Talk:Goat (zodiac)

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So, is it sheep or Goat?[edit]

So, is it sheep or Goat?

I think the answer is sheep. Here's my reasoning:

The Chinese character for animal in question is '羊', which is both the name of a subfamily and that of a genus. Sheep in Chinese is either '羊' or '綿羊'. Goat, on the other hand, is '山羊'. The online English-Chinese dictionaries I have consulted translate 'sheep' as either '羊' or '綿羊', but I've yet to see any that translates 'Goat' to just '羊'. The Chinese Wikipedia entry for '羊' (http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%BE%8A) says '羊' is also known as '綿羊', meaning that the character '羊' by itself, when referring to a genus, refers to sheeps.

  • If "sheep" is the correct term, then the box on the top right of the page ("The twelve animals of Chinese astrology") needs correcting.--SophiaEg 10:52, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • 羊 alone appears to be sheep (generically), 綿羊 is also sheep; 綿 is I think a limitator which on its own appears to be "Wadding." sheep ( 羊 ) or sheep with ( 綿 ) is just a sheep. Mountain ( 山 ) with sheep ( 羊 ) seems to be Goat, or more specifically Mountain sheep / Mountain Goat ( 山羊 ).
    • ( 羊 ) sheep
    • ( 綿羊 ) sheep / Wadding sheep
    • ( 綿 ) Wadding
    • ( 山 ) Mountain
    • ( 山羊 ) Mountain Goat / Mountain sheep.

Bdelisle 08:26, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What about "ram"? Not that it's the proper translation, but isn't it the one that is most commonly used? 24.126.199.129 07:33, 26 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently the ram applies to the western zodiac. But I feel that as a sheep, it should be called ram because it sounds more dignified.(Myscrnnm (talk) 06:05, 5 February 2008 (UTC))[reply]
ram, definitely, Bill gates, Steve Jobs, and others...--213.42.23.73 (talk) 18:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese Character[edit]

I thought the Chinese symbol for 'Year of the Goat' was 未, as apposed to 羊, which just means 'Goat'. I could be wrong though. Could somebody please verify which is correct. Sadako No Deshi 18:58, 18 July 2006 (BST)


No, that is totally incorrect. The character shown above (and in the main article) is seriously very wrong. It is "wei4", which has nothing to do with any animal or anything of that sort. It needs to be "yang2" as shown in the Goat discussion at the top of the page. This is a huge error. I made a link pointing to the correct character, but i'm having trouble getting wikipedia to recognize characters. Hopefully someone can take it forward from here.Lesotho 16:49, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Papoose[edit]

I deleted Papoose the rapper from the list because firstly the link didn't go to him and secondly his birthday is December 1978. Schnizzle 08:57, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of Celebrities Sign (Chinese zodiac)[edit]

I vote for making a new article, List of Celebrities Sign (chinese zodiac) - with a list of famous persons of all signs (separeted by sign/element), something like the List of games Daniel Leite 04:25, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since no one protested and I agree with you, I boldly went ahead and created the Category Category:List_of_Celebrities_(Chinese_Zodiac) and the subcategories for each sign. I'm currently adding the categories to the current Year of the Dog celebrities (I will remove the section afterwards, replacing it with a link).
Now, it would be great if you and all the other regulars (Maestro, VeronicaPR, IrishPearl etc.) would each take a Zodiac Sign and do the same, since it would take ages to do this alone. Teshik 12:39, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Split contested, candidate for deletion[edit]

Hrmpf. In the very minute I finally got the Dog article finished, the new categories were put up into the Deletion candidates. Go here for details, and please tell if you want the categories kept, deleted, or if you got another suggestion entirely. I've stopped editing for now. Teshik 15:00, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

remove list of people[edit]

Do not reply here; go to centralized discussion at Talk:Rat (zodiac)#Let's remove all the celebrities lists. — coelacan — 18:19, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality Issues and Word choice[edit]

The changes made to this article by ip address 74.104.188.160 seems to imply negative point of view towards people of the Goat sign and have added negative traits using word choice out of place with other traits (such as the word "misery" which is a noun amoung adjectives in the negative attribute section) and negative vague phrases prone to very open ended interpretation: "nasty little pieces of work." This gives the article somewhat of a biased and vague citiation of the negative qualities of Goat. Perhaps a personal explanation of the recent additions would help? 68.34.93.159 02:32, 24 April 2007 (UTC) Jean[reply]

Forget about "a personal explanation". It is an inappropriate description and I have edited it. There is no need for that in wikipedia. Lesotho 03:00, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've taken a look down the history page. The changes made by 74.104.188.160 are numerous, and most of them are heavily POV(He is also active at other zodiac signs). Much of the article is now more or less bias, starting with his edits made on April 5th. He has received a warning at his talk page, and I will revert his edits as good as possible. But someone else has to look over the whole thing afterwards for better quality. Teshik 22:59, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

External links[edit]

I have factual links that tell you the meaning of the Chinese zodiac Goat, etc. They are not advertising anything personal. I feel they may help the site. If you do not believe so, please remove. They were previously posted on two articles. I want to combine them and post them on each horoscope, Including this one. Ariyen (talk) 13:28, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The real word is only Goat[edit]

There is no sheep in ancient china, as animal or zodiac sign, in other languages(italian, spanish, german, etc.) the animal is never called sheep is only called Goat. Also the sheep is from western astrology (Aries the ram)—Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.247.28.25 (talk) 19:29, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Simply Googling the words you used, "sheep in ancient china", gives me results indicating the exact opposite of what you claim. Some random examples: [1] [2] [3] [4]. As far as I know all other languages have words for sheep and goats, so there is a distinction made between the two. From what I gathered so do speakers of Chinese, putting together mountain + sheep to mean goat. I think you're saying they all call the zodiac sign "sheep", but they could all be using the same mistranslation. Western languages often share information, rather than getting information from Chinese. The fact that the western astrology animal is a "sheep" is irrelevant since the two zodiacs aren't even related. So far evidence points to this animal being a sheep. Retodon8 (talk) 12:09, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

born of a Goat year input[edit]

Thinking to look here for kicks I found this most interesting and honest debate. Which one is it indeed? sheep, ram, or Goat? I think this may of been discussed into a good point however if any are unsure and still seek clarification I think it can be of assistence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sheep_breeds Their are not that many sheep breeds in china . In fact I do not know of a native sheep breed of china unlike Europe and Africa and elsewhere. China , before the age of travel , had Goats. Not quite ram nor sheep in the western sense of the word but something closer to a kirin or something. In thinking about the animals they had to work with when forming this idea I to, think Goat would be the most correct wording. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1zeroate (talk • contribs) 04:54, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"In fact I do not know of a native sheep breed of china"-- Search for Mongolian sheep breeds, and you will find more than a few. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 22:15, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Both sheep and Goat[edit]

I added in material referring to sheep, which seem to have been completely missing from the article. "Year of the sheep" is more commonly used in English than "year of the Goat" (although both are used), and note that this article is the redirect article for Sheep (zodiac) and Ram (zodiac), so these two terms need to be in the lede. I also point out that the sign is not only part of Chinese culture, but also in Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, and Vietnamese, among others. Unless we want one article for Sheep (Chinese Zodiac) and another for Sheep (Korean Zodiac), the article should have both. I also added in some citations discussing the term, and noting that both are used. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 22:13, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a reference (from Singapore) saying that both sheep and goat feature in popular celebrations, but "goat" is the more traditional in China: http://news.asiaone.com/news/singapore/sheep-muscle-year-goat . The source for saying that goat is more traditional seems to be simply interviewing two geomancers in Singapore (they also interview a scholar at the Department of Chinese Studies at the National University of Singapore, but the scholar doesn't suggest that one is more traditional, but simply says that the word could be either goat or sheep, or gazelle.) So my conclusion is that this isn't a reliable source in saying that goat is more traditional than sheep. However, I'll add it as a citation. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 19:11, 19 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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External links modified[edit]

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Sheep (zodiac)[edit]

According to most people, it should be Sheep (zodiac).

I sincerely request the holder of the access rights to move this page from Goat (zodiac) to Sheep (zodiac).

However I understand that in Vietnamese it is Goat (zodiac).

In other languages like Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Mongolian it is Sheep (zodiac).

I earnestly hope this move can be resolved amicably.

Goldlionpal (talk) 09:12, 29 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Remove list of people, again[edit]

Please chime in at Talk:Rat_(zodiac)#Celebrity_lists,_again regarding removing the list of people from all Chinese zodiac articles. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:27, 14 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sheep/Goat/Ram (zodiac)[edit]

Upon reading the references provided, the "Sheep (zodiac)" is more substantiated than the "Goat (zodiac)". However Vietnamese zodiac translates it as a goat. The Japanese use the Chinese character 羊 (yang) to write the word 'hitsuji' meaning 'sheep'. In Japanese zodiac it is the Year of the Sheep. The Mongolian zodiac also translates it as the Year of the Sheep (хонь khon'). The Korean zodiac translates it as the Year of the Ram/Sheep: 양 (yang). The scientific subfamily Caprinae has been suggested as the closest match to the original 'yang', though some may beg to differ. It is not a common name. The word 'Ram' has been chosen as a neutral term that could be the middle ground between sheep and goats. A more democratic approach would be to adopt the egalitarian title "Sheep/Goat/Ram (zodiac)".

Goldlionpal (talk) 08:49, 27 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sheep/Goat (zodiac)[edit]

The majority of cultures and people believe it to be a sheep but let’s not forget that a sizeable number also believe it to be a goat. The use of the term “ram” is also acceptable though less widely used than “sheep” or “goat”. It certainly would offend few people if “ram” was left out.

To do justice to the various cultures around the world, the title should be changed to Sheep/Goat (zodiac). While the term “Sheep” is preferred, it would be a daunting task to change all the “Goat” references in the document to “Sheep” references. The picture need not be changed as sheep can also have horns. This action might also meet with objection as “Goat” which many people believe in would be left out. A democratic approach would be to change all the “Goat” references in the document to “Sheep/Goat” references. However this would extend the length of every instance of the word where it appears. It might cause problems with the table formatting.

With the title positioned as “Sheep/Goat (zodiac)” it would then be clear to the reader that in the instances where “Goat” appears it would be perfectly reasonable to substitute it mentally with the word “Sheep”.

Goldlionpal (talk) 00:19, 1 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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