Wow. I had absolutely no idea that had happened. It is so interesting how language evolves.
At first there was only 作. As tones developed, 作 was clearly entering tone (checked tone), which in Taigi, it can still be pronounced as tsok or tsoh, with a final stop. In Old Chinese it has been proposed to be /*[ts]ˁak/.
Somewhere around Middle Chinese, the final stop was lost in certain usages, and we ended up with two pronunciations, one with a final stop 作, and the other without which became departing tone 做. They had to invent the character 做 just to differentiate these two.
I am uncertain if the divergence in tones is a result of grammatical affixes in Old Chinese, or simply a result of trend of slowly losing final stops.
In Mandarin, the final stop for 作 was eventually lost as well, and we ended back with two exactly sounding 作 and 做.
In Taigi, for 作 you have:
作曲 tsok-khik
製作 tsè-tsok
種作 tsìng-tsoh
創作 tshòng-tsok
振作 tsín-tsok
However, you start to get into a grey area with the following examples in departing tone
作用 tsò-iōng
作對 tsò-tuì
I’d say if we want to be consistent, these two should also be 做用 and 做對.
As for 做 we have two dialectal pronounciations tsò and tsuè:
做夥 tsò-hué
做生日 tsò-senn-ji̍t
做月內 tsò-gue̍h-lāi
做大水 tsò-tuā-tsuí
Honestly, if there was a grammatical semantic reason for having two pronunciations, I cannot spot the rules…
8 Likes
Interesting. Wouldn’t it be nice if the two zuos had different pronunciations in Taiwanese, then knowing Taiwanese would help avoid writing the wrong zuo.
1 Like
Evolve is putting it nicely. I call it bastardize. The adverb usage of 得 is also in danger of being replaced by 的. These days you see kids write 跑的快 rather than 跑得快. 
It’s kinda like “whom,” which is used less and less.
2 Likes
5 Likes
You got me there, tempo. 
3 Likes
Yeah, in Cantonese 作 and 做 have different pronunciations, so nobody mixes them up. Same with 的得地, 3 different pronunciations.
2 Likes
Very annoying. In my editing work, I’m constantly having to correct this kind of stuff.
1 Like
I don’t know how Cantonese uses these 3. However, 的 in Middle Chinese would never be used to be a possessive marker, or be used to connect to an adverb, as 的 originally means target.
1 Like
You edit Chinese text?! Another one of many talents Milker has that we don’t know about!
Been doing it for nearly 20 years… 
If you could see the Chinese of some of the junior editors I work with. 
2 Likes
Cantonese doesn’t use 的 as a possessive marker either. We use either the measure word directly (i.e. 我本書) or the word 嘅. 的 means target in Cantonese too.
Although because everyone learns standard written Chinese too, people will sometimes use 的 as a possessive to pretend to be sophisticated or for humor or something.
嘅 is pronounced as ge3, and Taigi uses the same sound to mark for posessive, which originally should be written as 个.
In Taigi, it was originally pronounced as Kê (IPA ke˨˦), but a sound change of lenition took place, and the k was first softened to h and then completely dropped. So now it’s just ê.
So when Taigi speaking people write 我ê冊 (using your my book example), they are essentially saying 我个冊. 个, which Mandarin writes as 個, and traditionally also written as 箇, is also a measure word.
3 Likes
Just his principal argument. Like some posters above, the meanings overlap enough where I don’t think he is making a legitimate point… but it’s just me.
A common mistakes locals make is they can’t tell the difference between the “in” and “ing” sounds. So they pronounce 新 and 興 the same way. Wouldn’t happen if they knew English.
Is it a mistake? I don’t have enough linguistic knowledge, but isn’t it common such phenomena happening in any language?
They have corresponding 注音 for each sound, so I don’t think it is different from they know in and ing.
Haha, tell that to a Mandarin teacher.
I know, ㄣ and ㄥ, except they never bother to distinguish them when they speak, whereas if you know English, you’d always say the correct 興 like in 復興, because in your mind, you know it’s spelled Fuxing Rd. and not Fuxin Rd.
I think that’s a Taiwanese accent thing, I hear many native speakers say it, so I don’t think you can call it a ‘mistake’. Same as how 風 is pronounced closer to ‘fong’ than ‘feng’ and how some people here say ‘lan2 hou4’ instead of ‘ran2 hou4’ (然後). Sure they don’t match the Zhuyin or the pinyin exactly but that’s how language is.
2 Likes
The two spellings indicate exactly the same sound in my mind. As ㄣ and ㄥ are the same.
A Taigi speaker can tell the difference between [n] and [ŋ]. The difference in pronunciation between (因) and ing (應) is clear in Taigi.
However, that same Taigi speaker would say those two words exactly the same the second they switch to Mandarin, at least they would almost certainly do so if they are under 40.
1 Like