Talk:Cathay

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Could the term "Cathay" be used to talk about the whole country of China today, and not only the northern part? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.71.157.211 (talk) 20:18, 18 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

[Untitled][edit]

if polo was italian why would he 'anglicize' the word cathay? is there more to it? was it first 'italianized' then 'anglicized'?

Diagram? What diagram?

Read it closer. Marco called it Catai --and THAT was Anglicized to Cathay.

OK, but whence the θ sound? Is that from Arabic, or what? Catay wasn’t good enough?

—Wiki Wikardo
22:13, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There was an obvious error about the Cathay,when Marco Polo reached northern China in 13th centuary ,the Khitan itself had already perished.The last Khitan Kindom in northern China ended in 10th centuary--Ksyrie 23:32, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The truth is up to now , the kazakh still call themselves and the chinese catai,or khitai ,it is very popular in Rusia . --Lognes 16:31, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can anyone post a map of Cathay? I'd like to see what it looks like, please. Leishalynn (talk) 01:48, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Katakana/Hiragana[edit]

On the right the Japanese name is written in two systems. The second one says Hiragana. However it is written in Katakana. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.230.241.151 (talk) 23:15, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Untitled comment[edit]

I love that the suede song was mentioned, reflecting the old belief of asia/cathay, in that romantic/fantastic form.

Strabo[edit]

Strabo mentions "Cathaia" as a place beyond India (book XV.1.30), and the Loeb edition at least identifies this as Cathay/China, so if that is correct the name would appear to be in use in the ancient Greek/Roman world as well. (He also mentions "Seres" as noted in that article.) I am hesitant to add this because I'm sure there is much more up to date scholarship than the old Loeb edition, which may not agree with the identification, but I have no idea. Adam Bishop (talk) 08:40, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Indeed, not only "Cathaia" in the English translation, but Κάθαίαν in the Greek edition as well. Nineteenth century authors discuss it, and some apparently believed that it's China (comments in 1857 edition), while others seem to deny the association on various grounds: The Edinburgh Encyclopedia. Henry Yule in his Cathay and the way thither was pretty sure Strabo's "Cathaia" was in Punjab somewhere: http://books.google.com/books?id=8lYJAAAAQAAJ&pg=PR39 -- Vmenkov (talk) 13:43, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Translation as 国泰[edit]

Regarding the claim that "cathay is often translated nowadays as 国泰 in Chinese": I really don't think the poetic translation of a brand name constitutes "often". Such translation is not often. It's a single case. I think that line should be removed. --Cranewang1984 (talk) 17:00, 13 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. Even in this single case, I believe "cathay" is 国 while "pacific" is 泰, though I don't find any sources to confirm this.--Dingruogu (talk) 14:21, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]