Hunting Birds X

A discussion of the peculiarities of languages and the differences between them.
yurifink
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Hunting Birds X

Postby yurifink » Mon Oct 24, 2005 3:05 pm

Help please to translate one word in the sentence:

目前,就算德国猎人在捕杀某些本地物种,例如雏鸡山鹑,都需要法律批准。
Actually, even if the German hunters hunt some local species, for example ????, they need legal sanction.

A bird like a partridge?

Regards.
Last edited by yurifink on Mon Oct 24, 2005 3:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Brazilian dude
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Postby Brazilian dude » Mon Oct 24, 2005 3:08 pm

Would anybody care to parse that sentence, so that I might learn something?

Is this 国猎人 German? It looks inverted to me. (Insert smiley here.)

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yurifink
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Postby yurifink » Mon Oct 24, 2005 3:38 pm

1目前,
[1]Mùqián,

mùqián в настоящее время / actually

2就算.德国.猎人.在.捕杀.某些.本地.物种
[2]jiùsuàn Déguó lièrén zài bûshā môuxie bêndì wùzhōu,

*jiùsuàn даже если *союз придаточного предложения* /even if
Déguó Германия / Germany
lièrén охотник / hunter
*zài *модификатор глагола, обознач постоянство* / verb modifier (continuity)
bûshā охотиться / hunt
môuxie некоторые /some
bêndì местный / local
wùzhōu вид / species

3例如.雏鸡山鹑,
[3]lìrú chújīshānchún,

lìrú например / for example
chújīshānchún ?

4都.需要.法律.批准。
[4]dōu xūyāo fâlüù pīzhûn.

*dōu и то / auxiliary particle
xūyāo нуждаться / need
fâlüù закон / law
pīzhûn одобрить / approve
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Flaminius
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Postby Flaminius » Tue Oct 25, 2005 2:05 am

雏鸡 = 雛雞.

The first one is young (of a bird) and the second is chicken.

Flaminius
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Postby Flaminius » Tue Oct 25, 2005 2:22 am

Just thought of dropping a url path http://homepage3.nifty.com/jgrammar/ja/ ... adkan1.htm to a traditional and simplified kanji converter.

yurifink
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Postby yurifink » Tue Oct 25, 2005 6:15 am

Flaminius wrote
雏鸡 = 雛雞.

The first one is young (of a bird) and the second is chicken.
Do you mean that the hunters kill only partridge chickens? It sounds very cruel. Is there a possibility that the four glyphs mean some bird species?

Regards
Nothing must be done hastily but killing of fleas

Brazilian dude
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Postby Brazilian dude » Tue Oct 25, 2005 8:58 am

Юрифинк, большое спасибо за Tвое ясное объяснение. Благодaря Tебе я теперь понимаю немного лучше китайский язык.

フラムさん、漢字の変換のプログラムをどうも有難う御座います。

Brazilian dude
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Brazilian dude
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Postby Brazilian dude » Tue Oct 25, 2005 8:59 am

After Yurifink's explanation, Chinese looks easier and more straight-forward than Japanese. I know both languages are very different, but people tend to make analogies, you know.

Brazilian dude
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yurifink
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Postby yurifink » Tue Oct 25, 2005 10:16 am

fiuri wrote
Do you mean that the hunters kill only partridge chickens? It sounds very cruel. Is there a possibility that the four glyphs mean some bird species?
Thank you, Flam, you are right. It's the bitter truth of life.
Nothing must be done hastily but killing of fleas

M. Henri Day
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Postby M. Henri Day » Mon Oct 31, 2005 6:40 am

To deal adequately with this matter, one should really be an ornithologist, preferably specialised in the order Galliformes, which, alas, I cannot claim to be, but here goes anyway ! «雏鸡» refers to the young of any bird species, not merely (domestic) fowl. «鹑» means «quail» (formally «鹌鹑», ānchún). I haven't been able to find any entries for «山鹑», but I suspect that this term, too, refers to quail. The sentence as cited by yurifink strikes me as somewhat odd ; I wonder if it should not rather be «目前,就算德国猎人在捕杀某些本地物种,例如山鹑[的]雏鸡,都需要法律批准» ; i e, with the order of the phrases «雏鸡» and «山鹑» reversed, and preferably with an attributive «的» in between for clarity. In that case, I should translate it as follows : «At present, even German hunters need legal permits to hunt local species, for example, quail (chicks)». Perhaps yurifink could provide a link to the source ?...

Henri
曾记否,到中流击水,浪遏飞舟?

yurifink
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Postby yurifink » Wed Nov 02, 2005 5:31 am

M. Henri Day wrote
haven't been able to find any entries for «山鹑»,

This is a citation from Kingsoft English Chinese Online

partridge
n.
[鸟]山鹑, <美>鹌鹑
adj.
山鹑色的


Regards
Last edited by yurifink on Wed Nov 02, 2005 5:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
Nothing must be done hastily but killing of fleas

yurifink
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Postby yurifink » Wed Nov 02, 2005 5:39 am

M. Henri Day wrote
Perhaps yurifink could provide a link to the source ?...
http://www.dw-world.com/dw/article/0,15 ... 58,00.html
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M. Henri Day
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Postby M. Henri Day » Wed Nov 02, 2005 5:07 pm

Thanks for providing a link to the source, yurifink ! The context makes it somewhat easier to understand the sentence you cited, but alas, it doesn't eliminate (at least for me) all the difficulties when it come to identifying the particular species to which reference is made. The question is, are we taking about partridge spp or quail spp here. There are many of both, the main distinction being that quails are small birds, partridges medium-sized ones. Both are widely hunted. Which species is (are) being referred to here is not easy to determine, in particular for someone possessing so limited ornithological knowledge as I. But perhaps the text provides us with a hint : if «雏鸡山鹑» is the name of a single species, it would seem to be a rather small one, which would leave me to believe that «quail» would be a better choice than «partridge». Of course, many animals have a plethora of common names, and bi-lingual dictionaries are notoriously unreliable about such matters (for a discussion of this theme, cf, e g, here). Our only hope if we really wish to know precisely to which animal(s) the sentence refers, is to find an original draught in German, translated the species' names into good Linnean Latin, and then check out the official equivalents in a specialist taxonomic work (presuming one exists !) in Chinese. I don't have the tools to do this work, and besides, as I have said, I'm no ornithologist, which, to avoid error, I think one needs to be in this particular case. Before posting my original reply to your query, I checked the term «山鹑» in the 《汉语大词典》, which, while not a specialist dictionary, must be considered fairly authoritative, but found there no entry. As regards «partridge», I checked the term in the 《英华大辞典》 (修订第二版) from 1985, which provides the following translation : «鹧鸪 ; [美] 松鸡» ; our context makes it clear that here it is not the North American, but the Old World bird that is meant. Again, the 《英华大辞典》 is not a specialist ornithological dictionary, but I am not entirely convinced that the «Kingsoft English Chinese Online» is to be considered more authoritative....

Henri
曾记否,到中流击水,浪遏飞舟?


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