弼馬溫
See also: 弼马温
Chinese
| assist | horse; surname | (luke)warm; to review | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| trad. (弼馬溫/弼馬温) | 弼 | 馬 | 溫/温 | |
| simp. (弼马温) | 弼 | 马 | 温 | |
Etymology
Pun on 避馬瘟／避马瘟 (bìmǎwēn, “to prevent horse's disease”) in Mandarin. It was a popular belief that adding monkey's urine to horse feed helps prevent illness.
Recently, some scholars believe 溫／温 (wēn) is a phono-semantic matching of Classical Mongolian -ᠤᠨ (-un, “a suffix similar to Chinese 的 or English -er”).[1]
Pronunciation
- Mandarin
- (Standard Chinese)
- Hanyu Pinyin: bìmǎwēn
- Zhuyin: ㄅㄧˋ ㄇㄚˇ ㄨㄣ
- Tongyong Pinyin: bìmǎwun
- Wade–Giles: pi4-ma3-wên1
- Yale: bì-mǎ-wēn
- Gwoyeu Romatzyh: bihmaauen
- Palladius: бимавэнь (bimavɛnʹ)
- Sinological IPA (key): /pi⁵¹ mä²¹⁴⁻²¹ wən⁵⁵/
- Homophones:
弼馬溫 / 弼马温
避馬瘟 / 避马瘟
- (Standard Chinese)
Proper noun
弼馬溫
- An official position for Sun Wukong in the classical novel Journey to the West.