Mcph2

Welcome

Welcome to Wiktionary and thanks for your edits. Please make sure you read the documentation (I know there's a lot! I still make mistakes...):

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Thanks again. I know there's a lot to learn. tbm (talk) 05:55, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice! Mcph2 (talk) 08:09, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Edit at 八百屋

Hello, I just reverted your edit at Japanese 八百屋.

• Under the ===References=== at the bottom, please don't remove the <references/> line. See also Wiktionary:References#Implementation.
• It looks like you got your etymology from the Gogen Yurai Jiten entry here. Unfortunately, they are not always very reliable.
  • We know from Japanese sound-shift patterns that word-initial y- does not just appear or disappear, except for the front-vowel e sound. (See also 𛀁, and ja:w:え and the mention of や行え段.) I am not aware of any other case of an initial y- spontaneously appearing to turn initial a- into ya-.
    → Phonetically (sound-wise), this suggests that 八百屋 did not derive from 青屋.
  • If we explore the Nihon Kokugo Dai Jiten entries for 八百屋 and 青屋, we see that 八百屋 is attested in 1674, and 青屋 in 1576. However, the references I have all indicate that 青屋 (aoya) meant "indigo dyer", not "greengrocer".
  • Meanwhile, the 青物屋 entry shows us that this is first attested in 1688, after 八百屋. If the "greengrocer" sense for 青屋 came about as a shortening of 青物屋, it would have to be after 1688. Unless we assume time travel, 八百屋 cannot easily derive from 青屋.
  • We also see a note at the bottom of the entry for 八百屋, explaining that these shops were known for having all kinds of things, from produce to nuts to dried goods to seafood -- and 八百 is the old word for "all kinds". The Sekai Dai Hyakka Jiten entry tells us that the shops known as 八百屋 didn't start focusing on just produce until some time in the 1700s, a while after the term first appears.
    → Semantically (meaning-wise), this is further strong evidence that 八百屋 did not derive from 青屋.

Going beyond just what we can concretely determine from references, as yaoya shifted to just focusing on produce, the term became essentially synonymous with aoya. I suspect it is this closeness of form that confused the editors who wrote the Gogen Yurai Jiten entry.

HTH! ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 19:44, 20 March 2023 (UTC)