Also known as hour of Rat, year of Rat, zǐ, shǐ, 鼠
1st sign of Chinese zodiac
Key facts
- Chinese
- 鼠
- Hanyu pinyin
- shǔ
- Wade giles
- shu
- Ipa
- [ʂu ̀ ]
- Romanization
- chhú
- Yale romanization
- syú
- Jyutping
- syu2
- Hokkien poj
- chhú
- Fuzhou buc
- chṳ̄
- Jian ou romanized
- chṳ̌
- Baxter sagart 2014
- * l̥aʔ
via Wikipedia infobox
~7 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Zodiac rat, showing the shǔ (鼠) character for rat/mouse Stone monument with a carving of a mouse, at Mount Hôrai-ji Buddhist Temple, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, showing the zǐ (子) character designating the first of the twelve Earthly Branches
The Rat or Mouse (鼠) is the first of the repeating 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac, constituting part of the Chinese calendar system (with similar systems in use elsewhere).
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Rat” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.