<p>I have found an interesting answer to this question on the Internet.</p>
<p>It says：
YinYang is from 《易》， in 易，至阴为坤， 至阳为乾， 卦 is read from top to bottom （上卦下卦）。</p>
<p>So if we read yang-yin，that is 乾坤， ䷋ 否卦 (天地否) 。</p>
<p>否為閉塞不通，《彖傳》說「天地不交而萬物不通也」，《序卦傳》說「物不可以終通，故受之以否」。</p>
<p>But， read as yin-yang， it is ䷊ 泰卦 (地天泰)。</p>
<p>泰卦卦象為天地交泰，原本在地下的坤陰上行，天上的乾陽下降，天地之氣互相交合而通泰。反之，坤陰若停留在下，乾陽停留在上，則為陰陽窒塞，沒有交流而成否卦。</p>
<p>The original answer：
<a href="https://www.zhihu.com/question/31089807" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.zhihu.com/question/31089807</a></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-07-22T16:28:51.233Z
2021-07-22T16:28:51.233Z
sfy
<p>In my opinion, as a native speaker, this is about phonology, and has nothing to do with the word meanings - that is, 陰陽 is preferred than 陽陰 is only a result of the sounds yin1 and yang2, and the meanings of the characters 陰 and 陽 have no influence.</p>
<p>陰 is 阴平（一声） and 陽 阳平（二声）, and the 音韵 of 陰陽 is more natural to me than 陽陰 - I believe a general study of how 声调 affects character order in words is present.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-07-22T04:47:19.287Z
2021-07-22T10:23:00.920Z
2021-07-22T10:23:00.920Z
Limina102
<p>Good question!</p>
<p>I didn't see any authoritative source for this. However, I found some answers:</p>
<ol>
<li>People respect maternity because that female <code>“阴”</code> gives birth to lives.</li>
<li>At the very beginning of human evolution. People used to crawl on the ground rather than walking. And when you're crawling, you're facing the ground, back to the sunshine. So when you're standing up. You're facing the <code>“阴”</code>.</li>
<li>For all the lives, they all starting from the dark. For instance: a seed is under the ground before they sprout. A man is inside his/her mother's body before seeing any sunshine.</li>
</ol>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-22T03:06:59.227Z
Interesting hypotheses. I can see these ideas, if being true, predating, in primitive times, the whole philosophy about yang being the more dominant and positive force, which would've arisen later.
Vun-Hugh Vaw
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-22T05:46:05.313Z
Then the question arises, which came first, the Concept or the word? The reason I ask is that when those "crawling" early humans were "evolved" enough to have sophisticated written words, these ideas of predominant "darkness" were no longer of societal concerns, and since the male element was dominant in those early societies, surely the arrangement of these terms would reflect that? There is no linguistic reason why it could not be 陽 陰. In any case, following your hypothesis, "Death" is always the end result of existence, human or animal, then 陰, (Death), should come after 陽, (Life)
Wayne Cheah
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-22T05:59:44.837Z
"There is no linguistic reason why it could not be 陽陰." I'm not so sure about that. As you may have noticed, all my proposed hypotheses have been phonetics-based (thus, linguistic), and I think it's possible that in Old Chinese, 陽陰 could've violated some sort of phonotactics that forbid certain sounds to occur at close proximity, or certain tone pattern to occur altogether.
Vun-Hugh Vaw
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-22T06:11:58.720Z
Quote:- "...陽陰 could've violated some sort of phonotactics that forbid certain sounds to occur at close proximity, or certain tone pattern to occur altogether" Wow, that's a big can of worms. You'll have to look at all, or at least a meaningful amount of words to prove or disprove that, (a doctoral thesis is called for here) Also, you'll run into your "...unless you can find some convincing evidence on the thought process in those primitive times, which I suspect predate written language and historical records altogether"  Good Luck :)
Wayne Cheah
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-22T06:28:59.850Z
These seem like explanations that only make sense once you know what the right answer is. It seems it would be easy to come up with similar explanations for the reverse case (陽陰) too. Just looking at one word and trying to explain it like this doesn't really say much.
Olle Linge
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-22T06:29:11.920Z
@WayneCheah Unlike the thought process of the ancients which is of insurmountable difficulty, there's actually good evidence recorded on phonology of Middle Chinese actually, for example in *rime dictionaries*. Wiktionary.org has fairly good documentation on *reconstructions* of Middle and Old Chinese from various sources, based on rime dictionaries as well as *comparative studies* on lots of related languages (Sinitic, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese). Unfortunately I don't have access to a lot of these resources, so I'm kind of banking on others who may do, hopefully they can find a pattern.
Vun-Hugh Vaw
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-22T06:41:00.307Z
Unlike linguistics, philosophical discussions are a lot more complex than I can competently comprehend. After all, tons of ideas from the Analects are still up for debate among people who know more about Confucius than any average layperson.
Vun-Hugh Vaw
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-22T03:01:32.320Z
2021-06-22T03:01:32.320Z
AGamePlayer
<p>Underlying all language is a logic assessor of some kind, assessing the language we generate.</p>
<p>I find Chinese to be very logical.</p>
<p>阴 may come first because, whereas you may have 阴阳， dark light, 阳阴 light dark is illogical.</p>
<p>There is a story told of Albert Einstein, I don't know if it is true.</p>
<p>Apparently, A. E. once attended a philosophy lecture. The professor was talking about good and evil.</p>
<p>A. E. said, perhaps there is no evil, just greater and lesser degrees of good, analogous to heat and cold.</p>
<p>There is really no &quot;cold&quot;, just greater or lesser degrees of heat, until we approach 0 Kelvin, where weird quantum effects manifest themselves, mainly as a result of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, I read.</p>
<p>真的没有冷，只是热量或多或少。</p>
<p>没有“阴” 只有“阳量”或多或少。</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-22T03:33:52.747Z
What's so illogical about light-dark? Saying "dark-light is logical because light-dark illogical" is pure nonsense. It's like saying "it's big because it's not small".
Vun-Hugh Vaw
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-22T05:53:30.447Z
Quote:- "... 阳阴 light dark is illogical" Not really, because we have 光阴 which has to do with Time, a subject central to Albert Einstein's Relativity Theories. :)
Wayne Cheah
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-22T21:37:28.947Z
There is a fundamental difference between light and dark: light is something, dark is the absence of something.
Pedroski
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-23T09:39:45.040Z
Sure, light is the presence of photons, dark is the absence of photons. That doesn't make the phrase "light and dark" any illogical. Instead of throwing vague reasons to the wall and unhepfully waxing philosophical, I suggest you take a hard look at your own understanding of what "logical" means in the first place.
Vun-Hugh Vaw
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-23T12:43:32.560Z
Sorry, but where are you getting "and" from? Maybe a translation error??
Pedroski
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-22T03:25:03.900Z
2021-06-22T03:25:03.900Z
Pedroski
<p>In the yin-yang dynamic, yang is pretty much always the dominant force: it represents the sun (the &quot;great yang&quot;, 太陽), brightness, positivity (陽性), masculinity (the penis, 陽物), the living (陽間, 陽世), etc. Yin on the other hand, represents the moon (the &quot;great yin&quot;, 太陰), darkness, negativity (陰性), femininity (the vagina, 陰物), the dead (陰間, 陰府), etc.</p>
<p>So why does &quot;yin&quot; comes first in the compound &quot;yin-yang&quot;? If there's &quot;south-north&quot; (南北), in which case south is more yang and north is more yin, why isn't there &quot;yang-yin&quot;? Was there some <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonotactics" rel="nofollow noreferrer">phonotactic</a> restriction that prevented yang from coming first in Old Chinese (like say, certain sounds are forbidden to appear before certain sounds)? Or is it about some phonetic harmony that makes &quot;yin-yang&quot; sound better than &quot;yang-yin&quot;? I suspect that given the Middle Chinese reconstructions of both elements (something like /ʔim/ and /jaŋ/), it probably didn't sound great to have the /ŋ/ in &quot;yang&quot; in front of the vowel or semivowel in &quot;yin&quot;.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-21T06:25:14.997Z
Yes, we also have, 大小, 长短. 高矮, 胖瘦 where the superior in quantity comes first. Perhaps it just sounds "better"? Even in English you say, big & small, long & short, up & down. It just sounds awkward  or "unnatural" or less "smooth" if said in reverse whether in Chinese or English. Not sure about other languages. It could very well be a matter of linguistic habit or just plain primordial dominance of the masculine element, which of course goes against the "Yin Yang" thing where the "feminine element", (weak), comes first. Here again saying "Yang Yin" is pretty awkward. Interesting question.
Wayne Cheah
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-21T06:31:32.817Z
A quick search through digitally transcribed excavated texts (https://inscription.asdc.sinica.edu.tw/c_index.php) shows 陰陽 turning up hits, and 陽陰 turning up no hits.
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-21T06:35:41.637Z
BTW, in the Yin Yang Symbol, (the black & white Double Fish), the Yang, the white part is on the left which may or may not suggest "dominance" depending on how a certain culture considers the relative superiority or otherwise of "Left & Right"
Wayne Cheah
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-21T09:32:34.737Z
@WayneCheah Now that you mention "the feminine element", I remember 雌雄, in which the feminine part also comes first. I checked the Cantonese pronunciation, *ci1 hung4*, and there's a drop in pitch from tone 1 to tone 4. This drop also occurs in 陰陽 (*jam1 joeng4*), which is consistent with the split of the Middle Chinese Level tone into 2 different tones depending on whether the initial consonant was voiceless (including the glottal stop) VS voiced.
Vun-Hugh Vaw
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-21T09:33:12.533Z
I speak Vietnamese, which uses a different split (voiceless or voiced sonorant (/l/, /m/, /n/, /j/) VS voiced obstruent (/b/, /d/, /g/, /h/), which means the resulting *thư hùng* (雌雄 level to low) and *âm dương* (陰陽 level to level) sound nothing alike in terms of tone (even though the original Middle Chinese pattern is the same for both compounds, voiceless+level to voiced+level), so I never noticed the similarity. I guess there's something about that shift from voiceless+level to voiced+level in Old/Middle Chinese (tone 1 to tone 4 in Cantonese) that would have made words sound "better".
Vun-Hugh Vaw
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-21T12:43:00.547Z
@WayneCheah In the case of 阴阳, both characters are of 平声, but 阴 is at a lower sound register when compared with 阳, so phonetically the stress naturally falls at 阳. 阳 doesn't become "weak" because it isn't positioned at the first.
Wang Dingwei
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-21T13:52:51.133Z
@WangDingwei What do you mean "lower sound register"? You're using the simplified spelling so can I assume that you're talking about Mandarin? We're talking about an ancient word that's used throughout East Asia, and if you look into other languages (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%99%B0%E9%99%BD#Chinese), the pattern would be 陰 higher and 陽 lower, not the other way around that's typical of only Mandarin.
Vun-Hugh Vaw
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-21T22:44:40.713Z
There is also 牝牡 /pin4 mu3/, where the feminine comes before the masculine gender. I am not sure there is any logically or semantically related reason. Perhaps these things just "sound" better to the native ear? Also, why the assumption that male/dominance has to come first?
monalisa
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-22T00:08:35.220Z
It could be arranged according to philosophical reasons, such as the typical saying "光明之前必黑暗" - the darkness (陰)always proceed the daylight (陽), and in reverse "黑暗之後必是光明". Also, it could be influenced by "母系社會思維", as ancient Chinese treat "mother/female"(陰) as the start/begin of everything.
r13
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-22T01:15:18.440Z
@monalisa As Cheah noted, words for things that are larger, taller, more masculine tend to come first. Compare English "big and small", "high and low", "male and female", "man and wife"; and in Chinese, 父母, 夫婦, 兄弟姊妹. Whenever there's an exception, you can kind of hazard a causal hypothesis. "Lady" comes before "gentlemen" perhaps because it's shorter, and there's literally the phrase "lady first". In Old Japanese, imo ("sister/wife") comes before se ("brother/husband"), because the opposite (*seimo) would result in consecutive vowels and Old Japanese wasn't fond of those in general.
Vun-Hugh Vaw
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-22T01:23:47.720Z
@monalisa In the case of 陰陽, I can't think of any reason why, especially because the whole philosophy includes 陰 being gloomy and deathly, while 陽 being bright and lively. Oftentimes, whenever I hear 陰 invoked, it's in the context of death-related things. In fengshui there's also this thing about orienting your bed so it's your feet, not your head, pointing at the "yin" direction (north). So why would you want to put such a (quite literally) negative quality first, if there's no phonetic reason to do so?
Vun-Hugh Vaw
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-22T03:25:21.363Z
@monalisa "why the assumption that male/dominance has to come first?" Perhaps the usage of the word "assumption" is debatable as assumptions are inherently socio-culturall centric. By and large, human societies have been organized along patriarchal lines. The sons inherit, women take on the husband's surname, etc; in intimate settings, the male sleeps nearer to the door, (perhaps this happened during caveman days), etc. Only now that these "assumptions" are questioned because we are in the "Knowledge Age" where sheer brawn is unnecessary. Which is why 陰陽 appears "problematic" to OP.
Wayne Cheah
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-22T03:50:47.173Z
@WayneCheah "Which is why 陰陽 appears "problematic" to OP" While I agree with you that most prominent civilizations are patriarchal, or at least were made patriarchal by others, this is not why I find the word order of 陰陽 "problematic". I didn't even think of patriarchy as a possible cause when I write my question; as you can see, my proposed hypotheses are all phonetics-based, specifically, Middle Chinese phonetics. I'm not even surprised in the slightest bit to find compounds whose "feminine bit" comes first, there are quite a few of them in Vietnamese.
Vun-Hugh Vaw
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-22T03:56:05.843Z
@WayneCheah The difference here is that, I can brush off peculiar compounds that go against the expected patriarchal logic as quirks of languages, but 陰陽 isn't solely about gender or patriarchy. It's a very broad philosophy that encompasses almost everything. The moon isn't necessarily any more feminine that the sun. Death isn't exactly "feminine" compared to life.
Vun-Hugh Vaw
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-22T03:56:18.347Z
@WayneCheah My reasoning is broader and bigger than gender: dominance, positivity, vitality represented by yang are expected to triumph over inferiority, negativity, mortality represented by yin, and the word's order should reflect that. And yet it doesn't.
Vun-Hugh Vaw
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-22T05:28:00.323Z
Quote:- "... the word's order should reflect that. And yet it doesn't" Could it be that at the ancient times when these Cosmological Concepts, (as encapsulated by 陰陽) were formulated, the World view of the formulators were so much narrower and parochial as compared to us?
Wayne Cheah
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-22T05:51:37.733Z
@WayneCheah Yeah, that's totally a possibility, but it's much too conjectural unless you can find some convincing evidence on the thought process in those primitive times, which I suspect predate written language and historical records altogether.
Vun-Hugh Vaw
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-07-22T17:58:10.647Z
As well as 牝牡, mentioned by @monalisa, 雌雄 is another "female+male" word. I wonder if there's some common logic behind 牝牡, 雌雄 and 阴阳.
goPlayerJuggler
<etymology><word-order><phonology>
Why does "yin" (陰) comes first in "yin-yang" (陰陽)?
# Why does "yin" (陰) comes first in "yin-yang" (陰陽)?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-06-21)

In the yin-yang dynamic, yang is pretty much always the dominant force: it represents the sun (the "great yang", 太陽), brightness, positivity (陽性), masculinity (the penis, 陽物), the living (陽間, 陽世), etc. Yin on the other hand, represents the moon (the "great yin", 太陰), darkness, negativity (陰性), femininity (the vagina, 陰物), the dead (陰間, 陰府), etc.

So why does "yin" comes first in the compound "yin-yang"? If there's "south-north" (南北), in which case south is more yang and north is more yin, why isn't there "yang-yin"? Was there some [phonotactic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonotactics) restriction that prevented yang from coming first in Old Chinese (like say, certain sounds are forbidden to appear before certain sounds)? Or is it about some phonetic harmony that makes "yin-yang" sound better than "yang-yin"? I suspect that given the Middle Chinese reconstructions of both elements (something like /ʔim/ and /jaŋ/), it probably didn't sound great to have the /ŋ/ in "yang" in front of the vowel or semivowel in "yin".

**Tags:** etymology, word-order, phonology
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Yes, we also have, 大小, 长短. 高矮, 胖瘦 where the superior in quantity comes first. Perhaps it just sounds "better"? Even in English you say, big & small, long & short, up & down. It just sounds awkward  or "unnatural" or less "smooth" if said in reverse whether in Chinese or English. Not sure about other languages. It could very well be a matter of linguistic habit or just plain primordial dominance of the masculine element, which of course goes against the "Yin Yang" thing where the "feminine element", (weak), comes first. Here again saying "Yang Yin" is pretty awkward. Interesting question.  
> **username_2**: A quick search through digitally transcribed excavated texts (https://inscription.asdc.sinica.edu.tw/c_index.php) shows 陰陽 turning up hits, and 陽陰 turning up no hits.  
> **username_1**: BTW, in the Yin Yang Symbol, (the black & white Double Fish), the Yang, the white part is on the left which may or may not suggest "dominance" depending on how a certain culture considers the relative superiority or otherwise of "Left & Right"  
> **username_0**: @WayneCheah Now that you mention "the feminine element", I remember 雌雄, in which the feminine part also comes first. I checked the Cantonese pronunciation, *ci1 hung4*, and there's a drop in pitch from tone 1 to tone 4. This drop also occurs in 陰陽 (*jam1 joeng4*), which is consistent with the split of the Middle Chinese Level tone into 2 different tones depending on whether the initial consonant was voiceless (including the glottal stop) VS voiced.  
> **username_0**: I speak Vietnamese, which uses a different split (voiceless or voiced sonorant (/l/, /m/, /n/, /j/) VS voiced obstruent (/b/, /d/, /g/, /h/), which means the resulting *thư hùng* (雌雄 level to low) and *âm dương* (陰陽 level to level) sound nothing alike in terms of tone (even though the original Middle Chinese pattern is the same for both compounds, voiceless+level to voiced+level), so I never noticed the similarity. I guess there's something about that shift from voiceless+level to voiced+level in Old/Middle Chinese (tone 1 to tone 4 in Cantonese) that would have made words sound "better".  
> **username_3**: @WayneCheah In the case of 阴阳, both characters are of 平声, but 阴 is at a lower sound register when compared with 阳, so phonetically the stress naturally falls at 阳. 阳 doesn't become "weak" because it isn't positioned at the first.  
> **username_0**: @WangDingwei What do you mean "lower sound register"? You're using the simplified spelling so can I assume that you're talking about Mandarin? We're talking about an ancient word that's used throughout East Asia, and if you look into other languages (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%99%B0%E9%99%BD#Chinese), the pattern would be 陰 higher and 陽 lower, not the other way around that's typical of only Mandarin.  
> **username_4**: There is also 牝牡 /pin4 mu3/, where the feminine comes before the masculine gender. I am not sure there is any logically or semantically related reason. Perhaps these things just "sound" better to the native ear? Also, why the assumption that male/dominance has to come first?  
> **username_5**: It could be arranged according to philosophical reasons, such as the typical saying "光明之前必黑暗" - the darkness (陰)always proceed the daylight (陽), and in reverse "黑暗之後必是光明". Also, it could be influenced by "母系社會思維", as ancient Chinese treat "mother/female"(陰) as the start/begin of everything.  
> **username_0**: @monalisa As Cheah noted, words for things that are larger, taller, more masculine tend to come first. Compare English "big and small", "high and low", "male and female", "man and wife"; and in Chinese, 父母, 夫婦, 兄弟姊妹. Whenever there's an exception, you can kind of hazard a causal hypothesis. "Lady" comes before "gentlemen" perhaps because it's shorter, and there's literally the phrase "lady first". In Old Japanese, imo ("sister/wife") comes before se ("brother/husband"), because the opposite (*seimo) would result in consecutive vowels and Old Japanese wasn't fond of those in general.  
> **username_0**: @monalisa In the case of 陰陽, I can't think of any reason why, especially because the whole philosophy includes 陰 being gloomy and deathly, while 陽 being bright and lively. Oftentimes, whenever I hear 陰 invoked, it's in the context of death-related things. In fengshui there's also this thing about orienting your bed so it's your feet, not your head, pointing at the "yin" direction (north). So why would you want to put such a (quite literally) negative quality first, if there's no phonetic reason to do so?  
> **username_1**: @monalisa "why the assumption that male/dominance has to come first?" Perhaps the usage of the word "assumption" is debatable as assumptions are inherently socio-culturall centric. By and large, human societies have been organized along patriarchal lines. The sons inherit, women take on the husband's surname, etc; in intimate settings, the male sleeps nearer to the door, (perhaps this happened during caveman days), etc. Only now that these "assumptions" are questioned because we are in the "Knowledge Age" where sheer brawn is unnecessary. Which is why 陰陽 appears "problematic" to OP.  
> **username_0**: @WayneCheah "Which is why 陰陽 appears "problematic" to OP" While I agree with you that most prominent civilizations are patriarchal, or at least were made patriarchal by others, this is not why I find the word order of 陰陽 "problematic". I didn't even think of patriarchy as a possible cause when I write my question; as you can see, my proposed hypotheses are all phonetics-based, specifically, Middle Chinese phonetics. I'm not even surprised in the slightest bit to find compounds whose "feminine bit" comes first, there are quite a few of them in Vietnamese.  
> **username_0**: @WayneCheah The difference here is that, I can brush off peculiar compounds that go against the expected patriarchal logic as quirks of languages, but 陰陽 isn't solely about gender or patriarchy. It's a very broad philosophy that encompasses almost everything. The moon isn't necessarily any more feminine that the sun. Death isn't exactly "feminine" compared to life.  
> **username_0**: @WayneCheah My reasoning is broader and bigger than gender: dominance, positivity, vitality represented by yang are expected to triumph over inferiority, negativity, mortality represented by yin, and the word's order should reflect that. And yet it doesn't.  
> **username_1**: Quote:- "... the word's order should reflect that. And yet it doesn't" Could it be that at the ancient times when these Cosmological Concepts, (as encapsulated by 陰陽) were formulated, the World view of the formulators were so much narrower and parochial as compared to us?  
> **username_0**: @WayneCheah Yeah, that's totally a possibility, but it's much too conjectural unless you can find some convincing evidence on the thought process in those primitive times, which I suspect predate written language and historical records altogether.  
> **username_6**: As well as 牝牡, mentioned by @monalisa, 雌雄 is another "female+male" word. I wonder if there's some common logic behind 牝牡, 雌雄 and 阴阳.  

---

## 4 answers

### Answer by username_7 on 2021-07-22. Score: 2

I have found an interesting answer to this question on the Internet.

It says：
YinYang is from 《易》， in 易，至阴为坤， 至阳为乾， 卦 is read from top to bottom （上卦下卦）。

So if we read yang-yin，that is 乾坤， ䷋ 否卦 (天地否) 。

否為閉塞不通，《彖傳》說「天地不交而萬物不通也」，《序卦傳》說「物不可以終通，故受之以否」。

But， read as yin-yang， it is ䷊ 泰卦 (地天泰)。

泰卦卦象為天地交泰，原本在地下的坤陰上行，天上的乾陽下降，天地之氣互相交合而通泰。反之，坤陰若停留在下，乾陽停留在上，則為陰陽窒塞，沒有交流而成否卦。

The original answer：
<https://www.zhihu.com/question/31089807>


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### Answer by username_8 on 2021-07-22. Score: 0

In my opinion, as a native speaker, this is about phonology, and has nothing to do with the word meanings - that is, 陰陽 is preferred than 陽陰 is only a result of the sounds yin1 and yang2, and the meanings of the characters 陰 and 陽 have no influence.

陰 is 阴平（一声） and 陽 阳平（二声）, and the 音韵 of 陰陽 is more natural to me than 陽陰 - I believe a general study of how 声调 affects character order in words is present.


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### Answer by username_9 on 2021-06-22. Score: -1

Good question!

I didn't see any authoritative source for this. However, I found some answers:

1. People respect maternity because that female `“阴”` gives birth to lives.
2. At the very beginning of human evolution. People used to crawl on the ground rather than walking. And when you're crawling, you're facing the ground, back to the sunshine. So when you're standing up. You're facing the `“阴”`.
3. For all the lives, they all starting from the dark. For instance: a seed is under the ground before they sprout. A man is inside his/her mother's body before seeing any sunshine.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Interesting hypotheses. I can see these ideas, if being true, predating, in primitive times, the whole philosophy about yang being the more dominant and positive force, which would've arisen later.  
> **username_1**: Then the question arises, which came first, the Concept or the word? The reason I ask is that when those "crawling" early humans were "evolved" enough to have sophisticated written words, these ideas of predominant "darkness" were no longer of societal concerns, and since the male element was dominant in those early societies, surely the arrangement of these terms would reflect that? There is no linguistic reason why it could not be 陽 陰. In any case, following your hypothesis, "Death" is always the end result of existence, human or animal, then 陰, (Death), should come after 陽, (Life)  
> **username_0**: "There is no linguistic reason why it could not be 陽陰." I'm not so sure about that. As you may have noticed, all my proposed hypotheses have been phonetics-based (thus, linguistic), and I think it's possible that in Old Chinese, 陽陰 could've violated some sort of phonotactics that forbid certain sounds to occur at close proximity, or certain tone pattern to occur altogether.  
> **username_1**: Quote:- "...陽陰 could've violated some sort of phonotactics that forbid certain sounds to occur at close proximity, or certain tone pattern to occur altogether" Wow, that's a big can of worms. You'll have to look at all, or at least a meaningful amount of words to prove or disprove that, (a doctoral thesis is called for here) Also, you'll run into your "...unless you can find some convincing evidence on the thought process in those primitive times, which I suspect predate written language and historical records altogether"  Good Luck :)  
> **username_10**: These seem like explanations that only make sense once you know what the right answer is. It seems it would be easy to come up with similar explanations for the reverse case (陽陰) too. Just looking at one word and trying to explain it like this doesn't really say much.  
> **username_0**: @WayneCheah Unlike the thought process of the ancients which is of insurmountable difficulty, there's actually good evidence recorded on phonology of Middle Chinese actually, for example in *rime dictionaries*. Wiktionary.org has fairly good documentation on *reconstructions* of Middle and Old Chinese from various sources, based on rime dictionaries as well as *comparative studies* on lots of related languages (Sinitic, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese). Unfortunately I don't have access to a lot of these resources, so I'm kind of banking on others who may do, hopefully they can find a pattern.  
> **username_0**: Unlike linguistics, philosophical discussions are a lot more complex than I can competently comprehend. After all, tons of ideas from the Analects are still up for debate among people who know more about Confucius than any average layperson.  

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### Answer by username_11 on 2021-06-22. Score: -3

Underlying all language is a logic assessor of some kind, assessing the language we generate.

I find Chinese to be very logical.

阴 may come first because, whereas you may have 阴阳， dark light, 阳阴 light dark is illogical.

There is a story told of Albert Einstein, I don't know if it is true.

Apparently, A. E. once attended a philosophy lecture. The professor was talking about good and evil.

A. E. said, perhaps there is no evil, just greater and lesser degrees of good, analogous to heat and cold.

There is really no "cold", just greater or lesser degrees of heat, until we approach 0 Kelvin, where weird quantum effects manifest themselves, mainly as a result of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, I read.

真的没有冷，只是热量或多或少。

没有“阴” 只有“阳量”或多或少。

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: What's so illogical about light-dark? Saying "dark-light is logical because light-dark illogical" is pure nonsense. It's like saying "it's big because it's not small".  
> **username_1**: Quote:- "... 阳阴 light dark is illogical" Not really, because we have 光阴 which has to do with Time, a subject central to Albert Einstein's Relativity Theories. :)  
> **username_11**: There is a fundamental difference between light and dark: light is something, dark is the absence of something.  
> **username_0**: Sure, light is the presence of photons, dark is the absence of photons. That doesn't make the phrase "light and dark" any illogical. Instead of throwing vague reasons to the wall and unhepfully waxing philosophical, I suggest you take a hard look at your own understanding of what "logical" means in the first place.  
> **username_11**: Sorry, but where are you getting "and" from? Maybe a translation error??  

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