Cathay
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Cathay is the Anglicized version of "Catai" and an alternative name for China in English. "Catai" was originally the name used for northern China during Marco Polo's time (he referred to southern China as Manji). "Catai" itself derives from the word Khitan (契丹 Qìdān), the Chinese name of a tribe ruling predominantly in northern China during Polo's visits. Travels in the Land of Kublai Khan by Marco Polo has a story called "The Road to Cathay". In the English language, the word Cathay was sometimes used for China, although increasingly only in a poetic sense, until the 19th century when it was completely replaced by "China". However the terms "China" and "Cathay" are about as old as each other in English. The term may still be used poetically or in certain proper nouns, such as Cathay Pacific Airways or Cathay Hotel. A person from Cathay (i.e., a Chinese) was also written in English as a Cathayan or a Cataian.
[edit] Etymological progression
Below is the etymological progression from Khitan to Cathay as the word travelled westward:
- Mongolian/Classical Mongolian: Khyatad (Хятад) / Kitad
- Uyghur (Western China): خىتاي, Xitay
- Kazakh: قىتاي, Қытай, Qıtay
- Kazan Tatar (Central Russia): Qıtay
- Russian: Kitay (Китай)
- Medieval Latin: Cataya, Kitai
- Spanish: Catay
- Italian: Catai
- Portuguese: Cataio
- English: Cathay
[edit] References in popular culture
- Cathay is mentioned several times by John Blackthorne, the protagonist in James Clavell's novel Shōgun.
- The flag carrier of Hong Kong was named Cathay Pacific because the founders envisioned that one day, the airline would cross the Pacific Ocean from China.
- Ezra Pound published a collection of poems entitled Cathay: For the Most Part from the Chinese of Rihaku, from the notes of the late Ernest Fenollosa, and the Decipherings of the Professors Mori and Ariga, London: Elkin Mathews, 1915.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay mentions Cathay in her poem "To The Not Impossible Him".
- Cathay is the name of a short story by Steven Millhauser in his collection of short stories "in the penny arcade"
- The Suede song "The Power" from the album Dog Man Star includes the line, "through endless Asia / through the fields of Cathay".
- In Gore Vidal's novel Creation, which takes place between 510–445 BC, Cathay is a pivotal setting.
- Robert E. Howard named a China-like civilization Khitai in his Hyborian Age backdrop for Conan the Barbarian.
- There are regions named Cathay in the settings of the 7th Sea and Earthdawn role playing games.
- Cathay is a region with Chinese inspirations in the Warhammer Fantasy setting.
- In White Wolf Game Studio's Kindred of the East a popular epithet for an Eastern vampire is "Cathayan".
