Mahjong - Name

Name

The game was called 麻雀 (pinyin: má què), meaning sparrow in Chinese, which is still the name most commonly used in some southern Chinese languages such as Cantonese and Min Nan, as well as in Japanese. However, most Mandarin-speaking Chinese now call the game má jiàng (麻將). In Northern Wu Chinese (Shanghainese and its relatives), it is pronounced as 麻將, but in actuality, 麻將 is the diminutive form of 麻雀, written as 麻雀兒, due to an erhua event. It is through the Wu Chinese pronunciation of 麻雀兒 that the diminutive form of 麻雀 in Northern Wu became known as 麻將 in both Mandarin and Wu.