Hi
I’m for a formal English academic word for Chinese banners (if there is one) you often see during formal Chinese receptions/functions (锦旗 (jǐn qí). They usually drape walls and express traditional Chinese beliefs/virtues. I look forward to your feedback.
What makes you think there would be one English word for it?
English does have a lot of words.
Hundreds, if not thousands.
If you are referring to those large propaganda banners, the Chinese root word for those is Mandarin is xuanchuan. The direct translation is something like “to pass on, announce, provide”.
Not an answer to the question, but I recently went to an exhibition of similar hangings, although they wern’t necesserarily xuanchuan (as above) as they were prototypes for patriotic quilt covers!
3 pictures here
I don’t believe xuanchuan is the correct word here as that implies propaganda. I’m really more interested in what are more innocuous types of banners that simply welcome guests with lots of innocuous/benign banners featuring well-worn sayings or proverbs etc. So (锦旗 (jǐn qí) is the correct word.
When there isn’t a direct cultural equivalent, and hence no perfect translation, it’s common practice to simply adopt the word from the original language. In the earlier phase of adoption, such words are commonly italicized and supplemented with an approximate translation. An example of a word that’s probably in the intermediate phase is haiku; whereas I think words like yoga or origami are fully adopted and would not be italicized.
Early adoption:
Fully adopted:
I’d suggest following this practice here, since it’s a something with specific cultural significance not amenable to perfect translation that captures the full meaning.
Wikipedia calls them “Big Letter Banners”:
Like earlier reference to propaganda, 大字報 is a different word in Chinese than 錦旗 OP is asking about. They are somewhat similar things but the words aren’t synonyms in either in underlying character meaning (first means ‘big’+‘character’+‘report’, second ‘brocade’+‘banner’) or common meaning. The first, ‘dazibao’, is a big usually outdoor poster/banner, usually with a political or public exhortative or congratulatory slogan. A ‘jinqi’ is a small usually red silk banner usually hung indoors, usually with a proverbial Chinese saying or personal message.
Dazibao I think qualifies as the ‘English’ word for the first one. And while I’ve never seen the second referred to in English as just ‘jinqi’, I have seen the somewhat redundant ‘jinqi banner’, besides ‘red silk banner’.
In terms of the long banners I see that drape gala rooms, I think “héngfú” 横幅 is probably better.