Reminder to everyone that we are officially transitioning from the Year of the Rat to the Year of the Ox, so update your diets accordingly
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I've always been kind of interested by the "standard translations" used for the animals In Chinese the zodiac signs are a single character, and the English translations are often more specific than that word
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鼠 by itself most commonly gets interpreted as "rat", sure but the word by itself applies to all rodents Mice and rats are more specifically 老鼠 ("old rodents", idiomatically "common rodents"), with mice 小鼠 ("small rodents") and rats 大鼠 ("large rodents")
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There's also 松鼠 ("pine tree rodents", squirrels) 袋鼠 ("bag rodent", kangaroos) 鼬鼠 ("yellow rodent", mustelids) 黄鼠狼 ("mustelid wolf", weasels) 負鼠 ("burdensome rodent", opossums) 雷鼠 ("thunder rodent", Raichu)
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Anyway yeah the current year is the year of the 牛 (niu), which sounds better as "ox" I guess but it's just "cow" Or "bovine" (annoyingly, if you're a farmer all of the common words for bovines are specific, like "cow" is female)
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Replying to @arthur_affect
Curious: in China how is this animal typically visually represented? Horns or none or sometimes either? thanks for a good thread!
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The picture they use varies, it can be construed as any one of the animals that fits the word
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