李

Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary

Contents 1 Translingual 1.1 Etymology 1.2 Han character 1.2.1 References 2 Cantonese 2.1 Hanzi 3 Japanese 3.1 Kanji 3.1.1 Readings 3.2 Noun 3.3 Proper noun 4 Korean 4.1 Etymology 4.2 Pronunciation 4.3 Hanja 5 Mandarin 5.1 Hanzi 6 Middle Chinese 6.1 Han character 7 Min Nan 7.1 Hanzi 7.2 Descendants 8 Vietnamese 8.1 Han character

[edit] Translingual

[edit] Etymology

From 木 ‘tree’ + 子 ‘children’, because of the plum tree's prolific breeding or because it was popular with children.

[edit] Han character

李 (radical 75 木+3, 7 strokes, cangjie input 木弓木 (DND), four-corner 4040₇)

1. plum
2. judge
3. a surname - see Li and Lee

In China, the English spelling is generally "Li" because it more closely matches the pronunciation of the name in the Mandarin dialect of the Chinese language (Mandarin is mainland China's official national dialect). In Taiwan, another Mandarin-speaking Chinese society, however, most people uses "Lee" far more as the government's former Mandarin romanization system spells the word as "Lee". In Hong Kong, the spelling is "Lee" because it more closely matches the Cantonese dialect.

Mandarin pronunciation "lee" (with a slight dip of the Adam's apple at the first "e" sound, which then rises at the second "e" to produce the sound that hints of a question-mark accent)

Cantonese pronunciation "lay" (with a slight dip of the Adam's apple at the "a" sound, which then rises at the "y" sound to produce a hint of a question-mark accent)

• Unihan data for U+F9E1

[edit] References

• KangXi: page 511, character 11
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 14459
• Dae Jaweon: page 895, character 9
• Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 2, page 1162, character 8
• Unihan data for U+674E

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[edit] Cantonese

[edit] Hanzi

李 (Yale lei5)

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[edit] Japanese

[edit] Kanji

李

1. plum

[edit] Readings

• On: り (ri)
• Kun: すもも (sumomo)

[edit] Noun

李 (hiragana すもも, romaji sumomo)

1. plum

[edit] Proper noun

李 (katakana リ, romaji Ri)

1. Japanese reading of the Chinese or Korean surname.

李 (katakana リー, romaji Rī)

1. Japanese reading of the Chinese surname.

李 (katakana イ, romaji I)

1. Korean reading of the Korean surname.

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[edit] Korean

[edit] Etymology

From Chinese 李 ("plum" or "judge")

[edit] Pronunciation

• IPA: (North Korea) [ɾiː], (South Korea) [iː]

[edit] Hanja

李
Eumhun:

• Sound (hangeul): (NK) 리, (SK) 이 (revised: Lee, (NK) ri, Rhee, (SK) i, I, McCune-Reischauer: (NK) ri, (SK) i, Yi, Yale: (NK) li, (SK) i)

• Name (hangeul): 자두(Jadu)()

1. (North Korea) 리, (South Korea) 이: the second most common surname in Korea
2. (North Korea) 리, (South Korea) 이: plum

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[edit] Mandarin

[edit] Hanzi

李 (pinyin lǐ (li3), Wade-Giles li³)

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[edit] Middle Chinese

[edit] Han character

李 (*liə̌)

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[edit] Min Nan

[edit] Hanzi

李 (POJ Lí)

[edit] Descendants

• (Hokkien dialect) Filipino: Sy

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[edit] Vietnamese

[edit] Han character

李 (Lý, lí)