5 Tone Sentence (using ma)

[CrassPip]

Hi,

One of my Chinese teachers taught us the tones using a little poem type thing with the sound ma repeated.

I've tried to adapt this slightly to cover all 5 tones, and I wanted to see if my sentence would make sense to a native speaker. I realize it is not necessarily idiomatic, but is it understandable at least? Here goes:

媽罵瑪馬嗎

I know that 瑪 is 3rd tone, but with tone sandhi it would sound like 2nd, giving 1, 4, 2, 3, 5

Can 瑪 modify the noun like this? My intention is "agate horse", like a sculpture or piece of jewelry.

Also, could someone explain the difference between 罵and 傌?

Thanks much!

[SOFTRAIN]

I'd suggest 媽罵痲馬嗎﹖

罵 is to chide.

傌 is the sound of a horse whinnying. It also means to chide severely.

However, it is not used in common spoken Chinese.

[jbradfor]

Also, could someone explain the difference between 罵and 傌?

search on google:

罵 : About 119,000,000 results

傌 : About 250,000 results

Also, if you search on a dictionary for words that include each of these characters, you'll see a lot for 罵 and none for 傌.

So, based on that, to a first approximation I'm guess that one just uses 罵.

[CrassPip]

Thanks.. I was also wondering if there is a semantic difference, which googling doesn't help. But counting references is a good idea I hadn't thought of.

[CrassPip]

Softrain,

Thanks a lot for your help.

You suggested replacing 瑪 with 痲.

Is that because it is truly 2nd tone, or does 瑪 not make sense?

(The dictionary shows 瑪 as more common, plus I like that they all use a 馬 phonetic element..)

Would 痲 indicate "pock-marked", "paralyzed", or both/either in this case?

[SOFTRAIN]

瑪馬 is not a common term. Before you explained it, it stood out as being strange when I looked at the sentence. 瑪瑙馬 would be more easily understood by people.

痲 in the sense of being paralyzed can be easily understood as a modifier for 馬.