[Ads-l] Pagoda, plausibility of a Chinese etymology

[W Brewer]

BB wrote:  << Are the proposed characters 八角樓 and is the Chinese language
known? >>
WB writes:  Hànyǔ Fāngyīn Zìhuì has 20 dialect readings for all three of
these characters; reconstructions back to Zhou may be available in various
handbooks. If Cohen & Tien don't already have such data, maybe I could dig
it out of my dusty debris. (Also have very sketchy, 25-year old field notes
on pagoda-words among Taiwanese. Btw, it's the word that got me started on
Southern Min field work on the island.)

On Sat, Jul 1, 2017 at 5:30 AM, Barretts Mail <mail.barretts at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Are the proposed characters 八角樓 and is the Chinese language known?
>
> Benjamin Barrett
> Formerly of Seattle, WA
>
> > On 30 Jun 2017, at 14:09, Cohen, Gerald Leonard <gcohen at MST.EDU> wrote:
> >
> > Dear members of ads-l, especially lexicographers:
> >
> > Might I draw the following article to your attention:
> >
> > David Robbins Tien and Gerald Cohen: "Chinese Origin of the
> >
> > Term 'Pagoda': Liang Sicheng's Proposed Etymology." in:
> >
> > Comments on Etymology, vol. 46, no. 7 (April 2017). 13 pages.
> >
> >
> > The article is online (enter: "Gerald Cohen, pagoda" and select
> >
> > the Scholars' Mine item.) If there's any problem, I'd be happy
> >
> > to e-mail the article as an attachment to anyone interested
> >
> > (no charge).
> >
> > The bottom line here is that the Chinese etymology of pagoda is both
> entirely plausible and yet unknown in Western linguistic scholarship. And I
> must emphasize: credit for all the Chinese content of the article goes to
> Tien.
> >
> > Gerald Cohen
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org