ma que vs ma qiao

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Our game is usually called "sparrows" ma2 que4 in older Chinese books.
The second character has only the reading que4 in small modern
Mandarin dictionaries, but big online dictionaries also give a reading
qiao3 (also meaning "bird").
I notice that Thierry uses ma qiao when he transliterates the titles
of old Chinese books.

What is the story with the qiao reading of the character?

 

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Julian Bradfield <jcb@inf.ed.ac.uk> wrote in message news:<e6cisd18bq2.fsf@palau.inf.ed.ac.uk>...
> Our game is usually called "sparrows" ma2 que4 in older Chinese books.
> The second character has only the reading que4 in small modern
> Mandarin dictionaries, but big online dictionaries also give a reading
> qiao3 (also meaning "bird").
> I notice that Thierry uses ma qiao when he transliterates the titles
> of old Chinese books.
>
> What is the story with the qiao reading of the character?

Hello Julian. I don't know if this helps, but here goes....

As I understand it, for the double sinogram, meaning literally ‘hemp
bird', we have in Mandarin both ma ch'üeh and ma ch'iao using
Wade-Giles romanization. Converting to modern Pinyin these become má
qué and ma qiao, respectively.

You may be interested to note that Glover said that the name of "… a
species of Dominoes…" that he acquired circa 1875 was called "…K'ao
Chiá Ch'iao, snatching the house sparrow…". This is the earliest use
of the term ch'iao, ‘sparrow', that I know of.


Cheers
Michael

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.mahjong (More info?)

Julian Bradfield <jcb@inf.ed.ac.uk> wrote in message news:<e6cisd18bq2.fsf@palau.inf.ed.ac.uk>...
> Our game is usually called "sparrows" ma2 que4 in older Chinese books.
> The second character has only the reading que4 in small modern
> Mandarin dictionaries, but big online dictionaries also give a reading
> qiao3 (also meaning "bird").
> I notice that Thierry uses ma qiao when he transliterates the titles
> of old Chinese books.
>
> What is the story with the qiao reading of the character?

Hello Julian!

Modern Mandarin dictionaries indeed give 'que4' for the second
character, but if you look at H. Giles's Chinese dictionary of 1912
you'll see that he gave the character under 'ch'iao'. 'Ch'uëh' has an
entry with reference to 'ch'iao'.

It seems that the 'qiao' (pinyin) pronunciation was more common in the
first decades of the 20th century.
All European and Japanese authors of the early 1920's who explain the
game use a transliteration that corresponds to 'ma qiao' (e.g. "Ma
Tchiao", "Ma Tchio", etc.).

Cheers,
Thierry