2006-09-13 13:46:04 · 4 answers · asked by mischa c 1 in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
'Xiao' means small or younger. 'Yian' means pretty. It sounds like it translates non-literally to something like 'pretty little thing'.
2006-09-13 14:05:03 · answer #1 · answered by ChiChi 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It will be better if you give us the characters of this phrase, or at least its tone number, because the Chinese language is tonal and simply Xiao Yian Yian (the designer of this shirt probably spelled it wrong) could have many different pronunciations, and they make different meanings of the characters, vocabulary or phrases.
For example, the sound "Yan" can be written down as 嫣 (yan1, describing a girl smiling happily), 顏 (yan2, meaning "color" and "face"), 眼 (yan3, meaning "eye"), or 燕 (when pronounced yan4, it means "swallow"). And "Xiao" can be written as 簫 (xiao1, a kind of Chinese instrusment), 學 (meaning "to learn" or "to study", sometimes prounounced as "xiao2" while other times prounounced as "xue2"), 小 (xiao3, meaning "small" or "little"), 笑 (xiao4, usually meaning "to laugh" or "to smile" when put alone).
2006-09-15 05:07:36 · answer #2 · answered by Singing River 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I'm not sure exactly - but its along the lines of live long and happy -<<< I THINK>>>
2006-09-13 13:54:36 · answer #3 · answered by Melis__A 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I means "I don't know how to write characters, so I'll transliterate with pinyin."
2006-09-13 16:44:16 · answer #4 · answered by Nerdly Stud 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋