Special Report: Third Manned Space Mission
Backgrounder: Chinese footprints in
Facts and Figures: Shenzhou-7
by Xinhua writer Wang Cong
BEIJING, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- As China made another
giant leap into space with the Shenzhou-7 craft launch on Thursday carrying a
crew that is scheduled to make the nation's first space walk, the word
"taikonaut" cropped up in media reports around the world.
It's appearing in dictionaries, too.
The Long-March II-F carrier rocket
carrying the Shenzhou-7 spaceship blasts off from the launch pad at the
Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China's Gansu Province, on
21:10 p.m., Sept. 25, 2008. (Xinhua/Li Gang)
The word is a hybrid of the Chinese term "taikong" (space) and the Greek
"naut" (traveler), or astronaut, according to the Concise Oxford English
Dictionary. Another variation on the term is "cosmonaut", coined during the
Soviet space era.
"The fact that taikonaut has been listed in popular dictionaries like
Oxford and Longman shows that the word has been recognized by quite a number of
English speakers. It can be seen as another sign of China's growing global
influence," said Chen Lin, a linguistics professor at the Beijing Foreign
"It is not the first time that a Chinese word was 'adopted' by users of a
foreign language," Chen said, citing such terms as kungfu, hutong (the small
alleys seen in Beijing) and names of Chinese dishes seen in restaurants around
But all the other words that were borrowed by foreign languages users refer
to things of China's past, Chen said. This new word "shows that China has more
to export to the world than just kungfu and Chinese food," he said.
Taikonaut was coined in 1988 when China started to train astronauts. It
became well known in 2003 when China sent its first spaceman Yang Liwei to space
in the Shenzhou-5 spacecraft.
Two years later, the Shenzhou-6 took off from China's Jiuquan Launch Center
for a five-day mission carrying taikonauts Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng.
During the Shenzhou-7 mission, one of the three taikonauts on board will
make China's first space walk, in a China-made space suit. That walk will make
China the third nation after Russia and the United States to stroll in space.
"China is not only recognized as a nation with a long and fascinating
history, but also a leading technological power," Chen said.