[KS] James Scarth Gale & Days of the Week

Stefan Ewing sa_ewing at hotmail.com
Tue Jun 14 12:56:39 EDT 2005


Dear KS list readers:

Thanks to both Deberniere Torrey and Christopher Liao for their informative 
replies, which coincidentally both touch on usage in Taiwan.

My money is on Gale's "ye-pai" representing "yebae"/"yeypay" and being 
equivalent to the "libai" used in Taiwan today.  Alas, online Kugo^ Sajo^n 
only give the basic meaning of "worship."  Without access to an online Koo^ 
Sajo^n (is there one?), I'll go with Ms. Torrey's suggestion.

It was especially intriguing to learn that even during Taiwan's colonial 
years, the "shining-day" formation was not used, at least in speech.  
(Christopher, was your father's and uncle's education in Mandarin?  I would 
have naively--and apparently wrongly--assumed that Mandarin did not become 
predominant in Taiwan until the Nationalists relocated there in 1949.)

Anyhow, this just deepens the mystery of when the usage disappeared from 
China itself.  Perhaps it was _never_ established usage, except among Jesuit 
missionaries!?

Stefan Ewing

>From: Christopher Liao <liao.christopher at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: Christopher Liao <liao.christopher at gmail.com>,Korean Studies 
>Discussion List <Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
>To: Korean Studies Discussion List <Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
>Subject: Re: [KS] James Scarth Gale & Days of the Week
>Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 19:51:42 +0900
>
> >
> > 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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