Talk:雪文

Etymology

@Mlgc1998 Do you have a source for this: "For those in Taiwan and China, it was derived directly from either Portuguese sabão or Early Modern Spanish jabón"? It is also possible for 華僑 from 南洋 to have brought this word back to the Minnan region. 閩南方言大詞典 (a dictionary on Hokkien spoken in Xiamen, Quanzhou and Zhangzhou) says it comes from Malay. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 17:13, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

@Justinrleung Oh, I was thinking about that possibility but I was thinking if it were more plausible that they got it directly instead from european traders (or at least for both derivations to reinforce each other) trading around that area, especially it was the time period when the Portuguese were in Macau and plying routes to Japan and doing missionary work, and the Spaniards of Manila were trading in Quanzhou and Zhangzhou and also doing missionary work. I read before that Quanzhou and/or Zhangzhou had such a deeply established trading relationship with the Spaniards of Manila that, when the Dutch first came to trade, they were always angry about this and demanded the local officials of Fujian and the imperial court to cease trading with the Spanish, so eventually they decided to resort to piracy of the Fukien coasts and eventually were told to go away and resorted to set up base instead over in the Pescadores Islands (Penghu Islands) and eventually to the southern parts of Taiwan. I think I first read about this when I read through the wikipedia page about Dutch colonization of Taiwan. The Spaniards eventually tried to counter this by extending their administrative reach from the Batanes Islands (by the then Basque governor), north of Luzon, to also establish a base of operations in a nice port in the north of Taiwan, around present-day Keelung and Tamsui. Then, the Dutch eventually threatened the Spanish garrison and laid siege to it where the Spaniards were kicked out and conquered by the Dutch. Eventually, Koxinga came in and took out the Dutch as well, but then the Dutch sensed weakness in the Spanish armada at that time, since it was around during this era thereafter when the Spaniards were trying to pacify the Moros of Mindanao, at the same time, trying to kick the Portuguese out of Ternate in the Moluccas. They were so busy at that time in the south, that Koxinga also threatened to invade and sack Spanish Manila, so the Spanish fleet soon hastily abandoned their gains in the south to fortify back the capital, but then Koxinga prematurely died, but years later, the Dutch used this opportunity instead to steal the Moluccas after the Spanish had taken out the Portuguese. It was said that they were so confident over the Spanish that they soon sent their own fleets to invade and sack Manila, at the battles of La Naval de Manila, but apparently despite being outnumbered, the meager Spanish fleet "miraculously" won out over a few battles and the Catholic Church in the Philippines still celebrates this as an unofficial holiday centuries later. Anyways, I think it would match closely for that general region around Taiwan to Ryukyu to Japan, that the general area was probably introduced with such products by either the Portuguese or the Spaniards, unless of course their 華僑 or Malay/Tagalog interpreters or middlemen also came in the middle with the transfer of loanwords even in that region. Though Dutch "zepen" (or Middle Dutch "sepen") might've also reinforced the acquiring of the pronunciation of sap-bun. --Mlgc1998 (talk) 18:22, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

@Mlgc1998: I appreciate the historical background, but do any of the sources you've consulted explicitly talk about this word? If not, I think it may be original research that is not well-supported to think that it's directly from Portuguese or Spanish. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 18:37, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: eeh, this one even says its from French, so the etymology of this word is definitely shady in all accounts. --Mlgc1998 (talk) 18:59, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

@Justinrleung Oh wait, I found one that actually does say exactly that it comes from either Portuguese or Spanish. It's at Page 71 (Page 78 in the PDF) here. — This unsigned comment was added by Mlgc1998 (talk • contribs) at 19:05, 23 October 2019 (UTC).

@Mlgc1998: I don't know if these are reliable because they don't really provide evidence for their claims. I've reworded the etymology to something more ambiguous to show the uncertainties we currently have. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 00:22, 24 October 2019 (UTC)