Tetraphobia - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

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	四	死
Mandarin Chinese	sì	sǐ
Wu Chinese (Shanghainese Shanghainese Shanghainese , or the Shanghai language , is a dialect of Wu Chinese spoken in the city of Shanghai and the surrounding region. It is classified as part of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. Shanghainese, like other Wu dialects, is largely not mutually intelligible with other Chinese varieties... )	sy²	sy²,shi²
Cantonese	sei³	sei²
Min Nan Min Nan The Southern Min languages, or Min Nan , are a family of Chinese languages spoken in southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, Taiwan, and southern Zhejiang provinces of China, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora.... (Taiwanese Hokkien)	sì,sù	sí,sú
Japanese Japanese language is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...	shi	shi
Korean Korean language Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...	sa	sa
Vietnamese Vietnamese language Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...	tứ	tử

Tetraphobia is an aversion to or fear of the number . It is a superstition

Superstition

Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....

most common in East Asia

East Asia

East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...

n regions such as Mainland China

Mainland China

Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...

, Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, Korea

Korea

Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

and Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

.

The Chinese

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

word for four ' onMouseout='HidePop("34431")' href="/topics/Pinyin">pinyin

Pinyin

Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...

: sì, jyutping

Jyutping

Jyutping is a romanization system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme...

: sei³), sounds quite similar to the word for death ' onMouseout='HidePop("10374")' href="/topics/Pinyin">pinyin

Pinyin

: sǐ, jyutping

Jyutping

Jyutping is a romanization system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme...

: sei²), in many varieties of Chinese

Varieties of Chinese

Chinese comprises many regional language varieties sometimes grouped together as the Chinese dialects, the primary ones being Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese, and Min. These are not mutually intelligible, and even many of the regional varieties are themselves composed of a number of...

. Similarly, the Sino-Japanese, Sino-Korean, and Sino-Vietnamese words for four, shi (Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

– other four is Yon), sa (사, Korean

Korean language

Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...

) and tư (Vietnamese

Vietnamese language

Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...

), sound similar or identical to death in each language (see Korean numerals

Korean numerals

The Korean language has two regularly used sets of numerals, a native Korean system and Sino-Korean system.-Construction:For both native and Sino- Korean numerals, the teens are represented by a combination of tens and the ones places...

, Japanese numerals

Japanese numerals

The system of Japanese numerals is the system of number names used in the Japanese language. The Japanese numerals in writing are entirely based on the Chinese numerals and the grouping of large numbers follow the Chinese tradition of grouping by 10,000...

, Vietnamese numerals

Vietnamese numerals

In the Vietnamese language there are two sets of numeric systems, based on the Native Vietnamese and Sino-Vietnamese names of numbers.-Concept:Among the languages of the Sinosphere, Japanese and Korean both use two numeric systems—one native and one Chinese-based—and use the...

).

Special care may be taken to avoid occurrences or reminders of the number 4 during festive holidays, or when a family member is sick, especially in Chinese culture. Similarly, , , , etc. are also to be avoided due to the presence of the digit 4 in these numbers. In these countries, these floor numbers are often skipped in buildings, ranging from hotels to offices to apartments, as well as hospitals. Table number 4, 14, 24, 42, etc. are also often left out in wedding dinners or other social gatherings in these countries. In many residential complexes, building block 4, 14, 24 etc. are usually replaced with block 3A, 13A, and 23A.

In Cantonese

Cantonese

Cantonese is a dialect spoken primarily in south China.Cantonese may also refer to:* Yue Chinese, the Chinese language that includes Cantonese* Cantonese cuisine, the cuisine of Guangdong province...

-speaking regions in China, 14 and 24 are considered more unlucky than the individual 4, since 14 sounds like "die for sure" and 24 like "easy to die".

In Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

, some apartments such as Vision City

Vision City

Vision City is a residential high-rise development located in the Tsuen Wan district of the New Territories in Hong Kong. The complex consists of five towers, each of which ranks among the tallest buildings in the city. The tallest buildings in the complex are Vision City 2 and Vision City 3,...

and The Arch skipped all the floors from 40 to 49. Immediately above 39/F is 50/F, leading many who are not aware of tetraphobia to believe that some floors are missing.

The Chinese also show this by having their designations for military aircraft start with the number 5, as in the fighter plane "Shenyang J-5

Shenyang J-5

The Shenyang J-5 , originally designated Dongfeng-101 - , and also Type 56 before being designated J-5 in 1964, is a Chinese-built single-seat jet interceptor and fighter aircraft derived from the Soviet Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17. The J-5 was exported as the F-5...

". Similarly the Taiwanese

Republic of China Navy

The Republic of China Navy is the maritime branch of the Armed forces of the Republic of China . The ROC Navy's primary mission is to defend ROC territories and the sea lanes that surround Taiwan against a blockade, attack, or possible invasion by forces of the People's Republic of China...

and the South Korean

Republic of Korea Navy

The Republic of Korea Navy or the ROK Navy is the branch of the South Korean armed forces responsible for conducting naval operations and amphibious landing operations. The ROK Navy includes the Republic of Korea Marine Corps, which is a quasi-autonomous organization...

navies do not use the number 4 when assigning Pennant number

Pennant number

In the modern Royal Navy, and other navies of Europe and the Commonwealth, ships are identified by pennant numbers...

s to their ships.

In cities where East Asian and Western cultures blend, such as in Hong Kong

Hong Kong

and Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

, it is possible in some buildings that both and 14 are skipped as floor numbers along with all the other 4's.

In Korea

Korea

, tetraphobia is less extreme, but the floor number 4 is almost always skipped in hospitals and similar public buildings. In other buildings, the fourth floor is sometimes labeled "F" (Four) instead of "4" in elevators. Apartment numbers containing multiple occurrences of the number 4 (such as 404) are likely to be avoided to an extent that the value of the property is adversely affected. The national railroad, Korail

Korail

Korea Railroad Corporation , promoted as Korail , is the national railroad operator in South Korea.Korail operates passenger and freight trains throughout South Korea...

, left out the locomotive number 4444 when numbering a locomotive class from 4401 upwards.

In Japan

Japan

, many apartment houses and parking lots skip 4. Many hotels skip the 13th floor, similar to some western hotels. 9 is also skipped in some contexts, especially hospitals, due to the sound "ku" being associated with the word "kurushimu", to suffer. 49 is considered to be an especially unlucky number as it is evocative of the phrase .

Symbian

The software platform Symbian

Symbian

Symbian is a mobile operating system and computing platform designed for smartphones and currently maintained by Accenture. The Symbian platform is the successor to Symbian OS and Nokia Series 60; unlike Symbian OS, which needed an additional user interface system, Symbian includes a user...

, used by Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

telecommunications firm Nokia

Nokia

Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational communications corporation that is headquartered in Keilaniemi, Espoo, a city neighbouring Finland's capital Helsinki...

in their Series 60

S60 (software platform)

The S60 Platform is a software platform for mobile phones that runs on Symbian OS. It was created by Nokia, who made the platform open source and contributed it to the Symbian Foundation. S60 has been used by mobile device manufacturers including Siemens mobile, Lenovo, LG Electronics, Panasonic...

platform, avoids releases beginning with 4, as it did when it was EPOC and owned by Psion (there was no Psion Series 4, and there was no 4th edition of S60). This was done "as a polite gesture to Asian customers". However some of Nokia's non-Symbian products do contain the number 4, such as the Series 40 platform.

Symbian

See also