Liz Stoneman (asker) Jun 20, 2018:

Thank you Thanks, everybody!

I was especially interested in whether an EN translation of 炁 would differ from common translations of 气/氣.

@Shirley, I found the blog post you shared especially helpful.
@p1q01, this was also in line with what you shared about an 'inborn' or perhaps an 'innate' natural vital force.

Thank you both so much.

Let's see if I can come up with an EN solution that is as concise as the Chinese :-P

Have a lovely day!

Quentina Chan Jun 19, 2018:

From perspective of Taoism or Chinese philosophy I would like to share some interesting content I found on the internet:
"炁,音同“气”，是中国哲学、道教和中医学中常见的概念，人的第一个灵体所需要的能量，不同于气。“炁”乃先天之炁，代表无极，“气”乃后天之气。"
source: https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/918897106472642179.html

It seems like the "炁" is more on the inborn natural vital force.

To Tomasso: That's why Chinese characters will never be written in form of Pin Yin, and it's only for pronunciation learning purpose because Chinese is not a phonetic language. Besides, Pin Yin (in alphabet way) doesn't exist in ancient Chinese society until 1958.

The interesting thing is that the confusion you mentioned not only found in Chinese, when I try to learn Japanese, the romaji would also cause similar confusion, so it is better to learn the language in their actual form instead of the "pronunciation system".

Shirley Lao Jun 18, 2018:

气 (Simplified) vs. 氣 (Traditional) 气 is a simplified Chinese character, while 氣 is a traditional Chinese character.

Shirley Lao Jun 18, 2018:

「炁」versus「氣」 氣源自於古字气，最早是雲氣的意思，是個象形字[1]，有呼吸、氣息的意思[2]，也有米飯的意思[3]。其很快被引申，具備天氣、氣候、節氣、氣味乃至於風氣、流行等等意思，也發展出許多異體字，如炁、餼，在唐朝之後逐漸定型為氣。

至宋代之後，道教思想家為了區別先天的氣與後天的氣，採用古字「炁」來代表先天的氣，代表無極，氣則被當成是後天的氣，為太極。這兩個字的意義又被分開。但是除了道教文獻之外，通常都以氣來概括。

Please refer to the evolutionary source of this Chinese character at https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/氣_(中國)

Shirley Lao Jun 18, 2018:

「炁」、「氣」與「汽」 See: http://blog.xuite.net/betty41081046/twblog/133780885-「炁」、「氣」...

https://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&char=炁

炁 is an archaic form of a Chinese character and is usually found in philosophical writings.

Tomasso Jun 18, 2018:

simplified chinese, traditional chinese (I find Chinese very hard, not much personal knowledge)
If you go to Google trans, it translates one as traditional chinese and the other as Simplified, you can choose from the drop down menu.
The entire phrase translates as We manage this energy called CHEE. (qi)
There was (last century) Ping Yin now obsolete, Qi (Chee) can several meanings Da Qi
Cheng
大气层
Dàqìcéng is atmosphere, The sound of which can be in hundreds of words, it may be that sound and meaning, even script are not consistene, depending on context..My two cents, I think the average Chinese takes YEARS to read and write correctly