Frequency of the article 么

[bluetortilla]

I (beginner) notice the absence of 么 in my Pinyin input dictionary (Mac, built in). Why is this important (emphatic?) particle be glaringly absent? Isn't 么 standard?

[skylee]

What pinyin do you use for 么? Have you tried to look up/type "me" or "yao"?

[andysun731]

么‘s Pinyin is "me".

[OneEye]

Or yāo.

[bluetortilla]

Thanks. So I just had the wrong pronunciation. I found it under me as plain as day, but could not find it under yao, though I'll take your word for it.

[imron]

Does the dictionary contain both Simplified and Traditional characters? In simplified characters, the yao pronunciation of 么 was 'simplified' to 幺

[Hofmann]

Don't think you'll find it under "yao." They have to reassign things clearly. So 么 is only "me." You might be able to find it in a Traditional IME.

Similarly, try looking for 惊 under "liang."

[bluetortilla]

I found 幺 yao indeed listed as simplification of 么 me but not as an interrogative particle.

[imron]

That's right. Only the 'yao' meaning of the character was simplified to 幺. The interrogative particle meaning wasn't. I can't explain the why's a wherefore's, but that's how it is.

[bluetortilla]

Maybe frivolous but it's odd that 幺 is considered a simplification of 么, as they both have three strokes. Is 幺 easier to write than 么?

[OneEye]

When people say "simplification", the generally aren't (necessarily) referring to actually making a character simpler, but to the now-standard writing system in mainland China. Most of these do have fewer strokes, and many of them just make no apparent sense, one example of which you've now seen. Welcome to one of the many intricacies of learning Chinese.

[imron]

I wrote 'simplified' in quotes in my first response for this very reason

[bluetortilla]

I did not do my homework on the question and of course 简体字 does indeed mean 'simple,' so I had been assuming that's what it meant (so far it has meant that). But like everything else it's subject to exceptions. It seems to me the character simply changed to avoid confusion with the particle.

Actually this process has surely been going on for centuries, as in Japanese one finds many of the same 'simplifications'- more so than Taiwan even (e.g. 国 over 國). Of course there are major radical changes such as 车 over 車 that just have to be relearned. Also 东 is quite abstract but perhaps no more so than the traditional 東. 'Sun in the tree' may sound like a romantic mnemonic to remember 'east,' but mnemonics are no way to go about learning thousands of characters anyway.

Speaking of frequency, my feeling in learning Simplified Chinese is that only about 20% of the characters are affected from modern Japanese, though I have not surveyed that. Not a major hurdle and frankly I in my experience simplification does not make learning characters any easier.