True fact.

[the_grynne]

In Chinese, there are two words for "queen", 王后 and 女王; the first, when broken up into separate words, means "behind the king", and the second is "woman king".

This entry was originally posted at http://the-grynne.dreamwidth.org/927574.html and has

Comments

[alexandral]

This is cool!

In Russian they have two words for kind and two words for queen. But they have more words for everything. :D

[the_grynne]

Language porn! I love it.

[calculare]

That's nifty.

[the_grynne]

Hehe. Sometimes a word is so familiar and everyda, you forget where it comes from.

[taraljc]

I love that they use "queen" instead of "consort". Do they do that with King as well? One that means "ruler" and one that means "partner of the ruler"?

[the_grynne]

Do you mean, is there a word for "consort of the queen"?

I'm not sure - to my knowledge, there haven't been any queens in their own right, only dowager empresses who raised themselves to queens, like Wu Zetian.

[taraljc]

I think it might also be translation question of "ruler", where there's a "male ruler" and "female ruler" that is commonly translated as "king" and "queen"?

I am fascinated by language in this way, even tho I have never studied language. I mean, I've at various points studied languages--specifically, French, Spanish and Latin. But speaking is one thing--understanding the formation of is another. And the subtle nuance of translations FASCINATES me.

[fatema]

Oooh, that's interesting!