[Buddha-l] Ts'ao-ch'i or Caoxi?

[Wong Weng Fai]

Both pronunications of that word are acceptable today.

Many Chinese characters (still) have multiple/alternative pronunciation. 
They evolved with time, influences, and regions, I guess. Many words were 
read quite differently in say the Tang dynasty than they are today.

"You say to-may-toes, I say to-MA-toes."

W.F. Wong

On Wed, 24 Feb 2010, Mitchell Ginsberg wrote:

> hello all, 
In Chinese Buddhism, there is reference to a mountain stream, in pinyin, 
the Cao stream (related to Hui Neng, the Sixth Chan Patriarch). The 
Chinese (if it turns out to be readable here) is 曹溪. What I notice is 
that when cited in Pinyin this is given as Cáoxī (which corresponds to 
Wade-Giles Ts'áo-hsī), while when cited in older texts using Wade-Giles, 
it is almost always Ts'áo-ch'ī (which in pinyin would be Cáoqī). The 
one exception I find is in the revised Japanese-English Buddhist 
Dictiontary, where in the entry for Sōtō-shū it is rendered as 
"Ts'ao-hsi (Sōkei)" although there is no entry at the Japanese word 
'Sōkei' itself. I notice that 'xi' is a more often found rendering in 
contemporary Chinese-English dictionaries than 'qi' (at least in the ones 
I've been able to check). What is the explanation for all of this? Thank 
you. Mitchell ========== Homepage (updated February 21, 2010): 
http://jinavamsa.com See also http://jinavamsa.com/mentalhealth.html




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