Mixing
Why use combined characters that have the same meaning?
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(rèn shà) both characters means ( to know)and when combined it still have the same meaning.
So why can't I use only one of them ?
translation grammar meaning characters
asked Aug 8 at 5:09
Jenin Hope
211
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(rèn shà) both characters means ( to know)and when combined it still have the same meaning.
So why can't I use only one of them ?
translation grammar meaning characters
asked Aug 8 at 5:09
Jenin Hope
211
Something related to å°Â仗(å°Âå¶).
– NoobTW
Aug 8 at 5:56
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up vote
4
down vote
favorite
(rèn shà) both characters means ( to know)and when combined it still have the same meaning.
So why can't I use only one of them ?
translation grammar meaning characters
asked Aug 8 at 5:09
Jenin Hope
211
(rèn shà) both characters means ( to know)and when combined it still have the same meaning.
So why can't I use only one of them ?
translation grammar meaning characters
asked Aug 8 at 5:09
Jenin Hope
211
asked Aug 8 at 5:09
Jenin Hope
211
asked Aug 8 at 5:09
Jenin Hope
211
asked Aug 8 at 5:09
Jenin Hope
211
211
Something related to å°Â仗(å°Âå¶).
– NoobTW
Aug 8 at 5:56
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Something related to å°Â仗(å°Âå¶).
– NoobTW
Aug 8 at 5:56
Something related to å°Â仗(å°Âå¶).
– NoobTW
Aug 8 at 5:56
Something related to å°Â仗(å°Âå¶).
– NoobTW
Aug 8 at 5:56
add a comment |Â
6 Answers
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Sometimes they are used by themselves (it depends on the word), e.g.:
你能帮助我å—？
你能帮我å—？
Can you help me?
They're often used in single-character forms in Chinese idioms, e.g. å…Â亲ä¸Â认 and ä¸Â识时务.
In my (only a learner) experience, the main reason seems to be that it's hard to understand sentences with single-character words:
认 and ä»» are pronounced the same, and 识 is pronounced the same as 时, 实, and Ã¥ÂÂ, so it's harder to deduce which character is being spoken.
认 and 识 also combine with other Chinese characters, e.g. 认为 and 知识, so it's harder to distinguish where word boundaries occur.
But on top of this, the usage of the double-character word may be different. An example of this is 帮忙 which is a noun for "help", whereas 帮 is a verb for "help". Another example is:
我刚æ‰Âåƒé¥Â。
我刚åƒé¥Â。
刚æ‰Â我åƒé¥Â。
Just now, I ate.
But 刚我åƒ饠is not correct (because 刚 is an adverb). So if we arbitrarily interchange 刚 and 刚æ‰Â, we will break the grammar.
Also, the English is only an approximate translation, and in Chinese these words that translate to the same thing are slightly different. They're the closest we have to the underlying meanings of 认识, 认, and 识.
answered Aug 8 at 6:30
Becky æÂŽè““
2,1861842
1
The 刚 and 刚扠examples are nice to show that you can't replace the two-character word with a single character -- but the explanation isn't quite right, because 刚扠is also an adverb. It would be better to say that 刚 and 刚扠are different types of adverb, which follow different grammatical rules.
– eaglebrain
yesterday
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It sources back to ancient times in China when spoken and written languages are in different forms (after Qin). Back then, only a small portion of Chinese people know how to write, while most Chinese people can only speak.
During the development of the Chinese language, written language became closer and closer to spoken language, transforming from WenYan（文言文） to BaiHua （白è¯Â）. In spoken language, people like to use bi-syllable words because it is easier to understand since there're many homophones. So written language inherit this pattern during its development.
In modern Chinese, people are used to this kind of expression, so it seems outdated or 'show off your WenYan skills' when you only use one character to express its meaning. Also, there're fixed rules that you must follow because of habits. However, you can still found some traces of ancient Chinese usage in Cantonese. I can't give an example here because I'm not an expert of Cantonese.
The evolution of BaiHua can be found on this Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_vernacular_Chinese
answered Aug 9 at 5:36
Kevin. Fang
2345
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Mandarin has a lot of two-character words, where both of the characters mean almost the same thing. This seems surprising, but makes sense when you see how the language developed over time. Old Chinese (spoken over two thousand years ago) had a lot more sounds than Modern Mandarin, and over time, many sounds were lost. This isn't obvious from Chinese characters (which don't record individual sounds), but this fact has been established based on ancient Chinese dictionaries (often called "rime books"), as well as modern linguistic research. However, after the sounds were lost, many syllables which used to sound different ended up sounding the same. To avoid confusion, people starting combining two syllables, to make themselves clear.
For example, rènshi (simplified: 认识, traditional: èªÂè˜) is composed of two syllables, both of which come from Old Chinese. They were pronounced something like "nəns" and "ək" (where "ə" is like the "a" in "comma"). We can compare this with other characters that are pronounced the same in Modern Mandarin. For example, ä»» is also pronounced "rèn", but in Old Chinese, it was pronounced "nəms", not "nəns". Meanwhile, å is also pronounced "shÃÂ", but in Old Chinese, it was pronounced "gip", not "ək". By combining the two syllables, rènshi is easier to understand, because it can't be confused with other words. These two-character words have now been used for centuries, and in some cases, the individual characters would not be used on their own.
As a second example (from this question), we can look at shuìjiào (simplified: ç¡觉, traditional: ç¡覺). Both characters come from Old Chinese, and were pronounced "doih" and "krûks". In contrast, 税/稅 is also pronounced "shuì", but in Old Chinese, it was "lhots", not "doih". Similarly, 较/較 is also pronounced "jiào", but in Old Chinese, it was "krâuk", not "krûks".
I have taken these pronunciations from the ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese. If you want to search for other words, click "All" underneath "ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese", type your words in the box at the top (in traditional characters), and then click the "Display Phonetics" button on the left. If a character didn't exist in Old Chinese, it won't come up! For example, 苹果/蘋果 comes from Sanskrit, and came into Chinese around the same time as Buddhism came into China.
If you would like to read more about how Chinese has developed two-syllable words, you can have a look at this academic paper, which was linked in this answer.
answered yesterday
eaglebrain
765
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Please read this post: 认识 vs 知é“ based on glyph origins
Both 认 and 识 has other meanings beside "recognize", just using 认 or just using 识 might mean something other than "recognize".
Put them together to form a specific term can remove ambiguity.
The reason for coining compound words is to turn general characters into specific words
answered Aug 8 at 6:03
Tang Ho
22.9k1437
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For the same reason you say "come back" instead of just "back" - it's just how the language is.
Or, even more comically, you wouldn't say "pro" instead of "protrude" in English, why require such brevity from modern Chinese?
Modern Chinese likes bi-syllabic "words", if you want each character to be used for one separate "word", look into 文言文.
answered Aug 9 at 3:56
Vitaly Osipov
52029
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See Sections 5-6 of this paper for theories of how compounding and disyllabicization occurred together in Chinese. There is a long history.
answered Aug 9 at 22:33
Nimrod
2846
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6 Answers
6
active
oldest
votes
6 Answers
6
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
up vote
3
down vote
Sometimes they are used by themselves (it depends on the word), e.g.:
你能帮助我å—？
你能帮我å—？
Can you help me?
They're often used in single-character forms in Chinese idioms, e.g. å…Â亲ä¸Â认 and ä¸Â识时务.
In my (only a learner) experience, the main reason seems to be that it's hard to understand sentences with single-character words:
认 and ä»» are pronounced the same, and 识 is pronounced the same as 时, 实, and Ã¥ÂÂ, so it's harder to deduce which character is being spoken.
认 and 识 also combine with other Chinese characters, e.g. 认为 and 知识, so it's harder to distinguish where word boundaries occur.
But on top of this, the usage of the double-character word may be different. An example of this is 帮忙 which is a noun for "help", whereas 帮 is a verb for "help". Another example is:
我刚æ‰Âåƒé¥Â。
我刚åƒé¥Â。
刚æ‰Â我åƒé¥Â。
Just now, I ate.
But 刚我åƒ饠is not correct (because 刚 is an adverb). So if we arbitrarily interchange 刚 and 刚æ‰Â, we will break the grammar.
Also, the English is only an approximate translation, and in Chinese these words that translate to the same thing are slightly different. They're the closest we have to the underlying meanings of 认识, 认, and 识.
answered Aug 8 at 6:30
Becky æÂŽè““
2,1861842
1
The 刚 and 刚扠examples are nice to show that you can't replace the two-character word with a single character -- but the explanation isn't quite right, because 刚扠is also an adverb. It would be better to say that 刚 and 刚扠are different types of adverb, which follow different grammatical rules.
– eaglebrain
yesterday
add a comment |Â
up vote
3
down vote
Sometimes they are used by themselves (it depends on the word), e.g.:
你能帮助我å—？
你能帮我å—？
Can you help me?
They're often used in single-character forms in Chinese idioms, e.g. å…Â亲ä¸Â认 and ä¸Â识时务.
In my (only a learner) experience, the main reason seems to be that it's hard to understand sentences with single-character words:
认 and ä»» are pronounced the same, and 识 is pronounced the same as 时, 实, and Ã¥ÂÂ, so it's harder to deduce which character is being spoken.
认 and 识 also combine with other Chinese characters, e.g. 认为 and 知识, so it's harder to distinguish where word boundaries occur.
But on top of this, the usage of the double-character word may be different. An example of this is 帮忙 which is a noun for "help", whereas 帮 is a verb for "help". Another example is:
我刚æ‰Âåƒé¥Â。
我刚åƒé¥Â。
刚æ‰Â我åƒé¥Â。
Just now, I ate.
But 刚我åƒ饠is not correct (because 刚 is an adverb). So if we arbitrarily interchange 刚 and 刚æ‰Â, we will break the grammar.
Also, the English is only an approximate translation, and in Chinese these words that translate to the same thing are slightly different. They're the closest we have to the underlying meanings of 认识, 认, and 识.
answered Aug 8 at 6:30
Becky æÂŽè““
2,1861842
1
The 刚 and 刚扠examples are nice to show that you can't replace the two-character word with a single character -- but the explanation isn't quite right, because 刚扠is also an adverb. It would be better to say that 刚 and 刚扠are different types of adverb, which follow different grammatical rules.
– eaglebrain
yesterday
add a comment |Â
up vote
3
down vote
up vote
3
down vote
Sometimes they are used by themselves (it depends on the word), e.g.:
你能帮助我å—？
你能帮我å—？
Can you help me?
They're often used in single-character forms in Chinese idioms, e.g. å…Â亲ä¸Â认 and ä¸Â识时务.
In my (only a learner) experience, the main reason seems to be that it's hard to understand sentences with single-character words:
认 and ä»» are pronounced the same, and 识 is pronounced the same as 时, 实, and Ã¥ÂÂ, so it's harder to deduce which character is being spoken.
认 and 识 also combine with other Chinese characters, e.g. 认为 and 知识, so it's harder to distinguish where word boundaries occur.
But on top of this, the usage of the double-character word may be different. An example of this is 帮忙 which is a noun for "help", whereas 帮 is a verb for "help". Another example is:
我刚æ‰Âåƒé¥Â。
我刚åƒé¥Â。
刚æ‰Â我åƒé¥Â。
Just now, I ate.
But 刚我åƒ饠is not correct (because 刚 is an adverb). So if we arbitrarily interchange 刚 and 刚æ‰Â, we will break the grammar.
Also, the English is only an approximate translation, and in Chinese these words that translate to the same thing are slightly different. They're the closest we have to the underlying meanings of 认识, 认, and 识.
answered Aug 8 at 6:30
Becky æÂŽè““
2,1861842
Sometimes they are used by themselves (it depends on the word), e.g.:
你能帮助我å—？
你能帮我å—？
Can you help me?
They're often used in single-character forms in Chinese idioms, e.g. å…Â亲ä¸Â认 and ä¸Â识时务.
In my (only a learner) experience, the main reason seems to be that it's hard to understand sentences with single-character words:
认 and ä»» are pronounced the same, and 识 is pronounced the same as 时, 实, and Ã¥ÂÂ, so it's harder to deduce which character is being spoken.
认 and 识 also combine with other Chinese characters, e.g. 认为 and 知识, so it's harder to distinguish where word boundaries occur.
But on top of this, the usage of the double-character word may be different. An example of this is 帮忙 which is a noun for "help", whereas 帮 is a verb for "help". Another example is:
我刚æ‰Âåƒé¥Â。
我刚åƒé¥Â。
刚æ‰Â我åƒé¥Â。
Just now, I ate.
But 刚我åƒ饠is not correct (because 刚 is an adverb). So if we arbitrarily interchange 刚 and 刚æ‰Â, we will break the grammar.
Also, the English is only an approximate translation, and in Chinese these words that translate to the same thing are slightly different. They're the closest we have to the underlying meanings of 认识, 认, and 识.
answered Aug 8 at 6:30
Becky æÂŽè““
2,1861842
answered Aug 8 at 6:30
Becky æÂŽè““
2,1861842
answered Aug 8 at 6:30
Becky æÂŽè““
2,1861842
answered Aug 8 at 6:30
Becky æÂŽè““
2,1861842
2,1861842
1
The 刚 and 刚扠examples are nice to show that you can't replace the two-character word with a single character -- but the explanation isn't quite right, because 刚扠is also an adverb. It would be better to say that 刚 and 刚扠are different types of adverb, which follow different grammatical rules.
– eaglebrain
yesterday
add a comment |Â
1
The 刚 and 刚扠examples are nice to show that you can't replace the two-character word with a single character -- but the explanation isn't quite right, because 刚扠is also an adverb. It would be better to say that 刚 and 刚扠are different types of adverb, which follow different grammatical rules.
– eaglebrain
yesterday
1
1
The 刚 and 刚扠examples are nice to show that you can't replace the two-character word with a single character -- but the explanation isn't quite right, because 刚扠is also an adverb. It would be better to say that 刚 and 刚扠are different types of adverb, which follow different grammatical rules.
– eaglebrain
yesterday
The 刚 and 刚扠examples are nice to show that you can't replace the two-character word with a single character -- but the explanation isn't quite right, because 刚扠is also an adverb. It would be better to say that 刚 and 刚扠are different types of adverb, which follow different grammatical rules.
– eaglebrain
yesterday
add a comment |Â
up vote
3
down vote
It sources back to ancient times in China when spoken and written languages are in different forms (after Qin). Back then, only a small portion of Chinese people know how to write, while most Chinese people can only speak.
During the development of the Chinese language, written language became closer and closer to spoken language, transforming from WenYan（文言文） to BaiHua （白è¯Â）. In spoken language, people like to use bi-syllable words because it is easier to understand since there're many homophones. So written language inherit this pattern during its development.
In modern Chinese, people are used to this kind of expression, so it seems outdated or 'show off your WenYan skills' when you only use one character to express its meaning. Also, there're fixed rules that you must follow because of habits. However, you can still found some traces of ancient Chinese usage in Cantonese. I can't give an example here because I'm not an expert of Cantonese.
The evolution of BaiHua can be found on this Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_vernacular_Chinese
answered Aug 9 at 5:36
Kevin. Fang
2345
add a comment |Â
up vote
3
down vote
It sources back to ancient times in China when spoken and written languages are in different forms (after Qin). Back then, only a small portion of Chinese people know how to write, while most Chinese people can only speak.
During the development of the Chinese language, written language became closer and closer to spoken language, transforming from WenYan（文言文） to BaiHua （白è¯Â）. In spoken language, people like to use bi-syllable words because it is easier to understand since there're many homophones. So written language inherit this pattern during its development.
In modern Chinese, people are used to this kind of expression, so it seems outdated or 'show off your WenYan skills' when you only use one character to express its meaning. Also, there're fixed rules that you must follow because of habits. However, you can still found some traces of ancient Chinese usage in Cantonese. I can't give an example here because I'm not an expert of Cantonese.
The evolution of BaiHua can be found on this Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_vernacular_Chinese
answered Aug 9 at 5:36
Kevin. Fang
2345
add a comment |Â
up vote
3
down vote
up vote
3
down vote
It sources back to ancient times in China when spoken and written languages are in different forms (after Qin). Back then, only a small portion of Chinese people know how to write, while most Chinese people can only speak.
During the development of the Chinese language, written language became closer and closer to spoken language, transforming from WenYan（文言文） to BaiHua （白è¯Â）. In spoken language, people like to use bi-syllable words because it is easier to understand since there're many homophones. So written language inherit this pattern during its development.
In modern Chinese, people are used to this kind of expression, so it seems outdated or 'show off your WenYan skills' when you only use one character to express its meaning. Also, there're fixed rules that you must follow because of habits. However, you can still found some traces of ancient Chinese usage in Cantonese. I can't give an example here because I'm not an expert of Cantonese.
The evolution of BaiHua can be found on this Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_vernacular_Chinese
answered Aug 9 at 5:36
Kevin. Fang
2345
It sources back to ancient times in China when spoken and written languages are in different forms (after Qin). Back then, only a small portion of Chinese people know how to write, while most Chinese people can only speak.
During the development of the Chinese language, written language became closer and closer to spoken language, transforming from WenYan（文言文） to BaiHua （白è¯Â）. In spoken language, people like to use bi-syllable words because it is easier to understand since there're many homophones. So written language inherit this pattern during its development.
In modern Chinese, people are used to this kind of expression, so it seems outdated or 'show off your WenYan skills' when you only use one character to express its meaning. Also, there're fixed rules that you must follow because of habits. However, you can still found some traces of ancient Chinese usage in Cantonese. I can't give an example here because I'm not an expert of Cantonese.
The evolution of BaiHua can be found on this Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_vernacular_Chinese
answered Aug 9 at 5:36
Kevin. Fang
2345
edited Aug 9 at 5:47
answered Aug 9 at 5:36
Kevin. Fang
2345
answered Aug 9 at 5:36
Kevin. Fang
2345
answered Aug 9 at 5:36
Kevin. Fang
2345
2345
add a comment |Â
add a comment |Â
up vote
3
down vote
Mandarin has a lot of two-character words, where both of the characters mean almost the same thing. This seems surprising, but makes sense when you see how the language developed over time. Old Chinese (spoken over two thousand years ago) had a lot more sounds than Modern Mandarin, and over time, many sounds were lost. This isn't obvious from Chinese characters (which don't record individual sounds), but this fact has been established based on ancient Chinese dictionaries (often called "rime books"), as well as modern linguistic research. However, after the sounds were lost, many syllables which used to sound different ended up sounding the same. To avoid confusion, people starting combining two syllables, to make themselves clear.
For example, rènshi (simplified: 认识, traditional: èªÂè˜) is composed of two syllables, both of which come from Old Chinese. They were pronounced something like "nəns" and "ək" (where "ə" is like the "a" in "comma"). We can compare this with other characters that are pronounced the same in Modern Mandarin. For example, ä»» is also pronounced "rèn", but in Old Chinese, it was pronounced "nəms", not "nəns". Meanwhile, å is also pronounced "shÃÂ", but in Old Chinese, it was pronounced "gip", not "ək". By combining the two syllables, rènshi is easier to understand, because it can't be confused with other words. These two-character words have now been used for centuries, and in some cases, the individual characters would not be used on their own.
As a second example (from this question), we can look at shuìjiào (simplified: ç¡觉, traditional: ç¡覺). Both characters come from Old Chinese, and were pronounced "doih" and "krûks". In contrast, 税/稅 is also pronounced "shuì", but in Old Chinese, it was "lhots", not "doih". Similarly, 较/較 is also pronounced "jiào", but in Old Chinese, it was "krâuk", not "krûks".
I have taken these pronunciations from the ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese. If you want to search for other words, click "All" underneath "ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese", type your words in the box at the top (in traditional characters), and then click the "Display Phonetics" button on the left. If a character didn't exist in Old Chinese, it won't come up! For example, 苹果/蘋果 comes from Sanskrit, and came into Chinese around the same time as Buddhism came into China.
If you would like to read more about how Chinese has developed two-syllable words, you can have a look at this academic paper, which was linked in this answer.
answered yesterday
eaglebrain
765
add a comment |Â
up vote
3
down vote
Mandarin has a lot of two-character words, where both of the characters mean almost the same thing. This seems surprising, but makes sense when you see how the language developed over time. Old Chinese (spoken over two thousand years ago) had a lot more sounds than Modern Mandarin, and over time, many sounds were lost. This isn't obvious from Chinese characters (which don't record individual sounds), but this fact has been established based on ancient Chinese dictionaries (often called "rime books"), as well as modern linguistic research. However, after the sounds were lost, many syllables which used to sound different ended up sounding the same. To avoid confusion, people starting combining two syllables, to make themselves clear.
For example, rènshi (simplified: 认识, traditional: èªÂè˜) is composed of two syllables, both of which come from Old Chinese. They were pronounced something like "nəns" and "ək" (where "ə" is like the "a" in "comma"). We can compare this with other characters that are pronounced the same in Modern Mandarin. For example, ä»» is also pronounced "rèn", but in Old Chinese, it was pronounced "nəms", not "nəns". Meanwhile, å is also pronounced "shÃÂ", but in Old Chinese, it was pronounced "gip", not "ək". By combining the two syllables, rènshi is easier to understand, because it can't be confused with other words. These two-character words have now been used for centuries, and in some cases, the individual characters would not be used on their own.
As a second example (from this question), we can look at shuìjiào (simplified: ç¡觉, traditional: ç¡覺). Both characters come from Old Chinese, and were pronounced "doih" and "krûks". In contrast, 税/稅 is also pronounced "shuì", but in Old Chinese, it was "lhots", not "doih". Similarly, 较/較 is also pronounced "jiào", but in Old Chinese, it was "krâuk", not "krûks".
I have taken these pronunciations from the ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese. If you want to search for other words, click "All" underneath "ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese", type your words in the box at the top (in traditional characters), and then click the "Display Phonetics" button on the left. If a character didn't exist in Old Chinese, it won't come up! For example, 苹果/蘋果 comes from Sanskrit, and came into Chinese around the same time as Buddhism came into China.
If you would like to read more about how Chinese has developed two-syllable words, you can have a look at this academic paper, which was linked in this answer.
answered yesterday
eaglebrain
765
add a comment |Â
up vote
3
down vote
up vote
3
down vote
Mandarin has a lot of two-character words, where both of the characters mean almost the same thing. This seems surprising, but makes sense when you see how the language developed over time. Old Chinese (spoken over two thousand years ago) had a lot more sounds than Modern Mandarin, and over time, many sounds were lost. This isn't obvious from Chinese characters (which don't record individual sounds), but this fact has been established based on ancient Chinese dictionaries (often called "rime books"), as well as modern linguistic research. However, after the sounds were lost, many syllables which used to sound different ended up sounding the same. To avoid confusion, people starting combining two syllables, to make themselves clear.
For example, rènshi (simplified: 认识, traditional: èªÂè˜) is composed of two syllables, both of which come from Old Chinese. They were pronounced something like "nəns" and "ək" (where "ə" is like the "a" in "comma"). We can compare this with other characters that are pronounced the same in Modern Mandarin. For example, ä»» is also pronounced "rèn", but in Old Chinese, it was pronounced "nəms", not "nəns". Meanwhile, å is also pronounced "shÃÂ", but in Old Chinese, it was pronounced "gip", not "ək". By combining the two syllables, rènshi is easier to understand, because it can't be confused with other words. These two-character words have now been used for centuries, and in some cases, the individual characters would not be used on their own.
As a second example (from this question), we can look at shuìjiào (simplified: ç¡觉, traditional: ç¡覺). Both characters come from Old Chinese, and were pronounced "doih" and "krûks". In contrast, 税/稅 is also pronounced "shuì", but in Old Chinese, it was "lhots", not "doih". Similarly, 较/較 is also pronounced "jiào", but in Old Chinese, it was "krâuk", not "krûks".
I have taken these pronunciations from the ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese. If you want to search for other words, click "All" underneath "ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese", type your words in the box at the top (in traditional characters), and then click the "Display Phonetics" button on the left. If a character didn't exist in Old Chinese, it won't come up! For example, 苹果/蘋果 comes from Sanskrit, and came into Chinese around the same time as Buddhism came into China.
If you would like to read more about how Chinese has developed two-syllable words, you can have a look at this academic paper, which was linked in this answer.
answered yesterday
eaglebrain
765
Mandarin has a lot of two-character words, where both of the characters mean almost the same thing. This seems surprising, but makes sense when you see how the language developed over time. Old Chinese (spoken over two thousand years ago) had a lot more sounds than Modern Mandarin, and over time, many sounds were lost. This isn't obvious from Chinese characters (which don't record individual sounds), but this fact has been established based on ancient Chinese dictionaries (often called "rime books"), as well as modern linguistic research. However, after the sounds were lost, many syllables which used to sound different ended up sounding the same. To avoid confusion, people starting combining two syllables, to make themselves clear.
For example, rènshi (simplified: 认识, traditional: èªÂè˜) is composed of two syllables, both of which come from Old Chinese. They were pronounced something like "nəns" and "ək" (where "ə" is like the "a" in "comma"). We can compare this with other characters that are pronounced the same in Modern Mandarin. For example, ä»» is also pronounced "rèn", but in Old Chinese, it was pronounced "nəms", not "nəns". Meanwhile, å is also pronounced "shÃÂ", but in Old Chinese, it was pronounced "gip", not "ək". By combining the two syllables, rènshi is easier to understand, because it can't be confused with other words. These two-character words have now been used for centuries, and in some cases, the individual characters would not be used on their own.
As a second example (from this question), we can look at shuìjiào (simplified: ç¡觉, traditional: ç¡覺). Both characters come from Old Chinese, and were pronounced "doih" and "krûks". In contrast, 税/稅 is also pronounced "shuì", but in Old Chinese, it was "lhots", not "doih". Similarly, 较/較 is also pronounced "jiào", but in Old Chinese, it was "krâuk", not "krûks".
I have taken these pronunciations from the ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese. If you want to search for other words, click "All" underneath "ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese", type your words in the box at the top (in traditional characters), and then click the "Display Phonetics" button on the left. If a character didn't exist in Old Chinese, it won't come up! For example, 苹果/蘋果 comes from Sanskrit, and came into Chinese around the same time as Buddhism came into China.
If you would like to read more about how Chinese has developed two-syllable words, you can have a look at this academic paper, which was linked in this answer.
answered yesterday
eaglebrain
765
edited yesterday
answered yesterday
eaglebrain
765
answered yesterday
eaglebrain
765
answered yesterday
eaglebrain
765
765
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up vote
2
down vote
Please read this post: 认识 vs 知é“ based on glyph origins
Both 认 and 识 has other meanings beside "recognize", just using 认 or just using 识 might mean something other than "recognize".
Put them together to form a specific term can remove ambiguity.
The reason for coining compound words is to turn general characters into specific words
answered Aug 8 at 6:03
Tang Ho
22.9k1437
add a comment |Â
up vote
2
down vote
Please read this post: 认识 vs 知é“ based on glyph origins
Both 认 and 识 has other meanings beside "recognize", just using 认 or just using 识 might mean something other than "recognize".
Put them together to form a specific term can remove ambiguity.
The reason for coining compound words is to turn general characters into specific words
answered Aug 8 at 6:03
Tang Ho
22.9k1437
add a comment |Â
up vote
2
down vote
up vote
2
down vote
Please read this post: 认识 vs 知é“ based on glyph origins
Both 认 and 识 has other meanings beside "recognize", just using 认 or just using 识 might mean something other than "recognize".
Put them together to form a specific term can remove ambiguity.
The reason for coining compound words is to turn general characters into specific words
answered Aug 8 at 6:03
Tang Ho
22.9k1437
Please read this post: 认识 vs 知é“ based on glyph origins
Both 认 and 识 has other meanings beside "recognize", just using 认 or just using 识 might mean something other than "recognize".
Put them together to form a specific term can remove ambiguity.
The reason for coining compound words is to turn general characters into specific words
answered Aug 8 at 6:03
Tang Ho
22.9k1437
answered Aug 8 at 6:03
Tang Ho
22.9k1437
answered Aug 8 at 6:03
Tang Ho
22.9k1437
answered Aug 8 at 6:03
Tang Ho
22.9k1437
22.9k1437
add a comment |Â
add a comment |Â
up vote
2
down vote
For the same reason you say "come back" instead of just "back" - it's just how the language is.
Or, even more comically, you wouldn't say "pro" instead of "protrude" in English, why require such brevity from modern Chinese?
Modern Chinese likes bi-syllabic "words", if you want each character to be used for one separate "word", look into 文言文.
answered Aug 9 at 3:56
Vitaly Osipov
52029
add a comment |Â
up vote
2
down vote
For the same reason you say "come back" instead of just "back" - it's just how the language is.
Or, even more comically, you wouldn't say "pro" instead of "protrude" in English, why require such brevity from modern Chinese?
Modern Chinese likes bi-syllabic "words", if you want each character to be used for one separate "word", look into 文言文.
answered Aug 9 at 3:56
Vitaly Osipov
52029
add a comment |Â
up vote
2
down vote
up vote
2
down vote
For the same reason you say "come back" instead of just "back" - it's just how the language is.
Or, even more comically, you wouldn't say "pro" instead of "protrude" in English, why require such brevity from modern Chinese?
Modern Chinese likes bi-syllabic "words", if you want each character to be used for one separate "word", look into 文言文.
answered Aug 9 at 3:56
Vitaly Osipov
52029
For the same reason you say "come back" instead of just "back" - it's just how the language is.
Or, even more comically, you wouldn't say "pro" instead of "protrude" in English, why require such brevity from modern Chinese?
Modern Chinese likes bi-syllabic "words", if you want each character to be used for one separate "word", look into 文言文.
answered Aug 9 at 3:56
Vitaly Osipov
52029
answered Aug 9 at 3:56
Vitaly Osipov
52029
answered Aug 9 at 3:56
Vitaly Osipov
52029
answered Aug 9 at 3:56
Vitaly Osipov
52029
52029
add a comment |Â
add a comment |Â
up vote
2
down vote
See Sections 5-6 of this paper for theories of how compounding and disyllabicization occurred together in Chinese. There is a long history.
answered Aug 9 at 22:33
Nimrod
2846
add a comment |Â
up vote
2
down vote
See Sections 5-6 of this paper for theories of how compounding and disyllabicization occurred together in Chinese. There is a long history.
answered Aug 9 at 22:33
Nimrod
2846
add a comment |Â
up vote
2
down vote
up vote
2
down vote
See Sections 5-6 of this paper for theories of how compounding and disyllabicization occurred together in Chinese. There is a long history.
answered Aug 9 at 22:33
Nimrod
2846
See Sections 5-6 of this paper for theories of how compounding and disyllabicization occurred together in Chinese. There is a long history.
answered Aug 9 at 22:33
Nimrod
2846
answered Aug 9 at 22:33
Nimrod
2846
answered Aug 9 at 22:33
Nimrod
2846
answered Aug 9 at 22:33
Nimrod
2846
2846
add a comment |Â
add a comment |Â
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Something related to å°Â仗(å°Âå¶).
– NoobTW
Aug 8 at 5:56