Talk:李

Alternate form

Why is the alternate form the smae as the entry title? 24.223.167.112 09:12, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Due to some automatic conversion (on Wiktionary's part rather than your system's, I suspect), the character and its alternate form share the same entry. This problem also affects other characters that undergo sound change in Korean such as 柳 (lywu becomes ywu) and 盧 (lo becomes no) – I haven't checked whether only surnames are affected. I guess that they aren't supposed to look any different but have been created out of technical reasons. Note how for each such character, the shape Koreans would usually input for names (which is input via i, ywu, no) looks different in small sizes than their common counterpart (input via li, lywu, lo) found in Chinese or Japanese texts*, which probably either means that

• the commoner and its Korean alternate belong to different fonts (the Korean alternate being drawn from a Korean font as a fallback measure, because it's not included in the commoner's font that is normally used), or
• one of them is handcrafted (if both actually belong to the same font).

I can still input the different forms in the gedit text editor (as I was able to do on Window's Notepad), but as soon as I use them on Wikipedia, the difference seems to be gone. However, googling the variants is possible (for example, [1] vs. [2]), and Ctrl+F in Firefox discriminates between alternates. Dustsucker 23:37, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

*Having a quick look at a few Google results, the top results for what I termed the Korean alternate consist mainly of Traditional Chinese sites,[3] whereas the top results for what I termed the commoner consist mainly or only of Simplified Chinese sites.[4]

On Unicode's Unihan data sheets, the Korean alternates look more carefully designed than the normal glyph shapes. Not being able to find a person via Google just because you entered their name's hanja via the wrong hangul sequence seems like a bad bug, and I wonder what caused it – Unicode's making pairs of alternates, or implementing Unicode in a bad way on the part of whoever made UTF-8, or Google's not doing anything about it. I hope whoever is responsible had a good reason. Dustsucker 23:55, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

To do

Add * [http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=F9E1 Unihan data for U+F9E1] in 李#References when UllmannBot is done. Dustsucker 23:37, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

These are CJK compatibility Ideographs, they exist only to preserve round-trip compatibility with one of the other characters sets on which Unicode/UCS was based. The wiktionary s/w is doing the right thing (and Google, etc. are wrong, they should be treating the two Z forms as the same character). The preferred glyph for the character should be selected at language font level, just like the preferred glyphs for Japanese, etc.

If you add that reference line just above the ---- in an entry UllmannBot hasn't formatted yet, it will end up in the right place. See article. Robert Ullmann 00:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining why we have these Z forms. I had asked at the English Wikipedia's reference desk for language-related topics earlier but haven't got a reply as clear as yours there.

Looking forward to see whether the article will look like 柳#References and 盧#References after the bot has visited. Dustsucker 03:21, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

On second thought, I don't think it will. Can always fix it ... ;-) Robert Ullmann 03:50, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Vietnamese

Can we get the Vietnamese pronunciation? 24.93.190.134 08:32, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

If you don't need IPA, Charles Muller's CJKV-English Dictionary says it is ‹lí›.

Other dictionaries, as well as w:Li (surname), say ‹lý›. According to w:Vietnamese alphabet#Vowels, it seems both i and y are used.

Glyph origin

@B2V22BHARAT There is support for at least some of what we have in the glyph origin: "甲骨文從「子」從「來」，「李」是一雙聲符字。因用為李樹的果實，「來」逐漸類化作「木」(鄭剛、季旭昇)。" http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=李 --Geographyinitiative (talk) 12:00, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

@Geographyinitiative WOW~ Amazing! Thanks a lot man ^^^^^ Peace :)))))))))) B2V22BHARAT (talk) 12:08, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

@B2V22BHARAT A few things to take note of:

1. Incorrect usage of {{ko-etym-sino}}. This template is only meant for Hangeul entries. If you use this template, it will categorize the entry into Category:Sino-Korean words. Please use {{l|ko|李}} or [[Sino-Korean]] instead.
2. For questionable etymologies, please use {{rfv-etym}} instead of {{rfv}} or {{rfv-sense}} which is only used for definitions.
3. Please use http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/ (Multi-function Chinese Character Database) to search for glyph origins of Chinese characters. Vividict.com contains unsourced folk etymologies and calligraphic images that are not authentic or original and is not that reliable.
4. I don't think the usage notes are necessary for Korean. "Historically, 李 (lǐ) was called 오얏나무 리 (oyannamu ri)" → This is the 음훈 (音訓, eumhun, “reading of sound and meaning of hanja together”) of the character which is already listed above so there is no need to mention this again. Also, "오얏나무 (oyannamu) which is a pure Korean word for 紫桃 (자두 (jadu))" → I think it would be better to list 오얏나무 (oyannamu) as a synonym at the entry for 자두 (紫桃, jadu).

By the way, the first part of the eumhun, the 훈독 (訓讀, hundok, “semantic reading”) is used as an aid to help Koreans read literary Chinese texts written using hanja. (See here for an example of a work by a Korean scholar in 1818 AD written entirely in hanja). I don't think 리/이 (李, ri/i) itself is used to refer to the meaning "plum" in spoken Korean. It's used mostly in literary form or in certain compound words. KevinUp (talk) 10:30, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

@KevinUp

1. Can you give me specific examples that I made this mistake? I'll not repeat it again.. Thanks.
2. Okay. Thanks.
3. Yeah this site is good.
4. I don't know if you have checked the history, but 음훈 (音訓, eumhun) of 李, before I edited, was written as 자두 리,이 (jadu ri,i) instead of 오얏나무 리,이 (oyannamu ri,i) so I left a message in the usage note, saying that historically, 李 had been written 오얏나무 리,이 (oyannamu ri,i), not 자두 리,이 (jadu ri,i). Historical record and usage(especially when it comes to surname) should not be changed that easily, because this will distort the truth in many ways.
5. ? What are you trying to say? :) You know that Chinese character is rarely used in Korea, as opposed to Japan where kanji and hiragana are mixed. Anyway, as always, thank you for teaching me. I'm curious as to how you have learned all of these things from the beginning. B2V22BHARAT (talk) 13:03, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

@B2V22BHARAT:

1. Here's an example: Special:Diff/52410512/52420621. Some templates put the entry into a specific category. You can use the "Show preview" button before you submit to check the categories at the bottom of the page, including hidden categories.

4. Yes, the previous eumhun added by a South Korean IP in Aug 2006 is incorrect. The mistake has been there for more than ten years. Thank you for noticing and correcting this mistake. There are many incorrect eumhun on Wiktionary. Here are the websites I use to check for eumhun readings: https://koreanhanja.app and http://www.zonmal.com/hanja_sen.asp

5. Well, we need to make a distinction between hanja used in the actual Korean language (Sino-Korean words) and hanja used only in literary Chinese texts which are written in Classical Chinese. These are two different languages. It seems that Korean scholars continued to write in literary Chinese until the 19th century whereas Japanese scholars stopped using literary Chinese a long time ago due to its closed door policy. Anyway, a good dictionary helps to expand one's vocabulary, and I enjoy looking at older dictionaries to compare old words with present day usage to see how a certain language has evolved over time. KevinUp (talk) 13:47, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

@KevinUp:

1. Uh-huh, You're right. Acutally, Special:Diff/52410512/52420621 this edit was made when I was still not accustomed to wiktionary, but thanks for notifying me twice. I didn't think at that time that differentiating between Sino-Korean word from 常 and 상 (常, sang) was a big deal.

2. Yeah I totally understand that. Most of the people(including me) contributing to wiktionary here are living in two worlds(actual and internet), so they cannot correct everything that is done wrong.

5 Yeah yeah yeah, Korean scholars "also" continued to write in literary Chinese until the 19th century whereas Japanese scholars stopped using literary Chinese a long time ago due to its closed door policy. B2V22BHARAT (talk) 14:31, 10 May 2019 (UTC)