6 ms·

I don't see how 玉 has more etymological significance to 國 than 域/或. What analogy are you drawing on where the previous most common character for land/country is

I don't see how 玉 has more etymological significance to 國 than 域/或. What analogy are you drawing on where the previous most common character for land/country is a worse etymological root than a character that apparently has meant only jade (or direct analogies to the material preciousness of jade) for longer than 國 has existed. As for 黨, it is a direct analogy to 當 as in 當天. There is a little bit lost in the conversion of 田 to 黑 but at least they are related.

bgee 6y ago
玉 was a variant of 王 (king)[0] thus king in walls (国), it's definitely NOT "only jade". [0]: https://zh.m.wiktionary.org/zh/%E7%8E%89 https://zh.m.wiktionary.org/zh/%E7%8E%89
- microcolonel 6y ago
  Then why not just put 王 in the box rather than 玉? As far as I can tell the 王 glyph predates the invention of 玉, and the purpose of this new glyph was to distinguish 玉 from 王. Also isn't a land within borders still a better analogy for a country than a king within walls? Walls bounding a king seems more like a palace.
  - bgee 6y ago
    >Then why not just put 王 in the box rather than 玉? I think we have done exactly that[0], it's just not part of the 1986 proposal in PRC. [0]: https://zh.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%9B%AF https://zh.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%9B%AF
  - dheera 6y ago
    Unfortunately, vocabulary in languages are defined, not derived. Why isn't "business" a measure of how busy you are? Why isn't "waterboarding" analogous to "snowboarding" and "sandboarding"? (As an engineer I hate these peculiarities and I'm all for fixing them but the majority of the world tends to want to stick to the not-necessarily-logical definitions.)
    - microcolonel 6y ago
      Sure, I'm not saying everything has to make sense, but buddy here was claiming that 国 had cleaner etymology than 國, and to me it seems like one of these is indirect, and the other is very direct.

bgee 6y ago

玉 was a variant of 王 (king)[0] thus king in walls (国), it's definitely NOT "only jade". [0]: https://zh.m.wiktionary.org/zh/%E7%8E%89 https://zh.m.wiktionary.org/zh/%E7%8E%89

microcolonel 6y ago
Then why not just put 王 in the box rather than 玉? As far as I can tell the 王 glyph predates the invention of 玉, and the purpose of this new glyph was to distinguish 玉 from 王. Also isn't a land within borders still a better analogy for a country than a king within walls? Walls bounding a king seems more like a palace.
- bgee 6y ago
  >Then why not just put 王 in the box rather than 玉? I think we have done exactly that[0], it's just not part of the 1986 proposal in PRC. [0]: https://zh.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%9B%AF https://zh.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%9B%AF
- dheera 6y ago
  Unfortunately, vocabulary in languages are defined, not derived. Why isn't "business" a measure of how busy you are? Why isn't "waterboarding" analogous to "snowboarding" and "sandboarding"? (As an engineer I hate these peculiarities and I'm all for fixing them but the majority of the world tends to want to stick to the not-necessarily-logical definitions.)
  - microcolonel 6y ago
    Sure, I'm not saying everything has to make sense, but buddy here was claiming that 国 had cleaner etymology than 國, and to me it seems like one of these is indirect, and the other is very direct.