Definitions of 飞鼠

[Kobo-Daishi]

Just for curiosity's sake, what does the guifan have under "fei shu"?

 

And for those with the ABC comprehensive Chinese-English Dictionary, what does it have under "fei shu"?

 

I only have the free dictionaries included with the free Pleco download, so, am curious as to what the premium dictionaries have.

 

Kobo.

[xiaokaka]

Guifan doesn't have any entries for "fei shu". ABC comp have:

 

飞鼠〔飛-〕

PY fēishǔ* 

N.

1 flying squirrel

2 bat

M: ²zhī / 只

 

and

 

飞书〔飛書〕

PY fēishū 

N.

1 anonymous letter

2 urgent letter

M: ²fēng / 封

 

For comparison with a C-C dictionary, 汉语大词典 has the following entry for 飞鼠〔飛-〕

 

1 能借前后肢之间的皮膜滑翔的鼯鼠。

 

《山海经·北山经》

天池之山 , 其上無草木, 多大石。有獸焉, 其狀如兔而鼠首, 以其背飛, 其名曰飛鼠。 

2 蝙蝠的别名。

 

《方言》第八

蝙蝠, 自 關 而東謂之服翼, 或謂之飛鼠。 

[Kobo-Daishi]

@ Xiaokaka

 

Thanks.

 

 

Guifan doesn't have any entries for "fei shu".

 

 

That's quite interesting. The Guifan has no entry for "fei shu" not even for "flying squirrel".

 

飛鼠(飞鼠) was the entry I was mainly interested in.

 

When I was a kid growing up speaking Taishanese with my immediate family in southern California, we always used FEIH SEEH or "flying mouse" for "bat".

 

It wasn't until years later that I even learned about 蝙蝠. And it wasn't because I had just started to learn Mandarin. It was because at that time I was very interested in cooking and had bought a book, written by an ethnic Chinese from Brazil, on Chinese cooking and culture which mentioned that "bat", 蝠, was homophonous with 福 (happiness, good fortune, blessing), hence all the stylized bat motifs in Chinese art and decorations. More often than not pictured upside down.

 

Usually dictionary entries for 飛鼠(飞鼠) would just have an entry for "flying squirrel" and not the "bat" definition. And if they had the bat one it'll be as "dialect".

 

The thing is that the Far East Chinese-English Dictionary (seen on quite a few forumites' shelfies) has "bat" as the first definition without "dialect".

 

And this is what the 现代汉语词典 with English definitions has:

 

飞鼠

 

①哺乳动物，形态和习性均似鼯鼠而体较小，前后肢之间的薄膜宽大多毛。

②〈书〉蝙蝠。

1. flying squirrel (Petauristinae); a kind of mammel resembling the phalanger in habit and appearance with winglike folds of skin attached to the legs and body.

2. (书 fml.) bat

 

So, is 飞鼠 as bat dialectal? A normal part of Mandarin? Or formal (literary)?

 

And does it really make a difference? And how do you know when they're talking about a flying squirrel and not a bat?

 

Kobo.

[Kobo-Daishi]

Oh, and why I was interested in the flying mouse entry in the first place.

 

I was looking through a scanned copy of the 现代汉语大词典, my current "go-to" dictionary when I came across this.

 

 

And I remembered that Demonic_Duck had written in this thread "how much better, more accurate and more comprehensive the explanations are in the Guifan than any C-E dictionary I've come across"

 

So, I was curious to see 'how much better, more accurate and more comprehensive the explanations' for  飛鼠(飞鼠) would be compared to the XDHYDCD.

 

I had downloaded the XDHYDCD a long time ago, after a catastrophic hard drive crash had sent me re-populating all the downloaded Chinese books I had lost. But I had never opened it because I thought I already had it because of the similarity between its title and the 现代汉语词典. But while organizing my drive I opened it up. In case it was a better scan, or was an updated copy of the original 现代汉语词典 I had downloaded previously, when I came to realize they were different dictionaries and that this one had a 大 in its title.

 

So I've been using this dictionary for a few months now.  

 

I thought the definition for flying mouse was so descriptive, more like an encyclopaedia entry than a dictionary entry that I just had to compare with the guifan. But turns out the guifan doesn't even have it.

 

And note there's another fei shu in the right hand column. Still don't understand that one fully.  

 

And here's what Taiwan's 教育部重編國語辭典修訂本 (the Ministry of Education's revised edition of the Guoyu Cidian online)has for fei shu.

 

1. 蝙蝠的別名。見「蝙蝠」條。

2. 鼯鼠的別名。見「鼯鼠」條。

 

Not very descriptive. But they do have bat as the first definition. Though as a variant for 蝙蝠.

 

And here's what they've got under 蝙蝠.

 

動物名。哺乳動物翼手目。外形似鼠，四肢與身體之間有膜相連，故能飛翔。眼睛小，視力弱，靠體內聲納系統發出的高頻率音波所得回來的回聲來引導飛行，所以善於夜間活動。亦稱為「飛鼠」、「伏翼」、「服翼」、「仙鼠」、「夜燕」。

 

Certainly more descriptive. And they've got 4 more variants in addition to flying mouse to boot.

 

Immortal mouse? Night swallow? Clothes (serve?) wing?

 

Sometimes I wonder if how many people would know these variants? Well educated Chinese?

 

Would Skylee? Would Kenny G? They're fairly well educated.

 

Kenny's a mainlander so probably wouldn't but I hear he favors traditional characters...hmmmm.

 

Oh, and I always heard that the Germans call the bat a "flying mouse" as well. Well, I've always understood that the German opera Die Fledermaus translates to the "flying mouse" or German for "bat".

 

I know I'm dating myself, but, to me Adam West will always be Batman.  

 

Yes, Kobo grew up in a simpler time. When superheroes didn't kill.    

 

Kobo.

 

[xiaokaka]

Bat is called fladdermus in Swedish, where mus means mouse and fladder means flapping. Whereas Batman is called Läderlappen – the leather patch (or just Batman).

[Lu]

Bat is vleermuis in Dutch. 'Muis' means 'mouse' and 'vleer' is something about wings/flying, it's not a word by itself. There's also the 'vliegende eekhoorn', literally 'flying squirrel', but I'm not sure whether that is the same animal as the English flying squirrel. Batman is just called Batman, the whole vleermuis connection is lost.

[hackinger]

Hi,

 

This one is my favorite Fledermaus: Die_Fledermaus

 

Edit: The guifan dictionary which comes with ios on my iPad does not know  飞鼠 either.

 

Cheers

 

hackinger