Why is the year of the Dragon not called Long but called Thin
🐲 In the ancient Chinese calendar, Thin 辰 is the 5th Branch of the 12 Earthly Branches (Twelve Branches) such as Rat, Ox, Dan, Mao, Thin... 12 Earthly Branches coordinate with 10 Heavenly Stems (Ten Cans) like Giap, At, Binh, Dinh... to remember and calculate time.
🐲 Through bibliographies and archeology in China up to now, we can determine that the Twelve Branches appeared popularly during the Shang Dynasty, at this time they were just pure ideas of time. During the Qin to Han period, 12 new animals were used as symbols for the 12 Earth Branches and are popular to this day. These 12 symbols are called 12 Sinh Tieu 生肖 (China) or 12 Zodiac animals (Vietnam).
🐲 So originally THIN 辰 was not the name of the dragon but the Chinese character was written as 龍. The word 辰, according to ancient Chinese dictionaries, indicates the idea of time (from 7 am to 9 am). The 5th branch is Dragon 辰 from the Han Dynasty, associated with its symbol is the image of the dragon, dragon 龍. But there are some researchers who do not recognize this objective truth and come up with another hypothesis to prove that the name THIN 辰 was originally the name of the dragon, long 龍 - some even confirm the name THIN 辰. The name Chi THIN 辰 actually originates from the Vietnamese name DRAGON. However, historical and archaeological evidence shows that THIN 辰 is not LONG 龍 and these two words are not used interchangeably (see more in the reference materials we have placed below).
🐲 In short, Dragon was originally just a name for a period of time and was later combined with the image of a dragon. Therefore, when talking about the year, we do not call it the year "Dragon" but rather the year "Dragon" to be accurate.
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#KHIvietlinhthanthoaiki #dragonS #Sigscent
