Talk:星

Alternate definition

This can also be the name of a musical instrument (finger cymbals), correct? 24.93.190.134 00:58, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Correct, in ancient times, 星 was another name for 碰鈴 (finger cymbals).[1] -- A-cai 20:47, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Can this be added to the entry? 131.123.120.57 19:35, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

星星

Is 星星 a word? It appears in the title of an old film. 131.123.120.57 19:35, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes. —suzukaze (t・c) 10:22, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

〇 variant

According to the Wikipedia page Chinese characters of Empress Wu, 〇 was used as a variant of 星. 2602:30A:2CDB:490:1D9E:2F55:395B:5ADA 12:46, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

JA hoshi etymology

I restored the following:

From Old Japanese. Possible cognates include Korean 별 (byeol, “star”) and Manchu ᡠᠰᡳᡥᠠ (usiha, “star”).

This reverted the content below:

From Old Japanese, ultimate derivation unknown. Theories include:

1. 火(ほ) (ho, “fire”) + 石(いし) (ishi, “rock”)
2. 火(ほ) (ho, “fire”) + 白(しろ) (shiro, “white”)
3. 火(ほ) (ho, “fire”) + 気(き) (ki, “energy”)
4. 細(ほそ) (hoso, “thin”) + 火(ひ) (hi, “fire”)

All four share 火, as stars resembled small balls of fire, and likely evolved into hoshi by sound change (Can this⁽⁺⁾ etymology be sourced?). Possible cognates include Korean 별 (byeol, “star”) and Manchu ᡠᠰᡳᡥᠠ (usiha, “star”).

In order, here are the flaws with the content purportedly sourced from Gogen-Yurai:

1. Ancient ho + ishi would likely have produced modern hishi. See the postulated phonetic development of modern hi from ancient ho + i (ancient nominal particle).
2. The change from shiro to just shi has no precendent that I'm aware of. Shiro and shira occur as apophones, but 白 never appears as just shi.
3. Ancient ho + ki *might* possibly form modern hochi, as seen in Okinawa where ki has become chi. However, the palatalization of ki in mainland Japanese has not proceeded as far as affrication, and hochi is not hoshi anyway.
4. hoso + hi would produce modern hosobi. There is no precedent for this to produce hoshi.

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 19:34, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Quotation

@Poketalker [2] "stars by the myriads" does not seem correct to me. I don't really understand the sentence. But I think you should see this grammatically with 'stars 星' as the subject and 'all things 萬物' as part of a modifier. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 00:35, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

What I'm trying to say is, I don't think 萬物 is describing 星. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 00:37, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

@Geographyinitiative: the Wamyosho passage is verbatim; it might not be Classical Chinese as I first presumed:

星　説文云星萬物精上所生桑經友［和名保之］

Star✓ - according to Shuowen✓, stars✓, of all things✓, [shine] bright (精, clear) in the heavens (上所, high place) as living(生?) mulberry [thread] warps [are tied] together(友, friends?). The Japanese name is hoshi✓.

How about now? ～ POKéTalker（═◉═） 00:51, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Fixed quotation based on original manuscript. [3] KevinUp (talk) 01:21, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

@KevinUp: thanks very much. The 反/友 characters are a bit confusing to me, especially the second stroke. “Returning to mulberry warps.” Will leave Wamyosho passage translation to others next time... ～ POKéTalker（═◉═） 01:56, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

A couple thoughts.

• If we say the term is from OJP, I think it's important that we explicitly trace it to at least one OJP text if we can, and note a reference there in the etym.
• I see that the punctuation on the Wamyō quote changes things a bit. With the 桑經反 portion left untranslated, I suggest that it would be better to replace the 桑經反 with ellipses, and add ellipses to the target text, to clarify that part of the cited text has been intentionally omitted.
• That said, it seems that 桑經 might be an alternative name for the [[w:zh:水經]] or "Water Classic", as suggested by this Baidu page. The "Water Classic" is also mentioned on the EN WP at the [[w:Commentary on the Water Classic]] page. From the two WP articles, we learn that the "Water Classic" was authored by Sang Qin, i.e. 桑欽 -- explaining where the 桑 came from in the alternative title.

I'm not sure about the usage of 反 here, but the MDBG entry gives some possible hints.

HTH, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 18:56, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

One of the difficulties in translating kanbun texts is the lack of punctuation in the original manuscript, but I'm familiar with it because I often compare original manuscripts of Classical Chinese with modern transcriptions. 桑經反 is the fanqie (反切) used to indicate its pronunciation in Middle Chinese (initial syllable of 桑 (MC sang), "s-" + final rime of 經 (MC keng), "-eŋ" = reading of 星 (MC seng)). KevinUp (talk) 20:44, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

• Thank you very much, @@KevinUp! I was clearly barking up the wrong (mulberry) tree.  :) ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:25, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

No problem. Fortunately the original manuscript is available online, so I could fix the 友/反 typo, otherwise I would be thinking of mulberries as well. KevinUp (talk) 21:38, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

RFV discussion: January–May 2022

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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星

Rfv-sense: Japanese surname "Hoshi" and Indian name "Singh". --沈澄心✉ 08:57, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

It seems to be common as a translation of Singh, but I'm not sure if it's necessarily treated as the surname or if it's a Sinicization of the names. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 21:27, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Cited for "Singh". — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 15:16, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

• RFV passed for "Singh". — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 16:28, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
• RFV failed for "Hoshi". — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 22:37, 10 May 2022 (UTC)