You may already know 2018 is the year of the dog. You may also know the Chinese animal zodiac is a repeating cycle of 12 years, with each year being represented by an animal. People believe that the 12 animals imbue the years they represent with their reputed attributes. As some of these animals have more admirable and lovable attributes than others, the years they represent become preferable than others. For example, many women in China prefer tiger or monkey babies rather than rat or snake babies.
However, even the less preferable years have to be lived through. To avoid the influence of the more negative attributes, people have tried different means to adorn the less preferable animals. The easiest and the most direct way is to add ‘gold’ before the animal name, thus the rat and the snake are often referred to as ‘gold rat’ and ‘gold snake’. The more ingenious way is again to make use of ‘mouth luck’ or to play with language. The goat is pronounced /ya: ŋ / and is thus associated with its homophone 洋 in 喜洋洋 meaning ‘brimming with happiness’.
A dog is very lovable already but people have made it more lovable by associating it with prosperity. Among the various colorful decorations to celebrate the arrival of the year of the dog, we can see a dog with its barking onomatopoeia everywhere on calendar front pages, posters and decorative paintings. Onomatopoeia is the use of words that imitate natural sounds. Although dogs bark the same everywhere, onomatopoetic words for dogs’ barking are not exactly the same in different languages because the phonological system of our native tongue influences the way we perceive and imitate sounds. Dogs ‘woof’ or ‘bow wow’ in English but 汪汪 /wa:ŋ wa:ŋ/ in Chinese. Incidentally, 汪 is a homophone of 旺 (prosperous), by association, the dog’s barking becomes an emblem of good luck and wealth, so we see images of the dog with its barking onomatopoeia everywhere.
A dog’s barking can be naturally linked to good luck and wealth. There is no limit for people’s imagination. Every year can be made a lucky one.
