<p>How about &quot;淵體&quot; (yūan tǐ), or &quot;abyssal entity?&quot; they speak abyssal, don't they?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-12-17T19:45:16.873Z
In the original module, they had their own language but it's abyssal now, yeah. Good option.
lly
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-12-13T13:34:51.550Z
2022-12-13T13:34:51.550Z
Ian 
<p>imo, "yuan-ti" is a transliteration of chinese, using older scheme of romanisation. the characters represented are "軟體" (a pliable body), quite a good description of "snake-related-monster".</p>

<p>the "華英萬字典", printed in 1907, </p>

<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/32GeP.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/32GeP.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

<p>had the entry of "軟" (juan3, jwan)</p>

<p><a href="https://archive.org/stream/chineseenglishdi00pole#page/339/mode/1up" rel="noreferrer">https://archive.org/stream/chineseenglishdi00pole#page/339/mode/1up</a></p>

<p>and, 體 (ti3)</p>

<p><a href="https://archive.org/stream/chineseenglishdi00pole#page/386/mode/1up" rel="noreferrer">https://archive.org/stream/chineseenglishdi00pole#page/386/mode/1up</a></p>

<p>it's not far away from "juan" to "yuan" :)</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-09-07T10:52:48.210Z
That makes a lot of sense as a possible etymology. Very good!
Anonymous
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-12-17T18:25:38.007Z
It's one thing to say it's an option and an entirely different (and wrong) one to say those _are_ the intended characters, esp. relying on a nonstandard transcription of the wrong sound for a poetic meaning.
lly
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-09-05T20:16:43.930Z
2018-09-05T20:16:43.930Z
水巷孑蠻
<p>Although <strong>yuan-ti</strong> does indeed sound Chinese, I don't believe that it corresponds to actual Chinese words which mean <em>demon men</em> or <em>snake men</em>. Chinese versions of DnD (not really official) just translates <strong>yuan-ti</strong> to <strong>蛇人</strong> (shé rén), which literally means <em>snake people</em> and sounds nothing like <strong>yuan-ti</strong>.</p>

<p>See <a href="http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_621fc6790100elz9.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this Sina blog</a>.</p>

<p><a href="https://www.zhihu.com/question/60610922" rel="nofollow noreferrer">This Zhihu question</a> asks "Why is 蛇人 called yuan-ti in English?" for which the most popular answer says that "it's not a Chinese-made game", implying that it's non-Chinese gibberish.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-09-05T17:52:32.807Z
It could be derived from the idiom 敬鬼神而远之 "to respect Gods and demons from a distance", whose last two hanzi (yuǎnzhī) sound loosely similar to the monster's name, but I suspect I am grasping at straws. In all likelihood the name was chosen based on what sounded cool.
Anonymous
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-09-06T02:53:35.253Z
@Anonymous that's a good speculation! Unfortunately, we may never know the true answer, and it may not even by from Chinese at all; if I'm not mistaken, the creator has already passed away?
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-09-05T16:24:10.397Z
2018-09-05T16:55:32.367Z
2018-09-05T16:55:32.367Z
dROOOze
<p>When I first saw an image of yuan-ti, I first thought of FuXi and NuWa, who were gods that were the ancestors of humans/ created humans in their image in ancient Chinese mythology. Depending on the version, they had human upper body and a snake lower body or a human head and snake body. This fits right into two types of yuan-ti. Further more, in mandarin, Yuan ti can be 原体 which means original body.  Maybe you could have it as their cult’s intention that they were mixing with serpents to try and return to/emulate the image of their god? I think this would really fit pretty well with the lore.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-12-17T18:29:28.540Z
元体 also works for more or less the same meaning, based on the rough dictionary translation involved.
lly
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-05-24T03:53:39.843Z
2021-05-24T03:53:39.843Z
Shenyu Lin
<p>Actually even us call them yuan-ti 蛇人 since we don't have a proper meaning for yuan-ti</p>
<p>I would say 软体 makes sense to me tho, even if it's something else I believe is something about body(ti=体)</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-09-23T15:06:23.933Z
2021-09-23T17:23:16.203Z
2021-09-23T17:23:16.203Z
水野水
<p>In the tabletop game <em>Dungeons &amp; Dragons</em>, one of the monsters is a snake/man hybrid named "yuan-ti." The earliest appearance of this name is in <em>Dwellers of the Forbidden City</em> (1981), in which the name supposedly translates to "demon men." The name is gibberish that sounds vaguely of Chinese origin (and the monsters are sometimes depicted in clothing/arms/architecture with a Chinese-influenced aesthetic), perhaps a combination of the syllables <em><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yuan#Mandarin" rel="noreferrer">yuan</a></em> or <em><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/you#Mandarin" rel="noreferrer">you</a></em> <em><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/an#Mandarin" rel="noreferrer">an</a></em> plus <em><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ti#Mandarin" rel="noreferrer">ti</a></em> or <em><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/di#Mandarin" rel="noreferrer">di</a></em>.</p>

<p><strong>Is there any possible way that a Chinese phrase approximating that could translate into an appropriate name for said monster?</strong> I know virtually nothing about Chinese besides what little I read online.  I looked through Chinese dictionaries and the best I could come up with was 妖蜿者 <em>yāo wān zhě</em>, which is not a real phrase but approximates the apparent pronunciation and meaning of the monster's name... if filtered through game of telephone, I guess?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-12-17T19:09:59.700Z
水巷孑蠻 got a check for presenting a thing it could be claimed to mean but, fwiw, it's almost certainly not actually what was actually meant. It's _far_ more likely Zeb Cook was looking at charts like [this](https://www.jstor.org/stable/4524912) that include various 元帝s ("Primal Thearch/Emperor") transcribed as _Yuan Ti_. The only thing on the record, though, is him saying it was a [_Red Nails_ homage](http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/07/interview-david-zeb-cook-part-i.html).
lly
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-12-17T19:34:35.877Z
Like the space and _Pan Lung_ (蟠龍) imply, Mr Cook was using Legge or nonstandard Wade. "Playing fair", he was already breaking btwn characters. The available pinyin would be _yuan_ + _di_ / _ti_ (not _you_ + _an_ or _juan_). Personally, I like the callback to  Fuxi/Nüwa involved in taking it to mean 元/原体 (both _yuántǐ_ & both meaning "those with the original body"). It also makes for a nice contrast with the base English names, which go from the mostly human ironic "purebloods" to the mostly transformed "abominations". In their own language, they'd then be praising the transformed.
lly
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-12-17T19:43:15.640Z
W/r/t your original question, I think you misread the module. __It doesn't say _yuan ti_ means "demon-man"__ in its own tongue (endonym). It says "The chief and the shaman met with your party. In answer to your questions, they told of the yuan ti, or demon-men, and their hateful minions, the tasloi." It's _the nearby chief and shaman_ who are calling them demon-men in _their_ own language (exonym). You could choose to take it the other way, but in that case 淵體 (_yuāntǐ_, "abyssals") is far more badass than the currently checked answer.
lly
<translation><transliteration>
How to translate the fictional name "yuan-ti" into meaningful Chinese words?
# How to translate the fictional name "yuan-ti" into meaningful Chinese words?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-09-05)

In the tabletop game *Dungeons & Dragons*, one of the monsters is a snake/man hybrid named "yuan-ti." The earliest appearance of this name is in *Dwellers of the Forbidden City* (1981), in which the name supposedly translates to "demon men." The name is gibberish that sounds vaguely of Chinese origin (and the monsters are sometimes depicted in clothing/arms/architecture with a Chinese-influenced aesthetic), perhaps a combination of the syllables *[yuan](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yuan#Mandarin)* or *[you](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/you#Mandarin)* *[an](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/an#Mandarin)* plus *[ti](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ti#Mandarin)* or *[di](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/di#Mandarin)*.

**Is there any possible way that a Chinese phrase approximating that could translate into an appropriate name for said monster?** I know virtually nothing about Chinese besides what little I read online. I looked through Chinese dictionaries and the best I could come up with was 妖蜿者 *yāo wān zhě*, which is not a real phrase but approximates the apparent pronunciation and meaning of the monster's name... if filtered through game of telephone, I guess?

**Tags:** translation, transliteration

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: username_3 got a check for presenting a thing it could be claimed to mean but, fwiw, it's almost certainly not actually what was actually meant. It's _far_ more likely Zeb Cook was looking at charts like [this](https://www.jstor.org/stable/4524912) that include various 元帝s ("Primal Thearch/Emperor") transcribed as _Yuan Ti_. The only thing on the record, though, is him saying it was a [_Red Nails_ homage](http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/07/interview-david-zeb-cook-part-i.html).  
> **username_1**: Like the space and _Pan Lung_ (蟠龍) imply, Mr Cook was using Legge or nonstandard Wade. "Playing fair", he was already breaking btwn characters. The available pinyin would be _yuan_ + _di_ / _ti_ (not _you_ + _an_ or _juan_). Personally, I like the callback to  Fuxi/Nüwa involved in taking it to mean 元/原体 (both _yuántǐ_ & both meaning "those with the original body"). It also makes for a nice contrast with the base English names, which go from the mostly human ironic "purebloods" to the mostly transformed "abominations". In their own language, they'd then be praising the transformed.  
> **username_1**: W/r/t your original question, I think you misread the module. __It doesn't say _yuan ti_ means "demon-man"__ in its own tongue (endonym). It says "The chief and the shaman met with your party. In answer to your questions, they told of the yuan ti, or demon-men, and their hateful minions, the tasloi." It's _the nearby chief and shaman_ who are calling them demon-men in _their_ own language (exonym). You could choose to take it the other way, but in that case 淵體 (_yuāntǐ_, "abyssals") is far more badass than the currently checked answer.  

---

## 5 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2022-12-13. Score: 2 | Accepted answer

How about "淵體" (yūan tǐ), or "abyssal entity?" they speak abyssal, don't they?

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: In the original module, they had their own language but it's abyssal now, yeah. Good option.  

---

### Answer by username_3 on 2018-09-05. Score: 5

imo, "yuan-ti" is a transliteration of chinese, using older scheme of romanisation. the characters represented are "軟體" (a pliable body), quite a good description of "snake-related-monster".

the "華英萬字典", printed in 1907,

[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/32GeP.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/32GeP.png)

had the entry of "軟" (juan3, jwan)

<https://archive.org/stream/chineseenglishdi00pole#page/339/mode/1up>

and, 體 (ti3)

<https://archive.org/stream/chineseenglishdi00pole#page/386/mode/1up>

it's not far away from "juan" to "yuan" :)

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: That makes a lot of sense as a possible etymology. Very good!  
> **username_1**: It's one thing to say it's an option and an entirely different (and wrong) one to say those _are_ the intended characters, esp. relying on a nonstandard transcription of the wrong sound for a poetic meaning.  

---

### Answer by username_4 on 2018-09-05. Score: 3

Although **yuan-ti** does indeed sound Chinese, I don't believe that it corresponds to actual Chinese words which mean *demon men* or *snake men*. Chinese versions of DnD (not really official) just translates **yuan-ti** to **蛇人** (shé rén), which literally means *snake people* and sounds nothing like **yuan-ti**.

See [this Sina blog](http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_621fc6790100elz9.html).

[This Zhihu question](https://www.zhihu.com/question/60610922) asks "Why is 蛇人 called yuan-ti in English?" for which the most popular answer says that "it's not a Chinese-made game", implying that it's non-Chinese gibberish.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: It could be derived from the idiom 敬鬼神而远之 "to respect Gods and demons from a distance", whose last two hanzi (yuǎnzhī) sound loosely similar to the monster's name, but I suspect I am grasping at straws. In all likelihood the name was chosen based on what sounded cool.  
> **username_4**: @username_0 that's a good speculation! Unfortunately, we may never know the true answer, and it may not even by from Chinese at all; if I'm not mistaken, the creator has already passed away?  

---

### Answer by username_5 on 2021-05-24. Score: 1

When I first saw an image of yuan-ti, I first thought of FuXi and NuWa, who were gods that were the ancestors of humans/ created humans in their image in ancient Chinese mythology. Depending on the version, they had human upper body and a snake lower body or a human head and snake body. This fits right into two types of yuan-ti. Further more, in mandarin, Yuan ti can be 原体 which means original body. Maybe you could have it as their cult’s intention that they were mixing with serpents to try and return to/emulate the image of their god? I think this would really fit pretty well with the lore.

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: 元体 also works for more or less the same meaning, based on the rough dictionary translation involved.  

---

### Answer by username_6 on 2021-09-23. Score: 1

Actually even us call them yuan-ti 蛇人 since we don't have a proper meaning for yuan-ti

I would say 软体 makes sense to me tho, even if it's something else I believe is something about body(ti=体)


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