lingo question

[pest]

Hello everyone
I have next to no skill with the chinese language, all I know is the few words used in class. The form 18 elders (forgive the horible spelling) is "sup baat sao" I heard palm or hand reffered to as "sao" and Im thinking 18 is "sup baat" translated would that mean 18 hands/palms rather then elders? what is the chinese word for elders?

Can anyone give some insite to this?
~Pest

[blooming lotus]

the word for 8 is baa- 10 is shi' ( sher) so eighteen is shi baa

I'd have to ask someone for the other translation, but if no-one else responds, I'll get back to you on it.

Cheers

BL

Ps: is that correct spelling as you have it??


ao - sounds like "or"
maybe it's ser ba sor ( for crude chinglish) ????

[Serpent]

No, Eyebrows, even with your genius language skills you fail to recognise dialects.

Sup baat sau is Cantonese for 18 hands. You're talking about Mandarin (shi baa).

So yes, sup baat sau is 18 Hands. Palm would be jeurng, but sometimes sau and jeurng are interchangable. Usually, however, jeurng only applies to palm (i.e. fut jeurng - buddha palm). Sau is 'hand' more generally speaking.

[blooming lotus]

now we're talking contribution ;)

[LawClansman]

Greetings,
Sup Baat Sao (the form) is not 18 hands. In other words the Sao is not the character for hand (see attached). So we normally translate it as 18 elders.
Although they sound the same 18 hands / 18 elders they are not the same.

Also in our style there are 18 types of palming techniques called 18 palms or sometimes 18 hands (adding to the confusion). but this refers to a breakdown of techniques found within the style and not the 18 elders form.

[MantisCool]

In the early days, Sup Baat Sao is written as 18 hands but the other meaning for Sao with the same intonation but different character is "elder".

It was felt that elder is more appropriate than hands since the mantis art came from the combination of the 18 styles. Therefore, eventually it is now known as 18 elders.

[Serpent]

Great stuff - thanks for the clarification.

[blooming lotus]

Originally posted by blooming lotus
the word for 8 is baa- 10 is shi' ( sher) so eighteen is shi baa

I'd have to ask someone for the other translation, but if no-one else responds, I'll get back to you on it.

Cheers

BL

Ps: is that correct spelling as you have it??


ao - sounds like "or"
maybe it's ser ba sor ( for crude chinglish) ????

I could let this go and hope noone noticed, but being an honest stiff, really I was thinking of uo sounding as or and ao is sounded oh.

Sorry folks :o ;)

[German Bai Lung]

The problem is the Transcription of the chinese Characters!
For Mandarin / Han Yu there is Pin Yin. Although Pin Yin is not the best Transcription is most of the time the standard. So everyone can work with the same Transcription.

For Cantonese there are many different semiofficial Transcription (for me the best is Yale). But most of the time everyone uses a different one. So noone really knows what the otherone is talking about! ;)

At least exactly chinese language is only possible with the chinese characters .... best example is: "Sap Baat Sau - 18 wise men" :D

[blooming lotus]

a member a short bit back told us he's working on a book for chinese gongfu lingo translation. chomping to read the end product. no doubt not alone. :cool:

til then

[pest]

Thank you everone for the help it definatly helped me alot :D

~Pest

[holymantis]

hello all .
i know the set as 18 hands .
which it's been called for the last 19 years with me .
but i have heard it called 18 elders too sometimes.


holymantis:D :D

[MantisifuFW]

In the older versions of WHF's combined book Chop Choi Kuen, Sup Baat Sao Kuen and Dou Gang Kuen (no date in the book) he states in his introduction that the set is known as Eighteen Elders Fist. He states that there is such similarity between the Sao-hand and Sao-Elder resulted in there being confusion on the actual meaning.

Hope it helps,

Steve Cottrell

ps. I have returned to trying to finish the book on Chinese. I have been so busy with this term's Quarterly, (which is REALLY good, no bias here), that I had to suspend work on it. Still hoping for November!

[blooming lotus]

sweet as babes! :)

late is much better than never! :p :D :cool: :)

[MantisCool]

Hi! Steve

The originals were written in the 1953 whereas the combined was published in 1974 or 76 after his death by his son i suppose.

Attached the original cover of Dou Gang Set. The book is only half the size of later books published.

[blooming lotus]

THat is extremely cool. I think during that time the japan-sino war was happening right? It makes sense he would've penned it then, and we'll look forward to hearing anything we might miss elsewhere.

cheers

[MantisifuFW]

Mantiscool,

Excellent! Thank you for providing that example. I have one with the same style cover that is a combination as I mentioned above. I also have a Duo Gang/Sup Baat Sao combination book from 1997! I acutally thought Yimei Publications had gone under long before that. You dont' happen to know if the company is still in business do you? I had heard they had closed and all that was out there was some books in storage areas and stores, (and some knock offs in Taiwan of course).

Anyway, the newer books do not have the introduction that the older ones do.

Thank you for sharing Mantiscool,

Steve Cottrell

[Neckbones]

Not to harp on semantics, but isn't the Cantonese translation of Sup Baht Sao 18 Ancestors?

[Neckbones]

Nevermind to my last post. I did a search on Sup Baht Sao. In case you were interested here is a link to the form.
Sup Baht Sao (http://www.northernmantis.com/supbahtsao.html)

[blooming lotus]

there's another discussion going on in another thread about the exact same style would you believe.... I think the thread is " lingo question" ...

they'd appreciate your input so feel free to visit it. ;)

[Serpent]

Hey Eyebrows - put down the bottle and have a look at the title of this thread.

:rolleyes:

[MantisCool]

I am sorry! I rechecked my book and infact the combination was published in 1968 and not 1974 or 76 as I have mentioned. It was before WHF's death and by his son.

My copy was from my sifu who acquired it from WHF in the 50's and I dont think we can find it from any bookstore already.

Attached is a Dou Gang explanation in mandarin from Wei Hong Sing, the first graduate of WHF.

[blooming lotus]

Originally posted by Serpent
Hey Eyebrows - put down the bottle and have a look at the title of this thread.

:rolleyes:

I knew that thread was around here somewhere

:rolleyes:

just went back and rechecked, meant the nth mantis thread on 7* forms.

;)

[blooming lotus]

Originally posted by MantisCool
I am sorry! I rechecked my book and infact the combination was published in 1968 and not 1974 or 76 as I have mentioned. It was before WHF's death and by his son.

My copy was from my sifu who acquired it from WHF in the 50's and I dont think we can find it from any bookstore already.

Attached is a Dou Gang explanation in mandarin from Wei Hong Sing, the first graduate of WHF.

and in the combined edition is there much not printed from the original two?

[puja]

One question in between:
If "Sup Baht Sao" translates to 18 Elders (or wise men or ancestors, imho all the same) then the mandarin for it wouldn't be "Shi Ba Shou", would it?
Can someone give me the right mandarin translation? (Shi Ba ?)

Best Regards,

Puja

[Neckbones]

Shi = 10
ba = 8

[puja]

Neckbones, this was what I already knew.
My question, which btw has been already answered on pm, was how you transalte Sao (Elders) to mandarin.
So i was told it should be "Shi Ba Sou"

regards,

Puja

[Neckbones]

Sao does not mean elders. Sao is the cantonese word for hand. The mandarin word for hand is shou. But, I think elder is zhang. Ancestor might be bei. Hope this helps. I might be getting the two mixed up.

[pest]

Thank you all again for replying, its very helpful and inspiring :)

I may be completly wrong on this but I thought "zhang" was elbow and "bei" was northern :confused:

LawClansman mentioned that there is 18 palming techniques threw out the system not in 18 elders. Is there 18 hand techniques in the form, one for each of the 18 systems?

Dose anyone know who wrote the form and when?

Thanks again,
~Pest

[German Bai Lung]

Neckbone and Pest,

please do me a favour and read the Thread completly instead of asking thinks twice! :rolleyes: Sorry, couldn´t resist!

To get this clear (again): the chinese words in our transcription are not necessary translated with only ONE meaning! Sau could be HAND or it could be ELDER/ANCESTOR. So, for every word (Sau, Bei, Zhang etc) there are numerous translations. The only way to get the right meaning is the chinese character!!! (And even the characters got sometimes more than one menaing!)

[MantisCool]

Hi! Puja

You are right! The word should be written as Shi Ba Sou in pinyin. if it is written as Shi Ba Shou it means 18 hand. I think the sound is almost the same but pronounced without the letter 'h".