Astronauts, cosmonauts, and taikonauts.

I heard the word "taikonaut" being bandied around on CNN today and decided to find out what it was all about.

From Space Today Online :

"While men and women who fly in American spacecraft are known as astronauts, and those who fly in Russian spacecraft are cosmonauts, those who fly in Chinese spacecraft are known as yuhangyuans or sometimes taikonauts."

"The word yuhangyuan is Chinese for space navigator. It is the name used by official media when reporting on the nation's astronauts. The word taikonaut is derived from taikong, the Chinese word for space. The term is believed to have been used first by a Singapore website."

This is news to me.

Since when have these distinctions been made? There's no etymological basis for the distinction.

And is a Russian, if he should find himself in a Chinese spacecraft, also a taikonaut?

I prefer spaceman myself.

>>>There's no etymological basis for the distinction.

Aye but HL, you have to consider that each is reporting in their own language and we are tranlating it into English.

It's like our name "Pierre" is often translated as "Peter" or the male "Jean" is translated as "John" when translated by English folks.

well, when was "naut" first used? (as far as space travel is concerned) was it with astronauts?
I like the communion of using naut with different prefixes. it provides commonality with individuality.

The combining form -naut meaning 'nautical' predates space travel.

The Argonauts, for example, were those who sailed with Jason on the Argo in search of the Golden Fleece.

sorry, I guess I didn't ask my question very well. or think much about it before I asked.

did cosmonaut predate astronaut? what is the actual Russian term? do they use cosmonaut, or is there another word that cosmonaut is the translation of?

>when was "naut" first used? (as far as space travel is concerned) (emPHAsis added)

astronaut dates from the late 20s, and may have been coined by some writer of pulp SF; OED gives this as its first citation: 1929 Jrnl. Brit. Astr. Assoc. June 331 That first obstacle encountered by the would-be �Astronaut�, viz., terrestrial gravitation.

cosmonaut is englished Russian kosmonavt, ca. 1959

thanks, t. (and thanks for noticing)

I like taikonaut, for the reasons I expressed above, and the fact that I'm not sure how to say "yuhangyuan"... "you hang one"?

This is from Wikipedia, so all I can do is hope the source is reliable:

By convention, a space traveller employed by the Russian Aviation and Space Agency or its Soviet predecessor is called a cosmonaut. "Cosmonaut" is an anglicization of the Russian word космонавт (kosmonavt), which in turn derives from the Greek words kosmos, meaning "universe" and nautes, meaning "sailor".

In the USA, a space traveller is called an astronaut. The term derives of the Greek words �stron ("star") and nautes, ("sailor"). For the most part, "cosmonaut" and "astronaut" are synonyms in all languages, and the usage of choice is often dictated by political reasons. However in the United States, the term "astronaut" is typically applied to the individual as soon as training begins, while in Russia, an individual is not labelled a cosmonaut until successful space flight. On March 14, 1995 astronaut Norman Thagard became the first American to ride to space on-board a Russian launch vehicle, arguably becoming the first American cosmonaut in the process.

European (outside of the UK) space travellers are called spationauts (a hybrid word formed from the Latin spatium, "space", and Greek nautes, "sailor"). While Europe has not yet produced manned spaceships, it has sent men and women into space in cooperation with the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser extent, the United States of America.

Taikonaut is sometimes used in English for astronauts from China by Western news media. The term was coined in May 1998 by Chiew Lee Yih from Malaysia, who used it first in newsgroups. Almost simultaneously, Chen Lan coined it for use in the Western media based on the term t�ikōng (太空), Chinese for space. In Chinese itself, however, a single term yǔh�ng yu�n (宇航員, "universe navigator") has long been used for astronauts and cosmonauts. The closest term using taikong is a colloquialism t�ikōng r�n (太空人, "space human") which refers to people who has actually been in space. Official English text issued by the Chinese government uses astronaut.

Hmm--the Cyrillic and Chinese characters copied straight into my text window, but a preview indicates that they're going to post as gibberish. Sigh.

Years ago when I was in college I met twin ladies at college. I decided immediately to taikonaut for Chinese food.