A Couple Mandarin Questions

[Zaarin]

I recently watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (late to the party, I know), and it left me with a few questions about Mandarin. As a preamble, I do not speak any Mandarin; I only caught a few words that I recognized, like Jianghu and Tianxia. Most of what I know comes from a rather casual interest in kung fu and wuxia.

1. As I mentioned, one word I recognized was Tianxia, but the subtitles seemed to translate it as "world"--shouldn't the translation have been "China"? Is Tianxia used more literally to mean "world"?
2. When Shu Lien and Jiaolong first meet in Sir Te's office, Shu Lien says that she prefers the "machete" but that certain moves require a sword. Since she's holding the Green Destiny, I understand "sword" to mean jian, but what about "machete"? In the scene where Jiaolong and Shu Lien fight at Shu Lien's headquarters, Shu Lien's preferred weapon seems to be the dao; wouldn't a better translation have been "saber," then?

[Vijay]

1. As I mentioned, one word I recognized was Tianxia, but the subtitles seemed to translate it as "world"--shouldn't the translation have been "China"? Is Tianxia used more literally to mean "world"?

What makes you think it means 'China'? As far as I know, it means 'world'... Apparently, it can mean both depending on context. I'm guessing that it's hyperbole when used to refer to China.

Literally it means 'sky down', i.e. everything under the sky.

2. When Shu Lien and Jiaolong first meet in Sir Te's office, Shu Lien says that she prefers the "machete" but that certain moves require a sword. Since she's holding the Green Destiny, I understand "sword" to mean jian, but what about "machete"? In the scene where Jiaolong and Shu Lien fight at Shu Lien's headquarters, Shu Lien's preferred weapon seems to be the dao; wouldn't a better translation have been "saber," then?

Apparently, the ones with broader blades are usually called Chinese broadswords in English, and machetes also have broad blades, so...

Dāo usually just means 'knife', and machetes in Chinese are called kāishāndāo (literally 'open mountain knife', i.e. the kind of knife you would use for cutting into a mountain) or dàkǎndāo ('big hacking knife').

[Linguoboy]

1. As I mentioned, one word I recognized was Tianxia, but the subtitles seemed to translate it as "world"--shouldn't the translation have been "China"? Is Tianxia used more literally to mean "world"?

As Vijay says, it's ambiguous. There's a well-known Korean novel with the title〈태평천하〉(i.e.〈太平天下〉) and the author definitely isn't writing about China.

2. When Shu Lien and Jiaolong first meet in Sir Te's office, Shu Lien says that she prefers the "machete" but that certain moves require a sword. Since she's holding the Green Destiny, I understand "sword" to mean jian, but what about "machete"? In the scene where Jiaolong and Shu Lien fight at Shu Lien's headquarters, Shu Lien's preferred weapon seems to be the dao; wouldn't a better translation have been "saber," then?

"Sabre" in English strongly suggests to me a cavalry sword, which wouldn't have been appropriate to the context.

[zompist]

1. As I mentioned, one word I recognized was Tianxia, but the subtitles seemed to translate it as "world"--shouldn't the translation have been "China"? Is Tianxia used more literally to mean "world"?

What makes you think it means 'China'? As far as I know, it means 'world'... Apparently, it can mean both depending on context. I'm guessing that it's hyperbole when used to refer to China.

Literally it means 'sky down', i.e. everything under the sky.

That's a direct gloss, but the meaning is just "under Heaven". Locatives in Old Chinese are postpositions. In Mandarin you'd get another syllable, e.g. tiān xiàbian.

A nice instance of the narrower meaning is in one of the classics: King Wén "didn't unite Tiānxià"; the empire in question is the Zhōu, meaning basically North China. It's exactly the same metonymy as the Bible's Augustus ordering a census of "the whole world" (oikoumenē), i.e. the Roman Empire. It's the part of the earth that's interesting: our country.

[akam chinjir]

My main movie-related tiānxià 天下 memory is from watching Zhang Yimou's Hero in Hong Kong, soon after its release (early 2003?). I have a memory---anyway it seems to be a memory---of a gasp running through the theatre at the key moment when Broken Sword writes those words. A scary moment, a bit echoed by recent events.

(When I first learned the word tiānxià, I probably saw it translated most often as empire. Kind of a lousy translation, admittedly.)

That's a direct gloss, but the meaning is just "under Heaven". Locatives in Old Chinese are postpositions.

It's very often used as a noun, though, and "everyone/everywhere under the sky" isn't a bad approximation.

I'd have said in classical Chinese you get a mix of prepositions, postpositions, and relational nouns, much like what you get in Mandarin.

[zompist]

That's a direct gloss, but the meaning is just "under Heaven". Locatives in Old Chinese are postpositions.

It's very often used as a noun, though, and "everyone/everywhere under the sky" isn't a bad approximation.

Yeah, sorry, I was unclear— "under Heaven" is a straightforward translation of tiān xià. Once it's lexicalized, it's hard to translate colloquially, or in ways that wouldn't require a footnote. If you use "China" or "the Empire", that may be better in context but loses the metaphor. If you say "Under Heaven" or some paraphrase of that, you lose the specificity when it's referring just to China. And of course movie subtitles can't include footnotes!

[akam chinjir]

That's a direct gloss, but the meaning is just "under Heaven". Locatives in Old Chinese are postpositions.

It's very often used as a noun, though, and "everyone/everywhere under the sky" isn't a bad approximation.

Yeah, sorry, I was unclear— "under Heaven" is a straightforward translation of tiān xià. Once it's lexicalized, it's hard to translate colloquially, or in ways that wouldn't require a footnote. If you use "China" or "the Empire", that may be better in context but loses the metaphor. If you say "Under Heaven" or some paraphrase of that, you lose the specificity when it's referring just to China. And of course movie subtitles can't include footnotes!

Yeah, I pretty much agree with all that.

I do think "world" does the job pretty well, a lot of the time.

[Salmoneus]

While some daos are clearly sabres, the sort of dao Shu Lien wields would not be considered a sabre by most people, I don't think - 'sabre' strongly suggests a thinner, more curved blade, generally for use on horseback. It also has a confusing second meaning as a kind of fencing sword.

"Machete" isn't ideal because it covers a wide range of things, and of course the cultural connotations are quite different. But Shu Lien's dao is certainly quite like many machetes. Consider, for example, this bolo.

I think a more appropriate translation, however, might have been 'falchion'. It's ambiguous and archaic, but it's basically the mediaeval European equivalent, and it may actually be better to have an obscure word than than a word with prosaic connotations like 'machete'. Or, of course, they could have gone all the way and called it a (broken-backed) scramasax...

[it's interesting how widespread the jian/dao, sword/seax dichotomy seems to be...]


Actually, an interesting option might have been "cutlass". Too piratical, but at least it conjures up vaguely the right sort of thing, and sounds like a weapon.

Or they could have gone for the more technical and vague "backsword"...

[Zaarin]

Thanks, everyone, for the feedback on Tianxia. I knew it meant "under heaven," but I'd never seen it used to not mean China specifically.

While some daos are clearly sabres, the sort of dao Shu Lien wields would not be considered a sabre by most people, I don't think - 'sabre' strongly suggests a thinner, more curved blade, generally for use on horseback. It also has a confusing second meaning as a kind of fencing sword.

"Machete" isn't ideal because it covers a wide range of things, and of course the cultural connotations are quite different. But Shu Lien's dao is certainly quite like many machetes. Consider, for example, this bolo.

I think a more appropriate translation, however, might have been 'falchion'. It's ambiguous and archaic, but it's basically the mediaeval European equivalent, and it may actually be better to have an obscure word than than a word with prosaic connotations like 'machete'. Or, of course, they could have gone all the way and called it a (broken-backed) scramasax...

[it's interesting how widespread the jian/dao, sword/seax dichotomy seems to be...]


Actually, an interesting option might have been "cutlass". Too piratical, but at least it conjures up vaguely the right sort of thing, and sounds like a weapon.

Or they could have gone for the more technical and vague "backsword"...

Yeah, I can see the objection to "saber," though "machete" still feels very wrong--to me it signifies a tool or makeshift weapon rather than a dedicated weapon like a dao (as you say, a very prosaic word). In general I felt like the subtitles did a disservice to the story, though not understanding Mandarin I obviously couldn't say how accurately they reflected the actual dialogue.

[M Mira]

Generally, Jian = a weapon with blades on both sides, Dao = a weapon or tool with blade on only one side.

Tianxia as "world" is more common than "China" in modern speech, and it's still productive:

天下沒有白吃的午餐 = "there's no such thing as a free lunch (in the world)"

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/天下沒有白吃的午餐

[Zaarin]

Generally, Jian = a weapon with blades on both sides, Dao = a weapon or tool with blade on only one side.

Indeed, I'm quite familiar with traditional Chinese weaponry. I was just questioning the translation as "machete."

Tianxia as "world" is more common than "China" in modern speech, and it's still productive:

天下沒有白吃的午餐 = "there's no such thing as a free lunch (in the world)"

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/天下沒有白吃的午餐

Was the "China" meaning more common before the Xinhai Revolution?

[M Mira]

Was the "China" meaning more common before the Xinhai Revolution?

I feel that it's always been "The world as far as the speaker/writer is concerned" or just "The (known) world". As the ancient Chinese rarely concern themselves with matters beyond the border, it can be idiomatically translated as "China".

Meanwhile the same word generally meant "Japan" in Japanese:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/天下#Noun_2

[Zaarin]

Was the "China" meaning more common before the Xinhai Revolution?

I feel that it's always been "The world as far as the speaker/writer is concerned" or just "The (known) world". As the ancient Chinese rarely concern themselves with matters beyond the border, it can be idiomatically translated as "China".

Meanwhile the same word generally meant "Japan" in Japanese:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/天下#Noun_2

Ah, that's much clearer. Thank you.

[Seirios]

1. As I mentioned, one word I recognized was Tianxia, but the subtitles seemed to translate it as "world"--shouldn't the translation have been "China"? Is Tianxia used more literally to mean "world"?

What makes you think it means 'China'? As far as I know, it means 'world'... Apparently, it can mean both depending on context. I'm guessing that it's hyperbole when used to refer to China.

Literally it means 'sky down', i.e. everything under the sky.

That's a direct gloss, but the meaning is just "under Heaven". Locatives in Old Chinese are postpositions. In Mandarin you'd get another syllable, e.g. tiān xiàbian.

A nice instance of the narrower meaning is in one of the classics: King Wén "didn't unite Tiānxià"; the empire in question is the Zhōu, meaning basically North China. It's exactly the same metonymy as the Bible's Augustus ordering a census of "the whole world" (oikoumenē), i.e. the Roman Empire. It's the part of the earth that's interesting: our country.

Mandarin actually happens to have a colloquial rendering of 天下 (not completely equivalent), though it uses 天底下 tiān dǐxia.

[Zythros Jubi]

Was the "China" meaning more common before the Xinhai Revolution?

I feel that it's always been "The world as far as the speaker/writer is concerned" or just "The (known) world". As the ancient Chinese rarely concern themselves with matters beyond the border, it can be idiomatically translated as "China".

Meanwhile the same word generally meant "Japan" in Japanese:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/天下#Noun_2

Before 1840s, "the known world" roughly refers to China and its tributary states. The Chinese used to view foreign countries as barbarians and tributaries.

[Vijay]

I get a similar impression of India (I'm not sure when this changed there).