Talk:Earthly Branches

Directions

It is possible someone can add the English translations [meanings] for the 24 Directions? I only see four English words North, South, East, West given - 20 more remain without clarity. Thank You In Advance. 4.238.237.18 01:27, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Looking at the version today, it looks like 8 directions are translated (north, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west, northwest). To the best of my knowledge, English doesn't have specific names for each of the 24 listed directions.

I thought it was interesting to read the paragraph following the table, about a 48-point compass, and adding an additional midpoint (for 96 directions total) by combining the names of the nearest two directions. English does this with the 4 cardinal directions... any compass direction between about 22.5 and 67.5 degrees is referred to as "northeast", but the actual lines between north/northeast/east are sometimes vaguely defined. If we need more than 8 directions, we use terms like "north-northeast" to refer to the area between north and northeast... so you would end up with the following table of names and directions:

Written	Spoken	Left end of range	Center of range	Right end of range
N	north	348.75°	0°	11.25°
NNE	north-northeast	11.25°	22.5°	33.75°
NE	northeast	33.75°	45°	56.25°
ENE	east-northeast	56.25°	67.5°	78.75°
E	east	78.75°	90°	101.25°
ESE	east-southeast	101.25°	112.5°	123.75°
SE	southeast	123.75°	135°	146.25°
SSE	south-southeast	146.25°	157.5°	168.75°
S	south	168.75°	180°	191.25°
SSW	south-southwest	191.25°	202.5°	213.75°
SW	southwest	213.75°	225°	236.25°
WSW	west-southwest	236.25°	247.5°	258.75°
W	west	258.75°	270°	281.25°
WNW	west-northwest	281.25°	292.5°	303.75°
NW	northwest	303.75°	315°	326.25°
NNW	north-northwest	326.25°	337.5°	348.75°

But this table has 16 entries, while the Chinese table has 24. So the systems are not orthogonal... the direction names are a little less specific in the English system, and thus there isn't a single name to correspond to each direction in the Chinese system. I think this is why there aren't translations for each Chinese direction...

Infinoid 15:44, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Also please note there is a 32-point English system described on the Boxing the compass page. Written by smarter people than me :)

You could find enough names in that system to fill in the blanks on the Earthly Branches page, but the actual angles (in degrees) don't match up exactly. I wouldn't really call them "translations" - they'd be more like "closest equivalents", I think. Also, until today (after reading the Boxing the compass page), I had never heard of things like "SEbE". So I'm hardly an expert in such matters.

Infinoid 18:12, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Ancient chinese put Zi (South) on the top. I changed the image.--刻意(Kèyì) 18:08, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Kazakh version

Since the image is of a fountain representing the Kazakh version of the 12 signs, should we not have discussion of the Kazakh version here? Or at least a link to it? LordAmeth (talk) 23:10, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Done. Vmenkov (talk) 03:41, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Awesome. Thank you. LordAmeth (talk) 11:52, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Why Turkish?

Pardon my ignorance, but why is there Turkish in the table? I understand that Japanese and other East Asian languages are included, as they were in the same culture sphere. But that can't be assumed for Turkish. Nowhere else does the article refer to any special association of the Earthly Branches with Turkish culture. Since this has been added by an anonymous user who has not edited since and is therefore not available for comment, I think we should simply revert the change. — Sebastian 22:26, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

A twelve year cycle of animal names was used throughout south-central Asia, including Turkey and Iran, which was derived from the Chinese-Uighur calendar of western China. However, including the Turkish and Farsi names, not to mention Nepalese and equivalent names in lanquages throughout south-central Asia, including Arabic, will overwhelm the table. See Kazakh version above and the image at the head of the article refering to their use in Khazakhstan. — Joe Kress (talk) 04:10, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your support. I'm not surprised that the animal cycle also played an important role in Khazakhstan - which was much closer to China than to regions using other calendars. (Almaty is only 200 km from the modern Chinese border.) But, at least in Islamic times, I would be amazed if Turkey and Iran had used anything but the Hijri calendar. — Sebastian 05:16, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

You misunderstand me. The twelve animal cycle was used in the calendars of all south-central Asian countries, including the calendars of Turkey and Iran. They only use the Islamic calendar for religious purposes, not for official government use. The twelve-animal cycle was not officially abandoned in Turkey until 1927 when it adopted the Gregorian calendar. Similarly, it was not officially abandoned in Iran until 1925 when the Iranian calendar adopted Zoroastrian month names. Despite these official decisions, the twelve-animal cycle is still known and used in both Turkey and Iran. Please see Chinese-Uighur calendar and Iranian calendar. — Joe Kress (talk) 06:34, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Interesting! That's what I love about working on Wikipedia: You always learn something new. I think this information would be a great addition to the article. Would you have sources for it? — Sebastian 16:30, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I can't remember where I read about the Turkish cycle. I am currently researching the Iranian calendar because some of the information in the article is wrong. But the sources (principally long articles in Iranian encyclopedias) sometimes disagree and are not precise enough. But more info on the 1925 law is no doubt within them. — Joe Kress (talk) 16:32, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Jupiter

Is there a reason why this page is linked to Jupiter?

Joeygbh (talk) 04:22, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

The article explains why. Jupiter takes about 12 years to move around the ecliptic, which corresponds to the 12 earthly branches when they are applied to years. This link was made in China as early as the Han dynasty. — Joe Kress (talk) 06:23, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Correct translations?

Are the latin-alphabet names for dragon and horse correct?
Although I don't understand Chinese myself, a native speaker tells me the Chinese word for dragon is "long" and horse should be something like "ma". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.169.72.155 (talk) 11:04, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Archaic vs modern words, perhaps? —Tamfang (talk) 21:49, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Dragon Pin Yin

on my traslater dragon is Long, not Chen.

--Iching4096 (talk) 12:51, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Origin of Earthly Branches

In the section "Origin" the first sentence tells us that "This system was built from observations of the orbit of Jupiter.". From a historical point of view, this cannot be "the true origin", as the Sexagenary cycle was first used for the recording of days (as a kind of "week" of 60 days, running without any kind of interruption through both lunar months and seasonal years) in the late Shang era about 1250 B.C.E. Only about 1000 years later (in the Qin and early Han eras, as earliest about 250 B.C.E.) do we find any evidence for use of the Sexagenary cycle for recording of years. As Jupiter's sidereal orbital cycle is (a bit less than) 12 years, it seems, at least to me, to be probable that the Chinese at this later time correlated "the twelve Earthly Branches" with Jupiter's "residing" in different parts of the Chinese "zodiac" (possibly from contact with astronomers from India, whose "Indian 60-year cycle", however, really follows Jupiter's "true" orbital period and therefore often only has 59 years), but this cannot be the original source for the cycle of "the twelve Earthly Branches", which existed more than 1000 years earlier. Does anyone have any information about the "true", historical source of this Chinese cycle of "the twelve Earthly Branches"? And if so, could that information (of course from a scientific, cited source) be incorporated into this Wikipedia page? /Erik Ljungstrand (Sweden) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.241.158.201 (talk) 11:50, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Erik is correct. The association with Jupiter comes 1000 years after the 12-cycle is first used to count days. See Smith (2011). TheNothingNihilates (talk) 02:14, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Current usage

This whole section baffles me.

The terrestrial branches are still commonly used nowadays in Chinese counting systems similar to the way the alphabet is used in English. For example, names in legal documents and contracts where English speakers would use K, L, M, etc. ...

Where would English speakers use K, L, M? (Why not A, B, C?) Is this about enumerating the clauses, or fictional names used for the parties, or what?

Since the celestial stems and terrestrial branches combined only consist of 22 characters, the four final letters – W, X, Y, and Z – cannot be represented by any of the celestial stems and terrestrial branches, and those four letters are represented by '物', '天', '地', and '人', respectively, instead.

Why would a Chinese contract need specifically to represent the 26 Latin letters?

In case of upper-case letters, the radical of '口' (the 'mouth' radical) may be added to the corresponding terrestrial branch or any of '物', '天', '地', and '人' to denote an upper-case letter.

Again, why do Latin letters need to be represented at all, let alone distinguished by case? —Tamfang (talk) 21:48, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Seems like we should just cut it out entirely if it's unsourced. Remsense诉 21:50, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I disagree that section should be removed, since it provides useful information. Latin letters are often used in legal contracts at the beginning of paragraphs or clauses to enumerate them. The section in question is explaining that same function in Chinese legal documents may use stem or branch characters instead. —Lowellian (reply) 08:16, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

@Lowellian in what universe do those massive tables not violate WP:NOTDICT? If anything like them should be in the article they're best rebuilt from scratch—their present form is totally unwieldy. I should add you've removed the sourcing I have added and replaced it with poorly sourced or unsourced paragraphs. Why was readding https://www.mahayaforesthill.com/introduction-to-the-stems-and-branches-theory and https://kazahd.do.am/publ/1-1-0-108 as sources seen as acceptable? You can likewise glance at the reintroduction and find a dozen MOS violations in the readded/replaced material.

To be clear, I want to work on these articles, and I'd like to hash out what should be here, but we should work from solid foundations, not churning through unsourced literary and technical debt. Is that fair to ask for a dialogue to that effect?Remsense ‥ 论 08:47, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

I fondly remember J. Smith's 2011 hypothesis on the asterism origin of the 地支, the first article I read in the first physical copy Early China I was mailed as a subscriber. I don't know that it's gained scholarly consensus, but it's certainly worth mentioning. Adam Smith's chapter may better represent the mainstream view, but it is an open question. I feel like there was another recent paper (like, within the past six or seven years) on this topic or the other one, in either Early China or T’oung Pao or Monumenta Serica or something, but I might be misremembering.

Agree with the characterisation of the websites mentioned just above as inappropriate sources for this article.

Does Wiktionary have list articles? I do think the big ole translingual pronunciation table doesn't really fit here, but it does seem like useful information for Wiktionary if the allow that sort of thing.

Some of the removed content may have been better served with a {{cn}} rather than direct excision, but I don't have time at the moment either to review everything that was trimmed or to search for sources. Remsense and Lowellian, I hope you two are able to collaborate productively to improve this article, and talk things through rather than performing big reverts at one another. I'll try to help find sources for these two articles as I'm able, but it's a very hard work week for me and I might not have spoons till the weekend. Best, Folly Mox (talk) 11:09, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Well, I don't know what article I might have been misremembering, but there's none to be found in any recent issue of any of the three publications I guessed at above, nor HJAS. I did find a nice little source on Stems-n-Branches in maths and horology at here, for whenever such sections are added. Folly Mox (talk) 20:21, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Oops here's the link I meant. Folly Mox (talk) 20:23, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Tamfang, one smol answer to your bafflement: K, L, M here (Earthly branches), because A–J correspond in this usage to the Heavenly stems. Folly Mox (talk) 10:53, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Mass removal of most of Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches articles

I came to the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches articles and was puzzled by how short and uninformative these articles were, when I remembered them being previously being much more useful and informative. Even the most basic information such as the pronunciation of stems and branches in Chinese was absent when it is standard practice in articles about Chinese topics to give pinyin for the subjects in question, hence Wikipedia's pinyin templates for that purpose.

When I checked the article history, I found found that the articles looked, as recently as a couple months ago, like this for Heavenly Stems and like this for Earthly Branches, with a wealth of information added by the combined efforts of many editors over the course of twenty years of editing. On June 30, half these articles were removed by a single user without discussion, leaving the article like this for Heavenly Stems and like this for Earthly Branches.

There's a comment in a previous section above questioning a few sentences in the article about the substitution of stems and branches for Latin letters in contracts, but the removals went far beyond that, extending to half the article.

I object to the removal of all that information and believe the articles were previously better. The mass unilateral deletion of most of the articles and of the decades-long work of so many other editors without discussion is not okay. What do other people think?

—Lowellian (reply) 10:05, 22 August 2024 (UTC)