Langgan
| Langgan | |||
|---|---|---|---|
  Seal script for langgan 琅玕 | |||
| Chinese name | |||
| Chinese | 琅玕 | ||
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| Korean name | |||
| Hangul | 랑간 | ||
| Hanja | 琅玕 | ||
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| Japanese name | |||
| Kanji | 琅玕 | ||
| Hiragana | ろうかん | ||
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Langgan 琅玕 is the ancient Chinese name of a gemstone which remains an enigma in the history of mineralogy; it has been identified, variously, as blue-green malachite, blue coral, white coral, whitish chalcedony, red spinel, and red jade. It is also the name of a mythological langgan tree of immortality found in the western paradise of Kunlun Mountain, and the name of the classic waidan alchemical elixir of immortality langgan huadan 琅玕華丹 "Elixir Efflorescence of Langgan".
Word[]
The Chinese characters 琅 and 玕 used to write the gemstone name lánggān are classified as radical-phonetic characters that combine the semantically significant "jade radical" 玉 or 王 (commonly used to write names of jades or gemstones) and phonetic elements hinting at pronunciation. Láng 琅 combines the "jade radical" with liáng 良 "good; fine" (interpreted to denote "fine jade") and gān 玕 combines it with the phonetic gān 干 "stem; trunk". The Chinese word yù 玉 is usually translated as "jade" but in some contexts translates as "fine ornamental stone; gemstone; precious stone", and can refer to a variety of rocks that carve and polish well, including jadeite, nephrite, agalmatolite, bowenite, and serpentine.[1]
Modern written Chinese láng 琅 and gān 玕 have variant Chinese characters. Láng 琅 is occasionally transcribed as láng 瑯 (with láng 郞 "gentleman") or lán 瓓 (lán 闌 "railing"); and gān 玕 is rarely written as gān 玵 (with a gān 甘 "sweet" phonetic). Guwen "ancient script" variants were láng