phonetic map : 鬼 gui

goulnik
December 07, 2008, 08:01 AM posted in General Discussion

@ 鬼

gui
guī jade-like stone / rare; marvelous
瑰宝 guībǎo rarity; treasure; gem
玫瑰 méigui rosebush; rose
guǐ ghost; spirit; dirty trick; clever; (term of abuse)
魔鬼 móguǐ demon; monster; devil
搞鬼 gǎoguǐ to play tricks
见鬼 jiànguǐ go to hell / Damn it!
* guī strange; independent
傀奇 guīqí strange; odd
傀伟 guīwěi great and imposing
kui
kuì be ashamed/conscience-stricken
不愧 bùkuì be worthy of
抱愧 bàokuì to feel ashamed
kuí pre-eminent
党魁 dǎngkuí party boss
盗魁 dàokuí n. robber/bandit chief
* kuǐ .
傀儡 kuǐlěi puppet
kuí .
请自隗始 qǐngzìkuíshǐ volunteer to take the lead **
kuai
kuài (量词 piece; lump; chunk; 元) **
huai
huái Chinese scholartree
槐树 huáishù Japanese pagoda tree; sophora
wei
wéi lofty and imposing
嵬然 wéirán lofty; towering


** 自始 zìshǐ from the beginning
** 塊 has been simplified to 块, see 夬 (guai) map

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changye
December 06, 2008, 12:41 PM

Maybe the phonetic part of “魏” is “委” (wei3), but not “鬼”, and “魏” itself is not a phonetic part. Actually it's not so easy to determine which is the phonetic part of 魏, 委 or 鬼. Consonantwise, I still think 委 is closer to 魏 than 鬼 is. 

ŋiwei > ŋiwei > wei > wei (wei)
委  iwei >  iwe >  wi > wei (wei)
鬼 kiwei > kiwei > kwei > kwei (gui)

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goulnik
December 06, 2008, 05:01 PM

maybe, may be not. I haven't done 委 (wei) yet, but it does seem extremely consistent.

since we don't know for sure and this is a learning aid rather than linguistic research, I will follow your advice and move them all to the  委 map.

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woshilbxiaopengyou
December 07, 2008, 08:06 AM

Maybe I can help...

Some Chinese scholars(both the contemporary and ancient times) assert that 魏 is short for 巍 (wei1) and the whole 魏 is the phonetic part of 巍.

 

Character 巍  means grand and tall and is used to describe the mountains.

There is a famous sentence "巍巍青山两岸走".(wei1wei1qing1shan1liang3an4zou3)

If you've read the Three Kingdoms,you may know about the country 魏 (魏国) ,which is also considered as the country 巍,meaning the Gland Country.

As you see, 巍 is consist of 山 and 魏.

As for 魏,it is said to be a pictograph.鬼 represents a priest wearing a mask. 委 represents a woman 女 lifting seedlings 禾 (sacrifice them to the God  or ancestors)The whole character represents the sence of  sacrifice and together with 山  referred to awesomeness.

Now it's a common family name in China.

 

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goulnik
December 07, 2008, 08:54 AM

thanks woshilbxiaopengyou. what I ended up doing is keeping 魏 as a separate phonetic, with 巍 as the only compound, see phonetic map : 魏 wei

But I also moved 魏 itself as a phonetic compound of 委 under phonetic map : 委 wei so it's no longer under the  phonetic map : 龟 gui, although 嵬 still is, with a similar meaning as 巍.

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changye
December 07, 2008, 12:53 PM

Inspired by woshilbxiaopengyou's post, I looked into the character "魏" and "巍" further. According to one of my dictionaries, the very original form of "巍" is "嵬", as goulniky pointed out, where "鬼" plays a role as a phonetic part. And later another phonetic part "委" (wei) was added to "嵬" (wei), i.e. "委 + 嵬", then the character finally became "巍".

As for "委" and "鬼", actually it's not easy to tell which is the "real" phonetic part of a character. For  the record, I've just found some examples such as 廆, 隗, 犩, 蘶, and 磈, all of which is pronounced "wei" even without "委"! As xiaopengyou said, "魏" itself is the phonetic part of "巍", but at the same time, 委 (or 鬼) is also the phonetic part of “魏”.

The same goes for "嶺". "领" is the phonetic part of "嶺", and the phonetic part of "领" is, of course, "令". Let me call it "matrioshka syndrome" of Chinese characters, haha!

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goulnik
December 07, 2008, 05:16 PM

other recursive example where 山 has a similar role : 垚 (yáo) -> 堯 (yáo) legendary founding emperor, a model of wisdom and virtue -> 嶢 yáo lofty, with 嶢嶢 (yáoyáo) towering (of mountains); upright (of people).

堯 was simplified to 尧 and 嶢 to 峣, thereby losing the matrioshka effect.