<p>A good example is numbers in Chinese.</p>

<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_numerals#Standard_numbers" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_numerals#Standard_numbers</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-26T03:50:13.227Z
2014-02-26T03:50:13.227Z
user3992
<p>There are words that have different shapes(uncognated）yet share the same meaning in Mandarin. Written Mandarin is relately a new form of writing, words have been simplifed more than once during the 50s-80s (and even some of the words' pronounciaton have been altered). </p>

<p>Sorry for just answering your TITLE.</p>

<p>If what you meant by "Mandarin" is not the thing I percieved (which I think is a spoken standard based on Beijing dilect),then you may show some e.g to clarify your original question.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-23T04:03:50.127Z
2014-02-23T04:03:50.127Z
HiConnie
<p>For example, in written Chinese 给 is used a ideograph for "to give" and is read with whatever the word for "to give" is in the various languages, even if the word is not cognate or in any way related to the etymology of 给. Are there words in Mandarin that are written with characters for words that are not etymologically related? </p>

<p>If it's just selecting a phonetic loan for a word that has never been written before, that is understandable because you have to start somewhere. I'm more curious about stuff where the pronunciation/etymology is completely unrelated but a character is used just because of its meaning. </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-22T18:15:52.177Z
Vague discription
Joseph S WU
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-22T18:27:54.560Z
I think this is rarely the case. Chinese characters aren't really "ideographs", at least within Chinese. Characters are usually chosen based on etymology or pronunciation. There might be some examples in, say, HK Cantonese, where the norm is diglossia. People will write in (basically) Mandarin, but they might read the sentence in literally-translated Cantonese.
Stumpy Joe Pete
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-22T20:38:59.980Z
I can't understand your question. Please rewrite for clarity. Maybe check this first: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification
amateur
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-23T00:48:05.317Z
Firstly, only Mandarin is really a written language. Writing in another Chinese language or dialect generally means writing in Mandarin and finding some way to write words not in Mandarin. Often those words are made of morphemes that have Mandarin cognates so the characters for those will be used. Sometimes a cognate is not known in which case you might see special dialect characters with the "mouth" radical, or you might see re-purposed Latin alphabet letters like "Q". For non-Chinese words you will see transliterations written with a common set of otherwise mostly obscure characters.
hippietrail
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-23T01:16:44.560Z
I'm not so clear about what you want to ask. As far as I see, everyword in Chinese should have a related translation to other languages such as English.
xqMogvKW
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-23T06:37:46.707Z
"even if the word is not cognate or in any way related to the etymology of 给". Really? How common is that phenomenon? Do you have examples? I don't think the ideographic use of characters you're asking about is very common in Mandarin, although it's common in e.g. Japanese, where characters are used for both Sinitic and Japonic words.
dainichi
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-23T07:37:26.313Z
Even for making new Mandarin terms for things from non-Chinese languages including companies and products, the Chinese term will usually be primarily based on the sound of the original, but which specific characters can be chosen also for their connotation since there are often many characters for the same sound. Sometimes though a new word is created. For instance "Rubik's Cube" in Chinese is not a transliteration of "Rubik" but "魔方" (mó​fāng), where "魔" means "devil" and "方" means cube. I don't believe this is common outside proper names, ie not really used for general concepts.
hippietrail
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-24T00:55:39.720Z
I think op confused western languages' concepts on etymology, cognate etc. Since in the history of Chinese language, there's only one source of the language since Qin dynasty, the authority, so it's not a research trend on etymology or cognate in Chinese unless you work on really old oracle scripts. If you do, you should firstly do some research on 六书，from there you can see how the Chinese characters  were created. 六书 is not a law or guidance of creating Chinese character but a generalization after they were created.
tomriddle_1234
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-26T10:31:40.393Z
Voting down because the OP has not taken advantage of the information offered in these comments to come back and clarify the question, without which answering it is really not possible without second guessing what the OP might have meant.
hippietrail
<mandarin><writing>
Are there words in Mandarin written by characters for other words that mean the same thing?
# Are there words in Mandarin written by characters for other words that mean the same thing?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-02-22)

For example, in written Chinese 给 is used a ideograph for "to give" and is read with whatever the word for "to give" is in the various languages, even if the word is not cognate or in any way related to the etymology of 给. Are there words in Mandarin that are written with characters for words that are not etymologically related?

If it's just selecting a phonetic loan for a word that has never been written before, that is understandable because you have to start somewhere. I'm more curious about stuff where the pronunciation/etymology is completely unrelated but a character is used just because of its meaning.

**Tags:** mandarin, writing

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Vague discription  
> **username_2**: I think this is rarely the case. Chinese characters aren't really "ideographs", at least within Chinese. Characters are usually chosen based on etymology or pronunciation. There might be some examples in, say, HK Cantonese, where the norm is diglossia. People will write in (basically) Mandarin, but they might read the sentence in literally-translated Cantonese.  
> **username_3**: I can't understand your question. Please rewrite for clarity. Maybe check this first: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification  
> **username_4**: Firstly, only Mandarin is really a written language. Writing in another Chinese language or dialect generally means writing in Mandarin and finding some way to write words not in Mandarin. Often those words are made of morphemes that have Mandarin cognates so the characters for those will be used. Sometimes a cognate is not known in which case you might see special dialect characters with the "mouth" radical, or you might see re-purposed Latin alphabet letters like "Q". For non-Chinese words you will see transliterations written with a common set of otherwise mostly obscure characters.  
> **username_5**: I'm not so clear about what you want to ask. As far as I see, everyword in Chinese should have a related translation to other languages such as English.  
> **username_6**: "even if the word is not cognate or in any way related to the etymology of 给". Really? How common is that phenomenon? Do you have examples? I don't think the ideographic use of characters you're asking about is very common in Mandarin, although it's common in e.g. Japanese, where characters are used for both Sinitic and Japonic words.  
> **username_4**: Even for making new Mandarin terms for things from non-Chinese languages including companies and products, the Chinese term will usually be primarily based on the sound of the original, but which specific characters can be chosen also for their connotation since there are often many characters for the same sound. Sometimes though a new word is created. For instance "Rubik's Cube" in Chinese is not a transliteration of "Rubik" but "魔方" (mó​fāng), where "魔" means "devil" and "方" means cube. I don't believe this is common outside proper names, ie not really used for general concepts.  
> **username_7**: I think op confused western languages' concepts on etymology, cognate etc. Since in the history of Chinese language, there's only one source of the language since Qin dynasty, the authority, so it's not a research trend on etymology or cognate in Chinese unless you work on really old oracle scripts. If you do, you should firstly do some research on 六书，from there you can see how the Chinese characters  were created. 六书 is not a law or guidance of creating Chinese character but a generalization after they were created.  
> **username_4**: Voting down because the OP has not taken advantage of the information offered in these comments to come back and clarify the question, without which answering it is really not possible without second guessing what the OP might have meant.  

---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_8 on 2014-02-26. Score: 1

A good example is numbers in Chinese.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_numerals#Standard_numbers>


---

### Answer by username_9 on 2014-02-23. Score: -2

There are words that have different shapes(uncognated）yet share the same meaning in Mandarin. Written Mandarin is relately a new form of writing, words have been simplifed more than once during the 50s-80s (and even some of the words' pronounciaton have been altered).

Sorry for just answering your TITLE.

If what you meant by "Mandarin" is not the thing I percieved (which I think is a spoken standard based on Beijing dilect),then you may show some e.g to clarify your original question.


---

