ma nao mi ti kuan yin

[jbradfor]

As a gift I received some "ma nao mi ti kuan yin" tea -- otherwise known as Monkey Picked Tea.

I'm trying to figure out the characters. The "ti kuan yin" is obviously "铁观音". The romanization isn't strict pinyin, so I need to guess at the rest, and I'm coming up short.

The type of money used to pick the tea is apparently 普通獼猴, so I'm guessing that the "mi" could be 獼, although that grammar is weird, with the subject there.

Ideas?

[skylee]

馬騮搣鐵觀音

[jbradfor]

Thanks!

I would never have figured that out. I didn't know that 馬騮 is another name for a monkey (and neither does MDBG....[1]), and I don't even know the character 搣.

Do you happen to know what dialect "ma nau mi" comes from?

[1] but they might soon. Just submitted an addition, let's see if they like it B)

EDIT: they did.

Edited July 5, 2011 at 04:04 PM by jbradfor

[xiaocai]

It's Cantonese. I thought it was quite obvious as skylee was the first person who figured it out...

[jbradfor]

Ah, OK.

I assumed it wasn't Cantonese as MDBG gives the jyutping romanization of 騮 as lau4, not nao/nau.

Plus, skylee's skills seem to go beyond Cantonese.

[xiaocai]

That's true.

One thing you may think is interesting is that many southerners get n and l mixed up. I do sometimes, too.

[yonglin]

One thing you may think is interesting is that many southerners get n and l mixed up. I do sometimes, too.

For some reason, I was always under the impression that this was only n->l and never l->n. Does anyone know of any (commonly used) words with an l->n shift?

[xiaocai]

Yes, some people from central China (east of 重庆 and part of 湖北) do that, as far as I know. But most of the time it is n-> l.

[Hofmann]

You can call it a hypercorrection in Cantonese-speaking areas. I've heard it from Hong Kongers.

And that wasn't Cantonese.

[jbradfor]

I just realized over the weekend that 馬騮 is the term my wife uses as well for "monkey". I've always wondered what the characters were, because there is nothing in Mandarin that sounds similar [1]; I just always assumed that it was one of those occasional words in which the Cantonese and the Mandarin are totally different. But now I know. One more mystery of life solved.

[1] "nothing in Mandarin" = "I looked in MDBG and didn't find anything."

[skylee]

So your wife uses it. Does she speak in Mandarin or Cantonese, or some other dialects?

[jbradfor]

Cantonese. Born and raised in Hong Kong.

So I'm wondering if it is mostly a Cantonese term?

[Iriya]

Does anyone know of any (commonly used) words with an l->n shift?

Both 脸=nian and 辣=na are very, very common.

[Shi Tong]

hellooo

http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrst=1&wdqb=%E9%A6%AC%E9%A8%AE

http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrst=1&wdqb=maliu

Seems to have it now! Did you add it or?

I've heard "leng3 (冷)" pronounced as "neng3" in Taiwan before. Very confusing.

[jbradfor]

Did you add it or?

See my post #3.

[xianhua]

One thing you may think is interesting is that many southerners get n and l mixed up

The Hubeinese dialect I am (partially) familiar goes even further and substitutes all 'l' sounds with 'ns'. You end up with things like 辽宁 being pronounced as 'Niaoning' which takes some getting used to. My daughter 丽丽 suddenly becomes 'nini' much to my displeasure.

[imron]

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