Naming rights for kids: Time to switch to an alphabet?

Hi daizi

Connie and I just checked the Xinhua dictionary and found only the 骉 that you suggested. But In the expanded image in the article, the horses are definitely 并排的 （side by side). There is a word 騁 cheng3 which means "gallop." I'm going to check my dictionary of rare words when I get home.

I am not really clear about the "hand-written" ID cards, though. My girlfriend's cards have been machine printed all her life. With no disrespect to the hardworking journalist or her editors, I think this article could've used some double checking.

Thanks Changye叔叔！

I attempted to find the character in question using the Taiwanese and Mainland versions of the 辞海 as well as 词源. None of these expansive etymological dictionaries had this odd side by side version of the character and the only other pronunciation for 骉 I found was jí (from 辭海). I suspect the father just made the name up and used the pronunciation for 騁.

However, the NYT reporter could have at least bothered to investigate a little further. It's easy to write a piece on Chinese characters for a mono-lingual US audience. That said, I certainly can believe the government bureaucracy would be interested in cracking down on rare or fictional characters.

This photo shows a closer photo of the actual ID card. The character in question clearly has three 吗s, and they are definitely arranged in a horizontal row:

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/04/21/world/asia/21china.grafic.ready.html

The article states that Ma Cheng's grandfather went searching for an obscure character to use for her name, so I don't know why anyone would assume that it is not a legitimate, if archaic and obscure character.

You can find the side-by-side version in 康熙字典. It says the character is an old form of 騁 (cheng3).

Hi daizi

Thanks for the intriguing article. I really enjoyed reading that. What surprises me is that Chinese authorities are now trying to curb the number of characters for daily use. The new one seems to be more "enforceable" than some other lists issued in the past.

Since at least 2003, China has been working on a standardized list of characters for people to use in everyday life, including when naming children. One newspaper reported last week that the list would be issued later this year and would curb the use of obscure names. A government linguistics official told that the list would include more than 8,000 characters. Although that is far fewer than the database now supposedly includes, the official said it was more than enough "to convey any concept in any field." About 3,500 characters are in everyday use.

Here are two character lists issued in 1988. For the record, I hear that Chinese primary school students learn about 3,000 characters in total.

现代汉语常用汉字表 (3,500) ... enough for everyday use
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%8E%B0%E4%BB%A3%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E5%B8%B8%E7%94%A8%E5%AD%97%E8%A1%A8

现代汉语通用汉字表 (7,000) ... enough for reading books/newspapers/magazines
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%8E%B0%E4%BB%A3%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E9%80%9A%E7%94%A8%E5%AD%97%E8%A1%A8

I realise that number of characters and number of words are not the same thing [due to the more than one character words],but it is interesting to compare these figures with one estimate of 31,534 different words [including many he coined himself] that Shakespeare used in his works and estimates of over double that of words that he likely knew.There has been an exponential increase in knowledge since then and thus new jargon appearing all the time.Still,Shakespeare,regardless of era,is considered to have an extraordinarily large vocabulary.I wonder how many words these 8000 characters combine to make,as it's interesting that the Govt feel this will be enough to account for all eventualities.In English some estimates have it at around a million words.Also there are close to 4 million slang words in Urban Dictionary.I think I've seen estimates that native English Speakers will only account for about 15% of English Speakers in about 10 years or so,so I'm wondering how borrowed words will effect these numbers too.So it's interesting that the Chinese are putting a cap on character numbers.

...even so,very interesting article;thanks daizi.I think in the west it is hard for us to imagine being asked to change our names or that of our kids for the sake of the govt computers etc.

Here are the numbers of entry characters shown in some lists issued by Chinese authorities and major Chinese dictionaries.

康熙字典 (1716) 49,000
汉语大字典 (1990) 54,000
中华字海 (1994) 85,600
常用字表 (1988) 3,500
通用字表 (1988) 7,000
新华字典 (2004) 10,000
中日辞典 (1991) 13,000

中华字海 lists the largest number of Chinese characters in the world. It contains not only standard simplified/traditional Chinese characters but also a lot of variant and dialect characters, including ones made in other countries such as Singapore, Korea and Japan.

As for the number of Chinese words, 大漢和辞典 (1955, by Morohashi) published in Japan lists about 530,000 words, which is the largest number among Chinese dictionaries as of today. 汉语大词典, published in the PRC in 1986, lists about 380,000 words. And, of course, both dictionaries don't contain the word "因特网"(Internet), hehe.

@Changye,

According to wikipedia, the taiwanese 異體字典 (yì tǐ zì diǎn) contains 106,230 individual characters.

異體字典/异体字典 (2004) is "The Dictionary of Chinese Variant Form" : http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/start.htm

But the PRC official character set for computer called GB (国家标准) only includes 6,763 Chinese characters.

Hi kimiik

I sometimes use the online 异体字 dictionary, but I didn't notice at all it contained that many characters! It seems that it doesn't include characters made in other countries. Incidentally, the latest version of GB contains much more characters than its earliest one.

Thanks, Changye; I knew if anyone could find that character, you could.

Hey changye! Could you give us (especially me =) ) a link of the 異體字 online dictionary that you're using? I'd be mighty glad if you do. :)

Hi hitokiri

http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/main.htm

This is the same online dictionary (by Taiwan 教育部) as that kimiik mentioned in his comment. "Just amazing" is the exact word for this website.

@changye

Intersting Wikipedia link. May get those printed and posted up