炁

English translation: Life force

23:42 Jun 17, 2018

Chinese to English translations [Non-PRO]
Art/Literary - Philosophy / Taoism

Chinese term or phrase: 炁

I understand this character is a variant of 气. However, I'm unsure whether an EN translation would differ from more common translations of 气.
The genre is fantasy literature in which some characters have supernatural powers.
The dialogue has one character explaining these powers to another character:

我们管这种能量叫做。。。
炁

Grateful for your advice on this!

ls789 KudoZ activity Questions: 1 (none open) Answers: 0 United Kingdom
Local time: 10:20

English translation:Life force

Explanation:
In traditional Chinese culture, qi or ch'i (About this sound qì) is believed to be a vital force forming part of any living entity. Qi translates as "air" and figuratively as "material energy", "life force", or "energy flow".

Selected response from:

Jiaying Ma
Australia
Local time: 21:20

Grading comment

Thank you, Jiaying! I was interested to know how 炁 would differ from 气/氣, if at all.
1 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer

Summary of answers provided

Life force

Jiaying Ma

Discussion entries: 6

ls789

United Kingdom

ASKER

Thank you

08:45 Jun 20, 2018

Thanks, everybody!

I was especially interested in whether an EN translation of 炁 would differ from common translations of 气/氣.

@Shirley, I found the blog post you shared especially helpful.
@p1q01, this was also in line with what you shared about an 'inborn' or perhaps an 'innate' natural vital force.

Thank you both so much.

Let's see if I can come up with an EN solution that is as concise as the Chinese :-P

Have a lovely day!

Quentina Chan

Malaysia

From perspective of Taoism or Chinese philosophy

11:10 Jun 19, 2018

I would like to share some interesting content I found on the internet:
"炁,音同“气”，是中国哲学、道教和中医学中常见的概念，人的第一个灵体所需要的能量，不同于气。“炁”乃先天之炁，代表无极，“气”乃后天之气。"
source: https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/918897106472642179.html

It seems like the "炁" is more on the inborn natural vital force.

To Tomasso: That's why Chinese characters will never be written in form of Pin Yin, and it's only for pronunciation learning purpose because Chinese is not a phonetic language. Besides, Pin Yin (in alphabet way) doesn't exist in ancient Chinese society until 1958.

The interesting thing is that the confusion you mentioned not only found in Chinese, when I try to learn Japanese, the romaji would also cause similar confusion, so it is better to learn the language in their actual form instead of the "pronunciation system".

Shirley Lao

Taiwan

气 (Simplified) vs. 氣 (Traditional)

02:18 Jun 18, 2018

气 is a simplified Chinese character, while 氣 is a traditional Chinese character.

Shirley Lao

Taiwan

「炁」versus「氣」

02:11 Jun 18, 2018

氣源自於古字气，最早是雲氣的意思，是個象形字[1]，有呼吸、氣息的意思[2]，也有米飯的意思[3]。其很快被引申，具備天氣、氣候、節氣、氣味乃至於風氣、流行等等意思，也發展出許多異體字，如炁、餼，在唐朝之後逐漸定型為氣。

至宋代之後，道教思想家為了區別先天的氣與後天的氣，採用古字「炁」來代表先天的氣，代表無極，氣則被當成是後天的氣，為太極。這兩個字的意義又被分開。但是除了道教文獻之外，通常都以氣來概括。

Please refer to the evolutionary source of this Chinese character at https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/氣_(中國)

Shirley Lao

Taiwan

「炁」、「氣」與「汽」

02:06 Jun 18, 2018

See: http://blog.xuite.net/betty41081046/twblog/133780885-「炁」、「氣」...

https://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&char=炁

炁 is an archaic form of a Chinese character and is usually found in philosophical writings.

Tomasso

United States

simplified chinese, traditional chinese

00:08 Jun 18, 2018

(I find Chinese very hard, not much personal knowledge)
If you go to Google trans, it translates one as traditional chinese and the other as Simplified, you can choose from the drop down menu.
The entire phrase translates as We manage this energy called CHEE. (qi)
There was (last century) Ping Yin now obsolete, Qi (Chee) can several meanings Da Qi
Cheng
大气层
Dàqìcéng is atmosphere, The sound of which can be in hundreds of words, it may be that sound and meaning, even script are not consistene, depending on context..My two cents, I think the average Chinese takes YEARS to read and write correctly

Answers

9 hrs confidence:

Life force

Jiaying Ma
Australia
Local time: 21:20
Native speaker of:

Chinese

Grading comment

Thank you, Jiaying! I was interested to know how 炁 would differ from 气/氣, if at all.

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English translation: Life force

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