rook (车) - chē or jū or both?

[atitarev]

How is the word for "rook" (车) (Chinese chess figure) pronounced - chē or jū or both are possible?

[chrix]

Well, the dictionary standard seems to be jū, since this also meant "chariot".

There's a number of chengyu, where 車 is used in the sense of "chariot", and then usually you have a reading pronunciation of jū as well, alongside a popular pronunciation of chē, especially on the mainland...

[atitarev]

I wonder if the dictionary rules are followed when referring to "rook". Would "chē" be considered a mistake in this sense?

[chrix]

Well, my experience with 破音字 is: the clearer the meaning difference, the greater the probability that the dictionary standard is followed in everyday speech. If you have a completely arbitrary kind of thing like 血, you get variation all over the place, despite what the dictionaries say.

I personally think the meaning difference between "cart" and "rook" is big enough that you'll get quite consistent differentiation between the two, whereas "chariot" and "cart" is trickier.

FWIW, this is what Wiktionary says:

名詞

讀音:chē

陸地上有輪子的運輸工具

利用輪軸旋轉的工具

讀音:jū

象棋棋子

[atitarev]

Thanks, Chrix. This helps The Chinese Wikipedia doesn't have this info.

[trien27]

Rook as in Chinese Chess, meaning "cart / chariot" is from ancient Chinese, where it's pronounced jū: See 渎富五车, du fu wu ju, used to described someone who's "well-read" as much as "5 cart loads of books". chē came after.

本姓田氏....千秋年老,上优之,朝见得乘小车入宫殿中,故因号日车承相。" [ :His original last name was Tian....Qianqiu is old in age. The emperor allowed him to ride around in a small chariot while he's in the palace. Due to this he's known as Minister "Che".]*

Source: http://books.google.com/books?id=Yv9eQ9HVrE0C&pg=PA560&lpg=PA560&dq=%E8%BD%A6%E6%89%BF%E7%9B%B8&source=bl&ots=HMFrD4WLIm&sig=Ukj_FACgXoPDw08lD3uT20p_Pv8&hl=en&ei=CxYCS7L4H9ThlAfIjemZCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAgQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=%E8%BD%A6%E6%89%BF%E7%9B%B8&f=false

*Source: My translations from Chinese into English.

车 is pronounced "chē", so his descendants used 车, "chē", as their surname.

Source: 《姓氏尋源》 , A book I bought several years ago, which tells about where Chinese last names originated from.

Nowadays, only in Chinese Chess is 车 pronounced "jū", while mostly it's pronounced "chē".

and then usually you have a reading pronunciation of jū as well, alongside a popular pronunciation of chē, especially on the mainland...

Not just on the Mainland. Chinese people everywhere would also pronounce it "che", unless it's the chess term, then it's "ju"!

I personally think the meaning difference between "cart" and "rook" is big enough that you'll get quite consistent differentiation between the two, whereas "chariot" and "cart" is trickier.

车, ju = cart, when it's used as a transportation tool. 车, che = chariot, when it's used to take a person from one place to another. A cart and a chariot are actually two different things: a cart is a simple tool with an axle, two wheels, & a slab of stone, whereas a chariot is more elaborate, made of wood, etc... has two axles, four wheels, pulled by horses, and can fit up to four people, similar to what's called "coaches" in European fairy tales like Cinderella, etc... Edited November 22, 2009 at 06:05 AM by trien27

[skylee]

渎富五车, du fu wu ju

Are you sure it is 渎? I don't think I have seen it before. What I would use is 學富五車.

The pronunciation of the name of the chess piece 車 in Cantonese (geoi) is the equivalent of ju.

[hanshoff22]

I think he may have meant to use: 读 du2 - to study

But Trien - that's a nice clarification of the pronunciation of 车. Thanks for that.

[chrix]

just to reiterate what I said before: while the pronunciation of 車 "rook" seems to be without doubt, the use in various chengyu varies, including the one given by trien (also all my chengyu dictionaries only have 學富五車).

I have dictionaries saying it's ju1, and dictionaries saying it's che1.

Others include:

• 前車之鑒
  
• 閉門造車
  
• 安步當車
  

in traditional reading pronunciation, in each of the above chengyu, 車 is pronounced ju1, but often this is deviated from and just pronounced che1.

[atitarev]

ABC dictionary (as in Wenlin) gives 'chē' for all these chéngyǔ.

[trien27]

學富五車

You are correct Skylee: My mind was saying "the person read as much as five cartloads of books", with emphasis on the word "read"(past tense), but somehow I meant, one thing and said another. I was going to put the word 读 / 讀 , but somehow after I posted it here, it became 渎 / 瀆, and I was meant to use 学 / 學, but somehow somewhere I "forgot how to input 学 / 學" at that moment. And so 學富五車 / 学富五车 in my head suddenly became 瀆富五車 / 渎富五车 on the forum! Mistakes happen. Sorry. Anyhow, my mistake probably helped many of you to learn a new vocabulary word: 渎 / 瀆, du2 - meaning "show disrespect" [verb]; "drain"[noun].