Origin of Mahjong (MJ) / other Hu Pai Design

On Dec 4, 7:44 am, mstanwick <mstanw....DeleteThis@aol.com> wrote:
> > On Dec 3, 11:36 am, al <a....DeleteThis@ntl.sympatico.ca> wrote:
> > > In Li Ruzhen (1763 ~ 1830) "Jing Hua Yuan" in which the three suits
> > > were called suo3, bing3 and wan.
>
> > Again. Bing3 is not CASH. �That is cookie or cake.
>
> Yes. I was not sure to what term and translation your were referring
> to.
>
> > My curiosity [was] in where the and when the term CASH came about and by
> > whom.
>
> With reference to ma que, in its earliest incarnation, I would have to
> say Himly. His 1870's observations and research were written up in
> German in 1889. I can give the reference if requested. He names the
> terms for the three suits as suo3, tong2 and wan. He compares the
> difference of these names with suo3, bing3 and wan as found in the 3
> money suits of playing cards. He says that instead of bing3 we have
> tong2 but that tong2 refers to the same thing as bing3 (cakes).
>
I don't need reference, Michael. The answer I needed is that the term
CASH for the circle suit was originated from some one other than
Chinese.

> In a later paper (1901) he expands on his earlier comments regarding
> tong2....
>
> tong2 = similar, together with, same.
>
> Himly says it is an abbreviation of tong2 = copper, that would be a
> 'slang' for tong qian or copper money = cash. Hence bing3 ~ cash.
>
Tong as I said earlier in my posts has a bamboo radical not jin or
metal alloy
David Li had it as bamboo containers.
This is another 'word-of-mouth' mis-communication example from slangs.

> He also comments that there was, in the 1870's, in Fukien and Hunan
> the tradition of casting silver into 'cakes' (bing3 'cakes' as in
> food) and this term is a relic of bing3 = metal 'cake', with the
> radical jin = money or alloy, hence metal cake or money cake).

It seemed Himly had tried very hard to bring in the money for
justifying his term for "Cash". The existence (assumed) of silver cake
did not imply its use in card game symbols readily. If money coin was
in copper, silver or gold, the terms would follow a pattern as huong
tian, nghan tian and ghim tian where tian is cash-coin in my dialect).
The notion "cake" just does not fit.
++++++++++
Cheers......al

On Dec 5, 9:03 am, mstanwick <mstanw....DeleteThis@aol.com> wrote:
> > >> > ... the term 'cake' (as in food) was used to refer to
> > >> > silver 'cakes'?
> > But I do take it to be an explanation of how the bing (with metal radical)
> > came into existence: the food word was applied, and then written
> > differently when applied to metal.
>
> Yes. The index of Peng Xinwei's 'A Monetary History of China' uses the
> term bing3 'cake' (food), to refer to 'cake' of silver or gold.
> However, from Peng's discussion, this appears to be related to the
> 'cake' shape. In his discussion he talks about the ingot shape and the
> 'cake' shape - as well as other shapes. Thus, silver was cast into a
> 'cake' shape and then it was sometimes called 'cake-metal',
> "...following the pattern of 'ingot-silver".

Michael, I think assigning 'cake' to the round symbol is a stretch.
For one thing you are going deep into Chinese monetary history in
order to trace a tiny thread of "evidence". Common practice in naming
a popular game symbol is picking a common everyday item which
everybody knew. Silver cake was unlikely a common everyday item. It's
just my socio-psychological observation.
For another thing, a cake refers to something much bigger than a
cookie. The symbols on a tong from 5 to 9 give an impression of
smaller cookie-like object.
++++++++++
Cheers....al

"al" <alee RemoveThis @ntl.sympatico.ca> wrote
>>> I need a lesson on Wade-Giles and Unicode. I never had to use them. Is
>>> there somewhere I can read on the net?
>>
>> Yes. Google is your friend.
>>
>One more step: where exactly?

http://www.google.com

All you have to do is input the key words "wade-giles" and "unicode chinese"

al <alee.TakeThisOut@ntl.sympatico.ca> writes:

> I need a lesson on Wade-Giles and Unicode. I never had to use them. Is
> there somewhere I can read on the net?

Yes. Google is your friend.

> Chinese words polysyllabic? I can not think of one, Julian. What would
> be an example?

To take a few examples from the 50000 polysyllabic words in my pocket
Chinese dictionary:

½¾¹ß jiao1guan4 "pamper, coddle, spoil"
´ÖÂÔ cu1lue4 "superficial"
Í㶹 wan1dou4 "pea"
ÃäÄê wan3nian2 "old age"

> But still every Chinese word is monosyllabic, as far as I know.

The Hanyu Da Cidian defines 370000 words, the vast majority of which
are polysyllabic.

> In real life situations, however, people speak with dialectic
> variations so xyz1 could sound like xyz 2 or xyz3. It could get a bit
> more tricky.

It can. Also in English. There are American dialects in which Mary,
marry and merry all sound the same, so "Will merry Mary marry?" might
be understood as "Will Mary marry Merry?" !

On Dec 5, 2:08�pm, al <a....DeleteThis@ntl.sympatico.ca> wrote:

> Tong as I said earlier in my posts has a bamboo radical not jin or
> metal alloy
> David Li had it as bamboo containers.
> This is another 'word-of-mouth' mis-communication example from slangs.

But I do not think it can be stated with certainty that tong with the
bamboo radical was used as slang involving mis-communication. For
example the abstracted strings of cash may have been taken for bamboo
rods by some local or regional intepretations and hence the tong =
bamboo tubes was used. So it might have resulted from a
reinterpretation of the representation used for the suit.

Himly's relatively early report observes tong2, which he says is an
abbreviation for tong2 'copper'. He does not report tong with a
'bamboo' radical nor does he report tong with a 'metal' radical. In my
opinon he relates tong2 ( = similar, together with, same) with cash
since he has placed the three suits of ma que as the three suits of
the money suited card games that were the subject of his papers. One
of the suits has bing3 'cakes' which he equates with cash. Tong2
(copper) was the alternative name for that suit and tong2 (same,
simialr etc0 was its abbreviated form.

> It seemed Himly had tried very hard to bring in the money for
> justifying his term for "Cash".

I am pleased you appreciate his diligence in researching and producing
an explanation for the term bing3 in the playing cards he was
analysing.

> The existence (assumed) of silver cake
> did not imply its use in card game symbols readily.

No one is suggesting otherwise.

> If money coin was
> in copper, silver or gold, the terms �would follow a pattern as huong
> tian, nghan tian and ghim tian ...

According to your unsupported expectation (since you used the phrase
"would follow").

> The notion "cake" just does not fit.

You have not demonstrated that.

On Dec 5, 4:22�pm, al <a....RemoveThis@ntl.sympatico.ca> wrote:

> Common practice in naming
> a popular game symbol is picking a common everyday item which
> everybody knew. Silver cake was unlikely a common everyday item. It's
> just my socio-psychological observation.
> For another thing, a cake refers to something much bigger than a
> cookie. The symbols on a tong from 5 to 9 give an impression of
> smaller cookie-like object.

Thank you for your 'impressions'.

Bing3 was used as a suit term in money suited cards very early in
Chinese playing card history. Since those suits reflected a money
context, it is, and was, right and proper to seek out whether the
bing3 (cake) term has any basis with money (this is the prediction).
If no connection of any kind could be found, then the money connection
for that term would be in serious doubt.

On Dec 5, 12:24 pm, "Tom Sloper" <tslo....DeleteThis@DONTsloperamaSPAMME.com>
wrote:
> "al" <a....DeleteThis@ntl.sympatico.ca> wrote
>
> >>> I need a lesson on Wade-Giles and Unicode. I never had to use them. Is
> >>> there somewhere I can read on the net?
>
> >> Yes. Google is your friend.
>
> >One more step: where exactly?
>
> http://www.google.com
>
> All you have to do is input the key words "wade-giles" and "unicode chinese"

I read what is in Wikipedia. It is NOT so simple!

On Dec 5, 2:39 pm, Julian Bradfield <j....RemoveThis@inf.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> al <a....RemoveThis@ntl.sympatico.ca> writes:
> >> To take a few examples from the 50000 polysyllabic words in my pocket
> >> Chinese dictionary:
>
> >> ½¾¹ß jiao1guan4 "pamper, coddle, spoil"
> >> ´ÖÂÔ cu1lue4 "superficial"
> >> Í㶹 wan1dou4 "pea"
> >> ÃäÄê wan3nian2 "old age"
>
> > Ah, I see what you were saying. Each one of the items you gave here
> > consists of two Chinese words and each Chinese word is monosyllabic.
> > ÃäÄê for example has 2 words. Ãä is one word and Äê is another word. Each
> > word has one sound (although may be many tones).
>
> The standard use of "word" doesn't agree with your use. Linguists
> and language teachers, both in China and outside China, agree that
> these constructs are words in the modern language. In Chinese terms,
> each of them is one ´Ê, made up of two ×Ö. Most of these modern words
> have been made by combining two related old words - but it's not always the
> case that the modern word has an obvious connection with the old words
> that make it up (for example, ÃÉÃÉ meng2meng2 "drizzle" is rather
> tenously connected with ÃÉ, though there is a connection I suppose:
> drizzle covers one in water!).
>
As you said, "each of them is one ´Ê, made up of two ×Ö."

one ´Ê, this mean a phrase'; two ×Ö, this means two words.
A ´Ê is polysyllabic (because a phrase has two or more words), but a ×Ö
is mono. That's my understanding.

I don't know what language teachers do these days. A word has a
meaning on it's own. A syllable is part of a word, like 'syllable' is
a word, syl la ble are 3 syllables. In this case none of the
syllables has any meaning by itself.

> I think the reason they're viewed as words is that they move about in
> sentences as units, but I'd have to know more about Chinese to know
> the full arguments.
>
I am not exactly sure what you are saying, but I think meaningfulness
is more of a criterion rather than movement that differentiate a word
from a syllable.

> > To me, polysyllabic 'words' are multi-worded 'words'.
>
> It's just a change in terminology, perhaps.

Interesting....
+++++++++++
Cheers....al

On Dec 5, 1:33 pm, mstanwick <mstanw....RemoveThis@aol.com> wrote:
> On Dec 5, 2:08�pm, al <a....RemoveThis@ntl.sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
> > Tong as I said earlier in my posts has a bamboo radical not jin or
> > metal alloy
> > David Li had it as bamboo containers.
> > This is another 'word-of-mouth' mis-communication example from slangs.
>
> But I do not think it can be stated with certainty that tong with the
> bamboo radical was used as slang involving mis-communication. For
> example the abstracted strings of cash may have been taken for bamboo
> rods by some local or regional intepretations and hence the tong =
> bamboo tubes was used. So it might have resulted from a
> reinterpretation of the representation used for the suit.

You are quite right, Michael. So far what is there for certain?
By the way, I seem to recall reading tarot cards were the earliest. Is
that for sure?
>
> Himly's relatively early report observes tong2, which he says is an
> abbreviation for tong2 'copper'. He does not report tong with a
> 'bamboo' radical nor does he report tong with a 'metal' radical. In my

That was most likely taken by its sound; but then there were more than
one thing that sounds close to it. We never know which is the right
one, because we cannot relate to a reference like a theme or central
idea of the game.

> [In my] opinon he relates tong2 ( = similar, together with, same) with cash
> since he has placed the three suits of ma que as the three suits of
> the money suited card games that were the subject of his papers. One
> of the suits has bing3 'cakes' which he equates with cash. Tong2
> (copper) was the alternative name for that suit and tong2 (same,
> simialr etc0 was its abbreviated form.
>
This goes back to my estimation or contention that old card symbols
were arbitrarily transferred to ma que mostly by the old Chinese who
might not have had any clues about the new symbols and partly by
translators who didn't know much better.

> > It seemed Himly had tried very hard to bring in the money for
> > justifying his term for "Cash".
>
> I am pleased you appreciate his diligence in researching and producing
> an explanation for the term bing3 in the playing cards he was
> analysing.
>
Amazing good work when you compared what had been done by the Chinese
themselves up to that time.
As I mentioned before, research into game history was not a gainful
employment nor a noble career. Book writing on games would lead an
author to starvation. Respectable scholars go for government exams and
civil service jobs or just relax in poetry and the arts if their
family could afford it..

> > [..]
>
> [..]
>
> >[//]
>
> > The notion "cake" just does not fit.
>
> You have not demonstrated that.

I don't know how to explain, Michael. A "cake" is a sizable item of
food stuff. How can it get mixed up with a deck of playing cards?
One time, cash was referred to as one-tenth of a cent or one-
thousandth of a dollar. Now the silver-cake is substituted in its
place in the name of Cash.
How does that fit? I don't know.
+++++++++++
Cheers.....al

al <alee.RemoveThis@ntl.sympatico.ca> writes:

>> To take a few examples from the 50000 polysyllabic words in my pocket
>> Chinese dictionary:
>>
>> ½¾¹ß jiao1guan4 "pamper, coddle, spoil"
>> ´ÖÂÔ cu1lue4 "superficial"
>> Í㶹 wan1dou4 "pea"
>> ÃäÄê wan3nian2 "old age"
>>
> Ah, I see what you were saying. Each one of the items you gave here
> consists of two Chinese words and each Chinese word is monosyllabic.
> ÃäÄê for example has 2 words. Ãä is one word and Äê is another word. Each
> word has one sound (although may be many tones).

The standard use of "word" doesn't agree with your use. Linguists
and language teachers, both in China and outside China, agree that
these constructs are words in the modern language. In Chinese terms,
each of them is one ´Ê, made up of two ×Ö. Most of these modern words
have been made by combining two related old words - but it's not always the
case that the modern word has an obvious connection with the old words
that make it up (for example, ÃÉÃÉ meng2meng2 "drizzle" is rather
tenously connected with ÃÉ, though there is a connection I suppose:
drizzle covers one in water!).

I think the reason they're viewed as words is that they move about in
sentences as units, but I'd have to know more about Chinese to know
the full arguments.

> To me, polysyllabic 'words' are multi-worded 'words'.

It's just a change in terminology, perhaps.

On Dec 5, 1:48 pm, mstanwick <mstanw....TakeThisOut@aol.com> wrote:
> On Dec 5, 4:22�pm, al <a....TakeThisOut@ntl.sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
> >[..]
> [..]

> Bing3 was used as a suit term in money suited cards very early in
> Chinese playing card history. Since those suits reflected a money
> context, it is, and was, right and proper to seek out whether the
> bing3 (cake) term has any basis with money (this is the prediction).
> If no connection of any kind could be found, then the money connection
> for that term would be in serious doubt.

The same reasoning can apply to tong (the container). There had been
"ten thousand" and more uses for bamboo. Neither one can claim to be
the right symbol (again, no frame of reference).
+++++++++++
Cheers.....al

On Dec 6, 2:44 am, al <a... DeleteThis @ntl.sympatico.ca> wrote:

> > Bing3 was used as a suit term in money suited cards very early in
> > Chinese playing card history. Since those suits reflected a money
> > context, it is, and was, right and proper to seek out whether the
> > bing3 (cake) term has any basis with money (this is the prediction).
> > If no connection of any kind could be found, then the money connection
> > for that term would be in serious doubt.
>
> The same reasoning can apply to tong (the container).

> There had been
> "ten thousand" and more uses for bamboo. Neither one can claim to be
> the right symbol (again, no frame of reference).

Please explain what you mean.

On Dec 6, 2:26 am, al <a....TakeThisOut@ntl.sympatico.ca> wrote:

> > But I do not think it can be stated with certainty that tong with the
> > bamboo radical was used as slang involving mis-communication.

> You are quite right, Michael. So far what is there for certain?

Describe what you mean by 'certain'.

> By the way, I seem to recall reading tarot cards were the earliest. Is
> that for sure?

I don't know.
>
>
>
> > Himly's relatively early report observes tong2, which he says is an
> > abbreviation for tong2 'copper'. He does not report tong with a
> > 'bamboo' radical nor does he report tong with a 'metal' radical. In my
>
> That was most likely taken by its sound;

No. It was inscribed on one of the ma que tiles as 'tong hua'. Himly
is very thorough in his reporting. he gives the two characters for
'tong hu' and even gives the colours they were painted in. The others
were 'suo hua' and 'wan hua'.

> but then there were more than
> one thing that sounds close to it. We never know which is the right
> one, because we cannot relate to a reference like a theme or central
> idea of the game.

Yes we do. Otherwise why would I claim it? My statements are
supported, where necessary, by evidence. In other circumstances I use
words that denote uncertainty or a degree of probability, where
necessary.

> This goes back to my estimation or contention that old card symbols
> were arbitrarily transferred to ma que mostly by the old Chinese who
> might not have had any clues about the new symbols and partly by
> translators who didn't know much better.

This 'contention' cannot be commented on as no reasoning or argument,
with support, has been given here to back up the 'contention'.

> I don't know how to explain, Michael. A "cake" is a sizable item of
> food stuff. How can it get mixed up with a deck of playing cards?

Already explained in recent past posts.

> One time, cash was referred to as one-tenth of a cent or one-
> thousandth of a dollar. Now the silver-cake is substituted in its
> place in the name of Cash.

Please reread recent past posts.

> How does that fit? I don't know.