Meaning of Numbers in Chinese Culture and Beyond
I love numbers. Speaking as a former mathematician and current linguist (syntactician, mainly), I cannot stress how much I find numbers fascinating. I love reading Hebrew, since there is a theory that Hebrew characters all have numerical value. A page of Hebrew characters is hence also a page of numbers (please see the movie Pi (1998) directed by Darren Aronofsky for a more superstitious and mythological explanation of Hebrew). I am also Chinese, and in our culture there is a curious superstition regarding certain numbers, namely those that rhyme with characters which have significant meanings. It is widely known that we have a predilection for the number eight 8 八 (ba in Mandarin, baat in Cantonese) and an abhorrence for the number four 4 四 (si in Mandarin, sei in Cantonese), which sound very similar to the characters 發 ‘prosperity’ (fa in Mandarin, faat in Cantonese) and 死 ‘death’ (si in Mandarin, sei in Cantonese, though different tones) respectively. There are also combinations of numbers which strengthen the meaning of these numbers e.g. ten 10 十 (sap in Cantonese), which resembles the adverb 實 (sat in Cantonese; this word is dialectal and derives from Classical Chinese) meaning ‘definitely’. The numbers fourteen 14 十四 (sap sei) and eighteen 18 十八 (sap baat) are hence highly significant, since the former means ‘definite death’ 實死 (sat sei) and the latter ‘definite prosperity’ 實發 (sat faat). One could go on with these different numerical permutations, but these are the main ingredients and building blocks of our numerical superstition.
Some of these basic principles of Chinese numerical superstitions are pan-Chinese, like the homophonies between the number eight 8 (八) and prosperity (發) and between the number four 4 (四) and death (死). Others, however, are particular to certain dialects (e.g. Cantonese) and have somehow entered our folklore e.g. the homophony between the number ten 10 (十) and the adverb 實 ‘definitely, certainly’, as mentioned above, which is derived from Old Classical Chinese and is no longer found in mainstream Mandarin but only in certain dialects like Cantonese. Mandarin and Cantonese (and all Chinese dialects) differ phonologically (please browse my homepage for some of my blogs on Chinese dialectal differences/correspondences). It is hence not surprising that there should be homophonies in certain dialects but not in others e.g. Cantonese, where there are certain examples of homophony which only work in this dialect but not in others, namely the numbers one 1 (一), 2 two (二) and 100 hundred (百). In Cantonese, number one 1 (一) is pronounced ‘yat’, which sounds similar to the word 得 ‘dak’ meaning ‘fine, OK’ (=Mandarin 行). The number eleven 11 (十一), for instance, is pronounced ‘sap yat’, which sounds similar to 實得 ‘sat dak’ meaning ‘definitely fine’. The number two 2 (二), on the other hand, is pronounced ‘yi’, which is homophonous with the adjective/adverb 易 ‘yi’ meaning ‘easy/easily’. The number twenty-one 21 (二十一), therefore, is pronounced ‘yi sap yat’, which sounds similar to 易實得 meaning ‘easily definitely fine’. Finally, the number hundred 100 (百) is pronounced ‘baak’, which sounds similar not only to the number eight 8 (八) ‘baat’ but also to the noun ‘prosperity’ (發) ‘faat’. A very prosperous number, therefore, would be 888 (八百八十八) ‘baat baak baat sap baat’, which sounds similar to ‘faat faat faat sat faat’ meaning ‘prosper prosper prosper definitely prosper’. A monstrously prosperous number, which is not bad when one is feeling down. All these homophonies only work in Cantonese and related dialects, since in Mandarin 得 does not have the same meaning as in Cantonese and the numbers two 2 (二) ‘er’ and hundred (百) ‘bai’ do not resemble any words of religious superstition.
More on Cantonese. There are two numbers which are held to be vulgar (and hence impropitious) in modern Cantonese- seven 7 七 (chat) and nine 9 九 (gau), which correspond to two very rude words in modern Cantonese, namely 柒 (chat, different tone) and 鳩 (gau, different tone), which literally mean ‘crap’ and ‘prick’ respectively. As one can imagine, I hate these two words and I hate seeing numerical permutations of the numbers seven 7 and nine 9. It is interesting to see, however, how these two numbers sandwich the number eight 8, which is an extremely powerful number in our folklore. The adjacency between seven 7, eight 8 and nine 9 reminds me somewhat of life, since we often live through cycles of prosperity and bad fortune in succession. It also makes me think that the margins between success and failure can be very small, since the juxtaposition between good fortune (e.g. 8) and danger (e.g. 7, 9) shows just how easy it is to fall into the trap of misfortune and that one really has to be very cautious in order to avoid it, a bit like Scylla and Charybdis. It is funny to see these numerical patterns in our language/culture. Looks like our numbers really are playing up.
I watched a TV series several years ago called Touch (2012) starring Kiefer Sunderland whose performance in 24 has made a strong impression on us. In Touch, he makes an equally strong performance in a similar character characteristic of his usual roles as he plays a father whose son, played by the now Gotham famous David Mazouz, is mute but has a genius mathematical capacity and ends up communicating with him via numbers. Throughout the series we see them living their lives by observing numerical patterns everywhere, and the numbers they see dictate the rhythm and direction of their lives. Beautiful premise. Galileo once said that numbers were the language of the universe by which he meant that natural and physical phenomena could be modelled by using mathematical and algebraic functions. This laid the groundwork for Newtonian mechanics and all subsequent scientific developments (including theoretical/formal syntax). Since watching this series I have grown accustomed to noticing numbers all around me, especially those that are significant in our Chinese culture. As mentioned above, the number eight 8 symbolises prosperity while the number four 4 indicates death and that these superstitious notions could be strengthened by the number ten 10. Whenever I see these numbers, therefore, I get somewhat agitated. I hate it when I see any permutation of the number four 4, whereas any presence of the number eight 8 really gives me a lift. To take an example, the other day I was queueing in the supermarket and ended up on lane four 4. I didn’t feel comfortable and immediately shunned it by moving onto the adjacent lane three 3. I was hoping that this could rid me of some bad luck. Another example- I was doing some reading the other day and I realised that I had left it on page eighty-eight 88. It boosted my confidence and lifted my mood for the rest of the day. It all sounds superstitiously silly, but sometimes paying attention to these small details can have a profound psychological effect on us. Perhaps it is time to shun the number four altogether and give myself a break, as I would not like to suddenly drop dead one of these days. May all the fortune-bearing numbers befall us and all ominous ones stay away from us.
Originally published at keithtselinguist.wordpress.com in four separate entries: https://keithtselinguist.wordpress.com/2016/06/03/meaning-of-numbers; https://keithtselinguist.wordpress.com/2016/06/04/meaning-of-numbers-2; https://keithtselinguist.wordpress.com/2016/06/11/meaning-of-numbers-3-dialectal-homophonies; https://keithtselinguist.wordpress.com/2016/06/23/meaning-of-numbers-4-cantonese-vulgarisms.
