Do 妳 & 你 mean the same?

[Lu]

You would also seem to be imposing contemporary western values on your interpretation of the character 女 ...

I am most definitely not. The interpretation I gave was first told to me when I was studying Chinese, and later more elaborately by my former Taiwanese teacher. (She even acted it out: in the old days, when handing something to somebody of a higher status, you had to hold that thing at the level of your forehead, which then makes you look like that character.) If they were wrong, then I am wrong here, but I am not imposing western values on this character.

Lu, are you sure that China has always been a strongly patriarchal society?

No. I'm fairly sure that it has been so for several thousands of years though. So was it different before then?

Could not a similar process have occured with 女?

It could have, and I do see your point, but I just don't think it's likely.

[roddy]

Is there a 你 equivalent of 牠, 尔 with the 牛 radical? You could use it when talking to animals and people you wish to insult.

[Lu]

I seem to recall there is a god-你 (spirit-radical + 尔), so it's not unlikely that there's an animal-你, although I've never seen it.

But Roddy, how would the people you want to insult know you're calling them 牛尔 instead of 妳 or 你?

[roddy]

That's a very good point. I'll have to leave them notes.

I was half-joking, but at the same time it wouldn't surprise me if there was something like that .I had a look through Unihan and it wasn't there, which is disappointing. I did, however, find this, which might come in handy if someone tells you you are a cow and you want a pithy retort.

[Lu]

That's awesome. The bad thing about all those thousands of characters is that it's so hard to learn them, the good thing is that there's really no end to good stuff like this. But how is it pronounced?

But 牛尔 doesn't exist, then. That means we'll have to invent it.

[Mugi]

Even the character 女 shows a person (presumably a woman) kneeling down to serve someone something. Not a very respectful way to address someone.

I guess I was careless in my wording - I shouldn't have said your interpretation of the character 女, but rather your interpretation of the word 女 in old/ancient (or in fact classical, pre-modern and even modern?) Chinese appears to be coloured by contemporary western values.

Another thread should be started though if you wish to pursue this topic.

No. I'm fairly sure that it has been so for several thousands of years though. So was it different before then?

For argument's sake, let's say that Chinese society has been strongly patriarchal for thousands of years. That doesn't mean that women weren't accorded due respect.

For what it's worth, most scholars believe that at the time Chinese characters were invented, Chinese society was in fact matriarchal (at least to some extent), which would account for the 女字旁 in 姓. (But once again, this is really a discussion for another thread.)

It could have, and I do see your point, but I just don't think it's likely.

Although I personally am of the opinion that "you" is ultimately derived from "woman", my raising it in this thread wasn't an effort to float an obscure theory, but rather to introduce people to a theory (and nothing more, I admit) commonly held by historical phonologists of Chinese. You are of course entitled to your opinion, but if you're interested in the derivation of 你, you may like to do a little research into the historical phonology of Chinese and the etymology of Chinese pronouns.

[Lu]

I guess I was careless in my wording - I shouldn't have said your interpretation of the character 女, but rather your interpretation of the word 女 in old/ancient (or in fact classical, pre-modern and even modern?) Chinese appears to be coloured by contemporary western values.

In that case I'm not sure what you mean here. But anyway, this was not my interpretation of the character 女, I'm just repeating what I was told by people I assume know such things.

If you mean that I put my modern western value that women are equal to men onto this word, well I do have such value and am not beyond imposing it on different cultures than my own (cultural relativism is a great thing, but there are limits), but I don't think I did that here.

And we could start a thread on that, but let's not.

For what it's worth, most scholars believe that at the time Chinese characters were invented, Chinese society was in fact matriarchal (at least to some extent), which would account for the 女字旁 in 姓.

You're right about that.

You are of course entitled to your opinion, but if you're interested in the derivation of 你, you may like to do a little research into the historical phonology of Chinese and the etymology of Chinese pronouns.

And actually, you're right here too, I didn't do any research into this, only used my own logic. I'm very stubborn at times, didn't intend to annoy you.

[chrix]

Sorry for bringing this up almost two years later...

A very basic evolution of "you" in Chinese looks like this: 女 → 汝 → 你.

The divergence in pronunciation between 女 and 汝 probably happened a couple of millenia ago, while the development of 你 from 汝 happened less than 1,000 years ago.

Well one big fallacy: are we talking about words here or characters? We have to distinguish between those. Let's first talk about the words. For the sake of simplicity, I'll use William Baxter's Middle Chinese Etymological Dictionary, which gives the pronunciations according to the 切韻 (this is 3th century CE, so not really millennia apart).

女: nrjoX

汝: nyoX

爾: nyeX

你: niX (marked with an asterisk, probably an indication that this is reconstructed rather than taken from the 切韻)

Now let's first look at it from the character side of things. According to the rebus principle it was quite common to use the same character for two words that sounded the same or similar (the so-called radicals were absent in the earlier days). So if we apply this principle, the words for 'woman' and 'you' are reasonably close that it would make sense to use 女 for both words. By the same token, 而 (MC nyi) and 若 (MC nyak) were also used for "you", using the same rebus principle to write similar sounding words with the same character. So do not assume that two words must be related, just because the same character is used for them. There might be a semantic connection, but you cannot use the character as evidence for such an assumption. I think, moreover, one must guard oneself against reading too much into the characters.

According to Pulleyblank, in the Classical language, which is earlier than the 切韻 pronunciations, 爾: nyeX and 你: niX were the same (I think, if I'm not mistaken that the character 你 is a much later innovation). Post-classically, 爾 became ěr according to regular sound change. But what about nǐ? It looks to me like this extremely commonly used word resisted the sound change, perhaps this represents a gap between literary and colloquial language. Pulleyblank further thinks that 爾 / 你 are related to 女 /

汝. Most scholars assume that Archaic Chinese had inflectional endings, so these forms and also 而 and 若 might reflect that (Pulleyblank gives two further related forms only found in Preclassical language 乃 and 戎 which might be related as well).

So we might conclude as far as the evolution of the characters go:

女 & 乃 & 戎 → 女, 汝 & 爾 & 而 & 若 → 你 → 你,妳,祢

moving from pre-classical to classical to postclassical to modern

[Hofmann]

Thanks for that. I really appreciate your participation in these forums.

[the.yangist]

I was told by a Chinese instructor once that 妳 was some B.S. character formed during the Cultural Revolution to command equal gender recognition. My girlfriend is Taiwanese and is sensitive to use the female variant when she is speaking with females, though.

What's more hilarious is that there's no female version of 您.

[renzhe]

I was told by a Chinese instructor once that 妳 was some B.S. character formed during the Cultural Revolution to command equal gender recognition.

If this were the case, then why is the character not used on the Mainland, but is used in Taiwan and Hong Kong?

Anyway, the story is bogus. wiktionary link. It was used long before the Cultural Revolution, in China, Japan and Korea.

[chrix]

The usage of 妳 in Taiwan is quite interesting. I've seen females use 你 (and for that matter, 他) to refer to other females, so it seems both ways are acceptable, though I'd think using 妳 is more common. Once I did a little 'experiment' and consequently used 你 towards a female friend and was 'retaliated against' by consequently being addressed with 妳 in turn. We never discussed this verbally, and after I reverted to using chiefly 妳, she also did to using chiefly 你 (there's always the inevitable typoes now and then), but I believe gender dynamics played a role here... (My hypothesis being that it is more acceptable for females using the 人字旁 with each other, than for males towards females, ESPECIALLY in a romantic context). Would like to hear your thoughts on this (also interested in how this would differ in HK, Singapore etc.)

BTW, a simple reason why there's no 您 with the 女字旁: in China, 妳 seems to be restricted to poetic/romantic contexts, and in Taiwan, 您 and 怹 are not really used in colloquial speech as these are characteristic Northern polite expressions. Hence no feminine form.

[skylee]

The retaliation thing is interesting. My observation is that for female both 你 and 妳 are ok. Personally I (being a woman) don't find anything special when I am referred to as 你. I think 妳 is usually used in a more romantic / personal context (like in poetry, lyrics, personal letters etc).

她, on the other hand, is never replaced by 他. I don't know why, perhaps it is affected by English which is used here in HK. If I see 他 used on a woman I would say it is wrong. Not sure if it is the same in other places.

I have never seen the word 怹, probably because it's not used at all down here.

[chrix]

ok that's HK usage then. I have a feeling that there are differences between CN, HK, TW, SG etc. usage, so let's be very clear about this. Since it's essentially a social gender identity-issue, that's to be expected.

[renzhe]

Perhaps she was upset because you weren't being romantic enough?

[chrix]

yeah that'd be a great post for the relationship thread: did I blow my chances by using the wrong radical

[the.yangist]

If this were the case, then why is the character not used on the Mainland, but is used in Taiwan and Hong Kong?

Anyway, the story is bogus. wiktionary link. It was used long before the Cultural Revolution, in China, Japan and Korea.

Funny. She wasn't a good instructor in any other respect, either, assuming that the Kangxi link refers to a dictionary published before the Cultural Revolution.

[imron]

assuming that the Kangxi link refers to a dictionary published before the Cultural Revolution.

Only by about 250 years

[zhwj]

The character may have been in use back then, but it wasn't used in the same way. The Kangxi entry for 妳 notes that it's a vulgar variant of 嬭, which itself is a variant of 奶, used as a form of address for a mother.

But Kangxi is recording its use in classical texts (how the people of Chu used 妳 isn't particularly relevant, I wouldn't think).

Baidu's automatic conversion of search text to simplified characters makes it really hard to find information about 妳, or even to talk about it.