Tim,

in recent studies of mine i have saught clearer deffinitions of the char. Peng Lu Ji An ect.. most were rather easy, but Peng gave me quite the go. i finally found it in a very old dictionary a friend's mother had. it stated that peng was to support on the arms or to float. interesting indeed and it does make sense. the same thing with the other 7 words; squeeze or crowd for ji, lieh to rend or tear, tsai- to pluck, ect.

My question is this; where did the common translations of these word come from. it seems to me most of them are misleading if not erroneous. Ward off, Roll back and pull down and shoulder stroke in particular. also why are these terms so accepted when it is really a fairly simple matter to find samanticaly correct translations?

or does it really matter?

Well thank you in advance.
laters

In some ways, it doesn't really matter about the precision of the translation of most of the terms however, it is also true that people like Tim have a real advantage in deciphering and then understanding the old writings because of their language skills as well as their martial skills.

Several of my friends are translators and it is obvious from their comments and stories that translating any technical language into English is a challenging task. Particularly when the translator doesn't know much about the technical/cultural side of whatever they are translating.

The first English language translations of the taiji terms were done by those with little or no experience in the martial practices of that art. Their translations stuck and became common usage. It is also true that even a good modern Chinese translator may not understand the cultural context of words that were written 50 or a hundred years ago. It is equally true that the old texts were often written in note form for experienced students and not as primers for beginners or the uninitiated.

Finally, human beings are creatures of habit and inertia is a driving factor (pun intended!) in how we approach things. For example, the modern keyboard is essentially the same as it was decades ago when it was designed to SLOW typing speed so that the old metal hammers holding the individual characters didn't jam together if someone typed too quickly and effeciently. Even though more effecient keyboards are in existence, inertia has guaranteed that the old ones is still in use as typing teachers, etc are reluctant to switch from the familiar to the unfamiliar.

So it is with translations of the old terms. The average modern student doesn't care that "pluck" is a better translation than pull in English even if told the reasons why...

Michael,

True enough, I know that my own efforts to learn Mandarin and chinese writing have deffinatley given me a perspective that many don not have. i am curious, are you saying that the people who did the first translations were or were not martial artists? It would seem likely to me that they would have to be since the afformentioned translations diverge so far from the citation forms and standard Chinese-English equivelences.

You are right about the habitual nature of humans. and as a human, i must follow my habits for language and interpreting, So as an interpreter myself i find these discussions facinating. your friend the translator is correct, any technical text must be translated/interpreted by a person that has a rather extensive knowlage of the subject in addition to the source language.

Thanx for you input!

Chad:
I would assume that the first English-language translators were not taiji experts as there weren't any non-Chinese experts in the 60s in North America to do such work when the first English-language taiji books appeared.

As you noted, translation is not an easy task and I would assume that translators themselves will often resort to consulting an existing translation to help them with a new project.

So, for example, if the translator sees "pull" in one or two existing translations and doesn't happen to be a taiji expert; he or she will probably translate "tsai" as "pull" instead of "pluck" in the new text -- thus helping unwittingly to perpetuate the poor translation.

In one recent issue of "Tai C'hi" magazine they have a list of the
"13 basic Techniques" 'cai' is translated as 'yank'
Peng- ward off
Lu- roll back
Ji- press
An- push
Lieh- split
Zhou- elbow
Kao- shoulder
Qian Jing- forward
Hou Tui- backward
Zhou Gu - left gazing
You Pan- right watching
Zhong Ding- central equlibrium

I thought i would just include the rest, as i find the translations interesting.

One problem with single word translations is they fall short of conveying the meaning of the original Chinese terms.

The "Eight Energies" are not techniques (although they become techniques in application), they are methods of generating power.

The most important being "Peng" force moving upward; "Lu" Force moving around the body toward the rear; "Ji" force moving forward and "An" force moving downward.

Absolutly Tim,

i would assume thats why they came up with those "songs" that are so popular in the books, to expand upon concepts that do not have a single lexical equivalent.

while i totally agree with the statment that the Ba Fa are not tecniques, I have a differing explanation of what they mean.
They are not too much different but are not directionally specific. the direction depends on how one would apply it.

Small difference.

it is a shame though that the single word translations is the most common way of dealing with this issue.

Tim, Wouldn't it be the other postures outside the "13 postures" that would be more discriptive of how say "peng jin" is directed towards the side in a posture like "cloud hands." I would think peng is a good word to discribe it's issuing of energy, even if the translation is "float" or "support on the arms." Like a boat floating on water, when a wave moves under the boat, the boat is not penetrated by water and moves with the wave. Even the arms held out in a "ward off" position, resemble the bottom arching of a boat. In 200 years will it matter any way? I'm sure every posture will have been translated so many times the same art will hardly be recognized by 2 different masters except for in application. If I were a master passing on a lineage, I would use terms that directly related to how I wish to pass on the knowledge. I think that method would differ if I wished to keep the essence hidden, or if I wished for the term to be an exact discription of the method.