“龙”的英文应该翻译成 Loong - 转发 (A Chinese Teacher Suggests that "Dragon" should be written as "Loong")

ysun wrote:

Check out the tutorial for the Loong Year Loong Dance move
科目一：新春龙舞挑战晒

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2024-01-14/Check-out-the-tutorial-for-the-Loong-Year-Loong-Dance-move-1qm1zY759MQ/p.html

你很自信，但一定得人家愿意接受才算数，否则岂不是就成了你自娱自乐了！

Nine-Dragon Wall (九龙壁)

The Nine-Dragon Wall is the only double-sided screen wall among China's Top Three Nine-Dragon Walls, made of colorful glazed bricks. The front and back sides of the wall each contains a relief featuring nine dragons in various forms dancing in sky, through clouds, above sea and across rocks.

Nine-loong Wall (九龙壁)

The Nine-loong Wall is the only double-sided screen wall among China's Top Three Nine-loong Walls, made of colorful glazed bricks. The front and back sides of the wall each contains a relief featuring nine loongs in various forms dancing in sky, through clouds, above sea and across rocks.

Little New Year, which falls about a week before the lunar New Year, is also known as the Festival of the Kitchen God, the deity who oversees the moral character of each household. In one of the most distinctive traditions of Spring Festival, a paper image of the Kitchen God is burnt on Little New Year, dispatching the god's spirit to Heaven to report on the family's conduct over the past year.

The kitchen deity – also known as the Stove God, named Zao Jun, Zao Shen, Tsao Chun, Zao kimjah, Cokimjah or Zhang Lang – is the most important of a plethora of Chinese domestic gods that protect the hearth and family. The Kitchen God is recognized in Chinese folk religion, Chinese mythology, and Taoism. Under different names, he is also celebrated in several other Asian religions.

Is there a need to tell ‘loongs’ from Western dragons?

Many on Chinese social media Weibo supported the use of the term.

“It’s a good thing because the west has demonized China and then put the name of one of their evil objects on our mascot, which is nothing short of being civilized,” one ​influential user, who has 1.8 million followers, wrote in a post liked by 4,000 others on Weibo.

But the accurate translation should have been “Long” - with a single “o” - based on China’s standard romanization, Professor Victor Mair, who specializes in Chinese Language and Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, pointed out in his blog recently.

“Transcribing long into English ‘loong’ would cause more problems and confusion than translating it as ‘dragon’,” he wrote.

Mair also suggested the move to use “loong” appears to be driven more by politics than language.

He noted that “some patriotic and political sources in the Sinosphere” have been peddling the concept that the Western dragon is fearful.

But he said he doesn’t believe that, “since the typical Chinese dragon has horns, claws, fangs, gaping whiskered maw, glaring eyes, snake-like body with scales, [and is] not a creature you’d like to meet in the middle of the night.”

Eden, from Valparaiso University, said evil dragons exist in Eastern culture just as there are benevolent dragons in the West.

Their portrayal depends on who’s telling the story – and the message they want to convey about their society, he said.

“I think that this emphasis comes from nationalistic and cultural developments that arise from cultures, modern-day nations, and peoples wanting to distinguish themselves and their cultures and ideas from others, in this particular case, to focus on the differences between Eastern and Western society,” he said.

中国媒体今年翻译龙年时流行用「Year of Loong」，而不是惯用的「dragon」，引起中国欲争取话语权和去英语化的评论，但香港特首李家超却率先在春节的国际花车巡游上率先用「the Year of Loong」来说龙年。香港不少专栏作家和评论员却指新译法既是中国倒退至上世纪的汉字拉丁化的时代，自绝于国际社会；亦寓意不吉，因为「Loong」的发音，与「(炒)燶」丶「(借)loan」丶「(穿)窿」等字雷同。

......

吴志森：汉字拉丁化是走回头路 与开放相违

...... 亦有评论员指出，这是中国去英语化的一部分。但他认为，若认为翻译拉丁化便是文化自信或制度自信，那是自欺欺人，事实上，其他国家的媒体并没有随中国媒体而更改。

他认为，这是走回头路，绝对是大倒退，因为汉字罗马化(又称拉丁化)在上世纪已经在做，但以拉丁文音译中文根本行不通，外人难以看懂。

他指出，拉丁化与中国的改革开放背道而驰，是闭关自守的表现，即不管国际社会是否认受，只是自我感觉良好地做，认为内卷即可。

ysun wrote:

如果你用 Google 搜索"九龙壁" & “Nine-Loong”，将会搜到以下两个内容基本相同的网页：

1. Holiday Hangouts: Traces of Dragons in Municipal Parks
https://english.beijing.gov.cn/specials/parktours/informationvisitors/focus/202401/t20240126_3547230.html


不过当我昨天阅读此文时，它使用的还是 "Nine-loong Wall" 的说法，今天却已经改成 Nine-Dragon Wall 了！不知其中有何奥妙？

2. Holiday Hangouts: Traces of Loongs in Municipal Parks
https://english.visitbeijing.com.cn/article/4GN0d9OjCab

此文使用的仍然还是 "Nine-loong Wall"。下面的落款也是 The People's Government of Beijing Municipality。

由此让我想起，与香港的“九龙”对应的英文 Kowloon 是否也应该改一下？是否应该改成 Kow-loong、Nine-loong，或干脆改成 Jiu-long？

“Loong”與”Dragon”的分別
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clVpcP724UQ

hj58 wrote:

这次改译龙为 Loong 是民间不约而同、官媒跟进报道，但是，外宣管理部门并没有批准改译，官方专家学者至今是反对改译的，但是又不可能禁止改译。所以，现在是八仙过海，五花八门，各人各单位自己决定如何翻译龙。

Tofu (Japanese: 豆腐, Hepburn: Tōfu, Korean: 두부 Chinese: 豆腐; pinyin: dòufu) is a food prepared by coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into solid white blocks of varying softness: silken, soft, firm, extra (or super) firm. Tofu is also known as bean curd in English. It is a traditional component of East Asian and Southeast Asian cuisines,[1] and has been consumed in China for over 2,000 years.[2][3] In modern Western cooking, it is most often treated as a meat substitute.

Nutritionally, tofu is low in calories, while containing a relatively large amount of protein. It is high in iron, and can have a high calcium or magnesium content depending on the coagulants (e.g. calcium chloride, calcium sulphate, magnesium sulphate) used in manufacturing.

Etymology

The English word "tofu" comes from Japanese tōfu (豆腐). The Japanese tofu, in turn, is a borrowing of Chinese 豆腐 (Mandarin: dòufǔ; tou4-fu) 'bean curd, bean ferment'.[4][5][6][7]

The earliest documentation of the word in English is in the 1704 translation of Domingo Fernández Navarrete's A Collection of Voyages and Travels, that describes how tofu was made.[8] The word towfu also appears in a 1770 letter from the English merchant James Flint to Benjamin Franklin.[9]: 73  The term "bean curd(s)" for tofu has been used in the United States since at least 1840.[10][11]

History

Tofu making was first recorded during the Chinese Han dynasty about 2000 years ago.[2] Chinese legend ascribes its invention to Prince Liu An (179–122 BC) of Anhui province. Tofu and its production technique were introduced to Japan[12][13][14] during the Nara period (710–794).

Dec 14, 2006

wherestip wrote:

Have they ever thought of just saying "The Chinese Dragon"?

Loong is fine too. In my estimation no one in the English world is going to object to it. They probably have better things to do

　　史上第一次，Chinese dragon（中国龙）收进了品牌英语词典，而且还是OED，英语世界公认的词语权威。Chinese dragon经历了词汇化（lexicalization），由松散的自由组合转为紧密的固定搭配，而载入词典，成为名正言顺的词汇单位。

1. A representation or figure of a Chinese dragon (a mythological creature or god associated with China and depicted in a variety of different animal forms, but typically as a serpent with four limbs; cf. sense 2).

2. A mythological creature or god associated with China, depicted in a variety of different animal forms but typically as a serpent with four limbs, and symbolizing wisdom, fortune, and power. Also: such a creature viewed as a personification of China or its former empire.

loong, variant of lung, n.
Each of the two respiratory organs in man and most vertebrate animals, placed within the cavity of the thorax on either side of the heart and…

hj58 wrote:

你准确地预言了 Loong 的情况。虽然官方机构至今反对，但是民间大量使用，

ysun wrote:

国内的某些官员和专家忽略了一个关键问题，“改译龙为 Loong”能否流行、能否被普遍接受，取决于国外使用英语的广大民众能否接受。否则，即使中华人民共和国国家标准化管理委员会、全国语言与术语标准化技术委员会等机构以国家标准的形式，将 Loong 列入国家标准，也是枉然。

[修改时间: 2024-02-24 06:45 GMT]

1. loong, variant of lung, n.
Each of the two respiratory organs in man and most vertebrate animals, placed within the cavity of the thorax on either side of the heart and…

2. See "Chinese Dragon"

hj58 wrote:

这次谈不上是“官方助推”。民间大量译龙为 loong 了，官方媒介怎么办？视而不见？不可能，毕竟这是一件“事情”（即便不算新闻）。看见了，不报道，很奇怪，要报道，那就只能跟着译龙为 loong。

......

如果“官方”指的是外宣管理机构，说它们助推，它们要冤枉死了。因为它们一直是反对改译龙的，2023年一月，外文出版社出版了一本“中国时政话语翻译基本规范．英文”，明确规定译龙为 (Chinese) dragon。国务院批准建立、外文局和教育部等建设的“中华思想文化术语传播工程”至今译龙为 dragon（有网站可看，我刚才又去看了一下）。官方专家学者多次讲座、接受采访、写文章，反对改译龙。如果有兴趣，我可以提供一个目录。前面我说官方外文媒体“不情不愿”的主要依据就是：一方面它们在新闻报道里使用 loong，另一方面，这些媒体的专家接受记者采访时反对改译龙。

所以，改译龙为 Loong 这件事情十几年来实际上是“民推官阻”。