Talk:惡

Mandarin readings

Can it be added in which contexts the several different Mandarin readings are used? 173.89.236.187 13:01, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

It has been added. Nibiko (talk) 22:12, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Expanded glyph origin section?

I found | this description on Reddit by "Zoidboig" of the possible origins of the glyph:

惡 is a combination of 亞 ('sub-, next, Asia', a traditional variant of 亚) and 心 ('heart, mind').

In Kenneth Henshall's A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters, in the entry for the Japanese version of that character (悪), he explains that 心 means "heart/feelings", and that 亞 is "here acting phonetically to express ugly and also lending its own connotations of ugly and twisted." Thus, 悪 means "ugly, twisted feelings". (emphasis original)

As to the origins of 亞, Henshall says:

"Popularly thought to derive from some assumed pictograph of (hatted) hunchbacks facing each other, [...]. [It] did indeed mean hunchback at one stage, leading to associated ideas such as ugly and inferior and hence secondary/ next and sub-. However, very old forms [...] depict a particular type of underground dwelling with a central chamber and various passages and/or smaller chambers on each side.

This came to acquire associated meanings such as angular/ not straight/ crooked, and was eventually applied to hunchbacks, leading to the evolution of meaning outlined above. Somewhat surprisingly, despite its negative associations it is also borrowed phonetically to express the first syllable of Asia. [...]"

This paragraph is quoted from the entry for 亜 (the Japanese version of 亞). It includes drawings of "very old forms", which I can't reproduce here, naturally.

Can this be added here? Jimw338 (talk) 22:32, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

僫 or 惡

@Justinrleung Looks like MOEDICT and 闽南方言大词典 both uses 僫. Do you think which character should be used? By the way, I think we should have a guide that shows which character we use for main entries for Hokkien entries, since Hokkien sources vary on character usage. Mar vin kaiser (talk) 06:59, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

@Mar vin kaiser: In the dialectal table, 惡 is used to avoid having separate characters for clear cognates. It also seems like 惡 has some precedence within Min Nan works, like Nanguan, per 台字田. However, I'm not exactly sure if this would dictate character choice across entries. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 07:19, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: Then let's just pick 惡. It's used in Min Nan works, and it combines clear cognates. --Mar vin kaiser (talk) 08:41, 17 January 2024 (UTC)