Talk:sơn ca

Etymology

Sơn ca does sound like a compound Sino-Vietnamese word for the name of it bird but the zh.Wikipedia page for the family Alaudidae (lark) does not list any bird with the equivalent Chinese 山歌 for sơn ca. And a picture search in Chinese language pages (of Google and Firefox) does not reveal any Chinese bird under that 山歌 name. It appears that "sơn ca" is a pure Vietnamese name with no real-world equivalent in Chinese language.@Mirrordor Mirrordor (talk) 20:51, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

The etymology has been added by @PhanAnh123, maybe he can elaborate more on this issue. --ChemPro (talk) 16:30, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

@Mirrordor, @ChemPro: PhanAnh123's etymology was correct; there exist many SV words whose meanings differ, sometimes semantically significantly, from their Chinese counterparts, a well-known example being Sino-Vietnamese phương phi (“stout, portly, corpulent”) from Chinese 芳菲 (“fragrant, fresh-smelling”). Erminwin (talk) 19:37, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Sorry but I have to disagree. Etymology implies that a term referred to comes from another term with same or at least similar meaning. As there is no Chinese term (i.e. 山歌) in any Chinese dictionary I have on hand and online, 山歌 cannot be the root of the Vietnamese sơn ca.

It's the same situation with the example phương phi The transliteration into Chinese 芳菲 does not exist in Chinese language with the (Vietnamese) meanings stout, portly or corpulent but only with the meanings flagrant (of flowers) so I have to say that the Chinese 芳菲 cannot be the etymology of phương phi. 芳 means flagrant and 菲 means lust and neither each one of them nor the compund word 芳菲 means corpulent or stout or portly in Chinese.

@Mirrordor Mirrordor (talk) 21:17, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

@Mirrordor: "As there is no Chinese term (i.e. 山歌) in any Chinese dictionary I have on hand and online". Which dictionary? I found 山歌 in 《教育部國語辭典》 (Ministry of Education Mandarin Chinese Dictionary), which defines 山歌 as 一種形式短小，節奏自由，曲調爽朗質樸，流行於山村間的民歌。 (my rough translation: "A kind of short-formed, free-tempoed, cheery- and simple-melodied folk-songs widespread among mountain villages").

Etymology implies that a term referred to comes from another term with same or at least similar meaning False. Semantic changes happen all the times. Erminwin (talk) 20:24, 20 February 2025 (UTC)