Talk:Chinese civilization/Archive 12

message: I realise this is too late as regards the above discussion, but I decided to look at the internal links to this page to determine whether they would be better served by a page on the PRC or a page on Chinese civilisation. I only did the first 500 links because, well, it's a hell of a lot of work, and any non-article space links were ignored. If the context of the link was clearly modern day China I put it in the PRC category, if it was clearly ancient China or Chinese culture I put it in the civlisation category. I also put any links referring to the pre-49 Republic of China on the mainland under the Chinese civilisation category, while references to towns or provinces were generally put under the PRC category unless it was clear it was talking about historical China. Any links that were wrongly labelled, unclear or any page which had links to both the PRC and Chinese civilisation were put under the category "ambiguous". I also put any link which talked about "Communist China" under ambiguous, since it's not clear whether it means "the Communist PRC" or "China, which at the time was ruled by Communists". The results are as follows:
People's Republic	Civilisation	Ambiguous
233              	191         	51
If anyone wants I can provide which articles fell into which category.
What I think this shows is that though an article about the PRC is the most likely target of an internal link, it's not so clearly so that it would justify making the article just about the PRC. Having said that, there are so many links that would be expecting a page on the PRC that there really does need to be more mention of modern China on this page.
--Daduzi talk 15:34, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, that's why I propose directing "China" to the disambiguation page. About the same number of people refer to PRC or the Civilizational article when they search for the word "China". But the vote has ended with no consensus. I guess would have to wait another year or so before re-opening the case. :P Heilme 23:06, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And there're other meanings of "China" besides PRC or civilizational too. Heilme 23:34, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't think a disambig is the answer, simply because it's generally not a good idea to have links pointing to disambiguation pages, which would mean all the links to China would have to be changed manually. That's not a job I envy anyone doing. As to the other meanings, I'm sure there are but from what I saw looking through the links to this page they're not linked to directly (whether they're searched for is, of course, a different matter). --Daduzi talk 08:52, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Yeah, but somehow I think directing it to a civilizational article somewhat sidelines the importance of other concepts that pertain to "China". A disambig page may be less preferable but IMO, much fairer. Heilme 04:02, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Again, though, it's a Wikipedia guideline not to link to disambiguation pages, so somebody would have to go back and fix all the internal links, and make sure they stay fixed. I don't envy anyone that particular task.--Daduzi talk 12:44, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Internal links to China

message: I removed this from the article. I think since this is about civilizational (i.e. China in general), the military disputes section does not fit here. It should be moved to the PRC or the ROC article, so we can have military disputes specific to the PRC and military disputes specific to the ROC. Heilme 19:37, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Military Disputes

message: China should have a country infobox in common with other country pages on wiki. --RND 14:24, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well.. The current China article is about the Chinese culture, the countries that related to China are People's Republic of China and Republic of China where they both have their respective country infobox. --WinHunter (talk) 14:29, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

text: This is a country page, but many of the elements of the infobox—such as government type, leaders, total population and area would be very politically contentious in view of the PRC/ROC controversy if we placed an infobox on this page.—Nat Krause(Talk!) 21:34, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  missing infobox 

message: I'd like to ask those who might be interested in the subject of ethnic groups in China to weigh in on the current discussion in another article.  I proposed that we split the article to a listing of the minority groups and an article discussing ethnic minorities in China.  Hong Qi Gong 21:06, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ethnic groups in China 

message: Google "China continuous civilization" and you will see thousands of references from universities such as NYU, WSU etc.
Actually if you guys can name one respected institution of higher learning that says any country other than China has the oldest continuous civilization, then feel free to revert.
This is not an opinion, this is a fact.  China is the oldest continuous civilization. It will be taken as fact until new evidence disproves it.
:Google "oldest continuous civilisation" and you'll find references to India and Australia as well as China. I do hope that you've also read the eight pages of archived discussion, by the way. HenryFlower 14:38, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: LOL. The reason why historians say that China is the oldest civilization is because they have continuously used the same language since 1500 bc. This is not true of India.  It is historical fact that China has the oldest surviving language.  Therefore, this is why respected institutions like NYU state that CHina is the world's oldest surviving civilization. Harvard says this: "China is the world's oldest continuous civilization. Visitors are immersed in a sea of visual and cultural experiences unlike any other in the world. Having developed, for the most part, independent of foreign cultural domination, each geographic area teems with its own unique identity, and represents an energetic variation on the great theme of Chinese civilization. "24.7.34.99 14:54, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not every historian has the same opinion and they certainly do not agree on what constitutes a civilization. See the Civilization page for different opinions on the topic. -Freyr 14:57, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Same language? Er, really? Following the Spring and Autumn period the languages fragmented - it was only under Qin Shihuang that the languages were reunified again. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (Be eudaimonic!) 15:13, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To say that "they have continuously used the same language since 1500 bc" is like saying Latin and Italian are the same language. Actually linguists say that "the Chinese language" is a group of mutally unintelligable but related languages. LDHan 18:46, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Phonetically, perhaps. Writing, no. Another key difference is that it's only mutually intelligible at first glance - for example, usually people who know one Chinese dialect do not have to go to extraordinary lengths to "study" the other, because the vocabulary (except for colloquialisms) is roughly the same. Most things are directly translatable, idioms, poems (although it might not rhyme anymore) and such. Usually a dialect is "picked up", not studied, if one already studies the other. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (Be eudaimonic!) 12:08, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  (off-topic comment) It is wrong to say that Australia has a oldest/ancient continuous "civilisation" because the aboriginal culture was not a civilisation. no cities, no writing, etc. it is, however, (one of) the world's oldest surviving culture(s). --Sumple (Talk) 11:01, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Comment: I do not think it is actually because of the writing that it is called the 'oldest continuous civilization', rather because it had always been under the rule of Chinese (Including Han Chinese, along with Mongols and Manchus which were considered Chinese AFTER they have sinized). India, however, has been colonized by the British. Aranherunar 03:19, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  China is the world's longest known continuous civilization. 

message: The border between China and Vietnam and also the border between China and Myamar are completely wrong. According to that map half of Myanmar belongs to China.
And Arunachal Pradesh definitely isn't governed by China, therefore why is it included in a way that seems like it is? --84.239.157.217 01:41, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Compared to the CIA World Factbook it seems pretty accurate. Sasquatch  t|c 02:12, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inaccuracies in [[:Image:ChinaGeography.png]] 

message: I don't see why we should use the French article's disambiguation statement, and I don't see why it is the most NPOV.  --Ideogram 11:20, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disambiguation statement 

message: I think I need to explain what I'm trying to accomplish here.  Basically, I want to eliminate politics from this article.  All discussions of the controversy between the PRC and the ROC can go in those articles.  This article should only be about the people, history, culture, and geography of China, as explicitly stated in my version of the disambiguation text.  --Ideogram 11:27, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What I'm trying to accomplish 

message: I see there is some controversy over the flag icons.  Let's have a quick straw poll.
"Should we use the flag icons in this and other articles?"
Support:
--Ideogram 11:30, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see what the harm is.  I have used these flag icons on other articles and you are the first one to complain.  What if you are the only one opposed?  Would you still stubbornly insist on having your way?  --Ideogram 11:41, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not, but yes I would.   Which other articles have you used them on? HenryFlower 12:04, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Someone else used one on Portal:Taiwan so I used one on Portal:China and recently on Taiwan.  --Ideogram 12:29, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Let me second that.  We are all experienced editors here, let's settle this by discussion instead of reverting back and forth.  --Ideogram 12:29, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The dab page for China (disambiguation) and Georgia uses flag icons too for as long as I can remember. Why somebody complains all of a sudden? Heilme 18:40, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Interesting. There seem to be several disambiguation pages that use flag icons. But are there many that use them in dab lines at the top of other articles? I'm curious. --Sumple (Talk) 06:39, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Why are you edit-warring?  --Ideogram 18:41, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not my war. Heilme 18:43, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You are reverting changes without discussion.  I don't know what you are trying to say, but you are definitely edit-warring.  This is not productive.  --Ideogram 18:47, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Plus, that was the original state before this "war" began. Heilme 18:44, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't matter what the original state was, do you understand that Wikipedia policy is to discuss controversial changes?  --Ideogram 18:47, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flag icons 

message: We are discussing the topic split between China and People's Republic of China at Talk:People's Republic of China.  Please join in.  --Ideogram 21:56, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please discuss China/PRC split 

message: I don't think this article needs that many pictures.  Many of the pictures are of dubious relevance to the text.  One subsection has three pictures in it, way too much.  The geographical picture should go at the top instead of the Great Wall picture, since it pictures all of China.  --Ideogram 01:19, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Replaced pictures 

message: Giving ROC coequal placement with PRC is controversial.  In the discussion above people even argue that this article should be merged with PRC.  I don't think the PRC/ROC split deserves mention in the lead paragraph, since this article is not supposed to be about politics.  Please discuss.  --Ideogram 22:31, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not my problem, it's your problem.  You're the one arguing to change the status quo, and you don't solve a controversy by ignoring the other side.  --Ideogram 22:40, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

text: * I don't know what your problem is here, the only thing you seem capable of is distorting the comments made by others. You seem to want everyone to follow your proposals, and when others make their own proposals, you raise your arms and say "that's not my problem." Good luck then trying to get any support from the other editors with your attitude. You are the one who without prior discussion made vast edits and blanking to the PRC article, and mass moved content from the PRC article to the China article, and you think you are still abiding the "status quo"?  Reality check: status quo was for China to be a civilizational article (that's what was written on the original lead for the past two years). You have tried to alter the status quo so that China is now a bona fide country article, except that this China doesn't represent the PRC (you've tried to strip the PRC article of all its country aspect, and keep only the raw political state information).  So your problem has become my problem, by your first unilaterally changing the status quo.  Now you come here arguing that the ROC's coequal placement with the PRC in the lead is controversial.  No, it's not controversial so long as China remains a civilization article (Taiwan is most certainly a modern state belonging to the Chinese civilization).  It only becomes controversial when you see the China article as a country article (which is what you have been trying to alter into).  You've changed the status quo, not me. Because you changed it, I proposed a better solution above.  It's specifically neither "your problem" nor "my problem"; rather it's merely a proposal which I (and several others here) think is better.  Take it or leave it, don't bitch like it has no place in the discussion. That would be called arrogance, which you reek of in your comments. --Naus 17:50, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Keep your discussion civil, please, and refrain from personally attacks. -- Миборовский 19:47, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disambiguation text and first paragraph of lead 

message: The replaced text in this paragraph is vague, often meaningless, and contains weasel words like "mostly uninterrupted", "largely characterized".  "divisions and reunifications" and "alternating periods of peace and war" what else is there?  "multiple regions of East, Northeast, and Central Asia" well that just about covers everything, doesn't it?  We need to establish exactly what this paragraph is trying to say and rewrite it.  --Ideogram 22:38, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Second paragraph of lead 

message: In the "Region" section of the article, there was a list of common religions in mainland China. Mainland China went through the Cultural Revolution several decades ago. At that time, religion organizations were attacked, banned and abolished. Mao Zedong even asserted that "Religions are poisonous" (宗教是毒藥) when he met Dalai Lama many years ago. The Communist Party has also been notorous of oppressing religious freedom. I wonder if religion is really so common in mainland China that one can make a long list of the "common religions in mainland China."
* It's been 30 years since the end of Cultural Revolution and Mao (40 years if you count the start of CR).  30 years is a long time, a whole generation.  62 years ago, Germany was still run by Hitler; 15 years ago, Russia was still the Soviet Union.  They are the common religions in China, and they should be listed as such. If you want to challenge this, please provide some facts and sources, because the current content has sources backing it up. There is already a sentence in the Religion section that says "Due to the Cultural Revolution, 59% of the mainland Chinese from the People's Republic of China (PRC), or about 767 million people, identify themselves as non-religious or atheist."  What more do you want? I have removed your tags.  --128.135.96.172 17:38, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religion? 

message: The current article size, as of the time of my posting here, is 44KB.  The standard suggested size of an article is 32KB.  Can we shrink some of the sections that have individuals articles actually dedicated to the subject matter of the sections?  --- Hong Qi Gong 18:35, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: HongQiGong, It is big, but yet it is sketchy. What is China?  It is not easy to explain briefly.Hillgentleman 08:52, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well it seems that alot of stuff with their own articles end up here instead of there. Names of China comes to mind? Maybe this kind of stuff can be moved. --1698 06:29, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article size is too big. 

message: I made several proofreading changes to this article, but I found 4 problems I couldn't fix by myself.
1. "The Historical Records states..." The context requires Historical Records to be a specific book, but the link goes to History. Do we know the complete name of the book? Even if we don't, it isn't helpful to link to an article about history in general.
2. "After Wen Tans death..." Was Wen Tan a specific person? If so, then it should be "After Wen Tan's death..." with an apostrophe. But I can't find anyone named Wen Tan in Wikipedia or on the Internet, so I left it as is.
3. The link to "Constructive Engagement with Asian Values" is dead, and I couldn't find a replacement link.
4. The link to Asian Games 2006 is also dead. There are other links but I didn't see the statement about China included. Art LaPella 06:24, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *I did some copy editing with the section that mentions "Historical Records".  I believe "Historical Records" is a reference to Shi Ji.    --- Hong Qi Gong 14:28, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

text: *I don't know of a "Wen Tan" either, and Google didn't turn up anything.  Could it be a badly romanised version of one of Yuan Shikai's name, 慰亭 (Wei Ting)?  At any rate, I replaced "Wen Tans death" to "Yuan Shikai's death".  --- Hong Qi Gong 14:36, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

text: *I found the "Constructive Engagement with Asian Values" article at archive.org, and I've linked it up.  --- Hong Qi Gong 14:47, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Proofreading

message: 'Beijing' is an ancient name, different from 'Darfur' or Muscat' which have been stamped on world maps as a political action.   15:13, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  map-making changes (print) 

message: From the Zhongguo section of this article: The translation of Zhongguo into English as "Middle Kingdom" is probably one of the typical examples that exhibit the effect of "Lost in Translation".  While it is certainly true that Zhong (中) means "middle", Zhong (中) also means "center", which is where the ancient Chinese believed their country was positioned in the world.  So a more accurate English translation of Zhongguo should be something like "Central Nation".  "Middle Kingdom" is simply a very poor translation that fails to capture what the ancient Chinese believed their country was -- the center of the world.
* Zhongguo never meant "the center of the world."  That's fiction that Chinaphobes/China-bashers and teenage Han Chauvinists  alike (ironic) on the internet fantasize about. 
* Zhongguo as used traditionally simply meant: "the central region of the country."  Ancient Chinese capitals were mostly based in this region.  There is a Chinese tradition of calling the kingdom/state by the name or region of the capital, hence the term Zhongguo for China.
* Thus Middle Kingdom ("middle part of the kingdom") is a far better 2-word translation than Central Nation. 
* I have removed the above quoted paragraph because it is utter bullcrap. 
--Intsokzen 17:14, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The "centre part of the country" - the north china plain - is only one of the meanings of the word Zhongguo. There is more than one meaning to that word, so don't label something as bullcrap until you have looked it up in a big dictionary. --Sumple (Talk) 12:14, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It is bullcrap.  The "middle part of the country" is the original meaning of the word Zhongguo and also the literal meaning. Sure Zhongguo has many other meanings, but the text in the article specifically said "literal."  In Chinese, the poetic term 北国 (beiguo) means "North Country" (north part of the country), it doesn't literally mean "northern country of the world." --Naus 22:01, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Based on various creditable dictionaries published in both Mainland China and Taiwan, the original meaning of the word Zhongguo is "Center of the world", please see my Reason of "Central" #2 below.  --lafleur127  23:14, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Please don't confuse Mandarin Chinese with Classical Chinese.  Zhongguo comes from Classical Chinese.  Zhongguo as used classically refers to a specific region of China. This region does not necessarily mean central nor middle.  It's a proper noun.  However, the Chinese character for zhong (中) originally was a linear concept ("top and bottom are interchangeable"); for example in politics, zhong ("moderate") is considered neither zuo ("left") nor you ("right"). This is the Confucian concept of zhong, implying neutrality and moderation.  Thus "Middle" is a better and purposely more ambiguous translation than "Central" (too crude). --Naus 22:48, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please see my Reason of "Central" #2/#5 below. --lafleur127  05:14, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

text: The word "middle" can perfectly easily be used in a two-dimensional sense in English, e.g. "the middle of the room" or "the middle of the town". It's not that middle can't be used to refer to a two dimensional position, rather that central can't (or can only seldomly) be used to refer to a one dimensional position (so you couldn't change "The Middle Ages" to "The Central Ages" but you could change "Central London" to "the middle of London"). If a favouring of "Central Kingdom" over "Middle Kingdom" hinges on the difference between the English words then I have to say it seems highly tenuous to me.--Daduzi talk 05:41, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please note that the character “中” is adjective here. The word "middle, adj." should be used in an one-dimensional sense, and the word "central, adj." should be used in multi-dimensional sense. Please see my Reason of "Central" #3 below. --lafleur127  12:14, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "The Iron Man statue is in the middle of Victoria Square which is in the middle of Birmingham which is in the middle of the Midlands which is in the middle of England." Please explain to me how this sentence is invalid. --Daduzi talk 04:47, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Your sentence is valid, but the word "middle" in your sentence is a noun, not adjective. To see the difference, change "in the middle of" to "middle". For example "Midlands is in Middle England"?  --lafleur127  08:14, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You do know what the "mid" in "the Midlands" is short for, right? --Daduzi talk 16:02, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Maybe you can tell me why there's an "s" in "the Midlands"? Thank you. By the way, have you answered my question? Lafleur127 03:13, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Because it was historically a group of lands in the middle of the country, hence the Middle Lands. If you're implying that the s means that "the Midlands" is short for "the place in the middle of some other lands", well, come on. And what question are you referring to? --Daduzi talk 07:20, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

text: seriously, neither of you have said anything in response to him (her?). The fact is that 中国 has never actually refered to 天下. but as a nation, China is all under heaven. theres only been rare cases of "kingdoms" and never a "middle kingdom" ... well... not until a hundred years ago --1698 07:01, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: According to the teacher at a university Classical Chineses class, 中国 originally referred to one of the several Chinese states, it didn't mean the centre of the world. LDHan 11:41, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

text:  That's one of its (original) meanings. (and that's what Intsokzen was trying to say). Nonetheless, you can't just say that "the word originally meant this, and all other (subsequently developed meanings) are crap." These others meanings developed over time and are commonly used as well. Sure, it's good to find out what originally meant, but subsequently developed meanings are nonetheless legitimate meanings. --Sumple (Talk) 11:54, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well then when did China = 中国 = center of the world? there have been 2 republics of 中国, have either of them been (or declared to be) the center of the world? So this part of the article is no longer there, thats good. --1698 17:17, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

text:  Zhongguo has never meant "Center of the World" outside of fantasies and mistranslations.  "Center of the World" is not a legitimate meaning for Zhongguo.  Please provide some sources that specifically state Zhongguo meant "Center of the World." There are instead plenty of sources that say Zhongguo refers to a specific geographic location. I think lots of people confuse Tianxia with Zhongguo. --Naus 22:01, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Based on various creditable dictionaries published in both Mainland China and Taiwan, the original meaning of the word Zhongguo is "Center of the world", please see my Reason of "Central" #2 below.  --lafleur127  23:14, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This paragraph about "Middle Kingdom" is absolute fiction 

message: Quote from www.counterweights.ca editors  --lafleur127  04:05, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Among many other things, it is now said that China's ancient description of itself as the "Middle Kingdom" is in fact more aptly translated into English as the "Central Kingdom.""
STFU. You have no concept of this at all. 中国 has historically refered to Middle Kingdom, it means the middle section of the world/China/tianxia. There never was a Central Kingdom, cuz if it was central then it would be Empire. There is no "ancient discription" of China as 中国. When I am 圣上, I call my 江山 whatever I want and I've called it 汉唐宋明, but never 中. Only recently with the Nationalist and Communist has my 江山 been 中华民国 and now is 中华人民共和国. 中国 has been used as shorthand for these, but it still isnt "Central Kingdom". Its more like Period of the Two Middle Republics (The next dynasty will be part of the post-modern history and be Fourth Generation but thats besides the point). Did you not see something almost like what you are saying was just removed? --1698 06:02, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Please provide source for your claim. Also see Reason of "Central" #2/#5  --lafleur127  08:05, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  '''Reason of "Central" #4''' 

message: As I remember, Guo originally means a fortified city.   For those of you who do not know:  the square surrounding the characer guo denotes the wall.   Hillgentleman 08:28, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Isn't that 郭 (guo)? I think 国 can mean capital. --Sumple (Talk) 09:04, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Most uses I've seen would include more than the capital (city). Each of the 三国 were 国, where 国 would include all land under a single ruler. Thus, the best translation would be Kingdom. (While a 朝廷 would be Empire.) However, modern uses seem to have changed to State or Nation, as pretty much all foreign States are call something-国 espcially during 清朝末年 and in foreign controlled Shanghai and Hong Kong. Both meanings have survived to some extent today. This can be seen as an understanding that the world has increased in size, that there are Kingdoms/nations/states/peoples outside of the tradition 江山. --1698 22:29, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

text:  国 can mean capital city, state, or just a region. --Sumple (Talk) 23:10, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Guo can also mean "dynasty", which is often ignored.--Niohe 00:41, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Sumple, I must agree with you.  I checked my Commercial Press Dictionary, and it contains, as ancient meanings, "Capital" and "Territory" (equivalent to Fang ("square")), but not "Fortified City", for the word guo.    Hillgentleman 08:08, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The meaning of the word "Guo" is ''Fortified City''(?)

message: I wanted to humbly submit that the sentence below, currently present under Names>"China", is linguistically inaccurate:
:"Some also argue that "China" and the Latin prefix "Sin-" come from different origins; this can be attested by several European languages that spell China today as "Kina", pronounced with a hard k."
The reason that it is inaccurate is that there is in fact a spectrum of phonetic shift between s and k, with a sloppy area involving ʃ(sh) and χ(ch) that can be transitional between them. For example, modern European words based on Greek kīnein, "to move", can vary between /k/ or /s/ (for example, English kinetic and French/English cinema); another example is the fact that English church and German Kirche are cognate.
While it may be true that "some also argue that "China" and the Latin prefix "Sin-" come from different origins"; it would not be because of the s-ch-k difference itself that this would be hypothesized. It could be hypothesized for semantic, but not phonetic, reasons. The s-ch-k difference itself does not attest the hypothesis. I am going to remove this sentence. Lumbercutter 16:54, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I edited the paragraph. I now suspect that the entire sentence that first drew my attention was simply one person's invention—he didn't understand how /Chin-/Sin-/ and /Kin-/ could be related, so he decided that "some argue" that they are not. That was weasel word problem number 1. Then there was weasel word problem number 2, which was that someone else decided that because the probable Qin derivation of China isn't fair from a cultural perspective, it must be "still controversial" as an etymology. That's incorrect and weaselly. It wasn't fair that Columbus called central American people "Indians" because he thought he was in India, but that doesn't mean that that's not how the word developed etymologically. Lumbercutter 17:38, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is something that has attracted my attention for a very long time: Has anyone ever proved that the name "China" is really derived from "Qin"? I have read this in lots of places, true, but when I try to look for their sources and some kind of explanation, I cannot find anything reliable. Lots of books, even dictionaries, just parrot the idea that "China derives from the name of the Qin dynasty" as if it were some kind of common accepted knowledge. There is, however, a huge vacuum, both temporal and geographic, between the names 秦 and "China", which nobody, as far as I have seen, has been able to explain. I have always had the impression that this etymology is attractive because of the deceptive similarity between the name "China" and that of the "Ch'in" dynasty in Wade-Giles romanisation. But then, the ancient pronunciation of 秦 was very different from today's, let alone that nobody was romanising it as "Ch'in" or whatever. Can anyone indicate any serious study that explains how 秦 gave rise to "China"? It would really be interesting to know. Gelo 09:47, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: s-ʃ(sh)-χ(ch)-k spectrum in European languages