Question Difference between sect (宗) and gate (门)?

So I’ve seen novels use either one of these two characters, and sometimes in the same novel, with 宗门 referring to them all in general. What’s the difference here, exactly?

 

In terms organizational function, none.

 

Gate sound cooler

 

Could be wrong but I don't think there's really much difference in context. Like academy vs. school.

 

sect sounds more like a cult....

 

kind of hard to explain but

for the words outside of novels
宗 is usually used for large schools while 门 is used when referring to someone entering a school under a teacher
so 门 often refers to something like a school or classroom, and sometimes factions as well.

similarly, 宗 is also often used to refer to large organizations that teaches many different things like a university that has many majors/departments

in wuxia/xianxia tbh i dont see any difference and authors often like to butcher words up and separate their characters to create new "terms" and it's how many of the names of cultivation realms are created.

cults are called 教, and basically all unorthodox teachings/sects are also called 教.

 

In general, words in the English language generally have very specialized terms that will sound awkward when used outside of their standard definitions. This is so much so that you can use words that are both grammatically and technically correct but still sound very wrong because they don't generate the correct tone or the context doesn't quite fit. The Chinese language doesn't have this limitation in general so it's a lot easier to be loosey-goosey with words and terms. What this means is that a Chinese term that doesn't have a direct English equivalent can be very difficult to translate well.

门 literally means door and household, and it feels to me more like an extended family. When a woman marries into a family, she is said to enter the door (门) of their family estate and she is now part of their household. Likewise, a person who is part of a government or other large organization can have a patron helping him out. That person would also be considered part of that patron's "门".

There are other terms out there like 派, 会, and 帮. 派 is probably the most popular of these and you should see it everywhere

To be fair, that's also how fantasy terms work in for writers in every other language out there as well.

As an addendum, all regular religions also use this term. As examples, Buddhism is 佛教 and Catholicism is 天主教.

 

i would say this is partially correct. 门 means gate or door. it never means family/household unless you pair it with 家, making it 家门.

but note that both historically and today, even the words 家门 has never been used to refer to household or family and only the word 家 is used.

家门 however, was used in opera to refer to the household and today it is used to introduce yourself.

like i mentioned, 门 is however used to describe how you have entered someone's faction or gone under his tutelage and in wuxia, it's often used to portray smaller sects or groups of disciple/students who follow a teacher, which is also how the meaning of "household" can be inferred as there are many large families during ancient china but even then, the word 家 is still used instead of 门

 

Yes, it's another good example of just how flexible individual words can be in Chinese. The obvious example is 杨门女将.

 

tbh i would not say that using 门 to mean family/house/household is correct as mentioned in my above post. the example you gave is also not very good since the yang family generals are based upon a historic collection written by someone about his friend (yang ye and another), which then became many opera plays. the usage of "门" here in the title is also more or less due to the popular opera plays which was very popular.

but yes, it is something that character based languages can do and "create" new words/terms but if someone asked what the meaning of these words, i would never say that they are "correct"