妊娠

[Ian_Lee]

妊娠 is a very interesting term.

Now if a girls says that she is 妊娠 to you (no matter in Mandarin or Cantonese), probably you scratch your head and still don't know what trouble you have got into.

Anyhow, this term seems to be only used on the sign board in the hospital.

But if you watch those Japanese or Korean dramas, 妊娠 still seems quite colloquial. Whenever a girls gets pregnant (which happens 99% in those drama), she would tell her boyfriend that she is 妊娠.

[nipponman]

well in Japanese both 妊 and 娠 are within the common set of characters, that's why you'll see them more often. But in chinese, 妊 and 娠 are not common characters/words.One of the few examples where japanese uses different characters from ancient times. 貰 is another good example.

nipponman

P.s. personally I dislike 妊 because, as my dictionary verifies, it should be(女+任) in traditional.妊 is a simplification. The top one is hard to find electronically though.

[skylee]

But if you watch those Japanese or Korean dramas, 妊娠 still seems quite colloquial. Whenever a girls gets pregnant (which happens 99% in those drama), she would tell her boyfriend that she is 妊娠.

Yes I have noticed that in the korean drama that I've watched.

[Mugi]

貰 is another good example.

Yes, although it isn't a 常用漢字 like 妊 and 娠. And it's very seldom actually used - to the extent that although most people can read it, I'd hazard a guess that a good third of the Japanese population couldn't write it if you suddenly asked them to.

personally I dislike 妊 because, as my dictionary verifies, it should be(女+任) in traditional.妊 is a simplification.

Just out of curiosity, which dictionary are you referring to? All the dictionaries I've checked so far have listed 姙 as an 異體字 of 妊. Does anyone know if it ever actually appears in print in Taiwan or HK as 姙?

Not sure that I agree that "妊 is a simplification." I think it's more likely that 姙 is a "complexification"

From what I can gather from a quick skim of a couple of etymological dictionaries, to cut a long story short 壬 has/had a number of meanings, one of which was to be pregnant. But in order to distinguish the "pregnant" meaning from all the others, a 人字旁 (イ) was added to the left. Over time though, the derived meanings ( -> to bear a load -> take on responsibility, etc) came to outweigh its original meaning (pregnant), hence the regular human radical was substituted for the woman radical, which made more sense anyway.

Importantly, 壬 was employed for its phonetic value as well. Hence there's no need to have an extra イ in there - its superfluous. My guess is that the reason 姙 exists at all is because 任 is a very common and familiar character and was possible mistakenly written next to 女 instead of the less commonly used 壬.

For what it's worth, the イ doesn't appear in either the 甲骨文, 金文 or 說文 versions of the character, only 女 + 壬. The fact that 妊 already existed in 甲骨文 means that the developments described above must have occured at a very early date indeed. Not sure how scholars have determined the character's etymology, but there you have it.

Anyway, enough pedantic character searching for me for one day!

[nipponman]

Not sure that I agree that "妊 is a simplification." I think it's more likely that 姙 is a "complexification"

From what I can gather from a quick skim of a couple of etymological dictionaries' date=' to cut a long story short 壬 has/had a number of meanings, one of which was to be pregnant. But in order to distinguish the "pregnant" meaning from all the others, a 人字旁 (イ) was added to the left. Over time though, the derived meanings ( -> to bear a load -> take on responsibility, etc) came to outweigh its original meaning (pregnant), hence the regular human radical was substituted for the woman radical, which made more sense anyway.

[/quote']

Mugi, don't dash my dreams man! Seriously though, I hope my dictionary is right, because I prefer 姙. But my dictionary has 姙 in parenthesis which indicate that it is the proper traditional form. Like not many people know the proper traditional form for sha3. It doesn't have "window, head" (sorry can't type chinese here), but "fragrance, scent" over top. Its just that the simplified version has been toted as tradtional for so long that the line becomes blurry.

Yes, although it isn't a 常用漢字 like 妊 and 娠. And it's very seldom actually used - to the extent that although most people can read it, I'd hazard a guess that a good third of the Japanese population couldn't write it if you suddenly asked them to.

Good point. How about modoru then? Probably the most common character from the eigth grade of Japanese kanji aside form "a".

[trien27]

I have a seen a HK drama called Hua Tuo 華陀.

In it, there's a famous doctor called Zhang Zhongjing 張仲景 who told a girl, "....有妊娠之像": meaning "it seems like you are pregnant."

妊娠(renchen, meaning "pregnant" or "pregnancy") is an ancient Chinese medical term. So, Japanese & Korean people just borrowed it and still use it till now. While Modern Chinese has a new term 懷孕 (huaiyun, which means the same as 妊娠). You would definitely see 妊娠 in Ancient Chinese Martial Arts novels [where the setting is somewhere in ancient China.] and dramas and Japanese and Korean dramas. In modern Chinese dramas, you will see 懷孕 more often than not.

[semantic nuance]

妊娠(renchen, meaning "pregnant" or "pregnancy")

It is in fact pronouced as ren4 shen1. But nowadays people just pronounce it as ren4chen2, although it is wrongly pronounced.

Related expressions:

I'm pregnant--我懷孕了. 我有了.(colloquial) 我有喜了.

morning sickness--害喜