This year’s zodiac symbol has been retranslated from ‘dragon’ to ‘Loong’

After mainland Chinese official media outlets started calling 2024 “the Year of Loong” instead of the Year of the Dragon, the word “loong” and its homophones have become a popular meme among Hongkongers on social media, representing the government’s shift toward nationalistic policies and language.

The Year of “Loong”

This year, major Chinese state-affiliated media outlets have abandoned the term “dragon” and adopted the word “loong”, an uncommonly used transliteration of the Chinese word 龍 (dragon in English), to refer to the 2024 Chinese Zodiac. The alteration was later explained in numerous media commentaries, including the Chinese state-sponsored China Daily.

These commentaries argued that in Chinese culture, the image of the mythological animal is very positive and divine, while its Western counterpart is a negative “monster”. They also contended that the mistranslation of the Chinese word into “dragon” is a cultural distortion and misinterpretation.

Source: https://globalvoices.org/

Full article: https://globalvoices.org/2024/04/22/explaining-the-politics-behind-chinese-language-translation-the-year-of-loong/