Tag Archive for '比丘尼'

It’s what the nuns wear when they go swimming

Published by davinci on October 15, 2009 in frivolous nonsense and languages and linguistics. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

I happened upon this passage in a book called The Chinese Language: Its History and Current Usage by Daniel Kane, in a section on loanwords from Sanskrit:

In some words, only one part of the original has survived: the ní in 尼姑 ní​gū​ “Buddhist nun” is the last syllable of the Sanskrit bhikkini (sic)…

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