Category Archives: Mandarin

The colours associated with the cardinal directions in Chinese, Turkish and Lakota

Today’s blog post will take us to Asia and America, namely to Chinese, Turkish and the Native American Lakota language. All three languages and cultures associate different colours with the four cardinal directions.

Colours associated with the cardinal directions in Chinese

In China, each of the 4 cardinal directions is associated with a colour, as well as an animal and a season. The centre is yellow and is associated with the human realm. The North is associated with the colour black, as well as winter and a turtle 龜 Guī or snake. The South is thought of as red, and its associated animal is the phoenix 凤凰 Fènghuáng and the summer season. The East is associated with the Chinese colour qing 青, which denotes green as well as blue. (See a previous blog post on colour perception in different languages). Its animal is the dragon 龍 lóng and its season is spring. The West is white, and its animal is the tiger 虎 Hǔ and the season of autumn.

colors/directions in Chinese and Turkish

Colours associated with the cardinal directions in Turkish

Also the Turkish language associates different colours with the four directions. The North is thought of as black (kara), the East is associated with the Turkish colour gök, which is a sky blue or turquoise, the South is seen as red (kızıl, a rusty shade of red) and the West is associated with the colour white (ak). What is interesting in Turkish is that the seas surrounding the Turkish peninsula and Anatolia take their names from these colour associations: the Mediterranean, which is west of Turkey, is called Akdeniz, or the White Sea, the Red Sea is Kızıl Deniz, and is located to the south of Turkey (its name is said to come from the rust-coloured sediments flowing into it) and the Black Sea, or Kara Deniz, is north of Anatolia (the Black Sea is also rich in iron sulfides, where only sulphur bacteria can thrive, and its sediments are dark).

Colours associated with the cardinal directions in Lakota

The Native American language Lakota associates not just a different colour with each of the cardinal directions, but each direction also has a value or virtue attributed to it as well as an animal nation, and a stage of life. There are two different systems of colour association, which vary from dialect to dialect. The centre of the sacred circle, or hocoka, is green and blue, the green standing for Grandmother Earth and the blue for the Sky. The North is associated with cold, discomfort and hardship (the direction from which winter comes), the East is associated with the sunrise, the South is the direction from which the sun is strongest, and the West is associated with the sunset and, by extension, the end of life.

colors/directions in Lakota

 

Vocabulary: ‘Rice’ in Indonesian and Asian languages

indon rice

Today’s blog post is taking us to Asia again, to Indonesia and Japan and China, and to the various words for ‘rice’. Unlike in western languages, where there is just one word for any type of rice, in many Asian languages, there are different terms for ‘rice’ depending on what condition the rice is in, i.e. whether it is raw grains, cooked rice or still a rice plant.

In Balinese (Basa Bali) the various term for ‘rice’ are:

Pantun = rice plant (indon. padi)

sawah or manik galih = rice field/paddy

beras or baas = raw rice, rice grains

nasi = cooked rice

ketan = sticky rice

The Indonesian word for ‘rice plant’, padi, is the origin of the English term for paddy field. 🙂

There are also different words for ‘rice’ in Japanese and Chinese (Mandarin).

In Japanese, these are:

稲 ine =rice plant

米 kome = rice grains, uncooked rice

白米 hakumai = white rice, polished rice

籾 momi = rough rice

玄米 genmai = brown rice, unpolished rice

ご飯 gohan = cooked rice

餅米 mochigome = sticky rice

水田suiden = paddy field, rice field

And the Chinese terms for different kinds of rice are:

米饭 Mǐfàn = cooked rice

大米 Dàmǐ = raw rice

糯米饭 Nuòmǐ fàn = sticky rice

稻田 Dàotián = paddy field, rice field

 Does your language also have different terms for rice? Tell us about them in the comments! 🙂

 

Chinese: the meaning of some place names

800px-Osmanthus_fragrans_(orange_flowers)

Author: Laitr Keiows via Wikipedia Commons Osmanthus fragrans tree, also called sweet or fragrant olive

Today’s blog post is taking us to China (中国  Zhōngguó, land of the middle), and to the meaning of some place names when their characters are translated literally.

北京 Beijing = northern capital

南京 Nánjīng = southern capital, having served as capital in the Ming and Qing dynasties, as well as of the Republic of China founded in 1912

上海 Shànghǎi = (city) at the sea

重庆 Chóngqìng = double celebration

福建 Fújiàn = the blessed establishment, the foundation of good fortune

青海 Qīnghǎi = the blue-green sea, named for Lake Qinghai 

河北 Héběi = north of the river, referring to its location north of the Yellow River or 黄河 Huáng Hé

湖南 Húnán = south of the lake, referring to its location south of Lake Dongting or 洞庭湖 Dòngtíng Hú

湖北 Húběi = north of the lake, referring to Lake Dongting or 洞庭湖 Dòngtíng Hú

河南 Hénán = south of the river, referring to its location south of the Yellow River or 黄河 Huáng Hé

桂林 Guìlín = forest of fragrant olive (Osmanthus fragrans)

杭州 Hángzhōu = capital of the Hang province

苏州 Sūzhōu = “the province that is awake”; the character for Su 苏 in its name is a contraction that actually refers to nearby Mount Gusu 姑蘇山 Gūsūshān; the su refers to the mint Perilla frutescens, also known as shiso

四川 Sichuan = four rivers; the name of the province is an abbreviation of Sì Chuānlù (四川路), or “Four circuits of rivers”, which is itself abbreviated from Chuānxiá Sìlù (川峡四路), or “Four circuits of rivers and gorges”

贵州 Guìzhōu = the precious or noble province

山西 Shānxī = west of the mountains, refering to its location west of the Taihang Mountains or 太行山 Tàiháng Shān

安徽 Ānhuī = the quiet or safe emblem, actually named for two cities in southern Anhui, Anqing and Huizhou

云南 Yúnnán = “the region south of the clouds”, is actually named for the 云岭  Yúnlǐng or “Cloudy Peaks” mountains, which run north and south of Yunnan

香港 Xiānggǎng or Hong Kong = Fragrant Harbour

九龍 Kowloon/Gau2 Lung 4 in Cantonese= Nine dragons

澳门 Àomén, better known as Macao = the Bay Gate

广东 Guǎngdōng / Gwong2 Dung1 in Cantonese; Canton province = the wide East

台北 Táiběi = North of Taiwan