sky↔ 盖 gài· 天空

作者中文原文 · Author’s Chinese Text

站在山上向天空仰望，覺得天上的白雲在遊走，偶爾也會覺得地在走，房屋似此起彼伏的舢板與郵輪。

在海洋、大河，在我們能夠航行的地方，我們雖未遊走在這大地母親的每一處，哪怕只是走馬觀花，也可以看看地母的每處肌膚、每處骨骼外露之處——那是山脈與丘壑。

那藍天是我們的被蓋，晝日夜月，四季變換。

English Literary Translation · 英文文学译文

Standing on a mountain and looking up at the sky, I watch the white clouds wandering overhead. At moments the earth itself seems to move, while the houses rise and fall like sampans and ocean liners.

Across oceans and great rivers, wherever we are able to sail, we may never travel over every part of Mother Earth. Even in passing, however, we may glimpse her skin and the places where her bones lie exposed—the mountains, ridges and valleys.

The blue sky is the cover above us, changing through day and night, sun and moon, and the turning seasons.

English sky

English sky entered Middle English through Old Norse ský, which referred to a cloud. Its meaning later expanded from “cloud” to the visible upper region.

Established · 已确立 Source: Merriam-Webster word history.

英语 sky

英语 sky 经古诺尔斯语 ský 进入中古英语；该词原来表示“云”，后来由“云”扩展为人们所见的上方天空。

Established · 已确立 来源：Merriam-Webster 词史。

Chinese 天

Early forms of 天 commonly depict a standing human figure with the head or highest point emphasized. The graph came to designate what is highest and, by semantic extension, the firmament above human beings.

汉字“天”

“天”的早期字形通常表现为一个正面站立的人形，并突出人的头部或最高位置。因此，“天”可以表示人的最高处，并进一步引申为人类头顶上方的苍穹。

English explanation

The Gaitian model was one of the cosmological models of ancient China. It represented heaven as a canopy or vaulted cover extending above the earth.

The sky resembles a domed tent, covering the surrounding fields.

This image from the Northern Dynasties folk song Song of Chile illustrates the cultural metaphor of the sky as a cover.

中文解释

盖天说是中国古代宇宙观之一。古人以穹盖想象天空：“天圆如张盖，地方如棋局。”在这种空间想象中，天如张开的伞盖或穹庐，覆盖大地。

天似穹庐，笼盖四野。天苍苍，野茫茫，风吹草低见牛羊。

北朝乐府民歌《敕勒歌》体现了“天空如覆盖物”的文化隐喻。

Modern scientific description

The visible sky involves the atmosphere, the scattering of light, clouds and the appearance of celestial bodies. This scientific account should not be treated as identical to the ancient Gaitian model.

现代科学说明

从现代观察而言，我们所见的天空景象与大气层、云层、光线散射和天体有关；平流层与电离层属于不同的大气区域，人造卫星通常运行于地球外部空间。现代科学解释与古代盖天模型属于不同知识体系，不能直接等同。

English

The sixty-four hexagrams may be studied as a structural symbol system composed of yin and yang lines. Collanguage asks whether their combinations can classify recurring states in nature, society, technology and human life, in a manner comparable—at the level of structural analogy—to a code.

乾 Qian ☰ — candidate structure

heaven, above, motion, creative force and strength

坤 Kun ☷ — contrast structure

earth, below, receptivity, support and containment

中文

六十四卦可以作为一种由阴爻和阳爻组成的结构性符号系统来研究。Collanguage 尝试考察这些组合能否像一种结构编码，对自然、社会、技术及人生变化中反复出现的状态进行分类。

乾卦 ☰——候选结构

天、上方、运行、创造性与刚健

坤卦 ☷——对照结构

地、下方、承载、接受与包容

English

Contributors are invited to test the sky–盖 hypothesis, add counterexamples, identify historical sources, compare dialectal pronunciations and propose alternative translations. Every contribution should retain its author, source and evidence status.

中文

欢迎贡献者检验 sky—盖 假说、补充反例、查找历史材料、比较方言读音并提出其他翻译方案。每项贡献都应保留作者、来源与证据状态。