[KS] James Scarth Gale & Days of the Week

Christopher Liao liao.christopher at gmail.com
Tue Jun 14 06:51:42 EDT 2005


> 
> I wonder now, when exactly did these names for the days of the week fall
> _out_ of use in the Chinese realm? Was it under the Nationalists, or after
> Mao came to power in 1949? They're not still used in Taiwan, are they? I'm
> fairly sure that I've seen text written for a (pre-1997) Hong Kong 
> audience
> that uses numerical day names, even though that place was largely immune 
> to
> Mainland linguistic (mainly orthographic) changes.


Dear Stefan,

Taiwanese use numerical day names just like the Mainland Chinese. I don't 
think they ever used the day system still used by the Koreans and Japanese 
today. My father and uncle were both raised and educated during the Japanese 
colonial era in Taiwan, and it appears that even then they would say 
"li3bai4wu3" for "friday" when speaking in Mandarin, and only use "kinyoubi" 
when speaking in Japanese. Personally, I think "Kinyoubi" in modern Chinese 
pronunciation doesn't even sound natural. Hope this little tidbit helps you. 


Sincerely,

Christopher Liao
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