Me, and my shadow on the Great Wall
In mandarin, the "Great Wall of China" isn't translated as "Great" or "Mighty" but rather "Wall of Tens of Thousands of meters" (万里长城 ).
The character 长 means "Long"; 城 means "City"; 里 is the ancient Chinese measure for distance (according to this entry from Answers.com, it's the approximate equivalent of 500 meters); 万 means 10,000.
Put together, it roughly means "City Wall of Tens of Thousands of 'Metres'". Makes sense to me, 'cos the wall was a defensive structure for the city of Beijing. It wasn't always a continuous structure, as I've learnt.
Fellow SG Blogger, BlinkyMummy, suggests that the Chinese dropped the word for wall to make it easier to say. In the Chinese language, it's typical to condense phrases down to four characters or so.
Sorry, I'm terrible at Chinese, so don't ask me the Whys and Hows. Go ask a librarian... (oh wait, I'm one aren't I? Dang!)
The character 长 means "Long"; 城 means "City"; 里 is the ancient Chinese measure for distance (according to this entry from Answers.com, it's the approximate equivalent of 500 meters); 万 means 10,000.
Put together, it roughly means "City Wall of Tens of Thousands of 'Metres'". Makes sense to me, 'cos the wall was a defensive structure for the city of Beijing. It wasn't always a continuous structure, as I've learnt.
Fellow SG Blogger, BlinkyMummy, suggests that the Chinese dropped the word for wall to make it easier to say. In the Chinese language, it's typical to condense phrases down to four characters or so.
Sorry, I'm terrible at Chinese, so don't ask me the Whys and Hows. Go ask a librarian... (oh wait, I'm one aren't I? Dang!)
