Help needed in character translation

[Nikar]

Hi all,

I've quite a tough question and I think only the chinese language experts here can help me.

I'm doing a rather large fantasy writing project in Chinese. There's some fanciful words which I would like to use. I've the names of these words in English but cannot seem to think of any single chinese character to describe them properly.

Below are the English words with their dictionary explanation :

1) Undead - One who returns to life after death

2) Cynical - One who believes in the worst of human nature and motives; having a sneering disbelief in others

Now, I need someone to use a chinese character(just one character) for each of the two terms above to substitute them. The single character doesn't need to have an exact meaning; a distant or rough meaning will do nicely.

For example, the word "manly" can be substitued by the 雄 character.

The word "extreme" can be substitued by the 狂 character.

I've thought of substituting the word "undead" with the 末死 character, but it sounds very un-cool and silly. I've thought of substituting the word "cynical" with the 傲 character, but it's like too common.

Thanks for any advice!

Nikar.

[Alan2629]

1) Undead - One who returns to life after death

What about “凤凰涅盘”，phenix get great power after rebirth, also means someone who take a great change after some experience

2) Cynical - One who believes in the worst of human nature and motives; having a sneering disbelief in others

愤世嫉俗， it is the chinese explanation of "cynical".and 愤世嫉俗 just means:cynicism;be highly critical of the society;detest the world and its ways

but from your explanation about the "cynical", it seems to describe the very bad guy.

so if you want to describe someone is very very bad , it could be said 恶贯满盈

I am a chinese , and I like learning English ,hope we can learn alot from each other .

Alan / MSN: inter1999@hotmail.com

[in_lab]

So these things are supposed to be described by just one character each?

For cynical, how about 譏 or 嘲 ? (On the other hand 傲 doesn't seem any more common than 狂)

For undead, how about creating a character with 不 on top and 死 on bottom?

[Nikar]

Thanks a lot, Alan and InLab! Those are some really cool-sounding and sleek Chinese words and characters.

A few more questions :

1) How do you guys pronouce the 譏, 嘲, 愤, 贯, 盈 and 嫉 characters? If you guys know Hanyu Pinyin, maybe you can use Hanyu Pinyin to help me pronouce?

Like, 满 in Hanyu Pinyin is man(3) - the 3 means the third sound.

2) For each of the six characters below, if they are used on their own(just the single character), what is their meaning?

譏 = ?

嘲 = to taunt and sneer

愤 = rage/ anger

贯 = ?

盈 = ?

嫉 = ?

From InLab:

For undead, how about creating a character with 不 on top and 死 on bottom?

LOL! But is there such a Chinese character with 不 on top and 死 at the bottom?

Thanks a lot, all!

Nikar.

[Quest]

It's not uncool to have more than one character in a name, more often than not you do need more than one character to describe something.

Undead is translated as 亡灵 in world of warcraft, lit. perished soul/spirit

For zombies, which is a kind of undead, one can use 僵尸 (petrified/stiffen/frozen corpse), or 行尸(walking corpse).

In Chinese fantasies, however, the following characters are used to describe the dark powers:

妖 imp

魔 devil

鬼 ghost

怪 monster

灵/魂: spirit

[Nikar]

From Quest:

Undead is translated as 亡灵 in world of warcraft, lit. perished soul/spirit

For zombies, which is a kind of undead, one can use 僵尸 (petrified/stiffen/frozen corpse), or 行尸(walking corpse).

Thanks a lot, Quest! That really helpes a lot!

Say, did the creators of WarCraft invent the 亡灵 word? Sounds very cool! 行尸 is also very suitable!

Thanks! ;)

Nikar.

[Josh-J]

Just thought I'd say that to me at least, the definition of 'undead' as "One who returns to life after death" seems slightly incorrect - I mean if something is 'undead' I wouldn't think of it as living, exactly...

[Nikar]

LOL Josh....then to you, what's your definition of "Undead"?

Like something that is supposedly dead but still carries on living?

See you,

Xeon.

[jackie-shanghai]

) For each of the six characters below, if they are used on their own(just the single character), what is their meaning?

譏 = ji(1=means first tone inHanyuPinyin)

means deride and criticize sb often by words, as shown by the Bushou( word-forming part)on the left side of the word, which is in fact a smalll version of the word"言"meaning to talk / speak / state

嘲 =cao(2) we often say 嘲讽 when we use the phrase to mean "sneer at(sb)" , not just the single character 嘲.Use of single characters is a distinct feature of the Ancient Text or known as Guwen (古文gu4wen2), But since after the May the Fourth movement, this has been abandoned and given up to plain phrase-rich modern colloquial Chinese (we call it 白话文 to differ it from Guwen) based on the Peking dialect.

愤 = feng(4)

贯 = guan(4)

盈 =ying(2)

嫉 = ji(4)

From InLab:

Quote:

For undead, how about creating a character with 不 on top and 死 on bottom?

Dear Inlab:

there's no such a word with 不 on top and 死 on bottom, although your word is easily understable .

but there in fact is a ready word with silimar formation, that is, the Chinese character 歪, with 不on top and zheng 正

[Josh-J]

what's your definition of "Undead"?

I don't know, neither alive or dead? Or maybe something that is dead but animate..

I find it hard to think of 'undead' in non-World of Warcraft terms, actually..