Re: OT: Junk
| From: | H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, September 9, 2003, 13:37 |
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On Tue, Sep 09, 2003 at 11:34:41AM +0200, Andreas Johansson wrote:
> I was recently told that "junk" is the general Chinese term for "ship".
That's a new one.
> I thought this would be the best forum I've got access to to learn i) if
> that's true, ii) if so, do the Chinese have a special term for the
> ship-types we westerners call "junks" and iii) from what kind of Chinese
> is the word "junk" derived - it does not look much Mandarinesque.
[snip]
I've no idea if it's true. The common word for ship or boat is /chuan2/.
An archaic term is /chou1/, but I've only ever seen it used to translate
"ark". Neither looks particularly similar to "junk".
Somebody with a better Mandarin education should speak up. :-P
T
--
"How are you doing?" "Doing what?"
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