Google (穀歌)

Google’s ‘old dog’ taught Chinese tricks (from Ars). Apparently Google in Chinese is written as 古狗 [gu gou] (literally translates to old/ancient dog). Not wanting to sound old and unhip, they renamed themselves to 穀歌 [gu ge]. They say this means ‘harvest song’, but literally, it translates to grain song, which I guess is close enough.

Speaking about Chinese characters and the Cantonese Dialect, I had an interesting discussion with someone through email recently:

I had lunch over at Chan’s café on 152nd the other day, and I noticed that both the sign on the front of the building and the menu had the characters:

食好D

Now the first two I know from studying Japanese, so I asked the waitress what the significance of the D is. She seemed to have trouble trying to explain it in English, but as far as I could understand, the way the D would be pronounced was a homonym for some word specifically in Cantonese. So can anyone explain what word the D is supposed to represent, what character it would be, and are there any other connotations of using a roman letter there?

Thanks,
Matt

D is used because there isn’t really an official standard written Chinese character for this Cantonese word, but some people write it as 啲. The meaning of 啲 corresponds to the standard written Chinese word 些. Also, Cantonese uses 食 instead of 吃 for the verb ‘to eat’. So 食好D essentially means 吃好(一)些 (meaning: eat a little better) in standard written Chinese.

-Clyde

Another way of saying it is: 食好一D. You can also see it as 吃好一點 (chi hao yi dian). I think that’s where the D sound comes from.

//Toland (^_^x)

Actually, there is a slight difference in meaning between 點 and 些. The usage D corresponds more to 些 (in all cases where D is used, 些 can be substituted, but the same cannot be said for 點). Also, linguistically the D sound is more likely derived from 的 rather than 點.

-Clyde

I was wondering in which cases you were thinking about where 些 would work but not 點. And as you noted, 啲 isn’t actually a real character. The way that word was created was because it sounded like 的, and hence adding the mouth in front of it. Most words that have that aspect have nothing in common with the word they use. This is the case where the character was derived from the sound, and not the meaning.

Although I agree, that 些 can be used in place of 點.

//Toland (^_^x)

Here’s one example where the use of 些 is much more preferable over 點:

Cantonese: 嗰啲人 (meaning: those people)

Standard written Chinese: 那些人 (那點人 is only marginally acceptable by some speakers)

One piece of evidence indicating that 啲 [di] is more likely derived from 的 [dik] rather than 點 [dim] is the use of this Cantonese phrase: 的咁多 [dik gam do] (meaning: only a bit so much), which corresponds to the standard Chinese 一些那麼多. 的咁多 can also be spoken as 啲咁多 [di gam do]. If 啲 was instead derived from點, then *點咁多 [*dim gam do] would be possible, but it’s not.

Note that the usage of the character 的 itself as a particle is only a recent invention. The written character 的 was co-opted during the language reforms of the early 20th century to represent this particle. So when I say that 啲 is derived from 的, what I really mean is that it’s derived from the particle that 的 now represents. In Mandarin, this particle evolved into the possessive particle that is now familiar in standard written Chinese; in Cantonese, it evolved into the indefinite plural measure word 啲. Another thing that strengthens this connection is the fact that all measure words in Cantonese can also be used as possessive particles.

-Clyde

You are right 些 would work better in those cases, but I don’t think your argument about D coming from 的咁多 exactly works, since the 的 in there doesn’t exactly carry the original meaning. Instead, just like 啲, it appears to just be phonetic.

I was looking up origin information for the word, but didn’t find much:

啲 – Wiktionary
Cantonese (linguistics)

Many characters used in colloquial Cantonese writings are made up by putting a mouth radical (口) on the left hand side of another more well known character to indicate that the character is read like the right hand side, but it is only used phonetically in the Cantonese context. The characters [2] 㗎, 叻, 吓, 吔, 呃, 咁, 咗, 咩, 哂, 哋, 唔, 唥, 唧, 啱, 啲, 喐, 喥, 喺, 嗰, 嘅, 嘜, 嘞, 嘢, 嘥, 嚟, 嚡, 嚿, 囖 etc. are commonly used in Cantonese writing. As not all Cantonese words can be found in current encoding system, or the users simply don’t know how to enter such characters on the computer, in very informal speech, Cantonese tends to use extremely simple romanization (e.g. use D as 啲), symbols (add an English letter “o” in front of another Chinese character; e.g. 㗎 is defined in Unicode, but will not display in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0. hence the proxy o架 is often used), homophones (e.g. use 果 as 嗰), and Chinese character of different Mandarin meaning (e.g. 乜, 係, 俾 etc.) to compose a message. For example, “你喺嗰喥好喇, 千祈咪搞佢啲嘢。” is often written in easier form as “你o係果度好喇, 千祈咪搞佢D野。” (character-by-character, approximately ‘you, being, there (two characters), good, (final particle), thousand, pray, don’t, mess with, him/her, (genitive particle), things’, translation ‘You’d better stay there, and please don’t mess with his/her stuff.’)

Language is a funny thing and definitely a living thing. 的 (meaning wise) would never work in any of the examples listed. Even in 的咁多, as I mentioned, it’s only used as a sound and not the meaning. If you’ve ever tried to teach your Chinese speaking parent English, you’ll notice for words they can’t enunciate, they’ll write in a string of Chinese characters that make similar sounds (just like 的咁). If I had to make a guess on the origin of 啲, it’d still be 點, but after its usage became common in everyday speech, it just took off on its own and got inserted into other areas where the original character didn’t. 些 just happened to better match its old and new usage better than the original.

Another point I’d like to make is that D is half of 點 [dim], which is really pronounced more like di-mm. People get lazy and drop off the mm and what we end up with is D. The same doesn’t work with 的 [dik], dropping of the k sound doesn’t leave you with D.

//Toland (^_^x)

since the 的 in there doesn’t exactly carry the original meaning

However, the particle that 的 represents in 的咁多 does carry what I assert to be the original meaning, which is an indefinite plural measure word (basically the same as the modern 些), not to be confused with the meaning that 的 currently has in modern standard written Chinese, which is not the original meaning.

的 (meaning wise) would never work in any of the examples listed

I think you’re again confusing the meaning of 的 in modern Chinese with the meaning of the historical particle that I’m asserting. The historical meaning, which is the indefinite plural possessive (since all measure words in Cantonese, and probably the historical dialect(s), can be used as possessive particles), would work in that example (though actually the modern meaning of的 would work there too, since a general possessive sense would work too).

Here’s the relationship I’m asserting for this theorized historical particle, which I will call D:

• Particle D: pronounced with a -k coda; used as indefinite plural measure word or indefinite plural possessive particle (because all measure words can be possessive particles)
  • Mandarin/Standard Chinese: lost -k coda; used as general possessive particle only (because no measure words can be possessive particles); represented as 的
  • Cantonese: retains -k coda in limited contexts; used as indefinite plural measure word or indefinite plural possessive particle (because all measure words can be possessive particles); represented as 啲

There is another word that has a similar history, which is the character written as 個 in modern Chinese. For this particle, we have another data point, which comes from Shanghainese. I will call its theorized historical equivalent particle G.

• Particle G: used as definite measure word or definite possessive particle (because all measure words can be possessive particles)
  • Mandarin/Standard Chinese: used as measure word only (because no measure words can be possessive particles); represented as 個
  • Shanghainese: used as general possessive particle only (because no measure words can be possessive particles); represented as 個
  • Cantonese: used as definite measure word or definite/general possessive particle (because all measure words can be possessive particles); represented as 個 when pronounced as [go3] and used as measure word or definite possessive; represented using 嘅 when pronounced as [ge3] and used as a general possessive

The general possessive meaning of 的 in Mandarin and 個/嘅 in Shanghainese/Cantonese were likely spawned off from the plural and definite possessive uses in historical particles D and G, respectively.

they’ll write in a string of Chinese characters that make similar sounds (just like 的咁)

That is true for many cases, but not for all. Take for instance, the Cantonese word 卒之 (meaning “finally”), which does not exist in standard written Chinese, but is etymologically accurate since it uses the Classical Chinese meaning of 卒, which is “final”. The 的 in 的咁多 is most likely not arbitrary either, especially since it matches up exactly with the indefinite plural measure word usage.

The same doesn’t work with 的 [dik], dropping of the k sound doesn’t leave you with D.

However, I gave an example where such a dropping of the -k coda does give the D sound. Namely 的咁多, which can be pronounced [dik gam do] or [di gam do]. In addition, the tone of 啲 matches 的 (both are high level) better than the tone of 點 (mid-to-high rising).

Anyway, this is of course all conjecture since we can’t necessarily go back in time and see how people spoke. In addition, the various dialects that have been around during Chinese history were never really written down until recent history when Mandarin became the basis of standard written Chinese. Before then, everything was written in Classical Chinese, which is even older than the hypothetical historical dialect(s) I base particles D and G on.

Although it seems like 點 is an obvious derivation of 啲, the other pieces I cited (closer meaning to 些; pronunciation of 的咁多; parallelisms in the evolution of particles D and G) make be tend to believe that 的 is the better candidate.

-Clyde

Interesting… I didn’t know that 的 had an ancient usage that’s no longer in today’s language.

//Toland (^_^x)

I’m still not convinced that 啲 originated from 的, besides phonetically wise. I believe both 啲 and 的 both originated from another word that is either no longer in use or the origin has been forgotten. I still think 點 has a high probability of being the origin. If anyone has any comments or insight to this, I’d be very interested in knowing.