Makes sense I always felt like i was opening up the gates of hell every time i opened up the front door to a group of dressed up preaching Mormons. I agree with the other guy I mean why would they want multiple wives, isn't one punishment enough.
Looking Through the Gates of Hell
The claim that "Mormon" in Chinese means "gates of Hell" is false, ... 2 The number of Mandarin speakers overshadows the next most popular language, ...
For anyone who wants to really know the truth and not be mislead, come on there are already enough preconceived notions that as so false. Lets at least try to get it right and stop spreading false rumors.
I hate to take all your fun away......... OH well someone has to set you straight, why not a MORMON. Take care and GOD BLESS
The correct info is:-
"Mormon" in Chinese means "Highest Doorway" which quite correspond to LDS teachings of Celestial Glory.
The pronunciation in Chinese is similar to another Chinese word
which mean "devil door"
its unfortunate, but no matter what your name is , there is always someone to made fun of it.
Despite the pronunciation mix up........ Many Chinese do believe "The church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" is the true church. We have temples in Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
LDS is an world wide church, only the catholic is close to it.
Not true. First, the actual name of the Church is not even "Mormon" (popular though that nickname may be). Rather, it is "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."
In Mandarin (the majority, or "official" dialect in the People's Republic of China and in Taiwan), this is pronounced Yesu Jidu Moshi Shengtu Jiaohui. Literally, taking the characters two at a time (these are all two-character words), "Jesus Christ Last-days Saint Church."
Second, even looking at the nickname, "Mormon," Pronounced Momen Jiao, these three characters are very plain to understand. The first two characters, mo and men were simply chosen to represent the sounds of the English word "Mormon," and have no actual meaning other than to allow transliteration of this proper noun into Chinese. The last one, ciao (short for Jehu)iiimply means (in this context) "church," and is the suffix found at the end of nearly every Christian denomination, from Catholics (Tianzhu Jiao) to Presbyterians (Zhanglao Jiao), and even such faiths as Judaism (Youtai Jiao), Taoism (Dao Jiao) and Islam (Hui Jiao).
The individual characters themselves do have meanings, and it's not too difficult to see how the middle character, men, visually suggests a "door" or "gate," and indeed if it were standing as a word by itself that would in fact be its meaning. However, it is not standing alone, but is merely the second syllable of another word. Hence, it doesn't mean "gate" in this context any more than the English words "brotherhood" and "neighborhood" refer to varieties of head coverings, whatever the word "hood" may mean in other contexts. In fact, the character men is found in many other Chinese words, including "lightswitch" (dianmen).
A?(the way that Mormon is transliterated into Chinese) is no where near A (devil gate).
The character in "Mormon" means rub, not devil. Transliteration of course does not use the actual meaning of the characters, but the sounds.
There have been many misunderstandings because each sound in Chinese may have many different characters. People who do not know Chinese may think that it is one meaning, such as in this case, when in reality, it is a totally different character and meaning.
Even though in theory if they had used the suggested meaning, you can not take a literal meaning from transliterations. It gets really weird if you do - examples:
Pepsi becomes Hundred good thing Cola
Coke becomes Tasty cola
Pizza becomes Gesture Bodhisattva
Mike becomes barley/oats section
Canada becomes Add Take Big
Russia becomes Suddenly Country
and on and on. See how it is weird to take a literal meaning from some transliterations?
On a side note, if you are wanting to avoid future language mistakes, make sure you get your translations right. "Gates of hell" in Mandarin would be Diyumen (A), which sounds nothing like Mormon. Your question should have been posed as : . . . means "Devil's gate" in Mandarin Chinese?.
On a second side note to nitrocellulose, the name of the church in Chinese has been changed recently (approx 4 years ago) to Yesu Jidu Houqi Shentu Jiaohui. ??????????. The reason for the name change was that moshi ?? conjured up images of THE last days, as nothing is going to happen. Beijing did not like this as much, so to help keep relations smooth, they changed it to ?? houqi, which means more later time period, and it just sounds better.
Did you know "Mormon" means "gates of hell" in Mandarin Chinese ?
