About four

[ninjacatman]

Hi all,
I noticed that Japanese has two names for 4, xi and yon (one
other letter had two but I don't remember which one).
I was wondering, in Chinese, they have two names for one;
yi and yao. yi is used when counting, giving the number of
something and so on, but yao is used for phone numbers,
serial numbers and such, and they are NOT interchangeable.
In Japanese, are xi and yon are like that?

 

[yumeitsumo]

Yon and shi is the Japanese for four.

 

[Aurura]

He wants to know if 'shi' is the name for 4 used for specific reason other than 'yon'.

- Aurura

 

[yumeitsumo]

Yeah there is a reason: but I forgot>.< lol

 

[Aurura]

Me too! I feel so wrong for that!! Gomenasai, ninjacatman san! Looks like we're all waiting for the answer to come.

 

[Red5]

Hi all,
I noticed that Japanese has two names for 4, xi and yon (one
other letter had two but I don't remember which one).
I was wondering, in Chinese, they have two names for one;
yi and yao. yi is used when counting, giving the number of
something and so on, but yao is used for phone numbers,
serial numbers and such, and they are NOT interchangeable.
In Japanese, are xi and yon are like that?

no it's not like chinese ....

yon and shi are similar , but in some states you have to use one better than second ....

examples >> << April (shi gatsu ) 四月 and not better to use yon ,,

also (7, nana and shichi ) and (9 kyuu and ku ) like that in some states ...

 

[grapefruit]

no it's not like chinese ....
yon and shi are similar , but in some states you have to use one better than second ....
examples >> << April (shi gatsu ) 四月 and not better to use yon ,,
also (7, nana and shichi ) and (9 kyuu and ku ) like that in some states ...

There are two series of numbers, one is Sino-Japanese numbers and the other is native Japanese numbers.

Sino-Japanese: ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, shichi, hachi, kyuu (ku), jyuu
Naitve-Japanese: hi-, hu-, mi-, yo-, it-, mu-,nana, ya-, kokono-, too

So, yon and shi are the Japanese reading and Sino-Japanese reading for four, respectively. I read somewhere yon sometimes replaces shi to avoid the word association that comes with the word shi (死 'shi'). But, I'm not sure its validity. In my opinion shi must be preferred over yon to speak faster (the same thing for kyuu and ku).

 

[Red5]

There are two series of numbers, one is Sino-Japanese numbers and the other is native Japanese numbers.

Sino-Japanese: ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, shichi, hachi, kyuu (ku), jyuu
Naitve-Japanese: hi-, hu-, mi-, yo-, it-, mu-,nana, ya-, kokono-, too

So, yon and shi are the Japanese reading and Sino-Japanese reading for four, respectively. I read somewhere yon sometimes replaces shi to avoid the word association that comes with the word shi (ﾅｽ竄ｬ 'shi'). But, I'm not sure its validity. In my opinion shi must be preferred over yon to speak faster (the same thing for kyuu and ku).

i know that but if you learn native rules then the language'll be hard to learn .
so you have to give him Grammartical rules like i do , that's what i learn not more ... thanks for ur participation

 

[Toritoribe]

The following thread might be helpful.

Memory aids for Japanese System Numbers 1-10 (ひとつ～とお） | Japan Forum

In my opinion shi must be preferred over yon to speak faster (the same thing for kyuu and ku).

Yeah, probably for the same reason, "kugatsu" is more general than "kyuugatsu" these days.

 

[grapefruit]

Number counting in Japanese is too complex.
This is totally off-topic....
I don't know why many Asian languages had adopted Sino-numbers. Korean and Japanese have both native and Sino-numbers at this moment. I heard the Thai language has only Sino-numbers left in modern usage.

It is hard to imagine people one day stop using the native counting method and start using the foreign Sino-method. In the common historical linguistic perspective, it is normal to assume Sino-numbers were borrowed from China and spread to the rest of Southeast- and East-Asia. If the number is a huge number or zero, it makes sense to borrow the concept. But, counting one to ten seems too fundamental (unless the language only had the primitive counting method of "one", "two", and "a lot"). I wonder how it happened?

Is it ridiculous to propose a proto-Asain-counting language, like an areal feature or something? In this perspective, what referred to as Sino-numbers were actually cognates from a proto-Asian counting language and not from Middle Chinese, and the Chinese language itself adopted the counting language from it....

 

[Glenn]

As far as why they went with Chinese numbers, I'd say it's because they were less trouble to say. If I'm not mistaken, the ancient Japanese counting numbers all had the inanimate counter tsu (well, back then it was most likely tu). If you look at even one through ten you can see the advantage the Chinese numbers had over the Japanese numbers in terms of length (and I just realized I'm assuming that Sino-Japanese numbers haven't changed since they were introduced...). If the ancient forms were close to the modern forms, hitotsu, futatsu, mittsu, yottsu, itsutsu, muttsu, nanatsu, yattsu, kokonotsu, tô are just longer than ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, shichi, hachi, kyû, jû generally speaking. There may have been other reasons too, like maybe a prestige that knowing the Chinese numbers would bring you.

As to the proto-Asian-counting language, it seems really far-fetched to me. I think you'd have a lot of work cut out for you if you were to try to propose such a thing, especially since it seems like you just can't take only a part of a language (like numbers) and call it its own language.

 

[grapefruit]

when you count numbers in increasing order, it would be ichi, ni, san, shi (yon), go, roku, shichi (nana), hachi, kyuu (ku), juu. A couple of variations in 4, 7, and 9. When you count in decreasing order, it would be juu, kyuu, hachi, nana, roku, go, yon, san, nii, ichi. No variation appears in 4, 7, and 9.

I found them interesting. Could it be related to cognition?

 

[Glenn]

That is interesting, and it's the first I've heard of it. I have no idea what that could be related to.

 

[Charles Barkley]

Probably because counting backwards, for most people, isn't a set pattern, so you will actually have to think and fall back on the numbers you are most comfortable with.

I had the same result when I did it in Japanese. Then I tried in English with 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.

Counting backwards from 10, I said five-th. I am not sure I have ever counted backwards that way before, at least at speed.

 

[ninjacatman]

In Chinese it is interesting because in Chinese, the highest number (that I know
of) in counting is yi. now some of you might know the Chinese for one, which
is yi(with a downward tone). It is a little weird but as some of you know, spoken
Chinese has four tones (well five, if you count mono tone); the Chinese for '1'
can be any of the four tones, except for the fourth a.k.a downward tone. If you
are wondering, the words tone changed depending on the tone of the other words
it is used with. yi with a downward tone means one 100,000,000 or 1/10 of a billion.



I find it interesting about the native and non-native numbers, how long has Japan
used non-native numbers? where did they come from?( I know one or two came
from Chinese)

 

[Glenn]

The non-native numbers are Sino-Japanese numbers. That should answer your question right there.

Just out of curiosity, is it that you can't put East Asian fonts on the computer you're using, or that you just don't want to?

 

[ninjacatman]

eh, well like I said before, I couldn't I said in the past that I don't HAVE
my own computer at the moment. I can't just go installing things on people's
computers at my wim. I might get a computer I can install things on soon
though.

 

[Glenn]

Even if it's just temporary, you couldn't install the Microsoft IME? It doesn't take that much space on the computer, and you can always uninstall later, right? I've done that before, anyway....