30 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
30 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
Determine the Chinese zodiac sign and related associations for a given year.
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In the Chinese calendar, years are identified using two lists of labels, one of length 10 – the "celestial" (or "heavenly") "stems" – and one of length 12 – the "terrestrial" (or "earthly") "branches". The labels do not really have any meaning outside their positions in the two lists; they're simply a traditional enumeration device, used much as Westerners use letters and numbers. They were historically used for months and days as well as years, and the stems are still sometimes used for school grades.
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Years cycle through both lists concurrently, so that both stem and branch advance each year; if we used Roman letters for the stems and numbers for the branches, consecutive years would be labeled A1, B2, C3, etc. Since the two lists are different lengths, they cycle back to their beginning at different points: after J10 we get A11, and then after B12 we get C1. However, since both lists are of even length, only like-parity pairs occur (A1, A3, A5, but not A2, A4, A6), so only half of the 120 possible pairs are included in the sequence. The result is a repeating 60-year pattern within which each name pair occurs only once.
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Mapping the branches to twelve traditional animal deities results in the well-known "Chinese zodiac", assigning each year to a given animal. For example, Wednesday, January 29, 2025 CE (in the common Gregorian calendar) begins the lunisolar Year of the Snake.
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The stems do not have a one-to-one mapping like that of the branches to animals; however, the five <i>pairs</i> of consecutive stems are each associated with one of the traditional <i>wǔxíng</i> elements (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water). Further, one of the two years within each element is assigned to <i>yin</i>, the other to <i>yang</i>.
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Thus, the Chinese year beginning in 2025 CE is also the yin year of Wood. Since 12 is an even number, the association between animals and yin/yang aspect doesn't change; consecutive Years of the Snake will cycle through the five elements, but will always be yin.
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;Task: Create a subroutine or program that will return or output the animal, yin/yang association, and element for the lunisolar year that begins in a given CE year.
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You may optionally provide more information in the form of the year's numerical position within the 60-year cycle and/or its actual Chinese stem-branch name (in Han characters or Pinyin transliteration).
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;Requisite information:
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* The animal cycle runs in this order: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig.
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* The element cycle runs in this order: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water.
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* Each element gets two consecutive years; a yang followed by a yin.
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* The first year (Wood Rat, yang) of the current 60-year cycle began in 1984 CE.
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The lunisolar year beginning in 2025 CE - which, as already noted, is the year of the Wood Snake (yin) - is the 42nd of the current cycle.
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;Information for optional task:
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* The ten celestial stems are '''甲''' ''jiă'', '''乙''' ''yĭ'', '''丙''' ''bĭng'', '''丁''' ''dīng'', '''戊''' ''wù'', '''己''' ''jĭ'', '''庚''' ''gēng'', '''辛''' ''xīn'', '''壬''' ''rén'', and '''癸''' ''gŭi''. With the ASCII version of Pinyin tones, the names are written "jia3", "yi3", "bing3", "ding1", "wu4", "ji3", "geng1", "xin1", "ren2", and "gui3".
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* The twelve terrestrial branches are '''子''' ''zĭ'', '''丑''' ''chŏu'', '''寅''' ''yín'', '''卯''' ''măo'', '''辰''' ''chén'', '''巳''' ''sì'', '''午''' ''wŭ'', '''未''' ''wèi'', '''申''' ''shēn'', '''酉''' ''yŏu'', '''戌''' ''xū'', '''亥''' ''hài''. In ASCII Pinyin, those are "zi3", "chou3", "yin2", "mao3", "chen2", "si4", "wu3", "wei4", "shen1", "you3", "xu1", and "hai4".
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Therefore 1984 was '''甲子''' (''jiă-zĭ'', or jia3-zi3), while 2025 is '''乙巳''' (''yĭ-sì'' or yi3-si4).
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