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Faery and Fantasy

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Gan, Gan, and Gan


navaburo

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I have had trouble with the trio of traditional characters which simplify to 干. It turns out (as usual) that all three have curious and twisted etymologies. Here are some mnemonics for keeping the traditional characters 幹干and 乾 straight in your head:

乾gan1

This is the most straight-forward of the trio.

It means "dry":

乾果

dried fruit

乾淨

clean

In its qian2 pronunciation, it is also one of the Eight Trigrams, and a surname, but those are much lower frequency uses.

Mnemonic: When there is a drought you beg for even a little mist.

Etymological note:

Wieger clarifies that "dry" was originally written using 旱 on the left (with 十 above it?). The character 乾 originally was read qian2 and represented the sun shining into the jungle, dislodging vapors which then rise up into the sky.

幹gan4

This character can mean "to do" or "tree trunk".

It can be used alone:

你幹了一件蠢事。

You have committed ("done") a folly.

Or in the common idiom gan4ma5:

你幹嘛/ 你幹甚麼?

What are you doing?

A canonical example of the "tree trunk" meaning is:

樹幹

shu1gan4

tree trunk

Mnemonic:

A tree (which originally was made of wood but is now a post-modern clothes hanger pole) is topped with an umbrella of leaves. But, through the mist, you can only see the trunk.

Etymonlogical note:

Wieger says the 干 component in 幹 is supposed to be 木, the former being an "absurd phonetic redundancy" This would make more sense.

干gan1

This is the odd-ball in the group. It has several meanings. Its most prolific meaning is "to offend":

干犯

gan1fan4

to offend or to violate

干涉

gan1she4

to meddle

But this gan can also mean "stem" in:

天干

the Ten Heavenly Stems

An archaic meaning is "shield":

干戈

gan1ge1

weapons of war, literally "shield and spear"

Mnemonic:

In Toronto, up until a couple of years ago, it was illegal to hang clothes outside, i.e. one of the biggest offenses and ways to offend the sensibilities of people was to hang your clothes outdoors. Silly, but unfortunately true. (credit: koohii user vorpal)

Etymological note:

Wieger tells us that 干 represents a pestle. By extension it means to grind or destroy. Destruction in the moral sense gives offense. Destruction in the martial sense gives the warlike association in 干戈.

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Thanks for the helpful comments. I started out just wanting to point out the differences between these "gan"s briefly, but it's basically impossible without examples. -- I appreciate having y'all catch my butchered Chinese :).

-Chris

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@everydayhanja:

Thanks for the Korean dictionary link. Too bad I don't know Korean :(.

Hello. Is Wieger an online source for Chinese characters' etymology ? Can you please share the link ? Thanks.

No, it's not an online resource. It's an older but still very helpful book demonstrating the etymology of many important characters.

Search "Wieger Chinese Characters" on Google. The first edition was published 1917, so the copyright has probably expired, and you may be able to find it in the public domain. But, I'm no lawyer, so please do not post a link to it if you find it.

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Well,I don't think it's a good way to explain every single characters alone while studying Chinese.For example,the word干涉,we Chinese know that it means interfere,but we never seperate it into two single characters to explain the meaning.Because it's difficult!If I ask a Chinese :What does"干"mean in the word"干涉"?or what is the meaning of "涉"exactly?No one could answer these questions.Maybe they will think:Why should this guy learn Chinese in this way?It will waste time!In fact,we should put it in articles and understand two characters as a whole ,it's the most efficient to learn Chinese.I am a Chinese girl,and I come here to improve my English LOL.I'm looking for a friend who can help me practice English,and I will try my best to help you learning Chinese in return ;) If you're interested,feel free to contact with me anytime :tong

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