 Track this topic | Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5] > | | User | Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff Poll: What is your general impression when you see the word "dragon" or its image? |
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Claudia Massey
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:05
English to Portuguese
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I agree with David Brown,
I have never seen the dragon as evil to me it is always a welcoming sign. Infact not just Wales, but around London and Hampshire, we have the lovely sigh of Dragon everywhere. So in my view something good for sure, or perhaps powerful.
| | | | tontoon
Turkey
Local time: 17:05
German to Turkish
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Aurélie DANIEL wrote:
Really? I heard on the radio (see my other post above), from a Chinese woman who was being interviewed, that in China a lot of women try to have babies (especially boys) during the year of the Dragon, because it is supposed to be good luck. I was born in the year of the Dragon too, and I really believe it's good luck!
Can you give your source? That's interesting. |
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My source is a biografic book written by a chinese woman who leaved China 20-30 years after the revolution. Sorry i can't remember the Name. She was a very unlucky woman and her grandmothers tells her its because of that she was born in the year of the Dragon. I also read it in a chinese horoscope book.
But China is a very big country maybe there are some differences in interpretation between different regions.
There was another book about Feng Shui and i read something about bad luck connected to the dragon there as I can remember.
[Edited at 2006-04-13 19:20]
| | | | Özden Arıkan 
Germany
Local time: 16:05
  Member
English to Turkish
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Hi Csaba,
I believe you can read Turkish (please correct me if I'm wrong), please check this link I've also given in my former posting: http://www.karalahana.com/makaleler/azdehar.htm
For others in the forum, it roughly says this: Another word that means "dragon and serpent" in other Turkic languages is sazağan (Kipchak, Ottoman) or sazagan (Kuman) > Hungarian sárkány = “dragon”.
So, you are completely right. In fact, "sazağan" sounds so much modern Turkish that I suspect it is still the local word for dragon in parts of Anatolia.
Özden
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BTW, it would never occur to me that "dragon" and "Dracula" had a common root. Thanks for this bit of info. Wow, I've learnt a lot of interesting stuff in this thread.
Csaba Ban wrote:
Özden mentioned that the Turkish word for Dragon is a Persian loanword... so I started to think about the possible origins of the Hungarian word ("sárkány").
My etymological dictionary suggests that the Hungarian word comes from one of the Turkic languages (Uz, Kipchak or Cumanian, with corresponding word forms "sarakan" or "sazakan"), so it must have entered the Hungarian language during the Magyar's nomadic period, some time between the 6th and 8th centuries.
Csaba
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[Edited at 2006-04-13 19:32]
  | | | | tontoon
Turkey
Local time: 17:05
German to Turkish
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to Csaba Ban:
as I know, the forfathers of the Hungarians are the Pecenek, am I wrong?
| | | | Parrot
Spain
Local time: 16:05
Member (2002)
Spanish to English
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MODERATOR | | What about Vritra? | Apr 13, 2006 |
Balasubramaniam wrote:
Then could it be that the Chinese concept of the dragon, is actually of Indian origin, a Chinese adaptation of some of our snake monsters like Kaliya nag, Vasuki, Takshak, and many others  |
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| | | | Kirill Semenov
Ukraine
Local time: 17:05
Member (2004)
English to Russian
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Özden Arıkan wrote:
BTW, it would never occur to me that "dragon" and "Dracula" had a common root. |
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Wow, great, I was wondering why JR placed dragons in Transylvania... Now it becomes clearer...
| | | | Textklick
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:05
Member (2003)
German to English
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| | Positive impression. | Apr 13, 2006 |
Derek Gill Franßen wrote:
C'ause they're so darn pretty!
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Sometimes I wish I could spit fire. I like the connotation with pub signs. And Derek also has a point: see http://www.smile-a-day.com/puff.shtml
Chris
| | | | Seadeta Osmani
Croatia
Local time: 16:05
English to Croatian
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| | Powerful, yes, in an extremly friendly way :) | Apr 13, 2006 |
Özden Arıkan wrote:
dragon is a male name in Turkish. Our word for it is either ejder or ejderha with Persian origins. (Interesting point, we couldn't have learnt it from Persians, then perhaps a name change has been the case.) And in its first form it's a male name, as I said. Anyway, first thing that comes to mind is a powerful being, not particularly or necessarily unfriendly, but certainly formidable. |
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Well, Özden, you managed to remind me of a certain Ejder from Adana, Turkey... I really, really wonder what happened to this nice fellow... Hope he found his princess 
Seadeta
| | | | Parrot
Spain
Local time: 16:05
Member (2002)
Spanish to English
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MODERATOR |
Özden Arıkan wrote:
BTW, it would never occur to me that "dragon" and "Dracula" had a common root. Thanks for this bit of info. Wow, I've learnt a lot of interesting stuff in this thread.
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... is formed by the Romanian word for 'dragon' + 'son of'. It just so happened that the father of the charming gentleman in question was awarded an 'Order of the Dragon' (which he was very proud of) by the Pope.
| | | | Özden Arıkan
Germany
Local time: 16:05
Member
English to Turkish
| | Dragons' popularity among translators... | Apr 13, 2006 |
...makes me wonder whether 'dragoman' shares a common root, too
Parrot wrote:
"Dracula" ... is formed by the Romanian word for 'dragon' + 'son of'. |
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At least this one below seems intellectually oriented
| | | | Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 20:35
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
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MODERATOR | | About Vritra | Apr 14, 2006 |
Parrot wrote:
What about Vritra?
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Hi Parrot,
It is interesting your mentioning Vritra.
My understanding of Vritra is as follows. It is based on the notes on the Rig-Veda published by the Hindi scholar Dr. Ramvilas Sharma. I confess I haven’t myself read the Rig-Veda, either in the original or in translation.
After studying the original texts of the Rig-Veda and conducting philological studies (Dr. Sharma was also an accomplished linguist; he was many other things too, including, a literary critic of a very high caliber, and a Marxist thinker; a very complex personality and a towering intellectual, Dr. Sharma was) Dr. Sharma wrote a seminal book in Hindi on the Vedas in which he explained what Vritra actually was. I read this book sometime ago, and I don’t have it with me at the moment, so the following is from my memory of what I read there.
According to Dr. Sharma, the Vritra represents dams constructed by the people belonging to the Dravidian civilization, who were already living in India and had an advanced civilization when the Aryans arrived. The Dravidians were agriculturalists, as opposed to the Aryans who were pastoralists.
Inevitably, the two civilizations clashed, and the Aryans found an effective way of destroying the Dravidian civilization. This was to break down the dams constructed by the Dravidians. This would disrupt their agriculture and bring down their civilization in no time.
Now in those days of primitive weapons (all this happened some 8,000 to 10,000 years or so ago) breaking down solid structures like dams, even if they were primitive, would have been considered heroic actions.
On the side of the Aryans, the warrior who specialized in the destruction of Vritras, or dams, was Indra, who in later Vedic literature, took on the form of the king of gods.
It is possible that Indra adopted the simple technique of directing the waters of nearby streams by means of digging channels to the dams, and using the pressure of the excess water to burst the dams, which would explain the Vedic reference to Vritras being destroyed by just foam.
This is the plausible historical interpretation given by Dr. Sharma to the concept of Vritra in the Vedas.
I have no idea how other translators and scholars of the Vedas interpret this word. I did check answers.com, where I found that the term serpent or dragon has been used for Vritra. The description given there closely resembles a dragon, but I have no way of knowing how accurate this description is, and how much it is influenced by the writer’s own understanding of the concept of dragons. But it cannot be denied that people whose knowledge about the Vedas is based on such generalized write-ups will conclude that Vritra is a dragon-like creature.
But as a Hindu I can say that most Hindus would not see Vritra in this light at all.
[Edited at 2006-04-14 04:04]
| | | | Kevin Yang
United States
Local time: 07:05
Member (2003)
English to Chinese
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| | Your overwhelming responses and inputs are so educational to me | Apr 14, 2006 |
Dear all,
Thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen! Your overwhelming responses and inputs to this poll question are so educational to me as well as to the Chinese translators that you cannot imagine. I am very grateful that you take time to explain to us your impression about this imaginary creature, especially naming the very sources that influenced you in forming your current impressions about dragon and the development in words of your languages. I also want to thank ProZ.com for providing the wonderful polling technology that made such information sharing so convenient.
It is impossible for me to respond to each of you, but I have read all your wonderful messages with great interest. I felt like as if I was walking through the dragon-themed galleries of each country in the world. While I am having your attention, I would like to take this opportunity to fill you in with some information about this discussion we had, so you can have an idea about what went on in that discussion. Unfortunately most of the messages were posted in Chinese. Otherwise, you should read them yourselves so to get the first-hand information about what is on the mind of the Chinese intellectuals. It is not possible for me to summarize all 144 messages in that discussion, but I will try my best.
This Chinese professor participated in our discussion. According to him, he believes that the Chinese dragon is very different from the dragon in the west. He summarized the five major differences as follows: (Please see the illustrations he posted in the following page: http://www.proz.com/topic/44416?start=75&float= )
1. The Chinese dragon is the symbol of auspicious, but the dragon in the west associates with evil and demon;
2. The Chinese dragon does not have wings, but the dragon in the west has two bet-like wings;
3. The Chinese dragon has a long python-like body, but the dragon in the west has a dinosaur-like body;
4. The Chinese dragon does not consume any food that the human beings would have, but the dragon in the west consumes human beings and animals;
5. The Chinese dragon is always in warm colors, such as gold and yellow, but the dragon in the west is mainly in dark colors, such as black.
He went on and said, because the dragon in the west is considered as evil and demon, and the Chinese people are the dragon-worshippers, such situation inevitably contribute the negative meanings to China and the Chinese people, resulted in being demonized by the west. The solution for this is to create a new English word, i.e. loong, to name the Chinese dragon so as to differentiate it from the evil dragon in the west.
His theory got challenged by the peers in the Chinese Forum, at certain moment everyone’s feathers were all standing up, well, in my case, the manes. I observed that the main objections are the following: The westerners are able to differentiate the mythology and the reality; Chinese dragon is not necessarily worshipped by all the Chinese people or nationalities in China; dragon had been the symbol of the Chinese emperors and it was portrayed as the mighty and super powered creature over the people and not obtaining any rules or laws of the land; the effort of lifting the image of the Chinese people should be spent on education, improving the living standards and govern the nation by laws; the Chinese dragon was the totem of the Chinese people in the ancient times, and it is an out-of-dated concept to use it to identify the modern Chinese people; if someone is really looking for a new lovable, huggable mascot that can make the world feel good about the Chinese people and China, the angry dragon is out, and the smiling panda is in…
While I was moderating this discussion, I did not know if it was true that the dragon is considered as evil and demon in the west. I did ask him if he did any research or had any supporting facts that could backup his conclusion. He did not answer me, so I posted the poll question here at ProZ.com. From the current poll result, I noticed that there are 26.7% of the peers here DO think dragon is evil and demon, this actually supports this Chinese professor’s finding. I also learned from this discussion that the Chinese dragon is very different in appearance from the dragon in the west. To be honest, I did not know that. This finally made sense to me that it perhaps is necessary to create or use a new English word, such as "loong" or "Sino-dragon", for the Chinese dragon so as to differentiate it from the dragon in the west. My hesitation for that is that what if people still think they are the same things, same species, except in different names.
Thank you again for all your contributions! Your thoughts and inputs bring our understandings about this matter in a much more accurate reality, rather than assuming what the non-Chinese people would say about the dragon. If you have any questions, please feel free to post it out, I will try to answer to get the Chinese translators to answer.
Ikher and Aurélie, the Chinese people always admire those who were able to be born in the year of dragon. One of the main reasons for being born in the year of dragon is that such person will have an easy and comfortable life, bring fortune into the family or business, and be able to lead the rest, all of which are very desirable in the Chinese societies. This always explains why the Chinese population experiences a spike in growth in every dragon year. I am a pig, a very clean pig, do not really eat whole lot but love to sleep. If I had a choice, I would like to be a horse. The Chinese mothers will do anything to make sure their babies are born in the right year, of course, without consulting with the babies, and Caesarean is popularly used. The poor mothers! It is always possible to bring the baby into this world sooner by Caesarean. But what can those mothers do if everything needs to be held back till the New Year clock strikes?
Have a great day or evening!
Kevin
[Edited at 2006-04-14 17:53]
| | | | Parrot
Spain
Local time: 16:05
Member (2002)
Spanish to English
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MODERATOR | | Thank you, Kevin! | Apr 14, 2006 |
I loved reading everything. REALLY
And I don't think this is over.
Balasubramaniam, I'm coming back with someone's (I'll give you his name when I recall) theory on Vritra, ritual killing (sacrifice?) and the 'ewige Wiederkunft' of seasonal cycles.
To wind up for now, I can't think of the dragon as evil. Not after Krakow and those cuddly half-life ones they sell as the city mascot.
Nor can I forget the story of burping Errol as told by Terry Pratchett -- this was a poor little swamp dragon with a bad case of indigestion who swallowed the fuel for the night watch's lamps, developed supersonic flight, and saved the city from a really mean dragon (the mean one was the female of the species, and when she felt the sonic boom she fell in love). (Of course, it all had to begin with a parody on the Nibelungenlied).
| | | | Kevin Yang
United States
Local time: 07:05
Member (2003)
English to Chinese
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| | More about the dragons | Apr 14, 2006 |
Özden Arıkan wrote:
...makes me wonder whether 'dragoman' shares a common root, too |
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Parrot wrote:
"Dracula" ... is formed by the Romanian word for 'dragon' + 'son of'. |
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Hi, Özden and Wise Parrot, and all
This discussion provided so much information about the dragon and definitely broadened my knowledge base. Do you know how to retrieve the poll result? It went away when the poll question expired.
Another two things I like to add into this discussion, just for making it fun. It is also believed among the Chinese people that there is a male dragon and a female dragon. They live in their crystal palace (水晶龙宫) in the sea. They also have their children and offspring in the palace. Do not ask me to identify which one is male and which one is female, I could never tell their difference for all these years. It seems it is not important to the Chinese. The same thing, they also named female phoenix as 凤(Feng) and the male as 凰(Huang). In the Chinese weddings, the center piece in the wedding room must be a design that has a dragon and a phoenix curling around a Chinese character for “double happiness” on the northern wall. In this design, the dragon represents the groom, and the phoenix represents the bride.
I also like to share with you an old fable story in China called Ye Gong Hao Long (叶公好龙). It is talking about an elderly gentleman by the name "Ye Gong (叶公)" who loved dragon all his life and was also a collector of dragon artifacts. He painted the dragon on all his house walls, carved dragon into all the pillars, and displayed the hand-made dragons everywhere in the house. One day the real dragon in the heaven heard that there was such a loyal fan on the earth, and decided to pay him a visit so to express its appreciation in person. At one thundering and lightening day, the dragon was carried by the dark clouds and came to the residence where Ye Gong lives. While the head of the dragon was just about entering the window of Ye Gong's house, Ye Gong saw this happening. At this sight, Ye Gong was frightened nearly out of his wits. His heart pumped so fast as if it would jump out of his throat. While his face turned as pale a piece of paper, Ye Gong was running to all directions for shelter before the dragon was able to apologize for this surprise visit. Just about everyone in China knows this story. This story tells people that Ye Gong was not truly fond of dragons. He liked what looked like a dragon, but not the real ones.
Kevin
[Edited at 2006-04-14 19:20]
| | | | Özden Arıkan
Germany
Local time: 16:05
Member
English to Turkish
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Kevin, first of all thank you for this interesting poll and for still enriching the discussion with fabulous tales (pun intended!)
Poll results are here or under Community > Quick Polls > This poll's title, in case the link doesn't work.
Have a great day!
Özden
[Edited at 2006-04-15 01:35]
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