Talk:toad
蜍, which was the entered translation for toad, is not good - it's the Chinese character corresponding to toad, yes, it's part of the scientific Chinese name for toad, but it's not the word people use in virtually all cases. That word is 蛤蟆 háma, to which I've altered it. 蜍 remains listed as the CJKV character translation.
Is someone going through and translating Chinese with a character dictionary instead of a language dictionary? -- Minivet 13:28, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
- No, no one is doing that now, but there are a lot of them. What is often missing is translations to the specific languages. Presumably what you've entered should be shown as Mandarin? (A translation to "Chinese" is ambiguous ;-) Robert Ullmann 15:58, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I think as it is now it is good: the specific related characters, along with the actual words in use, normally consisting of two characters. Now the wait for Cantonese, Taiwanese etc. to be added! Smiley--219.69.81.128 03:25, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
Etymology[edit]
My apologies for leaving an ambiguous entry, wrongly stating that the Danish and Swedish words were the only correct derivations of TOAD apart from the TAD and TADIE = Old English forms. I meant that the TAXE and TOSCA forms[2] are the only irrelevant forms, from a different root.[7] First attested in around 1300 AD, so the usage previously may have been quite limited or dialectual. The Swedish TÅSSA's central 's' possibly takes the place of 'd'[3], but this is unattested. If so, it may correspond with Danish TUDSE[3]; otherwise possibly with Anglo-Saxon TAXE and TOSCA?[6] To assume that this Danish word is the root[0] of TOAD would be a total breach of the sound law. The 'SE' suffix parallels in one's mind with the Finnish suffix 'SI', that gives a hint that it may (with the Swedish word) have slipped through from a Finn-Ugric dialect[2] which was part of that language family before the arrival of the Indo-European languages in that area. This led to the possible remote connection with Basque TXANTXIKU[2], before it was nasalised, although not of that language family. This may sound preposterous, but it must be remembered that the two main verbs in ancient Pictish, 'to be' = TAGONA, and NAUKA, 'to possess' are almost un-coincidentally linked with Basque DAGO (to be) and NAUKA (to have).[6] Also, ancient Pictish for 'stone' is KEVV = KIVI[7] in Finnish. There is no evidence for any Germanic or Celtic root connection with 'TĀDE' <'TĀDIE' <'TĀDIGE'[7] (toad).
[0] means 'Absolutely not; [1] means 'Exceedingly unlikely'; [2] means 'Very dubious'; [3] means 'Questionable'; [4] means 'Possible'; [5] means 'Probable'; [6] means 'Likely'; [7] means 'Most Likely' or *Unattested; [8] means 'Attested'; [9] means 'Obvious' - only used for close matches within the same language or dialect, at linkable periods.