Talk:取

Etymology
[Normally, I do not add anything close to original research, but note how 耳 also has the meaning "handle" ... now, what makes more sense: "take = hand + ear" or "take = hand + handle"]?

Not my finding, btw, I got it here: https://www.zhihu.com/question/298531514 (the first two answers repeat the nonsensical Shuowen story and the third points out what makes intuitive sense: 器具之“耳”即“把手" (the 'ear' of a utensil is a 'handle')

MikuChan39 (talk) 20:35, 13 April 2019 (UTC)


 * This is an interesting hypothesis, but I would like to see more support to be convinced. For one thing, sources generally say that ears were cut off enemy soldiers in ancient times (as something like a token of accomplishment), so "ear" is certainly not an unreasonable interpretation. It also would not be out of place among characters like, which is a hand grabbing a woman by the hair to take her as wife. Moreover the "handle" sense of is derived from the "ear" sense so it would be more of a surprise to see it come up as a meaning component. For example,  means "person" in basically every character it is a semantic component of; I can't think of a character off the top of my head in which it means the derived sense "big".


 * : Pinging you in case you have any thoughts on this. ChromeGames (talk) 06:19, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I think zhihu often has interesting stuff, but I'd like to see what academic sources say. 漢語多功能字庫 takes the conservative position that Shuowen was about right. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 17:20, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * : Right, and when I checked other places like 中華語文知識庫 and zi.tools they agreed as well, though I'm not sure how reputable/academic they are and I have only become aware of them more recently. Outlier Linguistics also claims the same explanation and they cite 裘錫圭's 文字學概要 and 許進雄's 中國古代社會：文字與人類學的透視. That said Outlier also sometimes provide glyph origins that I find a bit questionable, especially when a phonetic component is involved. In this case though it seems to me that there is generally agreement? But I certainly must admit that I am not familiar with academic sources directly and where I should be looking for those. ChromeGames (talk) 05:32, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I'd say these should be pretty good sources. 中華語文知識庫 seems to be even more conservative than 漢語多功能字庫 (as in following Shuowen a little more). I'm not entirely sure about where zi.tools gets their glyph origins, and I have less experience with it, so I don't know how good it is for glyph origin. I think Outlier should be a good source based on what I've seen (on their sites), but I haven't bought it myself, so I haven't seen their full content. Sometimes, I also consult 說文新證 (季旭昇) and 字源 (edited by 李学勤). — justin(r)leung { (t...) 00:31, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * : Thanks for the comments. I'm not sure if following Shuowen more closely is necessarily better since sometimes the oracle bone and bronze scripts differ quite significantly, but I'll keep that in mind, and 中華語文知識庫 has seemed pretty good regardless. I'll have to look into the two you suggested, I know Outlier quite frequently cites 說文新證 but I'm not sure if I've seen the other one. And from my experience Outlier is generally quite good but sometimes the regular (non-expert) entries don't give a full picture and in my opinion focus too much on modern forms rather than historical forms. For example it claims is phono-semantic with semantic ⿱彑冖 ("hedgehog") and phonetic . But I think the reconstructions of  are just too different from  and  for this to be plausible, and of course ⿱彑冖 is not particularly useful without further explanation. But I am sure every source has its faults, and in the case of 取 the glyph form has remained consistent throughout time, so it is just down to the explanation and historical context. ChromeGames (talk) 19:07, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, for 取, I think there isn't much deviation from Shuowen in terms of what modern sources say about it. For 彙, you need to be cautious about looking at reconstructions alone because OC reconstructions relies on phonetic components as one piece of evidence, so if a linguist does not consider 果 to be a phonetic component, the reconstruction won't account for it - thus it's easy to have circular reasoning. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 20:25, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * : That's a really good point, and I've definitely seen Baxter-Sagart disagree with Zhengzhang so that the Baxter-Sagart reconstruction is much more in line with a phonetic explanation. In that case perhaps a better example of what I was trying to get at (other than when it gives components like ⿱彑冖) would be, which Outlier says is semantic 耳 + phonetic 𡈼 + phonetic 㥁. I think this is fine (though the role of 㥁 might be up for debate), but really what I think is missing is any mention of historical 耳 + 口 forms. Either way I still find it quite good usually, but I definitely want to check out the sources you mentioned, since most of the stuff on Outlier probably comes from other sources and I expect them to give more historical background. ChromeGames (talk) 06:16, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Sadly, I have nothing formal on this - hence, I called it "original research" from the get-go. Included the zhihu reference only for attribution, not authority. So, it may not stand by Wikipedia standards. That said, the "cut off the ears of enemies" triggers all my folk etymology alerts. It only doesn't sound absurd because it has been repeated and believed for so long that we've come to accept it. I speak from reasonable fluency in Egyptian and Chinese, and some exposure to Sumerian ... characters are generally chosen in a way that would have made intuitive sense to a large number of people, and "hand ear" = "cut off soldiers' ears" = "take" is just a bridge too far. Handle + hand = take, on the other hand, makes perfect sense. I have met many native speakers of both Chinese and Japanese who are very happy to provide ad hoc explanations that "sort of make sense" when not being able to explain a character (e.g. after unusual sound change of the phonetic part) ... no reason to believe that the author of the Shuowen was immune to that, either - after all, characters were already ancient at that point in time. All I have to say on the topic - I know I cannot prove it, but I was relieved when I found the zhihu solution because I had been deeply uncomfortable with the traditional story since I first had heard it. 妻 is probably also made-up. Sometimes it's better to just admit that we don't know than to repeat absurdities that only have the benefit of being old going for them. MikuChan39 (talk) 03:28, 26 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your reply. (I don't think I or got the ping because you put it in afterwards.) I think the way we've worded it right now should be enough doubt cast on the often stated claim. We can't really do much if even modern sources take Shuowen's explanation to be on the right track. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 04:16, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I appreciate the detailed response. I agree that many explanations from Shuowen are incorrect or at best dubious, and certainly there are many inaccurate folk etymologies as well. And I am not fully confident in the stated glyph origins of 取, though to me it seems believable (and indeed the current wording is suggestive of uncertainty). I say believable because, if taking ears was as common in ancient times as some sources suggest, then that construction may very well make sense to many people. On the other hand if it was a fairly rare occurrence, then your doubts would be extremely valid. But alas I am not a historian so I would not be able to say, but that would be a very interesting topic to research further. On the flip side, it is possible that 耳 representing "handle" would actually be less understandable because most people would expect 耳 to mean "ear" as it usually does. So it might be relevant to ask whether there are any other compounds where it means "handle", and how early/common the "handle" sense is attested relative to 取. But again I couldn't tell you what ancient people thought and I am not so familiar with ancient writings, so I don't want to dismiss the possibility. ChromeGames (talk) 06:37, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
 * @ChromeGames@Justinrleung - agree, I'm cool with the current wording: all we can say under the circumstances. MikuChan39 (talk) 13:38, 26 March 2022 (UTC)