# Anyone identify this oriental script? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 8, 2009, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-identify-this-oriental-script/509289 "2009-09-08T15:24:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Oswald\_Bastable](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oswald_bastable/32/214_2.png) [@Oswald\_Bastable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oswald_Bastable)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2009, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-identify-this-oriental-script/509289/1 "2009-09-08T15:24:01Z")
Hi All My grandmother goes to a day care centre for the elderly and does all kinds of arts and crafty type things. She’s recently come home with this stencilled piece of oriental script (and, considering she’s very poorly sighted, has done a jolly good job of keeping inside the lines when colouring in!). Anyway, she’s interested in finding out what, if anything, it means (although, I suspect it’s just a random selection of glyphs). [Here’s the image…](http://gallery.me.com/mclaughlinj#100034/Script) Apologies, I don’t even know if the image is the right way up! :dubious: Thanks all OB ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2009, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-identify-this-oriental-script/509289/2 "2009-09-08T15:26:45Z")
Upside-down Chinese. ETA: and flipped too! [Here’s the image in its correct orientation](http://www.crowaptok.com/images/chinese.jpg). I know what some of the individual characters mean, but someone else had better provide a decent translation. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2009, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-identify-this-oriental-script/509289/3 "2009-09-08T15:35:12Z")
Since it’s Chinese characters, it is possible that the text is in Japanese. If it is, the characters would generally have the same meaning as in Chinese, but not the same pronunciation. Although I’m not that proficient in either language, if forced to choose, I’d guess Chinese however. (There also is a very small chance that the text is in Korean or Vietnmese, since those languages alsoi used to be written with Chinese characters. That’s highly unlikely with current material, however). ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2009, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-identify-this-oriental-script/509289/4 "2009-09-08T15:35:27Z")
Aha, it’s the [five elements](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Xing). ---
**Author:** ![Caldazar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Caldazar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caldazar)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2009, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-identify-this-oriental-script/509289/5 "2009-09-08T15:39:22Z")
These are the characters for the five traditional Chinese elements. Using **jjimm** ’s image: Upper Left: Wood Upper Right: Fire Center: Earth Lower Left: Metal Lower Right: Water ETA: Drat, what **jjimm** said. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2009, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-identify-this-oriental-script/509289/6 "2009-09-08T15:56:00Z")
Everyone beat me to it. But I just want to show off that I could read that myself! Maybe recognizing five words of a language you claim to speak doesn’t seem like that big of a victory, but with weak-sauce _hanzi_ skills it certainly is! ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2009, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-identify-this-oriental-script/509289/7 "2009-09-08T16:04:58Z")
So get granny to flip the template over and turn it the other way up, then she can color the characters in relevant colors for their respective element! ---
**Author:** ![Oswald\_Bastable](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oswald_bastable/32/214_2.png) [@Oswald\_Bastable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oswald_Bastable)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2009, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-identify-this-oriental-script/509289/8 "2009-09-08T16:05:00Z")
Thank you all! So not so random in the end… OB ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2009, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-identify-this-oriental-script/509289/9 "2009-09-08T21:17:27Z")
There’s actually a rich cultural history behind these stencils. China once had severe drought and flooding problems caused by deforestation and erosion, and they’d make these banners of the elements and hang them up near rivers as prayer flags to protect their villages. Then at the halfway point of every lunar new year, villagers would gather on the riverbanks in elaborate costumes and rings and chant: _kāputān puhlanēt, heez àor hiro, go nà tek puh lúxion doun tuzeguo_! Historians are unsure as to its literal meaning, but it’s widely believed that the chant is intended to summon the River God, who typically takes on human form and assists the villagers for a while before leaving them with an announcement of ecological warning and returning to the river. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2009, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-identify-this-oriental-script/509289/10 "2009-09-08T22:25:42Z")
> [@Caldazar](#): > > These are the characters for the five traditional Chinese elements. Using **jjimm** ’s image: > > Upper Left: Wood > Upper Right: Fire > Center: Earth > Lower Left: Metal > Lower Right: Water > > ETA: Drat, what **jjimm** said. The bottom two characters are rather corrupted, though (not grandma’s fault, the outlines are not right). The middle part of the Metal character should be a single cross-stroke; here it’s broken; and there is another horizontal stroke above it that is mostly missing. And the Water character is just messed up. [Water](http://www.tribalshapes.com/categories/kanji/kanji-water.html) (fourth style is probably the best one to look at) [Metal](http://www.tribalshapes.com/search.php?sk=gold&x=18&y=12) - (or gold) the bottom one, sorry it’s not as large. Roddy ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-identify-this-oriental-script/509289/11 "2009-09-09T21:57:13Z")
FWIW, here’s what the characters should look like: Blue: 木 wood Orange: 火 fire Red: 土 earth Yellow: 金 gold Green: 水 water Absolutely unrelated tidbit of information: these characters are used in the Japanese words for the days of the week (Thursday, Tuesday, Saturday, Friday, and Wednesday, respectively. Monday uses moon, and Sunday uses sun.) > [@Reply](#): > > _kāputān puhlanēt, heez àor hiro, go nà tek puh lúxion doun tuzeguo_ Funny, I didn’t see heart anywhere on that list of elements…