Thursday, December 17, 2015

Stir and wind/crank pronounced the same in Chinese

I found it interesting that in Chinese, the verb for a circular motion typically done in the horizontal plane (to stir, e.g., like sugar into coffee; 攪) shares the same pronunciation (jiǎo) as the verb for a circular motion typically done in the vertical plane (to wind/crank, e.g., like a fishing rod; 絞), although the characters differ.