Talk:Earthly Branches
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It is possible someone can add the English translations [meanings] for the 24 Directions? I only see four English words North, South, East, West given - 20 more remain without clarity. Thank You In Advance. 4.238.237.18 01:27, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Looking at the version today, it looks like 8 directions are translated (north, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west, northwest). To the best of my knowledge, English doesn't have specific names for each of the 24 listed directions.
I thought it was interesting to read the paragraph following the table, about a 48-point compass, and adding an additional midpoint (for 96 directions total) by combining the names of the nearest two directions. English does this with the 4 cardinal directions... any compass direction between about 22.5 and 67.5 degrees is referred to as "northeast", but the actual lines between north/northeast/east are sometimes vaguely defined. If we need more than 8 directions, we use terms like "north-northeast" to refer to the area between north and northeast... so you would end up with the following table of names and directions:
| Written | Spoken | Left end of range |
Center of range |
Right end of range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| N | north | 348.75° | 0° | 11.25° |
| NNE | north-northeast | 11.25° | 22.5° | 33.75° |
| NE | northeast | 33.75° | 45° | 56.25° |
| ENE | east-northeast | 56.25° | 67.5° | 78.75° |
| E | east | 78.75° | 90° | 101.25° |
| ESE | east-southeast | 101.25° | 112.5° | 123.75° |
| SE | southeast | 123.75° | 135° | 146.25° |
| SSE | south-southeast | 146.25° | 157.5° | 168.75° |
| S | south | 168.75° | 180° | 191.25° |
| SSW | south-southwest | 191.25° | 202.5° | 213.75° |
| SW | southwest | 213.75° | 225° | 236.25° |
| WSW | west-southwest | 236.25° | 247.5° | 258.75° |
| W | west | 258.75° | 270° | 281.25° |
| WNW | west-northwest | 281.25° | 292.5° | 303.75° |
| NW | northwest | 303.75° | 315° | 326.25° |
| NNW | north-northwest | 326.25° | 337.5° | 348.75° |
But this table has 16 entries, while the Chinese table has 24. So the systems are not orthogonal... the direction names are a little less specific in the English system, and thus there isn't a single name to correspond to each direction in the Chinese system. I think this is why there aren't translations for each Chinese direction...
Infinoid 15:44, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Also please note there is a 32-point English system described on the Boxing the compass page. Written by smarter people than me :)
You could find enough names in that system to fill in the blanks on the Earthly Branches page, but the actual angles (in degrees) don't match up exactly. I wouldn't really call them "translations" - they'd be more like "closest equivalents", I think. Also, until today (after reading the Boxing the compass page), I had never heard of things like "SEbE". So I'm hardly an expert in such matters.
Infinoid 18:12, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
