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Multilinguo@multilinguo@mastodon.social (2026-09-22 05:49:59)
School across the Sino-sphere.
Same two characters, three voices:
ZH 學校 / 学校 xuéxiào
JP 学校 gakkō
KO 學校 / 학교 hakkyo
Japan and Korea borrowed the characters and their Middle Chinese sounds 1000+ years ago.
Those borrowed readings often keep older sounds than modern Mandarin.
Middle Chinese 學 ended in -k:
JP gaku
KO hak
VN học still have it. Mandarin xué dropped it.
The loan preserved what the source let go.
multilinguo.app
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Sun Microdevil Pte Ltd@koakuma@uwu.social (2026-09-22 09:26:03)
@multilinguo What about Chinese languages that is not Mandaring :02lurk:
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Multilinguo@multilinguo@mastodon.social (2026-09-23 02:22:55)
@koakuma Great question. It anchored on Mandarin, but other Sinitic languages read 學校 too, and several preserved the Middle Chinese -k final that Mandarin dropped.
Cantonese: 學校 hok6 haau6 (kept -k, like JP gaku, KO hak, VN học)
Hokkien: ha̍k-hāu
Hakka: ho̍k-káu
Cantonese and Hokkien are among the most phonologically conservative Sinitic languages. They preserve MC features Mandarin lost. Same conservation pattern as Sino-Xenic loans.
What's the other language you were thinking about?