Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Chinese naming of dwarf-planet Eris

So Pluto (冥王星) got reclassified from a planet (行星) into a dwarf-planet (矮行星).


This renaming was in no small measure due to the discovery of other similar bodies in the solar system, one of them formerly known as Xena (齐娜).


Xena is now officially named "Eris" after the mythological Greek goddess of strife (who incited the Trojan War).


I have been wondering what the name would be in Chinese.


According to 齐娜改名厄里斯:被认为是太阳系的不和女神(图), it is temporarily known as 厄里斯 È Lĭ Sī, a phonetical rendering of Eris. A committee of astronomers will determine the final Chinese name of the dwarf-planet.


“厄里斯”仅是音译,按天文学对太阳系天体的命名规律,应该采用意译,最终的译名应由中国天文名词委员 会给予确定,在此之前的译名仅为过渡,特此提请读者注意。


I hope they come up with a good name, soon. Calling the dwarf-planet Eris was really no fault of the planet. I thought it is a shame that women always get blamed for men's mistakes.


If we were to consider all the names of the planets in the solar system in the Chinese language, they are all masculine.


Even Venus, though named after the goddess of love, retained the original Chinese name of 金星, a name which was applied to it since ancient times in Chinese astronomy/astrology/mythology, as it was one of the five planets (excluding Earth) in the solar system visible in the sky from a naked eye. And 金星 was a male deity in Chinese mythology.


The Chinese name for Eris might be the first feminine name for a planet (albeit a dwarf planet) in the solar system.


Note : not all Chinese name for celestial objects are masculine. The weaver star (织女星) is feminine, known as Vega in English, but it is located outside the solar system in the constellation Lyra.

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