Talk:娃娃

Slang usage

I thought I saw this used as slang for "girls" (even with "girls" appearing in parentheses after 娃娃 in a Google search. If that's not what it means, how is this being used. It does seem to be a slang usage other than "baby." Or maybe an equivalent to the English slang term "baby" (as heard in numerous rock songs of the 1960s? 24.93.170.200 19:08, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Example: this search. The last hit in the first page says "safari underground » Hula Girls (草裙娃娃呼啦啦) [2006]." I don't think it's referring to newborn babies doing the hula dance, as it would seem impossible for children so young that could not even stand up. 24.93.170.200 19:10, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Strangely, this Wikipedia article uses it as a suffix after "Barbie." But the Barbie doll does not depict a baby, but a teenage girl. 24.93.170.200 19:13, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

This Wikipedia article translates 娃娃 as "doll." 24.93.170.200 19:14, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Exactly, just like in English. In English, when a man says, "Hey baby, what's your sign?" He's not referring to an infant baby (hopefully, not). In this sense, it may refer to the slang "baby" or "babe." Yes, doll is another definition of this term (in this context, a doll does not have to depict an infant). In order of frequency, I would say that baby and doll are the most common definitions. The slang definition would not be the first thing I would think of without any other context. -- A-cai 22:25, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, good to know; I think these additional usages should be added (with the proper qualifications: "(Slang)," "(Informal)," or whatever. 24.93.170.200 22:38, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Colloquial variants

@Justinrleung: Thanks for normalising. I hope you know what you're doing.

The original sentence

吾想買扎娃娃送把伊。 [Shanghainese, trad.]
吾想买扎娃娃送把伊。 [Shanghainese, simp.]

(please add an English translation of this usage example)

The new sentence

我想買隻娃娃送撥伊。 [Shanghainese, trad.]
我想买只娃娃送拨伊。 [Shanghainese, simp.]

(please add an English translation of this usage example)

Have now little in common. The pronunciation of characters 扎/隻 and 把/撥 is very different. How do you know they are right? --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 06:49, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

@Atitarev: 扎 and 隻 have the same pronunciation 4tsaq; the classifier (for 娃娃) should definitely be 隻. 把 is a variant (and has been argued to be the 本字) of 撥, which is the more common form (I remember discussing this with Wyang on Discord); 送撥伊 = 送給他. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 06:59, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: Cool, thanks again. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 07:04, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

@Atitarev: No problem :D — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 07:07, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: I'm interested in your opinion on usage examples in [1]. They must be done by native Shanghainese speakers but what about their spellings? Are they even acceptable? How "bad" is writing 吾想买扎娃娃送把伊 instead of 我想买只娃娃送拨伊? --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 07:09, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

@Atitarev: I guess it'd be fine to keep the original orthography if we were to treat them as quotations, but I'm not sure if they're durably archived. Dialectal writing is tricky and hard to standardize anyway. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 07:13, 20 May 2019 (UTC)