Template talk:liushu

phono-semantic compound and ideogrammic compound

Currently, the English Wikipedia page for Chinese character classification translates the 六書／六书 (liùshū) as one of the following:

• Pictograms (象形 (xiàngxíng))
• Simple ideograms (指事 (zhǐshì))
• Compound ideographs (會意／会意 (huìyì))
• Rebus (phonetic loan) characters (假借 (jiǎjiè))
• Phono-semantic compound characters (形聲／形声 (xíngshēng))
• Derivative cognates (轉注 (zhuǎnzhù))

This is slightly different from what is displayed by this template, which is also used by Template:Han compound in the "Glyph origin" section:

• Pictograms (象形 (xiàngxíng))
• Ideograms (指事 (zhǐshì))
• Ideogrammic compounds (會意／会意 (huìyì))
• Phono-semantic compounds (形聲／形声 (xíngshēng))

Can we standardize our translations of the 六書／六书 (liùshū), which originally refers to the six methods of classifying Han characters, or shall we just leave it as it is? KevinUp (talk) 15:30, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

@KevinUp I am in favor of standardization, but I don't know what set of translation terms would be best. Thank you so much for your edits！ --Geographyinitiative (talk) 23:25, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Here are the translations from the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press' English translation of the 2002 增补本 of 现代汉语词典 (later known as the 'fourth edition'):

象形 pictographic characters or pictographs p2098

指事 no direct translation given p2469

會意 combined meaning; associative compound p868

假借 phonetic loan characters p933

形聲 pictophonetic characters p2147

轉注 synonymous characters p2521

--Geographyinitiative (talk) 23:49, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Bernhard Karlgren apparently called 形聲字 "phonetic compounds" in a 1940 publication (Grammata Serica: Script and Phonetics in Sino-Japanese). This according to John DeFrancis in The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, page 94, paragraph 2 --Geographyinitiative (talk) 13:04, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Seems like different scholars have different translations for the term 形聲字／形声字 (xíngshēngzì). The following passages are quoted from The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, page 73:

Such terms as "phonetic compounds" (Karlgren 1923:16), "phonograms" (Karlgren 1936:161), "phonetic complexes" (Wieger 1965:10), "phonetic indicators" (Gelb 1963:118), and "phonic indicators" (Yau 1983:198) stress the phonetic aspect in this large group of characters.

The belief that both the semantic and phonetic aspects should be taken into account in the naming of Chinese characters has led to terms like "phonosemantic" (Pelliot 1936:163; Cohen 1958:52) and "ideophonographic" (Bunakov 1940; Cohen 1958:45). A similar approach has led Krykov to designate one class of characters as "phonoideograms" (1980:25 26).

The terms suggested by Pelliot, Bunakov, Cohen, and Krykov tie in a semantic element with a phonetic element without specifying the nature of either, though Cohen adds a bit more detail to the phonetic aspect by further references to "syllabograms," "syllabo-phonograms," and "syllabic phonograms" (1958:49, 53, 55).

KevinUp (talk) 00:07, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Not asking for any changes, just giving an update on my feelings about the situation here. After months of keeping this issue at the back of my mind (and as a glance at the above content will show), I have come to the conclusion that, especially for xingshengzi, the English translations used today are all hopelessly idiosyncratic. I still think it was a great idea to add the blue link on the word "phono-semantic" in Template:Han compound like KevinUp did it, because we absolutely can't expect non-experts to know what 'phono-semantic' means. Some Chinese people and some Chinese studiers may possibly have seen the concept of xingshengzi in translation in another publication, but it probably was translated in one of about ten or fifteen different ways, and, obvious though it may seem, they may not be immediately able to figure out from context what 'phono-semantic' is talking about. Better to give readers a blue link so that those who are interested can get some clarification than to hang all the readers out to dry. To me, this is a sad situation because the disunified terminology underplays the significance of the concept of xingshengzi in CJKV characters. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 17:09, 13 March 2019 (UTC)