Chinese zodiac: Difference between revisions
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Add more information to intro; update example to current year.
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{{task}}Determine the Chinese zodiac sign and related associations for a given year.
Traditionally, the Chinese have counted years using two
Years cycle through both lists concurrently, so that both stem and branch advance each year; if we used Roman letters for the stems and numbers for the branches, consecutive years would be labeled A1, B2, C3, etc. Since the two lists are different lengths, they cycle back to their beginning at different points: after J10 we get A11, and then after B12 we get C1. The result is a repeating 60-year pattern within which each pair of names occurs only once.
The celestial stems have no one-to-one mapping like that of the branches to animals; however, the five pairs of consecutive stems each belong to one of the five traditional Chinese elements (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water). Further, one of the two years within each element's governance is associated with <i>yin</i>, the other with <i>yang</i>.▼
Mapping the branches to twelve traditional animal deities results in the well-known "Chinese zodiac", assigning each year to a given animal. For example, Sunday, January 22, 2023 CE (in the common Gregorian calendar) began the lunisolar Year of the Rabbit.
Thus, 2022 is also the yang year of Water. Note that since 12 is an even number, the association between animals and yin/yang doesn't change. Consecutive Years of the Rooster will cycle through the five elements, but will always be yin, despite the apparent conceptual mismatch between the specifically-male English animal name and the female aspect denoted by yin.▼
▲The celestial stems do not have
▲Thus,
;Task: Create a subroutine or program that will return or output the animal, yin/yang association, and element for the lunisolar year that begins in a given CE year.
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;Requisite information:
* The animal cycle runs in this order: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig.
* The element cycle runs in this order: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water.
* Each element gets two consecutive years; a yang followed by a yin.
* The current 60-year cycle began in 1984
Thus,
;Information for optional task:
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* The twelve terrestrial branches are '''子''' ''zĭ'', '''丑''' ''chŏu'', '''寅''' ''yín'', '''卯''' ''măo'', '''辰''' ''chén'', '''巳''' ''sì'', '''午''' ''wŭ'', '''未''' ''wèi'', '''申''' ''shēn'', '''酉''' ''yŏu'', '''戌''' ''xū'', '''亥''' ''hài''. In ASCII Pinyin, those are "zi3", "chou3", "yin2", "mao3", "chen2", "si4", "wu3", "wei4", "shen1", "you3", "xu1", and "hai4".
Therefore 1984 was '''甲子''' (''jiă-zĭ'', or jia3-zi3).
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