Why does "yin" (陰) comes first in "yin-yang" (陰陽)?

Question

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 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".

Answer 1

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

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

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.

Answer 4

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。