Dragon (zodiac)
| Dragon | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"Dragon" in traditional (top) and simplified (bottom) Chinese characters | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 龍 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 龙 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The dragon (simplified Chinese: 龙; traditional Chinese: 龍; pinyin: lóng; Jyutping: lung; Cantonese Yale: lùhng) is the fifth of the 12-year cycle of animals that appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar. The Year of the Dragon is associated with the Earthly Branch symbol 辰 (pinyin: chén).
It has been proposed that the Earthly Branch character may have been associated with scorpions; it may have symbolized the star Antares.[1] In the Buddhist calendar used in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka, the dragon is replaced by the nāga.[2] In the Gurung zodiac, the dragon is replaced by the eagle.[3] In the Old Turkic calendar it is replaced by a fish or crocodile. Early Persian translations of the medieval period change the dragon to a sea serpent, although in current times it is generally referred to as whale.[4][5]
During China's Cultural Revolution, there was an attempt to replace the dragon with the giant panda; however, the movement was short lived.[6][7]
- ^ Richard S. Cook (Spring 1997) [Fall 1995]. "The Etymology of Chinese Chen". Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 18 (2). University of California, Berkeley: 250. ISSN 0731-3500. LCCN 82-640813. OCLC 4790670.
- ^ "Year of the Dragon – Naga – Thai Zodiac". Thai Guide to Thailand. Archived from the original on 8 July 2017. Retrieved 9 June 2017.
- ^ "Tamu (Gurung) Losar Festival". ECS Nepal. 11 July 2010. Archived from the original on 29 July 2017. Retrieved 9 June 2017.
- ^ Rasulid Hexaglot. P. B. Golden, ed., The King's Dictionary: The Rasūlid Hexaglot – Fourteenth Century Vocabularies in Arabic, Persian, Turkic, Greek, Armenian and Mongol, tr. T. Halasi- Kun, P. B. Golden, L. Ligeti, and E. Schütz, HO VIII/4, Leiden, 2000.
- ^ Jan Gyllenbok, Encyclopaedia of Historical Metrology, Weights, and Measures, Volume 1, 2018, p. 244.
- ^ R&S, December 30, 2005, 十三番目の干支はパンダだった!?, Excite News, Excite
- ^ Oriental Daily News, February 3, 2021, 子どもの出産時期にまで影響する中国の干支 かつては「パンダ年」も, Agence France-Presse