Talk:Water buffalo (zodiac)

Is the Vietnamese zodiac really different?

The article on Chinese astrology points out that:

Due to confusion with synonyms during translation, some of the animals depicted by the English words did not exist in ancient China. For example, 羊 can mean both Goat and sheep, but Goat is the species that existed in central China since the beginning of time, and Goat is the species seen in illustrations, not sheep. Similarly, 牛 (water buffalo) is commonly thought to be Ox, whose female counterpart is the Cow.

Now this seems to suggest that 牛 was originally 'water buffalo', and not 'Ox' as is commonly assumed. I can't vouch for the accuracy of this paragraph, but perhaps we'd better confirm that the Vietnamese 'water buffalo' really is a different animal from the one that is understood in the Chinese zodiac.

In this connection, I'd like to point out that the Chinese word for 'water buffalo' is 水牛, literally 'water Ox', so there is no actual conflict with the Chinese name. That is, a 水牛 could easily be regarded as a kind of 牛! In fact, the Chinese Wikipedia article on 牛 says the following:

牛可指多種不同的動物類群，包括： 牛亞科（Bovinae） 美洲野牛屬（Bison） 牛屬（Bos）：以歐洲牛（Bos taurus）最常見。 藍牛屬（Boslaphus） 水牛屬（Bubalus） 非洲水牛屬（Synceros）

That is, the term 牛 may refer to a number of different kinds of animal. Check the genus names to see what 牛 can refer to.

This article appears to have been written by someone with no knowledge of Chinese -- or even of Vietnamese, given that the Vietnamese name for the year of the water buffalo isn't given, either!

Bathrobe (talk) 11:11, 18 May 2008 (UTC)