User talk:Justinrleung/Archive 22

Template:defdate and JA entries
Hello, re:, per some discussion at Talk:結び with , the beginning of the line made more sense to us. This information is much like the label info; subjectively, it's much easier for me to skim past stuff at the beginning if I don't want it, than to have to hunt for additional metadata at the end of a line, which is almost always in a visually different place due to differences in the length of each line. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 04:13, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Alright then. Just a few things to note though. 1) This is different from other languages. I guess it's fine if JA editors are good with it. 2) usually specifies the entire range when the sense is attested rather than the date of first attestation. Again, if JA editors agree that it's how it's used, I won't have much to say. That said, the documentation for this template contradicts the consensus of JA editors. I think this needs to be documented somewhere. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 05:11, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

久
Just so you know, I created the dialect table for this some time back. Please fill up what you know when you have the time. Thanks. The dog2 (talk) 14:41, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks. It's hard to find stuff on this one. I don't think it's usually part of the field work / investigation that people do for some reason. I'm guess it's because most dialects use 久. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 16:28, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Cantonese doesn't though. The dog2 (talk) 16:29, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
 * True. But I think every other dialect uses 久. Even Taishanese uses 久. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 16:32, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Module:zh/data/dial-syn/東西
Not sure how to handle some Cantonese 方言點s. Can you please take a look? Thanks. RcAlex36 (talk)
 * I've treated them as 閒嘢 for now. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 23:05, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Reversed Chao tone letters are IPA after all
Hi Justin,

Re Template_talk:IPA, I never felt I had the time to devote to a new debate at the Beer Parlour. But in the meantime I discovered that the reversed Chao tone letters, ⟨꜒ ꜓ ꜔ ꜕ ꜖⟩, are IPA after all. They were adopted at the 1989 Kiel Convention, and described in its Report (available at JSTOR), specifically as part of establishing a more nuanced method of transcribing tone. Staveless Chao letter were already part of the IPA, and it was only the stave that was introduced in 1989, and then only as an option. Staveless letters don't have Unicode support, though, so they're irrelevant for us. The right-facing letters don't appear on the Chart, but then neither do most contour tones, even ones that occur in the Handbook. The Chart isn't the entire IPA. As the editor of the Report notes in an added comment, there are therefore 6 ways to indicate tone with Chao tone letters in the IPA: left-facing staved, right-facing staved and traditional staveless, all either before or after the word or syllable. kwami (talk) 22:21, 14 June 2020 (UTC)


 * I read the report and I'm having trouble understanding a line: "narrow phonetic marks should precede the line and broad/phonological marks follow the reference line". Does this mean we would have the "phonological/citation" tone after the vertical line and the "phonetic" tone before? This seems to be different from common practice, where the phonetic tone would be put after the vertical line. Also, how binding are the decisions made in 1989? There have been subsequent revisions of the IPA. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 22:37, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

AFAIK you're correct that the recommended narrow-vs-broad distinction was never implemented, but it was just a recommendation. There have been other recommendations of IPA usage that haven't taken hold. I don't see any problem with following common convention, as long as we unambiguously explain what we're doing in any key. My point was that the objection that our IPA conventions aren't really IPA was spurious -- they are. As for how binding the Kiel Convention remains, AFAICT no changes have been made to IPA tone notation since, so it should stand in its entirety. The key in my mind, though, is that officially [e] with an extra-high tone could be transcribed ⟨˥e⟩, ⟨꜒e⟩, ⟨¯e⟩, ⟨e˥⟩, ⟨e꜒⟩, ⟨e¯⟩, at the choice of the transcriber. (The staveless letters don't have Unicode support, though, something that the IPA is currently drafting a response to.) kwami (talk) 22:56, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

食 vs 啜 in Hainanese
Just so you know, I've been to Wenchang, and people definitely said 食湯 or 食茶. The dog2 (talk) 05:06, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
 * That's just visiting, right? I'm not doubting what you remember, but since you're not a native speaker, I don't think I can trust your judgment on what's more common. 海南省志 人口志 方言志 宗教志 only lists 啜. 海南方言研究 has 食茶, 食酒 and 啜酒. Perhaps it has to do with what they're drinking, but I don't think it's necessarily more common. Also 啜 seems to be more specific for drinking. I don't think there's a need to list the synonyms differently from Haikou. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 05:20, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
 * OK. And by the way, in the context of Hainanese speakers in Singapore, 啜 is understood but extremely rare; everyone just uses 食. You are right though that 啜 refers specifically to drinking, while 食 refers to both eating and drinking. The dog2 (talk) 16:54, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

事件
I'm not sure why someone in Mozambique is adding Min Nan dialectal information (the only edit from that ISP that isn't stray characters or vandalism), but it triggered a module error. Could you take a look at it? Chuck Entz (talk) 17:07, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Reverted. It's not POJ, and it's not for the right entry. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 23:03, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

拄 vs 堵
How should we handle this? While I agree with you that they're probably etymologically related, 拄 is not pronounced du2 in Teochew, while 堵 is not pronounced tú in Hokkien. The corresponding pronunciations are zu2 and tó͘ respectively. The dog2 (talk) 20:01, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
 * 拄 should be the 本字, but maybe it's unclear. I think we could change it back to 堵... Taiwanese Hakka seems to use 堵 too. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 20:45, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Hainanese 欲 vs 要
To give you proper context, in Hainanese, you use 欲 (pronounced beh) before a verb, and 要 (pronounced yoh) before a noun. For instance, if you want to say "I want to drink tea.", it's "我欲食茶. ". But if you want to say "I want tea.", it's "我要茶. ". The dog2 (talk) 01:33, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Yup, I think I understood the contexts, but I didn't know if 欲 was beh or ioh. There seems to be beh (要), ioh (欲) and io (要) in Wenchang. I'm wondering if you have proof of beh in Wenchang used for "want". My sources have beh, but it only glosses it as "if". — justin(r)leung { (t...) 03:43, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Actually I found beh "want" in 海南方言研究 p. 158. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 03:58, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
 * If you still want it, I can give you an example from a video.
 * And by the way, I also recently created more dialect tables, and a few more other entries, if you want to add to them. The dog2 (talk) 05:11, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Regarding "shut up"
Since you said that 住口 and 恬 should not be listed as interjections, shouldn't the same rule apply to 收聲 then? After all, 收聲 is just the Cantonese equivalent of 住口. The dog2 (talk) 15:35, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Yup, thanks, I've removed the interjection sense. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 18:56, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

困難
I wonder if we should have a dialect table for this. If I'm not wrong it's just 難 in Cantonese. In Singaporean Hokkien, it's 深, but I think they use a different work in Taiwan. And I think it's 惡 in Teochew and Hainanese. The dog2 (talk) 04:45, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
 * It could also be just 難 in Mandarin. I could start one. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 05:07, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay, it's made. Just one thing, though - is 深 "difficult" or is it more like 深奧? — justin(r)leung { (t...) 05:19, 6 July 2020 (UTC)


 * In Singapore, it tends to be used colloquially to mean "difficult". It can also have the other meaning though. But it's only used in the context of academic topics. Not physical tasks. I don't know if that makes sense. The dog2 (talk) 05:26, 6 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I thought so. That's basically the same as in Cantonese (and I think Mandarin). I don't think it should be in 難, which is more general. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 05:30, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

冇 vs 無 for Cantonese
I was just wondering, why did you guys choose to use 冇 as the Cantonese character? I though 無 would probably the 本字, and there is a pattern of many characters that are pronounced "wu" in Mandarin and "mou" in Cantonese, such as 舞,武 and 霧. The dog2 (talk) 23:42, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Tone matters! 冇 is mou5 (陽上聲), but 無 is mou4 (陽平聲). It's very likely that 冇 is 無 with some sort of influence from 有 (jau5), either by contraction or by analogy. This means it's not clear that 無 is the 本字. Also, looking for 本字 should not just be done via comparison with contemporary dialects but also with historical pronunciation. Finally, 冇 is the most common way it's written. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 00:29, 7 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Personally I think that 毋 vs. 唔 is a larger problem/question. —Suzukaze-c (talk) 02:57, 7 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Yeah. The biggest problem is the choice of characters is usually regional rather than topolectal: 唔 in Guangdong/HK/Macau, 毋 in Taiwan and 伓 in Fujian. It's unclear whether 唔 in Teochew is actually related to 唔 in Cantonese, though. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 03:49, 7 July 2020 (UTC)


 * There's no doubt that 毋 in Hokkien and 唔 in Teochew are etymologically related though. The dog2 (talk) 03:50, 7 July 2020 (UTC)


 * It's pretty clear, but no one writes Teochew 唔 as 毋. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 03:53, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Dialectal table for 每次
Just so you know, I've created this dialectal table (and I've also created and updated several others recently). I entered the POJ version for Penang Hokkien, but please update if you know the characters. The dog2 (talk) 18:25, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I'll check it out. Just as a note though, please do not put in POJ unless we have to. Just leave it as a comment in the module if you're not sure what the character is. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 19:10, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Point noted. And by the way, you might want to look at the dialectal table for 燈 as well. I created it quite some time ago, but it's still lacking many entries.
 * 燈 is a little tricky because I don't think it's usually included in the dialectal dictionaries/surveys (as a standalone word). I'll have to take a look. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 21:29, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

老外
I'm not exactly sure about this one, but in the context of Singapore, even though 外國佬 can technically refer to any foreigner, more often than not it is used to specifically refer to white people. What I know about 老外 though is that it is not used to refer to an overseas Chinese, so it doesn't apply to someone like me, even though I'm technically a foreigner when I'm in China. The dog2 (talk) 01:33, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, these terms often do not apply to people of Chinese descent. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 02:23, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Looking at Module:zh/data/dial-syn/外國人, one can get an impression that is not used in Beijing but common in other major Mandarin speaking areas. I don't think it's correct. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 03:11, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't have a good source for Beijing that lists non-dialectal terms with dialect-specific terms. It's like that for a lot of words. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 03:13, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I suspected it could be the reason. In most cases formal Written Standard Chinese applies to Beijing as well, especially for very common words like this. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 03:18, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

榴蓮
Hey there. I tried to replace the content of the page with but it triggered the spam filter. I think we should just redirect all the variants to the standard characters so it is less cumbersome to maintain the entries (eg. if people want to add pronunciations in other dialects). Could you please give me the rights to do that? The dog2 (talk) 17:03, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I changed it. I'm not sure why it triggered the spam filter. Did you forget to include the language header? — justin(r)leung { (t...) 18:10, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
 * No. I definitely remembered to include it. The spam filer came up with something like "no L3". The dog2 (talk) 18:11, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I see. I guess it's supposed to be there to safeguard other entries that usually have a level 3 header., is there a way to exempt these kinds of edits from the spam filter? — justin(r)leung { (t...) 18:18, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Looking at the abuse log, here's the filter that was triggered. I've added an exception that allows the level-three header to be removed if or  is present, because they don't always have a L3 header above them (if the entry they are linking to has multiple parts of speech). — Eru·tuon 21:36, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Nipple in Singapore Hokkien
In Singapore Hokkien, the word is kind of crude, but it's pronounce something like "neh neh pok", and that was the way I saw people writing it from a Google search. The dog2 (talk) 16:27, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Any examples? It's not clear from my Google search. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 03:40, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
 * It's a pretty crude word, so it's hard to find videos of it. More often than not, you'll hear young boys saying it while being rascals. But you can find it on the Wikipedia page on Singlish. The dog2 (talk) 03:55, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
 * What I meant to ask was if you had examples of what you saw in your Google search. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 04:17, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry. This is another page but it seems to have been lifted from an earlier version of the page from Wikipedia. And another  quora posting here. The dog2 (talk) 04:21, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Maybe we should write "pok" as 噗 (based on 臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典)? Is the "p" aspirated? — justin(r)leung { (t...) 07:14, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
 * No, the p is not aspirated. The dog2 (talk) 07:18, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
 * (Is there a relation to 奶奶波波 /nɛ nɛ pok pok/ "breasts" in Namewee's "PAPAPA"? —Suzukaze-c (talk) 02:36, 19 July 2020 (UTC))
 * Yeah, it's the same thing. I don't think it's written out that often though, so different people may write it with different characters. The dog2 (talk) 02:58, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Regarding creating chengyu articles
I was just wondering, when should I auto-import the Cantonese pronunciation, and when should I not. I studied most of my chengyu in Mandarin, so often, I'm not sure if the chengyu is used in Cantonese. The dog2 (talk) 00:11, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
 * The Cantonese that comes up automatically with is from other sources (Cantodict and CC-Canto), which are mostly reliable. They are not auto-generated by concatenation of the individual characters' pronunciations. Chengyu are in a "higher" register, which means they are most likely used (or readable) in Cantonese. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 00:22, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I see. But to your point on being in a "higher" register, all chengyu can be read in Hokkien by just following the 文讀音, which is what people do when reading Tang and Song poetry or other classical Chinese texts. Whether or not it actually makes sense in speech is a different issue. For instance, you can in theory read 好吃懶做 in Hokkien, but in practice, people will use something like "食飯用碗公，做代誌閃西風" instead. The dog2 (talk) 01:03, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
 * It seems like Hokkien isn't as accepting as Cantonese of "loans" from standard Chinese. In Hong Kong and Macau (and even Guangdong, I think), things written in Standard Chinese can be read in Cantonese character for character (e.g. 我們是朋友 = ngo5 mun4 si6 pang4 jau5), but in Hokkien, this is generally unacceptable (especially in Taiwan) and would require some translation to be read out (e.g. 我們是朋友 would be read guán sī pêng-iú rather than ngó͘--bûn sī pêng-iú). — justin(r)leung { (t...) 01:51, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

楞 and 愩
How do you think we should treat this? I know we generally give precedence to the Taiwanese Hokkien characters, but in this case, it seems that the Teochew character is the more logical one to choose if we merge these (since 愩 also has the "right" phonetic component). The dog2 (talk) 15:54, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Perhaps we should keep them separate. 楞 in Hokkien has a voiced /ɡ/, but 愩 in Teochew has a voiceless /k/. They're likely related, but it's not clear. 楞 in Hokkien could also be written 昂 per 台日大辭典. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 20:03, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Resources on dialects of Singapore
Do you have any good resources on dialects spoken in Singapore (Hokkien, Teochew and Cantonese)? RcAlex36 (talk) 18:45, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't have any on Singaporean Cantonese - these have only be added by The dog2, I think. For Singaporean Hokkien, there's 新加坡闽南话概说, 新加坡闽南话词典, Minnan (Hokkien) botanical names used in Singapore and Minnan (Hokkien) animal names used in Singapore. For Singaporean Teochew, there's a thesis (A sketch grammar of Singapore Teochew). For things in the wild, the Singaporean government has some stuff on their YouTube channel, and there's also a Singaporean Teochew channel by Allan Tan (although he also reposts stuff from the Chaoshan region). — justin(r)leung { (t...) 19:57, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
 * A lot of what I added is just based on what I have heard when my parents speak to their Cantonese-speaking friends and relatives. This website has information about Singaporean Hokkien, Teochew and Cantonese, and the aforementioned Singapore government YouTube channel has some shows for the elderly that feature some Cantonese dialogue, though of course, there is a lot more Hokkien dialogue because there are more Hokkien speakers in Singapore. The dog2 (talk) 21:21, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Here's another YouTube channel with information about Singaporean Teochew, but it hasn't been updated in years. The dog2 (talk) 21:38, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot. RcAlex36 (talk) 11:38, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

夜 vs 暝
Just so you know, Teochew speakers typically pronounce 夜 as 暝. This is what they call 訓讀音 in Teochew, meaning that one character is pronounced as another with the same meaning. For instance, 夜市 will be pronounced as 暝市 by a Teochew speaker. And if you ever listen to Teochew pop music, whenever 夜 appears in lyrics, the singer will always pronounce it as 暝. The dog2 (talk) 00:44, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Yup, I'm aware of this. It actually happens in other varieties of Min as well. It's very common in Hainanese and is not uncommon in Hokkien as well. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 01:15, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Speaking of which, should we have a dialect table for 夜 as a counter word? The dog2 (talk) 06:03, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Yup, we probably should. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 06:04, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
 * 夜豐頌! —Suzukaze-c (talk) 22:28, 24 July 2020 (UTC)