Proper Prounciation of Sorikonian Clan Names
Nov 6, 2013 0:48:11 GMT -8
Post by SwordSoup on Nov 6, 2013 0:48:11 GMT -8
So, because the season is over, I am taking Mandarin and apparently I love doing obscure research I felt the need to look into the accuracy of the Sorikonian clan names. This is all based taoist cosmological belief in eight trigrams.
Links for information on the eight trigrams (Bagua/八卦, which literally means eight symbols) if you are too lazy to use google and are interested in anything about them besides their names, which you should be because they are really interesting!
X
X
X
To start, here are the Sorikonian clan names and the characters that traditionally correspond to them:
Chi’en: 乾
Tui: 兌
Li: 離
Chen: 震
Sun: 巽
K’an: 坎
Ken: 艮
K’un: 坤
Now, the spellings for these names are outdated, we should use modern pīnyīn (the current official form of transliterating hànyǔ, the spoken language). The original (though outdated) spellings are included in parenthesis.
Qián (Chi’en): 乾
Duì (Tui): 兌
Lí (Li): 離
Zhèn (Chen): 震
Xùn (Sun): 巽
Kǎn (K’an): 坎
Gèn (Ken): 艮
Kūn (K’un): 坤
With the modern spellings the actual pronunciations are clearer. I’m going to ignore tonation for the time being since most people reading this won't be able to understand what they mean. The english pronunciation is in brackets.
Qián [Chien]: 乾
Duì [Dway]: 兌
Lí [Li]: 離
Zhèn [Jun]: 震
Xùn [Shoon]: 巽
Kǎn [Kan]: 坎
Gèn [Kun]: 艮
Kūn [Koon]: 坤
Now to translate the characters. Here are the Sorikonian translations:
Qián [Chien]: 乾 Heaven
Duì [Dway]: 兌 Lake
Lí [Li]: 離 Fire
Zhèn [Jun]: 震 Thunder
Xùn [Shoon]: 巽 Air (or wind/wood)
Kǎn [Kan]: 坎 Water
Gèn [Kun]: 艮 Mountain
Kūn [Koon]: 坤 Earth
These translations are actually correct under the old original eight trigrams theory. However, here are some more modern translations.
Qián [Chien]: 乾 Dry
Duì [Dway]: 兌 Exchange
Lí [Li]: 離 From
Zhèn [Jun]: 震 Shock (Actually kind of the same!)
Xùn [Shoon]: 巽 Sunda (I think this refers to either the islands or the character from the Mahabharata)
Kǎn [Kan]: 坎 Ridge
Gèn [Kun]: 艮 Burgundy
Kūn [Koon]: 坤 (I believe this has dropped out of usage and no longer has a proper translation.)
Keep in mind that these are only the most common current translations. They can also be translated to their associated direction, gender, position in family, color, etc.
If we were to use modern versions of the words with current simplified characters we would wind up with:
Tiān [Tien]: 天 Heaven (or day)
Zé (or hú) [Zu]: 泽 (or 湖) Lake (or "marsh"/water)
Huǒ [Hwo]: 火 Fire
Léi [Lei]: 雷 Thunder
Fēng [Fung]: 风 Air (Wind but who knows the difference)
Shuǐ [Shway]: 水 Water
Shān [Shan]: 山 Mountain
Dì [Di]: 地 Earth (or ground)
Soyeah, the translation stuff isn't actually relevant but I believe the clan names have been pronounced incorrectly this entire time. Hope you've learned something!
Some random facts that don’t actually relate to anything but are still really interesting:
泽 and 湖 both have modified versions of the water radical in them.
雷 has the rain radical (also the field and others but those aren’t the primary radical).
An alternative translation of 八卦 is gossip.
In Teriock, the Tuichien mages are based off this and their name is supposed to translate to sky heaven. However, the characters and pronunciations used do not apply unless used specifically to refer to the eight trigrams. Therefore, they should be called 天湖(Tiānhú) mages.
Links for information on the eight trigrams (Bagua/八卦, which literally means eight symbols) if you are too lazy to use google and are interested in anything about them besides their names, which you should be because they are really interesting!
X
X
X
To start, here are the Sorikonian clan names and the characters that traditionally correspond to them:
Chi’en: 乾
Tui: 兌
Li: 離
Chen: 震
Sun: 巽
K’an: 坎
Ken: 艮
K’un: 坤
Now, the spellings for these names are outdated, we should use modern pīnyīn (the current official form of transliterating hànyǔ, the spoken language). The original (though outdated) spellings are included in parenthesis.
Qián (Chi’en): 乾
Duì (Tui): 兌
Lí (Li): 離
Zhèn (Chen): 震
Xùn (Sun): 巽
Kǎn (K’an): 坎
Gèn (Ken): 艮
Kūn (K’un): 坤
With the modern spellings the actual pronunciations are clearer. I’m going to ignore tonation for the time being since most people reading this won't be able to understand what they mean. The english pronunciation is in brackets.
Qián [Chien]: 乾
Duì [Dway]: 兌
Lí [Li]: 離
Zhèn [Jun]: 震
Xùn [Shoon]: 巽
Kǎn [Kan]: 坎
Gèn [Kun]: 艮
Kūn [Koon]: 坤
Now to translate the characters. Here are the Sorikonian translations:
Qián [Chien]: 乾 Heaven
Duì [Dway]: 兌 Lake
Lí [Li]: 離 Fire
Zhèn [Jun]: 震 Thunder
Xùn [Shoon]: 巽 Air (or wind/wood)
Kǎn [Kan]: 坎 Water
Gèn [Kun]: 艮 Mountain
Kūn [Koon]: 坤 Earth
These translations are actually correct under the old original eight trigrams theory. However, here are some more modern translations.
Qián [Chien]: 乾 Dry
Duì [Dway]: 兌 Exchange
Lí [Li]: 離 From
Zhèn [Jun]: 震 Shock (Actually kind of the same!)
Xùn [Shoon]: 巽 Sunda (I think this refers to either the islands or the character from the Mahabharata)
Kǎn [Kan]: 坎 Ridge
Gèn [Kun]: 艮 Burgundy
Kūn [Koon]: 坤 (I believe this has dropped out of usage and no longer has a proper translation.)
Keep in mind that these are only the most common current translations. They can also be translated to their associated direction, gender, position in family, color, etc.
If we were to use modern versions of the words with current simplified characters we would wind up with:
Tiān [Tien]: 天 Heaven (or day)
Zé (or hú) [Zu]: 泽 (or 湖) Lake (or "marsh"/water)
Huǒ [Hwo]: 火 Fire
Léi [Lei]: 雷 Thunder
Fēng [Fung]: 风 Air (Wind but who knows the difference)
Shuǐ [Shway]: 水 Water
Shān [Shan]: 山 Mountain
Dì [Di]: 地 Earth (or ground)
Soyeah, the translation stuff isn't actually relevant but I believe the clan names have been pronounced incorrectly this entire time. Hope you've learned something!
Some random facts that don’t actually relate to anything but are still really interesting:
泽 and 湖 both have modified versions of the water radical in them.
雷 has the rain radical (also the field and others but those aren’t the primary radical).
An alternative translation of 八卦 is gossip.
In Teriock, the Tuichien mages are based off this and their name is supposed to translate to sky heaven. However, the characters and pronunciations used do not apply unless used specifically to refer to the eight trigrams. Therefore, they should be called 天湖(Tiānhú) mages.