Unusual Chinese Characters
That’s right, there is a single-syllable word in Chinese that means “to sell e.g. one’s own child during e.g. a famine,” and in a delicious little irony, it’s derived from 粥 “gruel” which makes it cognate to 育, “bear/raise children.”
If you thought you knew everything there is to express in the Chinese language, Bokane’s latest post will probably enlighten you. It’s a delicious trek through linguistics and the derivation of characters as seen through a modern non-native viewpoint. Warning: salient language ahead.
This entry was posted on Sunday, September 3rd, 2006 at 11:58 pm and is tagged with syllable word, gruel, chinese language, chinese characters, derivation, famine, linguistics, irony, viewpoint, trek. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback.
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