# 漠北之戰



## Skatinginbc

Context from Wikipedia: "The Battle of Mobei (simplified Chinese: 漠北之战; traditional Chinese: 漠北之戰; pinyin: Mòbĕi zhī Zhàn; literally: "Battle of the Northern Desert") was a military campaign fought in the northern part of the Gobi Desert."

I'm confused because 漠北之戰 and 北漠之戰 do not mean the same to me. What does the Chinese expression 漠北之戰 actually mean to you (linguistically, not historically)? 
1) battle of the Northern Desert?
2) battle in the north of the desert?
3) battle to the north of the desert?

Thank you.


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## brofeelgood

Hmm instinctively, I'm inferring the following:

漠北之战 = battle in the northern part of the desert, or the battle that's north of the desert
北漠之战 = battle of the northern desert (and assuming there's some other desert(s) in the south, east or west)

城南/城北 = southern/northern part of the city
苏南/苏中/苏北 = southern/central/northern part of Jiangsu

江南/江北 = lands which are south/north of the Yangtze river

南亚/北亚/东南亚 = south/north/south-east asia
西岳华山/中岳嵩山/东岳泰山 etc


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## fyl

漠北 can be either 2 or 3, 北漠 is 北边的沙漠.

I think the confusing thing is that "Northern Desert" can mean both 北边的沙漠 and 沙漠的北部 (as in "Northern China"), and it should be 沙漠的北部 instead of 北漠 here. The Wikipedia text is a *literal* translation of 漠北之战, where 漠/Desert is a proper noun. If consider 漠/Desert as the proper noun "the Gobi Desert", I feel there is nothing wrong here (just like translating 华北 to northern China).
Do you think this is possible?

Edit: With "the" in "the Northern Desert", I'm sure about the above anymore. I'm not sure about things in English anyway. But 沙漠的北部 is the best understanding that matches 漠北 and the English text in Wikipedia.


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## Skatinginbc

A geographical line or divide (e.g., a river, a mountain range): 河北  "area north of the river", 河南 "area south of the river", 山東 "area east  of the mountain", 山西 "area west of the mountain".

A geographical  area or space (e.g., the area inside a city's boundary, the area inside a  province's boundary, the area inside a country's boundary): 城南  "southern part of the city, 城北 "northern part of the city, 苏北 "northern  part of Jiangsu", 华北 "northern part of China".

My question is  basically asking: Do you instinctively see 漠 as a geographical divide or  a geographical vast area in the expression 漠北之战?


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## fyl

Skatinginbc said:


> Do you instinctively see 漠 as a geographical divide or  a geographical vast area in the expression 漠北之战?


Well, I instinctively see this as ambiguous. I don't even know 城北 is northern part of the city or area north to the city (北城/南城 are the the words I usually hear to clearly mean northern part of the city). 山南/山北/漠南/漠北 are ambiguous. I think if someone instinctively see only one of the two meanings, probably that's because one meaning happens to come to his mind first. And in Wikipedia texts, 漠北 is also used ambiguously (漠北蒙古 vs 漠北之战).


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## brofeelgood

In English, "Northern Desert" can, in my opinion, only exist as a name, primarily because there are  deserts everywhere and it's not possible to know which one is being  referred to.

Same rule applies to "The Northern Desert", unless  there is prior context that establishes the existence of distinct  entities, e.g.
- The Gobi and Taklamakan are near each other. The northern desert is larger.

Contrast  this with "North China" or "Northern China", where China, a definitive location, is well  and truly the one and only, so there's no ambiguity that this refers to  the northern part of a singular entity. Other examples include East/West Germany, North/South America, North/South Pacific.
- Northern China has harsh winters. 
- Some types of fish are found only in the South Pacific.
- There was heavy snowfall in northern Switzerland yesterday.

Back to the original question... if it is something small, thin or typically used to mark borders and boundaries, e.g. a river, I'd use (3). But since it's the Gobi we're talking about here, and we know it's a vast expanse, I'm personally inclined towards (2) and to regard 漠北 as the northern part of the desert.


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## fyl

brofeelgood said:


> In English, "Northern Desert" ... yesterday.


Thanks!! This is actually similar to what I was thinking.

In the context


Skatinginbc said:


> Context from Wikipedia: "The Battle of Mobei (simplified Chinese: 漠北之战; traditional Chinese: 漠北之戰; pinyin: Mòbĕi zhī Zhàn; literally: "Battle of the Northern Desert") was a military campaign fought in the northern part of the Gobi Desert."


"Battle of the Northern Desert" appears as a literal translation of 漠北之战, which means that there should be word-to-word correspondence to the Chinese text 漠北之战 and it does not have to be idiomatic English. What I suggested was that Desert can be considered as a definitive location here (just like China in northern China), because 漠 in 漠北之战 is a definitive location (it must be some specific desert instead of "a desert"). But now I do agree that "the Northern Desert" sounds more like 北边的沙漠.

In fact, for deserts personally I don't think we have to distinguish meanings 1 and 2. Different parts of a large desert might also be named as "xx沙漠", so the northern part of a large desert can be the northern desert.


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## Skatinginbc

If we take "Battle of the Northern Desert" as a proper literal translation of 漠北之战, then we implicitly agree to the premise that 漠北 "Northern Desert" is a proper noun like 华北 and 湖北 and the term 漠南 is also a proper noun like 华南 and 湖南.  All those proper nouns entail clear geographical boundaries.  Does the so-called "Northern Desert" 漠北 have a clear boundary with the "Southern Desert" 漠南?  Well, it turns out to be the Gobi desert itself, and thus the "Northern Desert", if existent, is not part of the Gobi desert.


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## fyl

What I meant is that "Northern Desert" is "the northern part of the desert", and obviously "Southern Desert" will correspondingly be "the southern part of the desert". You first said that "we premise Northern Desert is like 华北", then try to get a conclusion that "Northern Desert is the area to the north of Gobi" by interpreting "Southern Desert" (which do not appear in this literal translation) in the usual way (which is analyzed differently).

I was just suggesting a way that I feels very natural to read and get (if remove "the"), not something from logic or syntax that contradicts intuition. Think about "Northern China", "Downtown city".


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## Skatinginbc

Let me try again: 
Common noun: 城北 "northern part of the city" vs. 城南  "southern part of the city" ==> There is no clearly defined boundary between 城北 and 城南.
Proper noun: 华北 "North China" vs. 华南 "South China" ==> There is a clearly defined boundary between North China and South China. 

If we treat 漠北 "the Northern Desert" and 漠南 "the Southern Desert" as proper nouns, then I expect a clearly defined boundary between them.  What is it?
If we treat 漠北 "the northern part of the desert" and 漠南 "the southern part of the desert" as common nouns, then I can live with a vague boundary between the two.


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## fyl

I think a proper noun needs to be defined, but the boundary does not need to be clear. There are words that are just conventions and no one has tried to make them clear, e.g. 北方/南方.
Anyway, according to your definition, I would consider 漠北/漠南 as common nouns (of course, if they are used a lot there will be conventional boundaries and they can become proper nouns). They are like 城南/城北, or 华南/华北 to someone who has never learnt about the 秦岭-淮河 boundary. Is it possible to live in a vague area between the two or in the intersection of these two? Of course, why not?
When we have a vague area called 漠北, we could create "Northern Desert" in a literal translation. The problem with this is that "desert" is a common noun and not a specific place. We usually understand "northern desert" as 北边的沙漠. What I meant is just, "Desert" can be understood as a specific desert (like 漠 in 漠北之战) here. Hence you can read "Northern Desert" just as "Northern someplace". I think I may have mistakenly used the word "proper noun" (I have to check the definition later).

The literal translations on Wikipedia can be like this


> Boiled dumplings (Chinese: 水餃; pinyin: shuǐjiǎo; literally: "water dumpling")


At least to me, the grammar of "water dumpling" is unusual. So we don't have to stick to usual usages of words in literal translations. Anyway it is just my suggestion and as I said before I'm feeling this not good with "the". And probably the best answer to the problem is to click "Edit" on Wikipedia and replace "the Northern Desert" with "the northern part of the desert" (but it sounds awkward, isn't it?).


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## Skatinginbc

Thank you, Brofeelgood and fyl, for your help and insightful input.  I really appreciate them. 

I'm thinking: What did "漠" in 漠北 mean in the Han Dynasty? 
1)  It was a proper noun (like 华 in 华北) designating the Gobi Desert proper  (i.e., 漠 = 北方流沙也).  If this was the case, then what was the boundary between  漠北 and 漠南?  The Gobi Desert itself?  
2)  It was a compound ideogram 會意 (i.e., 漠 = 莫 + 水 = 没有水 ==> Gobi  "waterless place").  If this was the case, then the notion of "Gobi"  could be a vast expanse of waterless wasteland. 
3) It was a phono-semantic  compound 形聲 referring to a type of land form  (i.e., 从水莫聲, 流沙也).   If this was the case, then the notion of  "Gobi" would not be a vast  expanse of sand.  It would be a narrow  isthmus of sand instead, because  only 5% of the Gobi desert _is_ comprised of the sand dunes, much less two thousand years ago.    Then the Gobi was likely perceived as a geographical divide.  

Shuowenjiezi seems to suggest (1) or, maybe, (3).


fyl said:


> There are words that are just conventions and no one has tried to make them clear, e.g. 北方/南方.


Actually, I've always assumed that the boundary between 北方 (as in 北方人) and 南方 (as in 南方人) is the Yangtze River.  It may be an approximate, but it is a definition nonetheless.  The lack of a defined boundary (whether be imaginary or arbitrary) between 漠北 and 漠南 is what puzzles me, unless the Gobi desert itself serves as the geographical divide and 漠北 means 大漠以北.


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## fyl

I just realized that I was thinking too much about 「北漠」 and 「Northern Desert」 (mentioned in #1). Is the question more about the other two meanings "battle in the north of the desert v.s. battle to the north of the desert"? Sorry for the misunderstanding...
This is a more difficult question, and I don't know an answer. In the previous posts I was assuming "in the north of the desert" because Wikipedia says so. But some searches seem to suggest the opposite.

《辞海》:漠北 亦作“幕北”。*蒙古高原大沙漠以北地区*。自汉代以后常称之为“漠北”。《三国志·魏志·明帝纪》：青龙元年（公元233年），鲜卑步度根与柯北能侵边，“遣骁骑将军秦朗将中军讨之，虏乃走漠北”。清代通称外蒙古为“漠北”，即以此故。

In Wikipedia 戈壁, it says that "大漠" as a frequent word in Chinese history is the desert at the boundary between Inner Mongolia and Outer Mongolia, and there is another much broader definition that often appears in western media.

The above seem to suggest that 漠北 is 沙漠以北, and probably Wikipedia says "a military campaign fought in the northern part of the Gobi Desert" simply because it's using a broader definition of the "Gobi Desert".



Skatinginbc said:


> What did "漠" in 漠北 mean in the Han Dynasty?


It seems 漠 means some specific desert (like 河=黄河), but I'm not sure about this and 漠's exact meaning.


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