The creature referred to in Chinese as lóng and in Mongol as lū appears on the Chinese twelve-year zodiac as the year of the dragon. When the eastern zodiac tradition was brought to Iran by the Mongol conquest in the 1200s, this zodiac animal’s name was translated into Persian as nahang. Nahang was used to describe to dangerous water beasts whether they be real (crocodiles, hippos, sharks) or mythological (dragons, sea serpents, etc.)
In the 1900s the word “nahang” shifted meaning to specifically refer to cetaceans (whales, porpoises, dolphins). And that is how the Chinese year of the dragon is the Persian year of the whale!
