Can anyone post all the kinship terms for kung fu schools or clans like "hing dai", "si hing", "si mu", etc.?
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Can anyone post all the kinship terms for kung fu schools or clans like "hing dai", "si hing", "si mu", etc.?
Sigung = Grandmaster/teacher's teacher
Sifu = Master/teacher
Sibaak = Senior Uncle
Siguma = Senior Aunt
Sisuk = Junior Uncle
Siguje = Junior Aunt
Sihing = Senior Brother
Sijeh = Senior Sister
Simui = Junior Sister
Sidai = Junior Brother
Toudai = Student/indoor student
Tousyunneui = Female Grandstudent
Tousyun = Male Grandstudent
These are the ones I know of, plus the two at the bottom are from a reference I found on the web.
Hing dai - the hing is the same hing in sihing (兄) which means elder brother. The dai means 'big' (大), which adds more respect to the term. Sometimes you might hear it as dai sihing. The meaning is more or less the same.
Simu - the mu, usually pronounced mou in Cantonese (母), means mother. This is the term you use to address the wife of your Sifu. However, a female Sifu is still addresses as Sifu, not Simou. Her husband is also addresses as Sifu. I think that's a Confucian thing.
Gene-I was taught that Hing as in older, Dai-as in younger (Si-dai) Different character for dai. therefore Hing-dai is fellow training brothers,
Ji-Mui fellow training sisters.
So are there two different Hing-Dai?
I've always assumed it was a derivation of Dai Sihing, but I don't speak Cantonese. I stand corrected.
The character 母 is mu in Mandarin and mou in Cantonese. Some say the character is symbolic of breasts, which is easy enough to visualize. Muqin (母親) is the formal term for mother. I'd have to see the character for this Simo. Note that I'm not a native speaker and don't really have any grasp of Cantonese beyond studying under a Hong Kong master (as you know Gino) for a few decades.
No such thing.
Even in you were metaphorical "twins" (born on the same day) there is still going to be one of you who kneeled and presented tea before the other one. Even if it was only earlier than you by one minute, that person is your shixiong and you are the shidi (Cantonese: Sihing and Sidai)
Don't forget that traditionally "seniority" is the same in Kungfu as in the workplace. It has nothing to do with rank or belts or what you've learned. It's simply a measure of how long you have been Sifu's student.
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Interestingly, in northern China...well in Xi'an anyways...instead of Simu (师母) the term of preference is (Mandarin) Shiniang (师娘). It's an oddly old fashioned term as "niang"/娘 is a term for "mother" that you don't hear in contemporary Chinese. You usually only hear it in period pieces on TV.
Syn7,
Touche.
In any case, I just meant to contrast with the idea of ranks/belts.
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Faruq,
Jokes aside, no Turks in Xi'an. The language is Turkic but geographically it's pretty far from Turkey. Also, while there is a pretty sizable Ouigher population in Xi'an, the moslem population here is mostly Hui, not Ouigher or other Jinjiang based minorities. There are a lot of Ouighers in the southern part of town but the Moslem Quarter is primarily Hui.
As to MA, Xinyi, Xingyi and Tongbei are all very popular arts among the Hui in Xi'an.
Is "what" because of the trader's on the silk routes?
A whole bunch of ethnic groups appear to be being conflated here. Grab yourself a map or head over to Google earth and find Turkey, Xinjiang and Xi'an.
Turkey is waaaay over the west. The turkic people in China come from Jinjiang and also from all those various countries with names ending in -stan. They are not ethnically Chinese but there presence in China has virtually nothing to do with the silk road history. Well maybe something but not much. Jinjiang is a massive territory that was just pretty much annexed an brought into China during the modern era. Historically there had been a tributary relationship (as in paying tribute) but no resources to take them by force.
The language is Turkic because...well...Turkic is a huge category. It's a linguistic family like latin or germanic. Most all of central asia speaks various turkic family languages just as most of Europe speaks romance languages (ie Latin based). Blame the Ottomans.
The Hui people, OTOH, speak languages having no relationship to Turkish. The Hui are also brought to China in general and Xi'an in specific as a result of ancient trade routes. They are far more assimilated than the Oughers, Kazaks, Ouzbeks etc. and other than their little white hats, are pretty much visually indistinguishable from Han Chinese.
Yah, I am familiar with the geography, but not all the history. Thanx. What time period is that? Did they have any Turkic languages before the Ottoman Empire? The Ottomans ran things for quite a while.
Oh yeah, I know what a vassal state is:p thanx for being thorough though.
lol. I ain't that familiar with the history. I didn't even mention the Ottoman Empire in my original post. I was on my lunch break, took a nap and then suddenly thought, "Oh yeah. I bet they all speak Turkik because of the Ottomans. :oQuote:
Thanx. What time period is that? Did they have any Turkic languages before the Ottoman Empire?
My guess, without googling it, is that the Vassal state stuff with those central Asian border peoples goes back all the way to Tang dynasty. That's when they were the biggest. . . actually Yuan was bigger but the Yuan dynasty was when the Mongols came in and conquered the Han, not the other way around.
Again, moving beyond what I actually know now. I'd expect they did but the name wouldn't make sense. We call Latin based languages "romance" languages because it was the Romans who spread them. We call central Asian languages "Turkic" because it was the ancient Turks who spread them.Quote:
Did they have any Turkic languages before the Ottoman Empire?
I never really studied Central Asia. My major was in Chinese. You live in Asia and meet the people and you learn a few things. I'm no expert on this stuff. Just live a couple minutes from the muslim quarter is all. Before that I lived down by where all the Ouigher's hang out.
I did a search on wikipedia, as I find language and ethnicities interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkic_languages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkestan
Hope this answers your question
Maybe keep in mind that the culture of the people we now call "Turks" didn't originate in Turkey. They were in Siberia and Mongolia long before they came to Anatolia.
And why mention the Latinate Italic languages of Europe without bringing up the Germanic family--arguably the most widespread language group in the world due to the current popularity of English? This language I write didn't come from Latin.
I can confirm that in Henan also. I have never once heard the expression 'ShiMu'.... We always use Shi Niang for Shi Fu's Wife.
Also for Shifus father and/or Master we use the expression ShiYe (scholarly grandfather). Generally however this is age dependant, I would never use it for anyone who is not old enough to be my grandfather as it would be strange. Similarly if my master is old enough to be my grandfather I would directly call him ShiYe and not ShiFu. If I am referring to a great master in the 3rd person, I may occasionally use the term 'DaShi' (Great Scholar) but not directly to them.
Niang is a term we use quite a lot, but generally as 'XiaoGuNiang' ... Little girl. A generally flattering way to call someone who is younger or the same age as you. Much better than XiaoJie.
Well the character is still in common use, sure. Just not the word. Nobody calls their mother niang/娘.
Also, kind of funny how xiaojie/小姐 fell out of use. That's one of my favorite linguistic phenomena. I don't know the formal term but I am referring to when a colloquial meaning of a word evolves to mean the exact opposite of the formal meaning.
For those who don't know what we are talking about, xiaojie/小姐:
Colloquial meaning: prostitute
Formal meaning: a young women from the upper class. The kind of girl who has servants and a coming out party after finishing school. An aristocrat.
The issue is that there are two different characters used for fu in shifu and they are phonetically identical: 師傅 and 師父. Fu #1 (傅) literally means teacher and is a little redundant to shi (師), which also means teacher but has a connotation of master as well. Fu #2 (父) means father. So fuqin (父親) means father and muqin (母親) means mother and fumu (父母) means parents.
I was thinking more of these guys:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_people
Though I have heard of these guys:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hui_people
I had just heard the Uighurs were geniuses with herbal medicine, but had never heard of them having any complete martial art systems like the Chinese so when I saw your location I thought I'd ask. There seems to be a lot of racial strife and oppression of the Uighurs there from what I see on youtube, lol. I just think to myself, come on people, can't we all just get along?
In Shandong, we use Shi Mu, Ive never heard Shi Niang. We also use Shi Ye over Shi Gong, but it only refers to your own teachers teacher. For masters other than my own, Ive been told to call them Laoshi, regardless of age, rank or ability in comparison to my own teacher.
For kung fu uncle, we use both Shi Bo and Shi Shu, I dont think theres a difference. When I met my own Shifu's kung fu uncle, I was told to also call him Laoshi, as theres no word for "kung fu great uncle".
Also, I know in the south of China and Taiwan, xiaojie is still a respectable term, often used in daily life.
I know none of this is Cantonese,
He did mention Germanic.
I've heard a few refer to English as a Latin based language, but I think most people know it's Germanic in origin. I think the confusion is because of three things. 1- Because of loanwords and to a lesser extant, Calque which itself is, wait for it, a loanword lol. 2- Because of new words for new ideas that span multiple languages. 3- Because Academia has always used Latin, people just assume it's a precursor to our language.
Cross contamination is inevitable in such close quarters.
I'm no linguist, I just find it all fascinating. These are just my best guesses. I'm totally open to suggestions when it comes to this stuff.
I was taught in like 9th grade that English has a Germanic origin.
It was the first thing I looked at when I got curious. Thanx tho. :)
It answered some questions, but not many. What I am specifically interested is Human migration routes and the effects they left behind along the way and/or brought with them to their ultimate destinations. While the wiki sites give great overall info, they don't get specific enough in those articles. I'm sure it's in wiki somewhere, I just need to dig a lil more. Find good wiki pages and then go straight to the bibliography and go that route. That is why I like wiki, I appreciate the sources, not the articles themselves. Not that it sucks, it's just so "minimal".
LOL, doncha just hate that!!!
How do you type in Chinese with a US standard keyboard? WTF does a Chinese typewriter look like?
You know how kids are taught to spell by "sounding out" the word? Can you do that in Chinese at all? Do phonetics have characters? Or specific strokes? I've always wanted to learn, but I have so many pursuits that I have to be realistic in my endeavors. I can learn everything, as much as I would like to. But speaking Chinese seems to be an important one. I can speak English and French fluently and have a working knowledge of Spanish and Portuguese. A Lil Italian. I don't have any formal training in Latin, but I have so many pursuits that involve Latin terminology that I have managed to pick up quite a bit.
Chinese Typewriter
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...3/MINGKWAI.jpg
Yeah, I don't get it. lol. I don't wanna put in the work, somebody just tell me :D Pretty please!?!
How does this create 90,000 characters? Lots of overlap?
I dont know how that typewriter works, but typing on normal US or UK keyboards in really easy. You install a program, and you just type in the pinyin and it brings up a list of possible characters, if you write a whole sentence it will auto select the right characters based on the context. its quick and efficient.
Kids learn pinyin before they learn to write characters. That way they can learn the standard way to pronounce words before they know how to write them.
Quote:
...........The typefaces fit on a drum. A "magic eye" was mounted in the center of the keyboard which magnifies and allows the typist to review a selected character.[1] Characters are selected by first pressing 2 keys to choose a desired character which is arranged according to a system Lin devised for his dictionary of the Chinese language. The selected Chinese character appeared in the magic eye for preview,[1] the typist then pressed a "master" key, similar to today's computer function key. The typewriter could create 90,000 distinct characters using either one or two of six character-containing rollers, which in combination has 7000 full characters and 1,400 character radicals or partial characters.[1]
The inspired aspect of the typewriter was the system Lin devised for a Chinese alphabet. It had thirty geometric shapes or strokes (somewhat analogous to the elements of a glyph). These became "letters" by which to alphabetize Chinese characters. He broke tradition with the long-standing system of radicals and stroke order writing and categorizing of Chinese characters, inventing a new way of seeing and categorizing.
That's the best description they had. As to what this "system" was and how he came up with it, I dunno. Something to do with a simplified Chinese dictionary method. I didn't wanna go too far since I don't even understand the basics.
The Chinese languages are very foreign to me. I don't understand how two keys can make a character???
Well, it works by creating a combination of keys. As to what or how that combination works, I dunno. It says you type two keys then verify then print. That's all I really know. I suspect this would make a lot more sense if you can actually read Chinese.
Quote:
Chinese input methods predate the computer. One of the early attempts was an electro-mechanical Chinese typewriter Ming kwai (Chinese: 明快; pinyin: míngkuài; Wade–Giles: ming-k'uai) which was invented by Lin Yutang, a prominent Chinese writer. It assigned thirty base shapes or strokes to different keys and adopted a new way of categorizing Chinese characters. But the typewriter was not produced commercially and Lin soon found himself deeply in debt.[1]
Before the 1980s, Chinese publishers hired teams of workers and selected a few thousand type pieces from an enormous Chinese character set. Chinese government agencies entered characters using a long, complicated list of Chinese telegraph codes, which assigned different numbers to each character. During the early computer era, Chinese characters were categorized by their radicals or Pinyin (or romanization), but results weren't completely satisfactory.
A typical keyboard layout for Cangjie method, which is based on United States keyboard layout
Chu Bong-Foo invented a common input method in 1976 with his Cangjie input method, which assigns different "roots" to each key on a standard computer keyboard. With this method, for example, the character 日 is assigned to the A key, and 月 is assigned to B. Typing them together will result in the character 明 ("bright").
Despite its difficulty of learning, this method remains popular in Chinese communities that use traditional Chinese characters, such as Hong Kong and Taiwan; it is also the first method that allowed users to enter more than a hundred Chinese characters per minute.
All methods have their strengths and weaknesses. The pinyin method can be learned rapidly but its maximum input rate is limited. The Wubi takes longer to learn, but expert typists can enter text much more rapidly with it than with phonetic methods.
Due to these complexities, there is no "standard" method.
In mainland China, wubi (shape-based) and pinyin methods such as Sogou Pinyin and Google Pinyin are the most popular; in Taiwan, Boshiamy, Cangjie, and zhuyin predominate; and in Hong Kong, Cangjie is most often taught in schools.
Other methods include handwriting recognition, OCR and voice recognition. The computer itself must first be "trained" before the first or second of these methods are used; that is, the new user enters the system in a special "learning mode" so that the system can learn to identify his handwriting or speech patterns. The latter two methods are used less frequently than keyboard-based input methods and suffer from relatively high error rates, especially when used without proper "training", though higher error rates are an acceptable trade-off to many users.
That's exactly how it works...but wait...there's more....
The software has been programmed with Chinese grammar so that if you type out an entire phrase phonetically, it can guess, with startling accuracy, which characters you needed. Most Chinese speakers simply type out the entire sentence and then tap the back arrow a couple times to make one or two corrections. Furthermore, the software "learns". The character you needed may have been number 15 in a list of 20 ****nyms but the next time you use it it will bump up to number 6 or something. Use it again and the next time it's your first choice. Usually this comes into play with names. It's not possible for the software to know that you were typing a name so the first time you type a name it tends to be cumbersome as you scroll through the list but the next time it will pop up all at once. Use it a couple more times an you may have only to type the first letter of the phoenetics of the characters.
For example, with Sougou pinyin, I just type "bzd" and 不知道 (I don't know) comes up. "wsm" produces 为什么(why?). The more you use it, the faster it gets. wdmzs produces: 我的名字是(my name is)
Pretty cool. ;)
My previous post was in response to your previous one to this:
What they probably mean is how "radicals" create characters. Radicals are like word roots.
Take the character 你. It has two radicals a 亻and a 尔 which combine make the character 你. The 亻can be combined with all sort of other parts like 仁 or 化 or even 花 where you have the 亻as one of 3 separate radicals. If you could type the radicals separately and then combine them to form characters you could reduce the number from 10,000 down to about 200 or so pieces that need to be combines.
Sorry, my connection wasn't very good. I edited a post right away but took forever to actually post. My bad :D