用十二种动物配十二地支的说法，在1975年湖北云梦睡虎地出土的秦代竹简《日书》里就已经出现，只是有些动物和今天不完全一样。东汉王充的《论衡》，是最早完整记下与今天一致的十二生肖的典籍，比如书中说「寅，木也，其禽虎也」。

Matching twelve animals to the twelve Earthly Branches already appears in the Rishu, a Qin dynasty text on bamboo slips excavated at Shuihudi in Yunmeng, Hubei, in 1975, although some of its animals differ from today. The Lunheng by Wang Chong of the Eastern Han is the earliest text to record a full set of zodiac animals matching the one we use today, for example linking the branch yin with the tiger.

十二生肖不只属于中国，越南、韩国、日本等地也有，只是个别动物不同：比如越南的生肖里没有兔，而是猫；日本的「亥」年对应的是野猪。至于「渡河比赛」决定排名，是后来民间流传的解释性故事，各地版本不一，并没有古籍记载。

The zodiac does not belong to China alone. Vietnam, Korea and Japan have it too, with a few differences: in Vietnam the cat takes the place of the rabbit, and in Japan the year of the pig is the year of the wild boar. As for the river crossing race that decided the order, it is a later folk explanation with many local versions, and it is not recorded in ancient texts.

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