(→F) |
(→Gender) |
||
| Line 42: | Line 42: | ||
Because Chinese is a tonal language, romanization systems have also incorporated diacritic marks or spellings to account for each separate tone. Mandarin has four tones, which are represented by four different diacritic marks: ͞ (high), / (high rising), ˅ (low rising), and \ (falling). Here are some examples of the application of these diacritic marks in pinyin for the following words: Beijing (北京; běi jīng), China (中國; zhōng guó), husband (丈夫; zhàng fū), and so forth. When recording Chinese names from genealogical records, these diacritic marks are not necessary as they only correspond to the spoken language. Additional information regarding Mandarin tones can be found [https://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation/section/17 here]. Tones for any of the Chinese characters found in this Glossary can be obtained by copying the characters into [https://translate.google.com/ Google Translate]. | Because Chinese is a tonal language, romanization systems have also incorporated diacritic marks or spellings to account for each separate tone. Mandarin has four tones, which are represented by four different diacritic marks: ͞ (high), / (high rising), ˅ (low rising), and \ (falling). Here are some examples of the application of these diacritic marks in pinyin for the following words: Beijing (北京; běi jīng), China (中國; zhōng guó), husband (丈夫; zhàng fū), and so forth. When recording Chinese names from genealogical records, these diacritic marks are not necessary as they only correspond to the spoken language. Additional information regarding Mandarin tones can be found [https://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation/section/17 here]. Tones for any of the Chinese characters found in this Glossary can be obtained by copying the characters into [https://translate.google.com/ Google Translate]. | ||
<br> | |||
==Gender== | ==Gender== | ||
| Line 47: | Line 48: | ||
Due to its late emergence into written Chinese, the third-person female pronoun 她is unlikely to appear in the text of historic genealogical records. One way to identify whether an individual is male or female is to look for the female radical 女 (nǚ) in the given name, but it should be noted that not all female names contain 女, and there are some male names that may also contain the 女 radical. In Chinese genealogical records, female names are often not fully recorded, but are typically recorded only as the surname followed by the character 氏 (shì), a character which can roughly be translated as “clan,” “surname,” or “maiden name.” Therefore, a record with an individual named 陳氏 (chén shì) would refer to a woman from the Chen (陳) clan or could also be translated as “Ms. Chen,” with Chen being her maiden name. | Due to its late emergence into written Chinese, the third-person female pronoun 她is unlikely to appear in the text of historic genealogical records. One way to identify whether an individual is male or female is to look for the female radical 女 (nǚ) in the given name, but it should be noted that not all female names contain 女, and there are some male names that may also contain the 女 radical. In Chinese genealogical records, female names are often not fully recorded, but are typically recorded only as the surname followed by the character 氏 (shì), a character which can roughly be translated as “clan,” “surname,” or “maiden name.” Therefore, a record with an individual named 陳氏 (chén shì) would refer to a woman from the Chen (陳) clan or could also be translated as “Ms. Chen,” with Chen being her maiden name. | ||
==Plurals== | ==Plurals== | ||
edits