Talk:獅

Etym?

Researching the etymology of Japanese 獅子 (shishi), I found that Gogen Allguide's entry here claims that this is derived from Sanskrit सिंह (siṃhá). However, Unihan's entry for 獅／狮 (shī) here shows a Tang-era reading of shri, making any phonetic derivation from siṃhá look a bit unlikely.

Does anyone else have additional information? -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 06:57, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Likely from Middle Persian. 獅 / 獅子 / 師 / 師子 was first mentioned in the Book of Han, in the description of the "specialties" of the 烏弋山離 country in the Western Regions. 烏弋山離 in Old Chinese had the pronunciation of /*ʔa lək sren raj/, so this referred to *Alexandria, likely "Alexandria Prophthasia", which was part of the Parthian Empire during the time of Han, speaking some Indo-Iranian language. 師 in Old Chinese was /*srij/, so Middle Persian šēr would be the closest.

Unrelatedly, an earlier Chinese name for the lion (or something like it), as recorded in Erya, was 狻猊/狻麑 (/*sˁor ŋˁe/), looking quite similar to *šēr (probably only the first syllable meant "lion", the second syllable also meant "fawn"). Wyang (talk) 09:57, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I added an etym and simple def for the Mandarin term, see what you think. It might be good to include the bit about 狻猊/狻麑 (/*sˁor ŋˁe/) in a ====Related terms==== section. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 20:45, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

RFV discussion: January 2019–April 2020

See Talk:獅子#RFV discussion: January 2019–April 2020.

RFV discussion: July–September 2021

The following information has failed Wiktionary's verification process (permalink).

Failure to be verified means that insufficient eligible citations of this usage have been found, and the entry therefore does not meet Wiktionary inclusion criteria at the present time. We have archived here the disputed information, the verification discussion, and any documentation gathered so far, pending further evidence.
Do not re-add this information to the article without also submitting proof that it meets Wiktionary's criteria for inclusion.

---

獅

Rfv-sense: "Shi (an islet in Lieyu, Kinmen, Taiwan)". 嶼 is probably no longer productive in Hokkien. RcAlex36 (talk) 15:43, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Pinging @Geographyinitiative, who added this sense. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 16:49, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

I like the 獅嶼／狮屿 (Shīyǔ) entry, I am fine with removing this definition for 獅. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 16:54, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

• RFV failed. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 16:55, 13 September 2021 (UTC)