sai jian

[Aidan Wilson]

A while ago I discussed non-English forms of 13375p34k (internet 
parlance) on my blog, and a sinophile friend of mine added in the 
comments that in Chinese chatrooms:

    88 pronounced ba-ba, this is used to say ‘bye-bye’

    886
    same as above except the ‘liu’ expresses la
    ‘bye-bye-la’

Thought I'd contribute that.

<addendum>
In case you're interested in some others:

    4242
    ’si er si er’ With a southern accented Mandarin, ’si’ is pronounced
    the same as ’shi’. ‘er’ takes on the exclamatory ‘a’
    ’si a si a’ meaning ‘yeah, yeah!’

    9494
    ‘jiu si jiu si’
    Same as above, except ‘jiu si jiu si’, this is how a southerner
    would pronounce ‘exactly, exactly’.

</addendum>

-Aidan


On 04/06/08 03:46, Richard LaFortune said:
> I lived in Taipei over 20 years ago, and people
> (particularly younger people)universally used sai jian
> and bye-bye interchangeably
> Anguksuar
>
> --- "awebster at siu.edu" <awebster at SIU.EDU> wrote:
>
>   
>> Rudy Troike's post reminded me of the native speaker
>> of Wuhan 
>> (a dialect of Mandarin) I had working for my
>> linguistic 
>> fieldmethods class this spring. When we elicited the
>> word for 
>> goodbye, she gave the standard zia jian, but then
>> added that 
>> all the young speakers (she herself was young), said
>> "bye-bye." 
>> And it was the reduplicated form, not just "bye" as
>> I would 
>> say. best, akw
>>
>> ---------Included Message----------
>>     
>>> Date: 3-jun-2008 02:19:30 -0500
>>> From: "Rudy Troike" <rtroike at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU>
>>> Reply-To: "Indigenous Languages and Technology" 
>>>       
>> <ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
>>     
>>> To: <ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
>>> Subject: [ILAT] Bye-bye
>>>
>>> Recently I was watching a program on Chinese, and
>>>       
>> was amused 
>> to hear two
>>     
>>> characters parting company say "Bye-bye" -- a new
>>>       
>> Chinese 
>> expression!
>>     
>>>   Rudy
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>> ---------End of Included Message----------
>>
>> Anthony K. Webster, Ph.D.
>> Department of Anthropology &
>> Native American Studies Minor
>> Southern Illinois University
>> Mail Code 4502
>> Carbondale, IL 62901-4502
>> 618-453-5027
>>
>>     
>
>
>
>       
>   

-- 
Aidan Wilson

PARADISEC
0428 458 969
+61 2 9036 9558
aidan at usyd.edu.au