Random Character of the Day

倭

wō

or わ 'wa' for the Japanese, this means 'dwarf' in Chinese, and turns up in the pejorative 倭寇 wōkòu 'Japanese pirate'. 倭 also refers to Japan and was in use as the name for Japan as far back as the 2nd cent. CE (according to Wikipedia). Interestingly, 倭 was not just a pejorative term for Japan used by Chinese people, it was likely also used for the phonetic reading of the character. What the 'wa' (or *ɁWâ, *ʔuɑi, *ʔwɑi depending on region and era) sound was a representation of is disputed, but one argument has it that it was the 'wa' of 我 ware/waga that Chinese people heard Japanese people speaking. A well known single-character name for Japan is 和 hé, used as an endonym to this day by Japanese people and pronounced 'wa' in kunyomi (yamato in onyomi, I believe, though I do not speak Japanese, so correct me if I'm wrong, that might be 大和). So, the rise in usage of 和 to refer to Japan is a direct response to the offensiveness of 倭.

Finally, we can in fact hear the echo of 倭 in English today, albeit through its euphemistic 和 form - it is the 'wa' of 'wagyu' beef (和牛) and the 'wa' of 'washi' paper (和紙).

奞

xùn

'to spread wings and fly', the 大 depicting the spreading of wings of the 隹 bird. Appearing in the common characters 奮 fen1 and 奪 duo2, the former drops the 隹 element in simplification to give 奋, while 奪 similarly becomes 夺. Interestingly, however, we can still see the original meaning of the 'spreading of wings' that was simplified from the seal script into 大 by looking at the character 翼 yi4 'to spread wing and fly'. Here the character could have been written with a 大 at the top, but instead a 羽 'feather' can be seen instead. 翼 interestingly feeds back into the series, as 奮 'rouse' came to acquire its meaning as an extension of the meaning of 翼 and a simplification of the original character.

The source for this is Defrancis' ABC, Key gives an alternative interpretation of 'stride of a man' for 奞. 季旭昇《說文新證》p293 (2010 ed.) says "奞字的‘大’似乎應該採取‘大小’義，‘奞’可能是大鳥，也有可能是鳥張大翅膀。" which seems to sit in accordance with Defrancis' interpretation.

I express my disappointment once more that Outlier Linguistics gave up on their 'Expert' dictionary, despite the rather vociferous criticisms made of other research in character etymology a few years ago. For those who cannot read at the level needed for 說文新證, there is so much fascinating information that remains inaccessible to so many students of the language.

On 9/20/2021 at 12:16 AM, Tomsima said:

(醺) I would guess it's certainly not as rare as most of the previous characters posted.

Well it took me 4 years to bump into this character again, so perhaps not so common in Mandarin, but apparently it is common in Cantonese, turning up in Lau's 'Intermediate Cantonese' textbook in the phrase 醉醺醺 (chapter 24).

鼉

tuó

Listening to a recent speech by William Baxter, I learned that the top of this character ('Chinese alligator') is actually the phonetic 單. Baxter and Sagart's reconstruction explains:

*[d]‌ʕar > *dʕaj > da > tuó, ‘alligator’; also read *[d]ʕar > *dʕan > dan

Essentially an original 'da' (or 'dar', 'ta') gives the modern 'tuo'. In his entry for this character, DeFrancis draws comparisons with:

鱓  tuó alligator

蟬 chán cicada

The 單 component is in fact connected with the character for beast 獸, which was originally simply written 嘼, perhaps explaining why this phonetic is preferred for animal-related compounds (the phonetic reinforcing/clarifying the semantic).

炅 guì 

Just a name (one of the myriad 'sunny' ones given to boys). Don't think I've ever encountered this particular form before. 

I recall happening upon this in a book on Qing dynasty revolutionaries a while back, also part of a male name in that instance.

賃

lin4

an older character meaning 'to rent'. Interestingly the modern Mandarin doesn't show the phonetic 任 ren4 clearly, but the Cantonese does: 任 jam6, 賃 jam6. 

It's used every day in many ways in Japanese. 賃 (pronounced "chin"...) is used in situations in involving acts like rent, rent out lease, pay  S. O. for (doing) something, fare, fees, wages, etc.

Common, everyday words include: 家賃 (yachin) rent on a house or apartment; 賃貸 (chintai) rent, rent out, lease (residential or commercial) property, etc.

As I'm used to an enormous amount of commonality, re-use, overlap, and consistency in character (漢字) use between the two languages, I'm surprised at the comments above. Only a few words come to mind 租赁汽车 (rent-a-car), for example, but...

Just sayin'...

TBZ

@TheBigZaboon what were the comments that surprised you? Was it that the character of the day is usually a 冷僻字?  租賃 is indeed fairly common in Chinese, but it was a good example that came to mind of the phonetic component playing varying degrees of usefulness across Chinese languages - and indeed Japanese too!

I'm afraid I simply misinterpreted your English. I thought you were sayin' that as an "older" character it doesn't occur much in modern Mandarin, which was contrary to my experience...

Sorreeee, my bad... (Very bad...)...

TBZ