城 - what would be a good translation?

[Christa]

Hi everyone,

 

This word can be found in quite a lot of interesting location names in Chinese. It's part of the Great Wall (長城), part of Chinatown (中國城), part of the Forbidden City (紫禁城).

 

But how would you translate it?

 

A fortified wall?

 

I'd be really interested to know anyone's thoughts...

 

 

Christina

[Lu]

17 minutes ago, Christa said:

But how would you translate it?

That depends on the context. As you noticed, 城 has a range of meanings, from wall to fortress to city, and there is not one translation of the character.

[Christa]

13 minutes ago, Lu said:

That depends on the context. As you noticed, 城 has a range of meanings, from wall to fortress to city, and there is not one translation of the character.

 

Thanks, Lu. Yes, I realise that, but I'm wondering if anyone can come up with a translation that captures the essential feeling / meaning of the character?

[889]

If you mean the one English word I mentally assign to the character for convenience, it's city.

 

As long as we're talking about 城, here courtesy of Wenlin are some interesting expressions that use the character:

 

百城坐拥
背城一战
不到长城非好汉

 

不夜城
唱空城计
城北徐公

 

城府
城狐社鼠
城门失火

 

愁城
码长城
满城风雨

 

日坐愁城
天城体
坐困愁城

[Christa]

 

18 minutes ago, 889 said:

If you mean the one English word I mentally assign to the character for convenience, it's city.

 

 

Yes, that sort of thing. Thanks for the list too. Interesting...

[Jim]

IIRC it meant city wall originally (the inner wall specifically, 郭 was the outer wall) then by extension the city as a whole, presumably as a sort of synedoche at first but over time that usage became fixed. So as has been said, you have to go by context as unsurprisingly (since it would be quite a coincidence) that same process didn't happen to a word in English so the same range of meanings could be contained.

[Christa]

43 minutes ago, Jim said:

IIRC it meant city wall originally (the inner wall specifically, 郭 was the outer wall) then by extension the city as a whole, presumably as a sort of synedoche at first but over time that usage became fixed. So as has been said, you have to go by context as unsurprisingly (since it would be quite a coincidence) that same process didn't happen to a word in English so the same range of meanings could be contained.

 

Thanks, Jim. This was the sort of information I was looking for. Very interesting, especially in combination with what everyone else has said. Thanks guys!