the problem....[Y]ou have to go with the correct meaning of the character, not a 書き換え, officially approved or not. That means using a Kanwa Jiten, not a Kokugo Jiten. This may be where you seem Sinocentric <g>: what matters in Japanese is what is appropriate in Japanese, not Chinese.
Meanwhile (and this is part of what I was trying to say, without being too blunt), I did check sources, including kan-wa jiten (my first citation above is a kan-wa jiten) and have, in general, gotten out of the habit of adding to articles information that I have not verified.
That said, 代漢語林 (大修館書店、1992) lists 「検査する。取り調べる」 and 「検査。吟味」as glosses for 改. It is also worth noting that pre-Meiji period officials whose positions ended with –aratame ("inspector") were generally written ～改め, illustrating that 改 has a long history in Japan of being used in this meaning, regardless of whether that is so in other languages, so it is "correct" insofar as Japanese is concerned. 言海 (1889), the grand-daddy of kokugo jiten, also equates 改め and 検め in this sense.
This is probably why 改 was chosen as the 書き換え字 for 検 in 検める (it is not the 書き換え in 熟語—that wouldn't work because they have different on'yomi).

If your source on wasei kango was a website, please cite it as a source so I can check it too. To my knowledge, wasei kango (in other words, kanji jukugo invented in Japan) are considered kango in Japan, but not all words written with ateji are—e.g., 英吉利 igirisu, eegirisu is, but words like 部屋 heya　名残 nagori and other 熟字訓—are not. This kind of ambivalence and blurring of distinctions is common in Japan, where (as I'm sure you're aware) even Japanese words coined from English words are called 和製英語 even though they are not English at all, and many Japanese speakers are unaware that they can be unintelligible in English.

Some sources (in addition to those already named), fyi:
  • 日本の漢語。佐藤喜代治著、角川書店。1979
  • 漢字の用法。武部良明著、角川書店。1976
  • ことば知識百科。三省堂編集所編、三省堂。1995
HTH, Jim_Lockhart 08:53, 17 March 2006 (UTC)


"My first citation above is a kan-wa jiten". OK, I'll accept that. Actually, it's not being Sinocentric to insist on a Kanwa Jiten; it's good Japanese mentality! I still have a niggling doubt about aratameru, however, as the example comes from a 国語学 professor (personal communication).

The site I used was http://homepage3.nifty.com/t-kanazawa/essay40.html I can see now that it was flawed, just an essay by someone, which is not really salvaged by adding a note to say that most of the examples were ateji.

This site http://www005.upp.so-net.ne.jp/shigas/HOMPG818.HTM has rather better examples: 仲間（チュウゲン）、成敗（セイバイ）、奉行、与力、同心、家老、役人、番頭、丁稚、芸者、女郎. I would be quite happy to add words like 家老 and 役人 to the list as they are not ateji and are pre-Meiji (which is what I really want, i.e., to get beyond the well-known Meiji period coinages).

The erroneous ateji examples I added should probably go in the section about 'Sino-Japanese and on'yomi', with an explanation to the effect that words using on'yomi may also be ateji and not true kango. (I've now gone ahead and done this).

Thanks for pointing out the mistake.

I think the article may be interesting if it can go beyond some of the more hackneyed descriptions of the subject. The whole topic of how kanji are used in Japanese is a fascinating one. They are really entwined in the language in a way that defies simplistic characterisation. Bathrobe 09:35, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Title

I agree the title is misleading. Not because of whether or not Sino-Japanese is a language or not, but because that phrase is often used to describe the relationship between Japan and China for various other topics. If you type "Sino-Japan" into google, you get topics like "Sino-Japan ties" and "The Sino-Japanese war". Nothing comes up about language.

I think Wikipedia's "Sino-Japanese" entry should merely be a small blurb saying "'Sino-Japanese' is a label for topics on the relations between Japan and China. Please see: Sino-Japanese War, Sino-Japanese Relations, Sino-Japanese Language"

I agree. This article should be retitled "Sino-Japanese (kango)" and a general redirect page set up for "Sino-Japanese".
Bathrobe 00:55, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Which is partially why I had created an article called "Sino-Japanese compounds," though I now think "Sino-Japanese words (kango)" would be better.

Btw, Bathrobe: I think you've been doing a good job straightening out some of the article's earlier problems. I've now got an outline in the works that I hope will help make it much better by clearing up ambiguities. I've also been snooping through my library to find details such as how many kokuji there are (seems to be about 150 that have been at least in use over the past couple of centuries). But I'm too busy with work right now to make any active contributions. Best wishes, Jim_Lockhart 04:11, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Another possibility is "Sino-Japanese vocabulary (kango)". Rather longish, but more accurate? Can this move be made without canvassing a broader range of views? The suggestion is based on good grounds, and the page does not seem to be a very active one. The sister pages on Sino-Korean and Sino-Vietnamese will probably need similar action.
I look forward to seeing Jim's new revamped version.
Bathrobe 04:56, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Yea. I can understand kango. But, the word Sino-Japanese let me imgine "between China and Japan", "(for)between Chinese society and Japanese society", or "(for) both Chiense people and Japanese people". Many agreement, societies (associations) and cultural exchange use this term. kango and Sino-Japanese have nothing in common with Asian feeling. --221.190.251.233 (talk) 02:06, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
"Sino-Japanese vocabulary" seems best. Can we move it there?
Bathrobe (talk) 02:28, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm ultimately neutral to the move, but if we are to move the article, may I suggest "Sino-Japanese (vocabulary)" or "Sino-Japanese (linguistics)"? It seems to me that even within the context of discussions and writings about the Japanese language, the term "Sino-Japanese" is more often used than "Sino-Japanese vocabulary". Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 02:55, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm happy with that. Can we go ahead and do it? I don't think the move is a big deal. And leaving it with this title (out of inertia or indecision) is the worst outcome!
Bathrobe (talk) 03:37, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
"Sino-Japanese" is an abbreviation for "Sino-Japanese vocab" etc. It's only in context that it makes sense by itself. For a title, which has no context, I think Bathrobe's initial suggestion without parentheses is better. As for "(linguistics)", this isn't really a linguistic category. kwami (talk) 04:23, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I tend to prefer "Sino-Japanese vocabulary". I'm not ultimately neutral on the move, because I just don't think the article should stay here. This proposal has been on the table for almost 2 years, and no progress has been made because nobody can decide on a sensible name for the article. I don't agree that "Sino-Japanese" in context will automatically be understood as "Sino-Japanese vocabulary". Adding "vocabulary" definitely makes for clarity. (And Google has 1,680 hits for "Sino-Japanese vocabulary".) Still, I don't think that putting "vocabulary" in parentheses is a big problem.
Unless there are overwhelming objections, can we make the move, preferably to "Sino-Japanese vocabulary"? If someone has overwhelming objections to "Sino-Japanese vocabulary", can we assume we have a consensus for "Sino-Japanese (vocabulary)"?
Bathrobe (talk) 05:38, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Go for it, with SK and SV as well. I vote for "Sino-Japanese vocabulary", because I fail to see any purpose for "Sino-Japanese (vocabulary)".
The OED, BTW, defines sino- compounds first as: "Combined with adjectives of nationality to mean ‘Chinese and …’ or ‘between China or the Chinese and (the country or people designated)’, as Sino-Albanian, -American, -Australian, -British, -Indian, -Japanese, -Malay, -Mongolian, -Russian, -Soviet, -Tibetan.
Examples:
  • The Sino-Albanian axis.
  • Significance of the Sino-American treaty of 1928.
  • An insight into how Sino-British relations, already good, are likely to develop.
  • The Sino-Indian agreement of April 1954.
  • We must place to the front the fact that Sino-Japanese design is almost exclusively an art of contours.
  • The terms of the Sino-Japanese Trade Agreement are, I would judge, likely to prove more beneficial to both parties than the EEC/China Agreement.
  • The girl [was] Sino-Malay.
  • In Central Asia […] the Sino-Soviet frontier is straddled by a homogeneous Muslim population, while the Sino-Mongolian frontier is similarly straddled by a Mongolian population.
and then secondly defines it as "Used similarly with ns. to form ns. (freq. attrib.) with the meaning ‘a language (family) or subsection of this, characterized by a relationship between Chinese and the language (family) specified’, as Sino-Japanese, -Korean, -Siamese.
Examples:
  • After the Sino-Japanese readings I often add in parenthesis the Kana spelling.
  • Sino-Japanese, a term applied to Chinese loan-words in the Japanese language, the spoken form of which is different from the form or forms occurring in any of the spoken Chinese vernaculars.
  • If Japanese is indeed the source of the term, a more plausible model would be nemaki, the colloquial equivalent of shin-i, which is the learned or Sino-Japanese term.
  • Each representing a lexical item with information regarding […] its pronunciation in the 21 major dialects of China and in the Sino-xenic languages, i.e. Sino-Japanese and Sino-Korean.
It's apparent from the latter that a disambiguating context is needed for 'vocabulary' to be understood, and the only effective way to disambiguate an article title in an encyclopedia is to make the title more explicit, as Bathrobe proposes. kwami (talk) 23:40, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I would like to hear from Hongqigong first, as he has consistently shown an interest in these articles.
Bathrobe (talk) 05:53, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Since there hasn't been any response, I'm going to go ahead and move the articles.
Bathrobe (talk) 04:16, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
I redirected the articles that linked to them. kwami (talk) 06:20, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Oh yeah, to prove your point: I didn't redirect some articles, because they dealt with Sino-Japanese relations, not language. kwami (talk) 06:21, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] some kanji missing

Add kanji for ateji, etc. Mention kuni=country from Chinese jun4 perhaps, though written with guo2. At "3. The vowels of Chinese" etc., add examples! Also at "finals:". --User:Jidanni 2006-04-16

[edit] Sen (gland)

[From the article:]

The character 腺 ("gland"), which has the on'yomi sen (e.g. 扁桃腺 hentōsen "tonsils") was intentionally created as a 'kango' and does not have a kun'yomi at all. Although not originating in Chinese,...

This character also exists in Chinese. Just wondering if anyone knows whether/when it was introduced into Chinese from Japanese? --Sumple (Talk) 04:22, 12 May 2006 (UTC)


It was "reverse-imported" from Japan to China. Apparently there are other invented-elsewhere kanji that this happened to, too; but an interesting facet of 腺 is that its creation is documented: 「泉のように体液がわき出る所の意で、宇田川玄真が作った字。」(広辞苑 第五版). Udagawa Genshin was an Edo-period practitioner of Western medicine and "Dutch studies." HTH, Jim_Lockhart 05:08, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Small missing item

The Modern mandarin pronunciation of character 五 should be added to the article to complete the discussion of that character. AnonMoos 15:12, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Note about tea

matcha (抹茶) and sencha (煎茶) are listed as Japanese-made words. These are uniquely Japanese today, but I'm pretty sure that either or both of them were used in China in ancient times and were referred to by Lu Yu in the Classic of Tea. I'll need to check this up, but does anyone else feel the same? --Sumple (Talk) 22:03, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Inaccuracies in Phonetic equivalences

This part seems kind of dubious: "In Middle Chinese, 五 ('five') and similar characters were pronounced as a velar nasal consonant, "ng" ([ŋ])". That sounds more like modern Cantonese--are there any references to back that up? The dictionary at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wbaxter/etymdict.html seems to think it should be "ngu". --ian (talk) 21:37, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

This source [2] has [ŋ] for every reading of 五 other than modern Mandarin.—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 02:05, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Ah, I got confused by the wording of the article--I thought it meant the entire syllable was [ŋ], instead of just the initial consonant. I'll fix it so it's clearer. --ian (talk) 20:11, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually I'm a little confused about the rest of that paragraph. It says that Japanese approximates the Middle Chinese 'ng' as 'go', and then go on to say that modern Hokkien pronounces the the word the same way. Is there actually a source to back up that the Japanese 'go' is an approximation of the Middle Chinese 'ng'? Or is it the case that the Japanese 'go' was actually influenced by the branched ancestor of modern Hokkien in its pronounciation of 五? Also, it should be noted here that the characters with similar pronounciation as 五 are also pronounced similarly in other dialects, as well as Sino-Japanese and Sino-Korean (pronounced 'oh'). A good example here is 悟, as in 孫悟空. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 20:59, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


People are taking the modern sound values of standard Japanese to make a comment of Middle Chinese sounds. What you need are the sounds of Japanese from the time they borrowed the readings, and then describe what the differences are between Middle Chinese and Japanese pronunciation 1500 years (or appropriate) ago and what the changes are. Dylanwhs 07:35, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
In modern Hakka Chinese the pronunciation of 悟 is /ŋu/, 五 is pronounced /ŋ/. It should also be noted that Japanese mora begining in g are subject to sound changes if it is preceeded by a nasalised mora /n/, rendering the it a velar nasal. For example 午後 gogo is pronounceds goŋo, even though 後 is does not come from MC ŋ at all. Dylanwhs 09:29, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Whilst saving my edit, a report of 'loss of session data' was returned by the system, as well as an 'edit conflict'. Dylanwhs 09:34, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm not an expert and I don't know what sources exist for this info (at some point I'd been looking at http://www.pacific-en.co.jp/x260-4-2.html but I'm not sure how reliable that is), but I'd point out that another thing one needs to be careful with in making any links is that there are multiple borrowings in Sino-Japanese from different time periods (which is not really noted except in the Chart of correspondences), and that Southern Min also has multiple sets of pronunciations: for instance, in the dialect I speak, 五 can be pronounced ŋɔ or gɔ depending on the context. --ian (talk) 20:35, 11 September 2007 (UTC)