naturegirl 10 Report post Posted October 24, 2007 Just came over a site with 22 of the most difficult and/or strange Chinese characters. http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_46e815bb01000bw8.html The site is in Chinese, but it's fascinating to see what weird characters exist or used to exist. For example 一 (one) used to be written like this: Or the original version of 雷 (thunder) Betcha, the thunder was over before you finished writing it.. The mouth 口 used to be triangular... well but then people ate more and got bigger mouths, or what? Nothing left to say here... But check out the site yourself! *add* Title explanation: biáng is one of the most complicated Chinese characters still in use today. There are the biang biang noodles from shanxi (Shaanxi, shǎn xī,陕西) province. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biang_biang_noodles Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
yonglin 92 Report post Posted October 24, 2007 Biang2 biang2 noodles are native to Shaanxi (陕西), not Shanxi (山西). It should be noted that there is also a simplified version of the biang2 character in use, i.e., were 長 is replaced by 长, 馬 by 马, etc. I found this quite hilarious. I would have thought 乂 on top of 辶 would have been an appropriate simplification....... . Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
naturegirl 10 Report post Posted October 25, 2007 yonglin wrote Biang2 biang2 noodles are native to Shaanxi (陕西), not Shanxi (山西). Oh, I never noticed that you could also differ their pronunciation in pinyin... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
muyongshi 57 Report post Posted October 25, 2007 Well it's not pinyin...it's just the way it was romanized as a place name... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
yonglin 92 Report post Posted October 25, 2007 Well it's not pinyin...it's just the way it was romanized as a place name... Fair enough, but if you're omitting the tone and writing "Shanxi", I take for granted that you are writing in English, rather than in pinyin. Either English or pinyin works for me. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
muyongshi 57 Report post Posted October 25, 2007 Fair enough, but if you're omitting the tone and writing "Shanxi", I take for granted that you are writing in English, rather than in pinyin. Either English or pinyin works for me. I agree with you on that, especially when it comes to place names.... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites