# sister of an emperor



## Fumiko Take

A daughter of an emperor is called 公主. What about his sister?


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## retrogradedwithwind

长公主

大长公主 is his auntie.


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## fyl

In real history, '长公主' was the name or title used in many dynasties. In Peking opera, I've also seen '皇姑' was used. Maybe this is because people are not very familiar with '长公主'.


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## Fumiko Take

Thanks for your answers. I found the word, and it's actually 郡主.


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## fyl

郡主 is typically the emperor's close relative's daughter. Where did you find it? I think it must be wrong.


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## Fumiko Take

Still up, eh? I already knew the Sino-Vietnamese reading of the word, I just needed the Han characters. Have you ever seen a Chinese TV series installed in the period of the Qing dynasty? If you have, you'll know I'm not wrong.


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## fyl

First, if you want the Chinese characters for 郡主, you already have it.

Second, 郡主 cannot be an emperor's daughter (this means she cannot be an emperor's sister because an emperor's sister is his father's daughter).
I'm very sure about that. 郡主 is such a common word that everyone speaks Chinese is familiar with it.
No serious TV series can make this kind of mistake. In Qing dynasty, 郡主 is 亲王's daughter, not the emperor's daughter or his father's daughter. If you have seen this in a TV series, there are two possibilities:
a) the TV series itself is not serious. The vast majority of Chinese TV series (especially those about Qing dynasty) have mistakes in almost every minute. This is because they are just TV series for entertainment. A Vietnamese TV series can make even more mistakes, including such kind of ridiculous ones.
b) She is not the emperor's sister. For example, if she is the emperor's uncle's daughter, the emperor may also call her "sister". In this case, she is not the emperor's real sister and she can be called a 郡主.

Sorry but I have to correct this, because I don't want this thread to be misleading to others.


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## xiaolijie

fyl said:


> The vast majority of Chinese TV series (especially those about Qing dynasty) have mistakes in almost every minute. This is because they are just TV series for entertainment. A Vietnamese TV series can make even more mistakes, including such kind of ridiculous ones.


If you read Fumiko's post properly, you'll know that the word 郡主 was used in the Chinese TV series. It was broadcast in Vietnam but made by Chinese, so please refrain from speaking negatively about another country too readily. If the word was a mistake, it was a mistake replicated from the Chinese original.

Anyway, the word 郡主 may have different usages depending on the historical period when it is used. You'll certainly find in reputable dictionaries the word means "princess" (and a "princess" is one who can also be a king's or emperor's sister).


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## fyl

xiaolijie said:


> If you read Fumiko's post properly, you'll know that the word 郡主 was used in the Chinese TV series. It was broadcast in Vietnam but made by Chinese, so please refrain from speaking negatively about another country too readily. If the word was a mistake, it was a mistake replicated from the Chinese original.


I was basically saying even in Chinese TV series there are a lot of mistakes so there is no reason to trust TV series. I didn't mean to speak negatively about another country. And it is very possible that 郡主 is not used in the original Chinese version (because this is too wrong even for those mistaken Chinese TV series), the mistaken can possibly be introduced during during translating Chinese to Vietnamese.



xiaolijie said:


> Anyway, the word 郡主 may have different usages depending on the historical period when it is used. You'll certainly find in reputable dictionaries the word means "princess" (and a "princess" is one who can also be a king's or emperor's sister).


郡主 meaning "emperor's daughter" is clearly a mistake.
The royal system in China is very different from the western, so there were inaccurate translations such as
皇帝->emperor, 
王->king,
both 皇帝 and 王's daughter->princess.
However, in China there is a huge difference between 皇帝 and 王, because 皇帝 is 君, 王 is 臣 and the title '王' can be revoked by 皇帝.
皇帝's daughter (公主) should never be confused with a 王(including 亲王)'s daughter.
Always try to look up words in a Chinese-to-Chinese dictionary for these things.


[...] Below is from Wikipedia http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/公主_(東亞)#.E6.B8.85.E6.9C.9D and clearly explains 公主、郡主 in Qing dynasty:
"皇帝嫡女為固倫公主、庶女為和碩公主。"
"親王嫡女為郡主、庶女為郡君。"
You can also find "凡固伦公主、和硕公主，同辈者封长公主，长者封大长公主" from 《清史稿 卷八十八 志六十三》.
So 长公主 is the answer.


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## xiaolijie

Again, you're still speaking from pure assumption [...]


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## retrogradedwithwind

From my knowledge, from 东汉 to 清, the addresses 公主、长公主、大长公主 were constant. 长公主 is not an important title (封号或尊号). Emperors' daughters are 公主 and they naturally become 长公主 after their brother's accession to the throne.


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## Fumiko Take

I remember watching a TV series about Ji Xiaolan, in which a girl named Mingzhou or Minchou or something was referred to as a *quận chúa*, in other word, a 郡主, and she was referred to as a sister of Qianlong Emperor. I wasn't watching it continually, so I might have been mistaken, but I do remember she called Qianlong 皇兄 or 哥哥 or something like that. She might have been some kind of "adoptive" sister of the emperor, or a daughter of a prince (亲王). In fact, according to the Vietnamese Wikipedia, "quận chúa" was a title for a princesses who was an emperor's younger sister or niece, or occasionally, a prince's daughter. That may not be true in Chinese.
Another thing is, I wasn't arguing whatsoever about Vietnamese TV series. [...]


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## fyl

Hi Fumiko,
Apologize again. I swear that I didn't mean anything about Vietnamese TV series. This is not only unrelated to the topic but also very wrong in any aspect.
I knew it is a Chinese TV series, and what I intended to mean is the same TV series in the Vietnamese language (I was thinking new mistakes could be introduced during translation, as there are always difficulties in translating different languages). I should be using "a Vietnamese version of the TV series" instead of "a Vietnamese TV series" in the previous post. Sorry again for this!

It is true that many Chinese TV series make a lot of mistakes. But I was not judging this is good or bad, because arts are not the same as reality. I didn't mean anything about the producer of the TV series either.
What I wanted to say is just, don't trust the historical details in TV series.

The Ji Xiaolan TV series were very popular and fictitious. There are a lot of mistakes everywhere but I still really like it. But I can't recall a character named Mingzhou, the closest name was mochou（莫愁）. Anyway, as for the language and history aspect, don't trust TV series or fictions so much.


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## retrogradedwithwind

Since you mentioned the name of the series, 纪晓岚, well, I'm 100% sure that that series cannot be trusted. The total series relies upon 戏说, which means what it said is not real, not history.


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