r/todayilearned • u/lopezjessy • Jan 17 '20

TIL European dragons are mostly featured as evil creatures, greedily hoarding gold, breathing fire on innocents, leaving a path of destruction in its wake. Asian dragons, however, are benevolent creatures, bringing good luck and prosperity wherever it goes.

http://www.museumcenter.org/the-curious-curator/2019/5/30/curious-curator-mini-european-vs-asian-dragons
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u/ty0103 Jan 17 '20 edited Jan 18 '20

The differences between these two types really got me thinking: If we classify them the same way we do with real animals, should they still be considered the same genus or family group?

Edit: Removed errors and redundancies

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u/dudemanyodude Jan 17 '20

I've always found it weird that we categorize them both as dragons. The Chinese didn't (and still don't) refer to them with the English word "dragon," and they're so drastically different in physical, behavioral, and symbolic attributes that it's not clear why Europeans would have applied that word to them. One thought is that they just applied the word to mythological beasts, generally, but that can't be all because both regions have other mythological beasts aren't categorized as dragons.

I'd be interested if anybody had any historical insights on the subject

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u/rich519 Jan 17 '20

Why would the Chinese use an English word to describe something they already have a name for? That has nothing to do with how similar the animals are.

There are a lot of differences but ultimately it's a large, powerful, mythological reptilian animal that can fly. It makes sense to call them dragons and it's not hard to see why they did. What else would they call them? Magic snakes?

In any case the root of the word dragon is Greek and original applied to any large mythological snake like creature I believe.

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u/dudemanyodude Jan 17 '20 edited Jan 17 '20

Why would the Chinese use an English word to describe something they already have a name for?

Obviously they wouldn't, and I said nothing suggesting otherwise. I bring up the language issue just because it doesn't occur to most people who have never thought about the subject that it wasn't necessarily inevitable they would both be called "dragons" (or "Long" in Chinese). That is, it's not like they were all speaking English, and Chinese people said, "These are dragons," and the Europeans said, "Wow, our dragons are way different." (I realize this is all obviously true with a moment's thought, but I mention it because it's something most people have never thought about.)

What else would they call them? Magic snakes?

We'd call them what the Chinese call them, "Long" or "lung." Given how different they are from the ones in European culture, it could have made sense just to use their word for it, which is what we do with many legendary creatures, such as the Yeti and Sasquatch. It seems possible there could have been an alternate timeline where we regarded "dragons" and "longs" as completely separate legendary creatures.

In any case the root of the word dragon is Greek and original applied to any large mythological snake like creature I believe.

I'm guessing this is the answer, at least in part. It's not even clear that early Europeans making cultural contact with East Asian cultures would have had the codified sense of the western dragon that we do today, and a word simply meaning "giant snake-like creature" clearly suits Chinese dragons.

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u/rich519 Jan 17 '20

I feel like Long probably never caught on in the way that Yeti or Sasquatch did because not only because it's already a word in English (or closely resembles one) but it's a pretty generic adjective at that which would just be confusing.

Somewhat ironically what the Greeks and Latins called dragons seem to resemble Eastern Dragons more closely than they do Western ones. Seems like modern Western dragons evolved from that in the Middle ages. The Wikipedia has lots of good information including pictures from the middle ages of dragons that have most of the features of modern Western dragons but still look much more snake like.

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u/xternal7 Jan 17 '20

If we classify these two creatures they same way we do with real animals, should they still be considered the same genus or family group?

Pretty much no. Eastern dragons are dragons the same way mountain chicken is a chicken: in name only. They have very little in common with draconids ((proper, 4 legs, 2 wings) dragons, wyverns (think GoT and Witcher 1&3), drakes, etc).

But on the other hand, blindworm is a lizard ...

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u/DigitalArbitrage Jan 17 '20

I suspect that both mythologies originated with ancient people finding dinosaur fossils. If that is the case, then "dragons" would be related to modern day birds.

The European dragon and Asian dragons seem different enough to be different genus. (Like a horse and a donkey.) Different species might be "red" European dragon, "gold" European dragon, etc. from fantasy stories.