Advertisement
How language changes our perception of the Chinese zodiac
- Researchers from Indonesia compared idioms of Chinese zodiac creatures in Bahasa Indonesia and Mandarin
- They found interesting revelations, such as an almost irrelevancy of dragons in Indonesia when compared to China
2-MIN READ2-MIN
1
When it comes to the Chinese zodiac, creatures like dragons and tigers are so important that they have become stereotypes used to represent the nation. And yet, if we analyse the exact same zodiac in a different language, Bahasa Indonesia, the dragons and tigers are almost irrelevant.
This finding, and other interesting nuggets, were the result of research from Indonesia that compared and contrasted proverbs in Mandarin and Bahasa to offer interesting insights into how language changes our perception of the same idea or topic.
Published in the open-access academic journal Atlantis Press, faculty members of Hasanuddin University in Makassar, on the large central island of Sulawesi, analysed Chinese proverbs found in the Dictionary of Idioms in Mandarin and compared them with 7700 Indonesian Idioms, a similar text in Bahasa.
The researchers, who approached the Chinese proverbs as their second language, said the paper’s goal was to “compare the cultural viewpoints that form the idioms of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals”.
“Idioms describe cultural values, and even have similar meanings but are said in different phrases. Cultural factors cause this difference as the word’s meaning is constrained by the culture and ecological environment of specific language users,” the academics wrote.
Select Voice
Select Speed
1x
AI-generated voice