[Luna IV/6.3] Why Zhongli's titles matter more than you think | Genshin Impact Lost in Translation

Comments · 94

• EI

  @eisenstein99 · 3 weeks ago · pinned

  Thank you for the very interesting read, but I have to disagree on the constellation part. If you read through how the 6 constellation are worded in Chinese, it is in the format of &quot;XX, XXXXXX&quot; where the six characters (words) are used to describe the two characters (words). <br><br>For example, the first constellation is 岩者，六合引之为骨. “岩&quot; literally means boulders, like the large immovable stones. &quot;者&quot; here doesn&apos;t really mean a separate object, but rather when connected with &quot;岩&quot; to form &quot;岩者&quot;, it means &quot;when talking about boulders&quot;. &quot;六合&quot; literally means &quot;six directions&quot;, as in &quot;东西南北上下&quot; (east, west, south, north, upward, downward), it is often used as a literary substitute of &quot;the world&quot;. “引之为骨&quot; roughly translate into &quot;use it as the bone&quot; where &quot;it&quot; (&quot;之&quot;) refers to &quot;boulder&quot; (岩). <br><br>Similarly, &quot;石者，八荒蕴玉而明“ is also using the six characters (words) to describe the first two. &quot;八荒&quot; in its original meaning is the farthest of eight directions (E, W, S, N, NE, NW, SE, SW), and later often used to describe vast lands far away, especially to illustrate great ambitions. “蕴玉而明” roughly translate into &quot;becomes bright because it can nurture jade&quot;. Interestingly &quot;六合” vs “八荒” is a classic case of &quot;对仗“ (sorry I can&apos;t find a good term in English, but it is a literary device where the two words match in structure, rhythm, sound, and sense)<br><br>“圭璋，瞑仍不移其晖“, ”圭璋&quot; here are actually two objects, both are part of the six jade artifacts used in ancient ceremonies (including constellation 4 and 5). If you want to research more on the subject, I would recommend you to read through 《周礼·春官·大宗伯》(Rites of Zhou, Great Minister of Rites). This chapter mentioned that there are six jade artifacts used to honor six cardinal directions: 圭 for east, green; 璋 for south, red; 琥 for west, white; 璜 for north, black; 琮 for the earth (downward), yellow; 璧 for the heaven (upward), azure. One thing of note here is that it is &quot;璧“ not &quot;壁&quot;. They look similar, but the radicals are different. One is ”玉“ (jade) while the other is &quot;土&quot; (earth, soil, etc). So in Japanese, it is not really translated into &quot;a wall&quot; (壁), but specifically refer to the jade artifact (璧) where it was borrowed from the original Chinese concept. &quot;瞑&quot; means &quot;the sun sets&quot;, &quot;the light dims&quot;. ”仍&quot; means yet. “不移“ means does not change. ”其晖” means their luster where &quot;they&quot; refer to 圭璋<br><br>“黄琮，破而不夺其坚”, &quot;黄琮“ literally means yellow Cong (the jade artifact). ”破“ means broken, in old ceremonies/rites, Cong (琮) is often shattered into pieces then buried under ground. ”而“ means but. &quot;不夺&quot; means does not take away. &quot;其坚” means its hardness where &quot;it&quot; refers to the 琮<br><br>Let&apos;s skip the fifth constellation for now and focus on the next one &quot;金玉，礼予天地四方“. &quot;金玉” means gold and jade, often used as a literary device as treasure. &quot;礼“ means gift or rites and ceremonies. &quot;予&quot; means to give. &quot;天地四方” literally means heaven (天), earth (地), four cardinal directions (四方), often used as a literary device as &quot;the world&quot;.<br><br>So if we look back the fifth constellation, &quot;苍璧，驱之长昭天理“ should be the exact same structure. &quot;苍璧” means azure Bi (the jade artifact). &quot;驱“ is where I really disagree with your interpretation. Its original meaning is to urge a horse run faster, later derived into multiple meanings, including ”驱使&quot; (to urge, impel, compel, prompt someone to do something) and &quot;驱赶&quot; (to drive away). And here it makes more sense to use the 驱使 meaning rather than the 驱赶. “之&quot; here means &quot;it&quot;, refer to the jade artifact. &quot;长昭天理&quot; is as you described, make the 天理 shine bright for extended period. And I also think 天理 here is not the Heavenly Principle in Teyvat, but rather just &quot;natural order&quot;, &quot;morals&quot; as you mentioned. <br><br>A very interesting thing I find is that of the six artifacts, we are missing two: 璜 and 琥. I&apos;m not sure why...

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• NO

  @noditormuj · 5 months ago

  i dont usually comment, but I am genuinely SO impressed at your mastery in several languages. Besides, among the genshin theory channels, you are very much unique because you can, literally, translate each language and understand the true meaning of contexts in this game. ur honestly very talented

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• AN

  @AndrewsMobs · 5 months ago

  I also learned recently that in CN his erosion also refers to his appearance, which would explain why he has a rather mundane appearance now but when Zibai first met him he was quite dazzling for lack of a better word

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• PL

  @PlaysGenshin · 5 months ago

  Dam i found a new creator and it&apos;s about zhongli nice

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• BI

  @bigpenghan819 · 5 months ago

  as a SEA-sian who can read chinese, the recent english localisations mishaps annoy me to no end, with the worst being zibai&apos;s poem. great video on increasingly sussy geo grandpa. there&apos;s so many possible interpretations with him

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• AN

  @AndrewsMobs · 5 months ago

  It should be noted that &apos;Heaven&apos;s Star&apos; is a name he calls himself way back as a sort of battle cry, this is where Zibai gets it from<br><br>But in her first interaction with him, she is astounded because she has not seen anyone like him before

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• TO

  @toruiwatobi1484 · 5 months ago

  Fantastic work. Investigating the origin of words is one of the taboos in the Sumeru Akademiya, so its clear to me that something really is hidden in between translations.

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• JM

  @jmms91 · 2 months ago

  Plot twist, Zhongli is actually the Heavenly Principles, and he isn&apos;t sleeping, he just retired and wanted to see if Teyvat would be able to survive without a supreme god, so he&apos;s letting the Tsaritsa do her shenanigans, and this is the contract he has with her - if she succeeds, he leaves for good, if she doesn&apos;t succeed, he goes back to his position and nukes Snezhnaya with a celestial nail.

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• IN

  @inoneofthestars · 5 months ago

  Very cool video! Zhongli specially gains so much more meaning when looked at in the original Chinese. Thank you for going into this.

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• KN

  @KnowingBlue · 5 months ago (edited)

  In Past Era No One Calls Him Zhongli Or Geo Archon But They Called Him Mr. Mo In New 6.5 World Quest

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• NO

  @NoNameCherry · 5 months ago

  Seeing your video&apos;s cover brings to mind this one thing that&apos;s made me wonder for a while now: is there any explanation as to why Liyue is represented by scales when it should have been Fontaine&apos;s? I get that it can be equated to those olden scales used to measure an object&apos;s value in ancient times, think the scales Yanfei has in her idle (used to main her), hence, more of a commerce-related ref, but justice is also heavily represented by scales. Also, the one for Liyue is a perfect balance, perhaps representative of a somewhat quid pro quo between contracts made, or could there be anything else special about that? Is there any text that points to this that has been lost in translation?

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• _N

  @_Nyxus_ · 5 months ago

  I clicked because of Zhongli, I subbed because damn, this video was so good and informative.

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