Chinese zodiac: Difference between revisions
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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 lists of labels, one of length 10 (the "celestial stems") and one of length 12 (the "terrestrial branches"). The labels do not really have any meaning outside their positions in the two lists; they're simply a traditional enumeration device, used much as
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.
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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.
The celestial stems do not have a one-to-one mapping like that of the branches to animals; however, the five pairs of consecutive stems are each associated with one of the five traditional Chinese elements (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water). Further, one of the two years within each element
Thus, the Chinese year beginning in 2023 CE is also the yin year of Water. Since 12 is an even number, the association between animals and yin/yang doesn't change; consecutive Years of the
;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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