喜羊羊 sheep or goats?

[drungood]

I was taught 羊 meant sheep. But the English translation is "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf." Yet the Wikipedia article describes the characters as "lambs" and afaik "lambs" can only be considered baby sheep, not goats.

So which is it?

[WestTexas]

The cartoon character is clearly a sheep/lamb, not a goat. So it should be 'Pleasant lamb'. A young goat is properly called a 'kid'.

[Flying Pigeon]

Maybe it's a lamb named Goat. Or a goat in sheep's clothing. ; )

山羊 means goat. FWIW, I've heard native speakers refer to goats as 羊, but this could have been dialect.

Perhaps a native speaker or someone with a degree in animal husbandry can also chime in.

[外国赤佬]

羊 can mean both sheep and goat (as in 山羊).

The official English title is a hilariously bad translation. How can a lamb be 'pleasant'? 喜 means happy, joyous. I would translate the whole title (喜羊羊与灰太狼) as "Happy Happy Lamb and Big Grey Wolf". The other lambs' names also use repetition, e.g. 美羊羊, 懒羊羊, etc. I would translate them as Pretty Pretty Lamb, Lazy Lazy Lamb, etc.

[yialanliu]

You mean Happy Lamb Lamb right?

Anyways, goats/sheep, are the same in Chinese when using common names.

[anonymoose]

Sheep and goats are given distinct identities in English, but both belong to the caprini family of animals, so you could think of 羊 as meaning caprini, but since this is not a frequently used word, it is better to translate 羊 as sheep or goat (or ibex) depending on the specific situation.

Likewise, mice and rats have distinct identities in English, but both are 老鼠 in Chinese, and 鼠 can even refer to squirrels, guinea-pigs and the like in context.

All this just exemplifies that there isn't always a one-to-one correspondence between words in different languages.

[liuzhou]

Sheep and goats are commonly equated in many languages and in some dialects of English. It is a very common linguistic trait and not confined to Chinese.

"Curried goat" in India or in Jamaica could be either mutton or goat, for example.

[imron]

it is better to translate 羊 as sheep or goat (or ibex) depending on the specific situation.

Introducing the new Apple iBex - for sheep*

*I say, typing this on my iMac

[B-scorpio]

sheep=绵羊,goat=山羊，Is that right?

In the new series'happy sheep and their sports meeting', there are all kinds of 羊, such as sheep team, goat team, argali team and so on~

[Outofin]

I would translate the whole title (喜羊羊与灰太狼) as "Happy Happy Lamb and Big Grey Wolf"

I like it. "Pleasant Goat" sounds weird to me.

[creamyhorror]

Am I right in guessing that 灰太狼 is a play on the Japanese name -太郎 (-tarou)?

[Outofin]

^^^ right.

[xiaocai]

太郎 is a valid Chinese name, too. There is 台灣內政部常務次長簡太郎.