Thank you! And they’re called zhuyin fuhao, or more commonly, bopomofo. They’re an older alternative to pinyin based on Chinese characters. Sadly they never really caught on outside of Taiwan, but they are in many ways superior to pinyin. I can for sure make a video on them in the future!

Plum in a Golden Vase is OBJECTIVELY a better novel than Dream of a Red Chamber

Thanks for your comment! I suppose it depends on who you consider the most important in a social setting, but judging by ancient Chinese texts, I'd say the host (東) usually outranks the guest (西). I do not consider the placement of the dead to be a valid argument since Chinese often arrange the dead in opposition to the living (burial clothes are often tied in the "opposite" way for example). You could even make an argument that the west is an outright inauspicious direction, since one euphemism for death in Chinese is 歸西 or "return to the west", ie the supposed divine realm in the western mountains inhabited by The Empress dowager of the West, as well as it's connection with disease-causing winds. I'd like a source for the throne placement, since the throne's I've seen usually place the throne in the centre of the hall, the hall usually being alligned with the front to the south and back to the north.

@@SwedishSinologyNerd Sure, thank you for responding. For the placement of the throne, I refer you to an edict issued by the Liang monarch: 天監六年詔曰：「頃代以來，元日朝畢，次會羣臣，則移就西壁下，東向坐。求之古義，王者讌萬國，唯應南面，何更居東面？」於是御坐南向，以西方為上。皇太子以下，在北壁坐者，悉西邊東向。尚書令以下在南方坐者，悉東邊西向。舊元日，御坐東向，酒壺在東壁下。御坐既南向，乃詔壺於南蘭下。 It says that after the officials (facing north, in the courtyard) greet the monarch (facing south, in the hall), they move into the hall for an audience. At this point the monarch moves to the west side wall and sits facing the east. But after the edict, the Liang monarch repositions the throne to face south instead, and identifies the west as the side of honour (位上). Thus we know that the throne used to be located on the west side of the hall and faced east, while the east side was occupied by a wine vessel. Even after the monarch repositioned the throne, the west side is still given to the crown prince, who obviously outranks the other subjects. I agree with the general idea that the east side is associated with hosts and the west, guests. But there is one notable & attested exception as cited above: in the royal court the monarch sits on the west side instead of the east. Surely the monarch must be the "host" in his own court, but that the subjects/officials, contrary to cultural norms, take the host's side needs to be explained with a reasonable motivation. It seems to me at least that this motivation can only come from an avoidance of occupying the place of honour, which is instead surrendered to the monarch despite his host-like position. It is asserted the idea that the Chinese often arrange things like clothes for the dead in ways that are opposite to the living, but I would suggest that sometimes these records more resemble philosophical musings than actual practice, in which the living and the dead are often conceived of as a continuum (such as in funerary practice where the newly deceased spends months, if not years, transitioning into the role of a spirit). Given very extensive religious practice that seeks to connect the living with the dead, particularly before the Chin period, I would personally characterize the ancient relationship between the familial living and dead as one more of respect than aversion. Relating to the auspiciousness of the west as a cardinal direction, 歸西 must refer to a Buddhist idea that the dead go to India, which is to the west of China, as the land of the Buddha. To say someone has "returned to the west" is to suggest they have an auspicious death. Death is not always inauspicious in Chinese culture, as we see in multiple bronze inscriptions a prayers for 霝冬 "a good death". Since we're talking about the etymology of Chinese characters, I think it would be fair if we placed more emphasis on cultural notions dating from the etymological period.

I made a response here. Did KZfaq eat it?

@@y11971alex possibly, I didn’t see it

@@SwedishSinologyNerd OK let me get home and repost it.

Ah, I knew I'd forgotten something! Yeah so obv. there was a final stop in OC, I only gave the PST root form "to carry on the back" and neglected to give the OC forms dervide from it. That's my b. Then again, it gives me material to do one of them correction vids down the line, so if you spot any other mistakes drop me a line! =)

Glad you liked the video! Unfortunately it'll likely be the last (long) one for a while at least since I'm moving house and starting a new job next week, I'll get back to videomaking once I'm settled in. And hey, I liked the expression "brushstrokable" and just wanted to give credit ^^ I think a lot of ancient people equated the navel with middleness, though the meaning don't seem to have survived in Chinese outside of compounds. Also, nitpick: the 人 character on top in the Chu script is the "flag radical" I talk about in the vid, or rather the right half of it (looks like [方人] in standardized script).

@@SwedishSinologyNerd Ohh I get it, it’s like 㫃 or, more precisely, half of it! Oh well haha in this case my 人 is more like a way to visually represent it 😅 No worries about not being able to make videos for the time being. Focus on the other stuff first, and I’ll be happy to see you in the comment sections of your new video again! Not many people make in-depth content on Chinese characters as you do here on KZfaq, so we’ll all be super happy whenever you decide to upload again! But, as I said, focus on your priorities first. PS: Just found out that 㫃 becomes 𭤨 when used as a component and, according to Wiktionary, the latter is used in HK for 於 as well, which is thus reanalysed as ⿸𭤨⺀ instead of ⿰方仒. P-PS: Your part about how folk etymologies influence character shapes is super interesting… Basically the 日 between 木 almost became true in some of the Chu manuscripts! I wonder how many 汉字 have changed shape due to popular myths about their origins…

I was originally planning to include that bit, but I couldn't find a good explanation where the word came from so to avoid confusion I left it out ^^;;;

重

Ah, that sounds like a Japanese kokkun, it's really cool how the JKV languages to varying extents look at Chinese characters and go "Yeah, we know it means that but it LOOKS like it should mean THIS so we gon' use it for this!" And questioning how and why languages do what they do is just how my brainaddled mind works. It refuses to accept any new info unless it gets access to the Deepest Lore about it xD

Oh there're a LOT of Swedes with an unhealthy obsession with China, a couple of other greats are Göran Malmqvist and my old teacher Michael Schoenhals. I'm but a midget standing on the shoulder of giants ^^

Oh dear, well whatever keeps my viwers' dopamine flowing I guess! xD

Ooops! You're absolutely right, well there's always something that flies under the radar ^^

@@SwedishSinologyNerd Regardless, thanks for the video. It was fascinating to watch.

Jag hade tänkt göra en video på ämnet ”varför så många svenskar är förtjusta i Kina” men det ligger långt i framtiden xD

Numbers will come sometime in the future! It'll be a bigass video tho lol

二 次

I will only imply stuff if I find evidence to support it! So you might hear those words in the videos on 車 and 蜜!

@@SwedishSinologyNerd Holy shit we're getting into deep Wanderwort lore, I was NOT expecting that

@@SwedishSinologyNerd Btw, does that mean you're not a proponent of the theory that the Chinese word for "horse" is from Indo-European? There are holes in it but I don't see any other plausible theory

@@johanngaiusisinwingazuluah2116 It very well could be, but afaik, the word entered PST via some central asian language like Mongolic or Turkic, of course it's possible that THOSE languages got it from PIE but I haven't found any evidence for a direct PIE link with the Chinese word (at this time).

how would 'horse' or 'koń' be similiar to ma/马?

Oh, neat! 賤字”武成“. Any story behind your courtesy name?

@@SwedishSinologyNerd a friend of mine gave it he chose it from the Analects, meaning "virtue within"

@@lyuktentiok That's good! Very traditional. Mine is pretty much a semantic-similarity one based off my regular Chinese name

We salute your dedication to learning good sir! o7

I hope you liked the vid, even though the explanation for 中 was a bit different ^^

@@SwedishSinologyNerd No no it's fine!! I actually quite agree with the explanation presented, even though commonly speaking I'm agreeing with the one where it depicts a type of military flag with some sort of gong in the middle. So I guess the explanation I'm going with is not too far off on what you explained ^^

That'll have to be a sequel: 上下、内外、左右、前後

@@SwedishSinologyNerd上中下、前中后、东南西北中、左中右…… The common thread here is 中: it sits in the middle of *everything*. You can adopt any directional framework and even weave in infinite multidimensional matrices… 中 will always remain. And then we have 中国… 🚩😎

@@ChristianJiang Actually 🤓 the term 中國 as an autonym for China is a relatively new concept, and actually a piece of Qing era Manchu propaganda ("All the central territories are one family, and the Emperor is the father") to try and legitamize their rule. It had limited success but the name stuck, probably for lack of an alternative, since all other dynasties usually referred to China as "Great [insert dynasty here]".

@@SwedishSinologyNerd Haha I was trying to be sarcastic but it didn’t work as well in writing. But I learnt something new! I knew 中国 is a recent term, but not that recent! Yet it was unanimously adopted by Japan, Korea and Vietnam as their go-to way to refer to China... Interesting… Does that mean that Japan’s Chūgoku region’s use of 中国 predates that of China itself?!! Mind blown 🤯

I didn't know it was pronounced dang in Shanghainese! Thank you ^^

I'll add it to the list!

旭 xu1 is an ancient character, composed of "sun" semantic plus "nine" (jiu3) phonetic (though even in OC the phonetic is kinda wonky 九 is reconstructed as *ku' and 旭 is reconstructed as *qhwog. Like, you gotta say it a few times to even sorta get it). Meanwhile, 旮 and 旯 are only used in the word 旮旯 which is unattested in OC and MC lit. so probably a recent dialectal word, derived from or related to 角落, 角 used to have a g- or k- initial (*krog or *grog) so that's probaby where the reading "ga1" comes from, and "la2" is pretty close to luo4. No idea why the characters look like that tho. Vibes?

Language/sinology side of YT, I admit it gets pretty weird in these parts. But we got tea and obscure jokes so won't you stay a while and listen? =P

你好在中国方的世界。

I mean.... *gestures vaguely to all the messed up shit that happened in ancient China* Li'l Jiang was spitting facts tho.

I wasn't aware the phenomenon had a name but I'm not surprised if it does, sadly I am, as I said, unaware of it ^^;; What I AM aware of, is several other characters that were pretty much streamlined into obfuscation, so more of those coming down the line!

@@SwedishSinologyNerd I think it’s just called lìbiàn, 隶变… Whereby semantic clarity is sacrificed for the sake of ease of writing. I believe it happened during the gradual transition between 篆字 and 隶书… Weren’t the earliest forms of 隶书 actually a cursive, handwritten version of 篆字, which was relegated to formal contexts? (I’m probably oversimplifying it here…) So when 篆字 stopped being used, their semantic depth was also forever replaced with the more “brushstrokable” (albeit unrecognisable) forms of later styles. For example, 射 was initially super pictographic-a bow and arrow pointing left and a hand holding it… This otherwise unattested 🏹 shape was then replaced with 身 in the newer, more stylistically “regulated” way of writing. And, by the way, I’m a huge fan of 隶定, which takes old 篆字 and 甲骨文 and converts their components into modern-day styles (楷书 as well as typefaces like 明体)… Wikipedia uses the example of 春 (the product of 隶变), which is rendered in lìdìng as 萅. One of my favourite pastimes is to look at 甲骨文 inscriptions and see the archaic characters being rendered into modern-day kǎitǐ fonts… Some of them look super complex!!

I don't think Turkic is very strongly , or at all, represented in Chinese vocabulary. The Chinese were pretty snobbish from the Qin unification onward so loanwords were rather limited, though before that there seem to have been a lot of cross-influence with AustroAsiatic. From the Han onward it's mostly Sanskrit, with a bit of Mongolian and Manchu that makes it into the vocabulary.

@@SwedishSinologyNerd Hahaha I wasn’t entertaining the idea of loanwords at all! Just poking some fun at internet pan-Turkic fans who link everything to Turkish, the mother of all languages in the world!