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Since 29 June 2016 we've had text describing the experimental module name "Wentian" having a literal translation as "Quest for the Heavens". Unchecked silliness at best.
Did you know we have a really neat website named Wiktionary you can check words/characters at? Try looking at
问/問. Do you see "quest"? No. To ask, to inquire, perhaps even to question.
This stupidity has been copied all over the 'net. Even if some befuddled PRC space agency wonk didn't look up Chinese->English correctly to begin with, why hasn't this been caught in the last 5 years?
Shenme (
talk)
07:13, 29 April 2021 (UTC)reply
Not my translation, but you need to take some poetic license with the name or we'll end up with "Ask Sky". But the best solution would be to find an official translation.
Jpatokal (
talk)
08:01, 29 April 2021 (UTC)reply
Translation can either be literal or paraphrase. Because many terms do not correctly transfer their original meaning between languages it is standard practise to paraphrase a term from another language to preserve the meaning, rather than a direct literal translation that may make less sense in the target language. Translation is not just getting out a dictionary and replacing everything literally word for word.
The words/characters that make up the term "Wentian" may have a literal equivalents in English, but those English words when used together do not necessarily have the same meaning. I don't know the sense in which Wentian is commonly used in Chinese, but I don't see any reason to believe the paraphrase "Quest for the Heavens" doesn't preserve the meaning better than "Ask Sky". I assume China Daily are vaguely competent in Chinese to English translation.
ChiZeroOne (
talk)
16:03, 29 April 2021 (UTC)reply
Indeed an example is the word China itself, in English we do not tend to literally translate "Zhōngguó" as "Middle Kingdom" but paraphrase to "China".
ChiZeroOne (
talk)
16:32, 29 April 2021 (UTC)reply
Derp, might help if I actually read the article. Yes it appears the translation template only lists a literal translation parameter but many of the translations are actually phrasal, so this is not just an issue for Wentian. This looks to be more an issue with the limitations of the zh template, since really the most common English usage is not going to be the literal translation which in many cases is very awkward. May be worth discussing at
Template:Lang-zh.
ChiZeroOne (
talk)
22:07, 29 April 2021 (UTC)reply
Name of article
Do we have official (Chinese source) confirmation that the new station is indeed (also) going to be called Tiangong? If yes, we should rename the article, but I don't trust the BBC story by itself.
Jpatokal (
talk)
08:01, 29 April 2021 (UTC)reply
The following is a closed discussion of a
requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a
move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
The planet4589 is obviously a personal website. The homepage says "MATERIAL ON THIS WEBSITE IS PUBLISHED IN A PERSONAL CAPACITY."
ISEMORNEX (
talk)
08:53, 30 April 2021 (UTC)reply
Support With this station's launch today, many news agencies like NewsWeek
[3] are reporting on it and are using Tiangong. For ease of access during this high-viewing time, prefer the common name.
JustinMal1 (
talk)
16:33, 30 April 2021 (UTC)reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The official name is simply "Tiangong". The -gong bit ("palace") indicates it's a building, so you don't need to tack on "space station".
Jpatokal (
talk)
06:21, 17 June 2021 (UTC)reply
The article is written in English so if we were going to change it, it would be to change it to the "Tian Space Station" rather than "Tiangong". However that's not the official name so we end up with a bit of duplication instead.
Ergzay (
talk)
15:21, 3 November 2021 (UTC)reply
The picture is excellent, the description was not. I had to spend a few minutes to see which is which.
It's better now, but I'm not happy that it's mixing location in the picture ("centre-right") with relative positions in space ("nadir"). The second would be preferable, but that would mean that we have to assume that the reader understands (without further research) the direction of travel.
A rendering of the Tiangong Space Station in its October 2022 construction state, with the
Tianhe core module pictured centre-right, the
Tianzhou on its aft docking port (pictured right) and the
Wentian (starboard port, pictured centre) and the
Shenzhou (
nadir port, pointing to Earth) sharing its multi-docking hub.
The Nomenclature section currently claims that "the new Long March launch vehicles were renamed Divine Arrow (神箭)", but the linked sources don't appear to mention such a renaming. From the second source, it looks like Jiang Zemin may have referred to the LM rockets poetically as "神箭", but that's hardly an official renaming, and official sources seem to indicate no plans to abandon the Long March nomenclature.
Does anyone have a source for this renaming claim? And are there more explicit sources in general for intentional pivot away from names referencing revolutionary history?
Surpador (
talk)
01:57, 29 July 2023 (UTC)reply
With no source provided after six months, and consistent use elsewhere of Long March, I've removed the dubious assertion from the article. (
sdsds - talk)
08:25, 3 February 2024 (UTC)reply