YJ entry updated with Lei Gong. I believe the character profile has a typo as it uses 雷神 instead of 雷公, but really since both names refer to the same mythical God of Thunder, maybe the translator just got mixed up. I haven't put the entry in for Qiang Gao yet since his profile didn't come with any proper words in his logo. That said, given the pinyin, I give it even odds chance that his name literally means "Strong Tall."
With the new army lists I'll be updating a couple new units to the translation (notably Ye Mao, Hundun, Tian Gou) but I still don't read or understand Korean so will be omitting those unless I receive some assistance on that topic.
Do you know for Tai Sheng, Liang Kai, Qiang Gao and Xi Zhuang if their names are in Chinese order? I'd guess they are just from Xi Zhaung but I am not confident.
Somewhat randomly, the unit logos in Army may include Chinese characters like Celestial Guard, but others don't like Tian Gou. Unit descriptions also might randomly contain some characters.
As far as I know, they are. But hard to say without the actual words. Tai (邰), Qiang(强), Liang(梁more commonly seen as Leung) and Xi(习, though there are a lot of others) are all existing Chinese surnames though so take that how you will. Edit: Hundun, Tian Gou and Ye Mao updated in main article.
Great work with the article! Just some additional points- Hundun refers to a primeval period in Chinese mythology where everything was muddled and mixed together before heaven and earth were separated. So "chaos" and "muddled" are correct translations but "innocent as a baby" is not accurate- "ignorant" is a better word. I can see the term used to describe a troop that causes chaos and disorder in the enemy's ranks. Tian Gou, "sky dog" eats the moon, so the legends say. It was how lunar eclipses were explained. Ye Mao- wildcat or stray cat, though if I were to name a troop it would be wildcat. We don't use this term for "badger" or "hare" in modern Chinese, though it might be used that way in obscure/archaic references, or in dialects?
One humourous tidbit: Hundun, depends on the intonation on the first syllable "hun", can also sound like wonton (yeah, the food) in Mandarin Chinese :)
My bad on the hun dun translation portion, skimmed a bit too quickly for translation The hare translation is dialectual but came up in more than one source though, and I'm not sure about badger but it was in one of my sources straight up as well. That's why I started with the literal translation
You're doing a great job so far! Just out of curiosity, what are your sources? My point is although Ye Mao may refer to badger or hare, it may be an obscure or archaic reference to some ancient texts. Anyway, I'm not saying you're wrong, it's just that both me and my wife (we're from very different parts of China) has never heard the term used that way before. Also, keep in mind that if you use online sources, most Chinese web sites copy/paste from each other, and the original translator may not be fluent in English. That's how you get "innocent" as opposed to the more accurate "ignorant" in the original Chinese meaning. The difference is significant in meaning. On your question about Zhanying being lower rank than Crane or Pheasant. That makes sense in the historical and cultural context. Cranes are associated with longevity, immortals, and celestial beings. Pheasants are associated with good fortunes, wealth, and rank. Eagles are fierce and idolized in Western cultures, but in historical China scholars and the literati enjoyed higher ranks than warriors and soldiers. Historically, the emperor (of any dynasty) would portray himself as benevolent and peaceful with the heavenly mandate to rule. Thus high ranked officials of the governing body get peaceful looking animals or other benevolent mythical creatures. Fierce animals such as tigers, lions, wolves, etc are reserved for the military, whose commander-in-chief was almost always a scholar official (e.g. crane or pheasant). The use of eagles to represent feared government agents is appropriate as there are many historical and cultural references for such representation. That said, I don't know if CB designed it on purpose or they just accidentally got it right. For one, I really wished they used the proper name for pheasant - 雉鸡 zhiji, rather than 野鸡 yeji, because yeji also means (very commonly, in fact) street prostitutes or illegally run businesses/institutions. While I'm on a rant- it seems CB modelled YJ after imperial China (I don't know all the fluff). If so, then it's weird use Daofei, Haidao, or Hac Tao for troop/regiment names as those are anti-establishment and anti-government, which really goes against the imperial propaganda to control the populace.
Not denying this, but I first learned pheasant as Yeji after startling one in a field (in Qingyang prefecture, Gansu) and asking what it was called as it made its ridiculous escape. This bugs me a bit too. They seem to have a limited pool of names. Unless they go back to using historical troops as inspiration it's probably only a matter of time before we get 'bandit wolves' and 'ghost bandits'.
My sources are a combination of my own knowledge, good old fashioned paper dictionaries and cross references on the internet if necessary. Unfortunately since I'm just from an immigrant family, my contextual knowledge isn't as good as it could be, but I have an interest in languages so that helps balance it out somewhat.
Nah, I'm not saying Yeji is wrong. It's perfectly acceptable to use Yeji for pheasant in every day use and I use it as well. I'm just saying it's inappropriate for an officer's rank and the more formal Zhiji 雉鸡 should be used. I mean, how do you take your superior seriously when his/her title is the equivalent of street hooker? Your enemy won't take you seriously either. If CB wants real life examples, they can take a look at how the PLA named their fighter jets, tanks, and ships. Mythical animals like Ruishi and Luduan work well too and it is not unknown for troops and formations to be named after such creatures. I actually like names like Guilang "ghost wolf" for a camo spec op skirmisher, even though it sounds a bit awkward to a native Chinese speaker. To CB's credit, sometimes they come up with something unique and creative, like Kanren 侃刃. I get what they're going for, but the character for "kan" is unlikely to be used by a native speaker in this kind of context. I think it's kind of unique and interesting being used this way. Hac Tao, on the other hand, is kind of weird. I get that it's supposed to be "black magic" or something similar but that's a very literal translation. If the characters for Hac Tao is indeed 黑道 then it actually has the meaning of the "criminal underground", especially in the context of martial arts genre movies or literature.
Ah, depending on how old the paper dictionary is, sometimes the English translation might not be the best. Sadly, online sources might not be much better as many web sites just copy/paste from paper dictionaries without much verification or original research. :/
So, basically, it's like the difference between naming a tank in a video game "the Hound" vs "the Bitch" and CB managed to do the latter?
I'd argue that comparison isn't quite correct, given that "hound" and "bitch" both have very specific and different meanings, whereas yeji and zhiji have the same meaning but diffferent connotations. More properly it'd be like... Hm this is difficult... Nicknaming a character "Rooster" because of his hairstyle vs calling him "Cock" for the same reason. The second one isn't technically incorrect it's just the second word could have other meanings. And even that example doesn't quite capture it.
