Phoenix in English

(Oriental IC/Photo)

For a long time, we have always been accustomed to translating Phoenix into English as Phoenix and Phoenix as Phoenix in Chinese. A number of mainstream English-Chinese and Chinese-English dictionaries have also strengthened such a word equivalence relationship, indicating that the mutual translation between "phoenix" and "phoenix" is a deep-rooted consensus.

That is to say, the idea that "phoenix is equal to phoenix, phoenix is equal to phoenix" has become a reflex action for many people without thinking. There are many examples, such as Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV, which is translated into English as Phoenix Television. Phoenix, the capital of arizona in the United States, is traditionally translated Chinese as "Phoenix".

Although such an approach is conventional and taken for granted, it is actually debatable, because there is a clear difference between the Chinese phoenix and the Western phoenix, and it is not easy to confuse.

According to the Hanyu Da Dictionary, the phoenix was "the king of the birds in ancient legends." The male is called phoenix, and the female is called phoenix, commonly known as phoenix or phoenix. The feathers are five colors and the sound is like a flute music. Often used to symbolize Rayying". The definition of "Ci Hai" is basically the same, but the text additionally quotes the "Erya Shi Bird" and the notes made by the two Jin Dynasty scholar Guo Pu, so that we can more clearly understand that the original Chinese phoenix form is a synthesis, combining several features such as "chicken head, snake neck, swallow jaw, turtle back, fish tail, five colors, and six feet high".

Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged ("Webster's Third Edition") is a titan of contemporary Chinese dictionaries, with strong scholarship, high accuracy, and large word collection. In Merriam-Webster III, the Western phoenix is "the bird of legend." According to the ancient Egyptians, this bird lived in the Arabian desert for five or six hundred years, then set itself on fire and then rose from its ashes to regain its youthful vitality. Often seen as a symbol of immortality and resurrection" (a legendary bird represented by the ancient Egyptians as living five or six centuries in the Arabian desert, being consumed in fire by its own act, and rising in youthful freshness from its own ashes and often regarded as an emblem of immortality or of the resurrection）。

Compared with the authoritative dictionaries of the Chinese and British worlds, the difference between phoenix and phoenix is obvious, belonging to their respective myths and legends, and are two completely different creatures.

Therefore, in order to make a difference, some people have translated the Western phoenix as "immortal bird", which has been in the literature for some time, and its visibility in society has increased, and the sense of violation is no longer so obvious.

China's phoenix, The English translation should also be adjusted, and should not continue to fall into the trap of phoenix, unable to get out for a long time.

In fact, without waiting for us to chew on the words ourselves, the authoritative English dictionary has long been a few steps ahead of us, and the phoenix has been included in a completely different form, but we probably know nothing about it.

The first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was published in 1928 in 12 volumes, and in the decades before that, the publisher had published fascicles in a booklet and sequential manner, giving eager readers a sneak peek. According to the data, a sub-volume in 1898 has already included the phoenix in transliterated plum (phoenix). OED points out in etymology that this is a reversal of fung hwang (phoenix) after omitting hwang (phoenix).

According to OED, the fum (phoenix) is "a fabulous bird, by Europeans commonly called the phoenix, one of the symbols of the imperial dignity in China." The definition of the Chinese phoenix and the European phoenix made a mythical level of correspondence and connection, and this early cognition may have become the basis for the later mixed use of phoenix and phoenix.

OED also added a ho-ho (phoenix), which is mostly known for the combination of ho-ho bird (phoenix bird). OED's etymology for ho-ho is very brief, only from Etymology: Chinese, but I venture to guess that ho-ho may have been transliterated from a chinese dialect (compare: Hokkien "phoenix" is pronounced as hong hong). Even, perhaps ho-ho is borrowed directly from the Japanese word "phoenix" (let's compare: the Japanese "phoenix" is pronounced as hō-ō, ō table long vowel), rather than the Chinese that OED thinks.

The OED definition says that the ho-ho bird is "a mythical bird of pheasant-like appearance used frequently as an emblem of courage." OED describes the phoenix as a bird of prey and pheasant, which is more or less true, but the phoenix symbolizes courage, and I don't know why?

The OED includes two phoenixes, the transliteration of fum and ho-ho (bird). The subtext behind this is that OED believes that China's phoenix has its own uniqueness, unlike the Western phoenix, and should be withdrawn from phoenix and dealt with separately. Today,however, the fum is obsolete and no longer in use, and the ho-ho (bird) is obsolete and almost withdraws from the language stage. So what should the English translation of Phoenix do now?

The answer is straightforward, which is feng huang. The third edition of Merriam-Webster included feng huang as an entry word, which is also the practice of the English Encyclopaedia Britannica. The Encyclopedia Britannica, the world's most well-known and authoritative encyclopedia today, includes the phoenix in feng huang, details the Chinese bird in the text, and points out in the English version that some people regard the phoenix as a "Chinese version of the immortal bird" (Chinese phoenix), which is common but misleading.

In fact, as early as 1934, the predecessor of the third edition of Merriam-Webster, "Merriam-Webster II", had already received feng huang, and the later Webster III edition was based on this, refined, optimized and expanded. The newly revised third edition of Webster gives feng huang two definitions, the first is about the phoenix in mythology, and the second is about the phoenix in the palace:

(1) The bird that in Chinese mythology watches with the dragon, tortoise, and kylin over the empire and appears in times of prosperity, descended during the Taiping Dynasty, often depicted in art as a synthesis, sometimes as a symbol of the queen and that is often represented in art as composite in appearance sometimes as a symbol of the empress）。

(2) A bird raised in the Chinese imperial palace in the past, with gorgeous feathers and elegant morphology, is related to the mythical phoenix and symbolizes auspiciousness. Some consider this bird to be a bird with rich plumage and graceful form and movement domestic in the former imperial court of China, associated with the mythical feng huang as an emblem of good fortune, and identified by some with the ocellated argus）。

Compared with OED, Merriam-Webster's third edition of the phoenix description is more in-depth and richer and more detailed. Compared to OED's outdated fum and ho-ho (bird), Merrift's third edition of feng huang is in sync with the times, and the Network's English encyclopedia giant Wikipedia (Wikipedia) is also recognized by the same feng huang.

Traditionally, phoenix's English translation of the custom phoenix phoenix phoenix ("immortal bird", or Chinese phoenix "Chinese undead bird"), such a correspondence is easy to mislead, so that everyone has a wrong understanding of the two, although widely circulated, but there are obvious problems. Highlighting the difference between the phoenix and the Chinese bloodline with transliteration is the practice of people of insight, and the authoritative reference books in the English-speaking world, such as Oxford, Webster, Encyclopedia Britannica, and Wikipedia, are all endorsed by the transliteration of phoenix, which deserves our attention.

It should be noted that the third edition of Merriam-Webster gave phoenix four main definitions, including the original meaning and various extension meanings, and the last main definition was a cross-reference feng huang. The design of this editorial "mutual see" is lexicography, which means that phoenix can also be fenghuang, but fenghuang is the main, phoenix is secondary, and the details must be found in the main fenghuang. This mutual view of merriam-Webster's third edition takes into account both ideal and reality, acknowledging the existence of phoenix, commonly known as phoenix, and telling the reader that feng huang is the correct solution it recommends.

When it comes to phoenix, it is inevitable to think of dragons, because in Chinese culture, dragons and phoenixes are mutually explicit, dragons are yang and phoenix are yin, and dragons and phoenixes are the totems with the most Chinese characteristics. The English translation of the dragon is a manifestation, and everyone pays attention to it, rolling up a thousand piles of snow. Relatively speaking, Feng's English translation is much more obscure, and even a little lack of attention.

Interestingly, the English translation of the dragon and the English translation of the phoenix are "the same way to the same destination", and the results are actually different. Following the trajectory of the "phoenix", the "dragon" entering English through transliteration should be the right way, but my research evidence shows that the return to the conventional dragon (or Chinese dragon) is the mainstream of today's English-speaking world. The English dragon has been diversified, and the Chinese dragon is also one of the faces of the dragon, and the authoritative reference book also records such changes in the definition of the dragon.

The dragon's words are difficult to say, and we will talk about it later.

(The author is an associate professor and former head of the English Department of Soochow University, and a part-time researcher of the Chinese Dictionary Research Center of the State Language Commission)