Talk:太

Seemingly anomalous pronunciations in 臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典
I was doing homework for my Taiwanese Min Nan class when I discovered that there are unusual readings given for the character '太' in two entries related to the geography of Hualien County, Taiwan in the 臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典. The character's pronunciation is given as 'thài' for most entries. Both of the terms in question are ultimately derived from aboriginal languages.

The first anomaly is '', the original name of a creek in the mountains south of Hualien city, which has a purported pronunciation of 'Má-tāi-an-khe'. The creek's name is derived from the name of a branch of the Amis aboriginal ethnic group. I know that 大 and 太 can be interchangeable in limited circumstances Mandarin Chinese, so I don't think it's a coincidence that 太 is being pronounced with the 'tāi' pronunciation here-- or perhaps someone compiling the dictionary just mixed up 大 and 太, or their pronunciations?

The second anomaly is found in the entry '太魯閣大山' which is given the pronunciation 'Thāi-lóo-kooh-tuā-suann'. In this case, there is a '太' and a '大' in close proximity- one could have influenced the other or who knows what. A native Taiwanese speaker thought that the pronunciation was 'Thāi-lóo-kooh'-.

Anyway, I hypothesize that these pronunciations may not be 100% mistaken, but might potentially be reflective of some kind of 大/太 switch or other unusual situation. Some kind of explanation seems needed. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 04:56, 12 May 2019 (UTC)


 * I still have no explanation for this situation --Geographyinitiative (talk) 01:59, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Also "grand"?
Can "太" also be translated into English as "grand"? 173.88.246.138 03:48, 9 March 2023 (UTC)