Horned ram Ram
Sheep sheep
Goat goat
The New York Times simply refers to the Year of the Goat as the "Year of the Horned Ruminant."
Some say goats, some say sheep, and some simply say "horned ruminants"; listen to what Nanjing folklore experts have to say
China's Year of the Goat is approaching, and Chinese people around the world will celebrate the Year of the Goat in a variety of ways, and foreigners also want to mix it up. However, this group of foreigners soon discovered a very tangled question: What kind of sheep is the Year of the Sheep in China? Is it Ram, or Goat, or Sheep? Many media in the United Kingdom and the United States have given different answers, and even invited a number of experts to interpret, and in the end there is still no definite answer. Or the New York Times is more "smart", they simply gave up the study of what kind of sheep it is, and directly translated the year of the sheep as the year of the "horned ruminant".
So, what is the correct solution of the Year of the Goat, the Yangtze Evening News reporter also specially consulted the folklore experts in Nanjing yesterday.
Foreign media are all kinds of chaos
It is said that all goats and sheep are said to be "ruminant years"
The reporter learned that the first to throw out the question was a media in Manchester, England, and the headline of the news began with a clear meaning: "Chinese New Year in Manchester: What kind of sheep is it?" Then the media in Birmingham threw up the same question.
It's not just the British who are tangled up, but the American media such as CNN are also crazy. Some American media can't bother and directly designate a kind of sheep. For example, the Wall Street Journal directly identified it as a goat. Today's United States thinks it's sheep.
The most "clever" is the New York Times, which avoids discussion about what kind of sheep it is, and directly defines the year of the sheep as "the year of various horned ruminants."
Soon, the problem quickly spread to other media and social networks, becoming one of the hottest topics on the global web these two days.
However, the reporter noted that in foreign languages, the support for goats seems to have a certain upper hand. The English wikipedia version of the zodiac sheep is interpreted as a goat, while in other languages, French, Spanish, and Arabic also use goats.
Various experts have appeared in the end and there is no conclusion
Many foreign media have also invited various "Experts on China Issues" and "Chinese Historians" to listen to what they have to say.
Some experts say that this may be a sheep or a goat, but the Han people raise more goats, so it may be a goat. Some people say that the origin of the zodiac comes from the ancient Chinese rituals, but the ancient books originally did not distinguish between sheep and goats, so basically just find a sheep that can be found around.
Some people have studied the geographical distribution of China and said that there are more sheep in the grasslands of northern China, so the northern zodiac should be sheep, and the southern goats are more, so the southern zodiac should be goats.
Some experts suggest looking at various sculptures and paintings used to represent the zodiac sheep in ancient China, saying that the twelve animal heads in the Yuanmingyuan are clearly goats.
Of course, some people suggest going to the streets of China to see. It turned out to be tragic, all kinds of zodiac sheep ornaments on the streets of China, goats, sheep, all kinds of sheep, and a large part of them are Happy Sheep!
Netizens all kinds of joy
The Year of the Dog is also divided into "Husky Year" and "Samoyed Year"?
The topic of what exactly is the sheep in the Year of the Sheep continues to ferment on the Internet, and Chinese netizens have also launched a "joyful discussion".
Many netizens are complaining. Netizen Zhu Wenjie designer said: "Other families just can't distinguish between sheep, and the New York Times can't even distinguish between sheep and cattle." Netizen Ye Rui said: "What about the Year of the Rat: Guinea Pig? hamster? squirrel? Year of the Ox: Buffalo? rhinoceros? Year of the Tiger: Siberian Tiger? South China Tiger? Year of the Rabbit: The Eared Rabbit? Great White Rabbit? Year of the Dragon: Dragon Daddy? The Nine Sons of the Dragon? Year of the Snake: Rattlesnake? cobra? Year of the Horse: Zebra? White Horse? Year of the Monkey: Golden Snub-nosed Monkey? Big Horse Monkey? Year of the Rooster: Hen? Rooster? Year of the Dog: Husky? Samoyed? Alaska? Year of the Pig: Mini Pig? wild boar? ”
There are also netizens in the recruitment. Netizen Xiao Spoon said: "Why don't foreign sheep have a collective name?" For example, dog is a general term for all kinds of dogs, and cat is a collective name for all kinds of cats. The sheep in the Year of the Sheep should refer to all breeds of sheep, but there is no general name for sheep in English, and in summary, it is a problem with the English word creation. Netizen Oil Tea tea said: "Hahahaha isn't it a goat?" The mud figurines, jade carvings, crystal carvings, and agate carvings of sheep seen in the museum are all goats. Netizen Yang Hui Riqing said: "Then use Yang to create another word for the Chinese zodiac." ”
Experts explain it
The sheep in the Chinese Year of the Goat are goats!
What is the "sheep" of the Year of the Sheep? Spring Festival to visit relatives and friends, if there is a brain-opening bear child to ask you like this, do not open your mouth in front of everyone. According to the views of Nanjing folklore experts, you can touch the child's head and say with confidence: This sheep is not a sheep, let alone a happy sheep, but a goat.
Wang Tao of the Nanjing Municipal Museum (Chaotian Palace) introduced that sheep are one of the earliest domestic animals tamed in Chinese, and in the oracle bones, gold scripts, large seals, and small seals, the word "sheep" has a pair of inverted "V" shaped horns, which is like the slightly curved horns of goats. From the perspective of cultural relics, most of the sheep-shaped cultural relics are based on goats, and furry sheep are rarely seen. For example, the Qing Dynasty Sanyang Kaitai porcelain vase in the Chaotiangong Museum, the three sheep in the pattern are goats with long beards and curved horns.
Folklorists analyze it from another angle and give the same answer. Xu Longmei, an associate researcher at the Nanjing Folklore Museum (Gan Xi's former residence), believes that the "zodiac sign" belongs to the content of Han culture, while the Central Plains, where the ancient Chinese civilization mainly lived, the basic activities are goats, and the sheep mainly live in the desert north and saiwai where ethnic minorities are concentrated. Therefore, the zodiac sheep should refer to the goat. In addition, sheep mainly provide people with high-quality furs, which are made into winter coats. But in ancient times, people living in the Central Plains used cloth and silk as the main clothing, and in winter, people often wore several layers of single clothes instead of a "cashmere suit". It can be seen that at that time, people were still relatively unfamiliar with furry sheep.