Talk:Sexagenary cycle

message: "Open the table 'Sexagenary Cycle' (the preceding section), look for 44 in the first column (No) and obtain Fire Goat (丁未; dīng-wèi)."
There appears to be no such table. (unsigned)
::Fixed. -- GreenC 14:39, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Broken non-link

message: At least a Start class.
Want to help write or improve articles about Time? Join WikiProject Time or visit the Time Portal for a list of articles that need improving. -- Yamara 19:18, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Time/Assessment|WikiProject Time assessment rating]] comment 

message: This article should be merged with Chinese astrology. ChongDae
It is fine existing as a separate article, as it is specific to it's title. Though the sexagesimal cycle is used in Chinese astrology, it is but one part. The Sexagesimal cycle is used for calendrical dates, but not necesarily always for Chinese astrology. I do not favour a merger. Dylanwhs 23:18, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You have a good point. All traditional East Asian calendars that have used the sexagenary cycle have been lunisolar, and I don't think that the Gregorian calendar now used in East Asian countries has the sexagenary cycle applied to its years (it could, erroneously). The Tibetan calendar also uses the sexagenary cycle and is also lunisolar. My concern is with the use of at least the twelve animals in Turkey. Although I do not know that much about the old Turkish calendar, I don't think it was ever lunisolar. — Joe Kress 02:24, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've taken the liberty of adding it as a "see also". -- Jmabel | Talk 04:44, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

text: That info was transferred here due to merging the equivalent Japanese article with this article. The basic Chinese romanizations (ganzhi, tiangan, dizhi) are in the first paragraph, but better organization is needed. — Joe Kress 07:50, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion

message: How do you pronounce "sexagenary?" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.166.69.56 (talk • contribs) 22 August 2006.
: I hope you don't mind if I don't trouble myself to work out the IPA, and I could be wrong here, but I pronounce it sex-uh-GEN-uh-ree. That's a U.S. pronunciation; I suspect a Brit might pretty nearly omit the fourth syllable. Does someone want to work out the IPA and add it to the article? - Jmabel | Talk 00:55, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Pronunciation

message: The overview is vague to the point of being misleading.  It's only an overview for the Japanese system, not the system as a whole, but it never mentions that.  Someone who didn't recognize the Japanese transliteration of the Hanzi would likely think that the whole calendar was adopted in the 7th century, which is wrong, wrong, wrong. Elijahmeeks 15:26, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, and the Japanese pronunciation of the terms dominate the body of the article. Highly awkward. --Do Not Talk About Feitclub (contributions) 03:19, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Bad Overview

message: Don't 甲子 and 庚子 have the same Japanese pronunciation? While they can use the kun readings won't it still get confusing? Ohwell32 21:40, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing Japanese 

message: The Japanese cycle is called the "kanototori" cycle.98.242.74.75 (talk) 05:29, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: "kanototori" cycle

message: In the “Relation to the western calendar” section of Sexagenary cycle, the text reads “The actual year commence is based on Chinese Solar calendar, always February 4 of every year.” and a source is cited. However, in that very source, it is stated that the new year is usually on the 4th or 5th of February, and gives comprehensive tables year by year of the exact date and time at which the new year begins. These are mostly on the 4th, but some are on the 5th. This same exact problem (even down to citing the same source and not following what it says) occurs on Chinese zodiac, whereas Chinese astrology and Chinese New Year show the years based on the Chinese Lunar Calendar, with the date of the new year changing by several days or even weeks each year.Qaanol (talk) 00:25, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly. I did not notice your contribution at first but as you said the dates change each year, in the range of 11 days in particular. This way, the inclusion of the calculation of intercalary days is not present. The Chinese calendar is lunisolar, not solar. I shall probably revert the dates back to their original format in a while if I managed to prove myself correct. Mohamed 10:05, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: A more involved discussion is at Talk:Chinese astrology#Proposed changes to table, including a request for comment. — Joe Kress (talk) 08:43, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source info NOT reflected in article 

message: I have rewritten the introductory paragraph, and the overview section, and have responded to two-year-old request for verifiable citations. I have covered the bare necessities of the Chinese situation up to the Han period. It would be good if someone would contribute the following additional sections: Sexagenary cycle in Japan, ... in Korea, ... in Tibet, in other places, perhaps also in contemporary folk traditions. 
The mass of tables at the end of the article badly needs clearing up - I'll do it myself if their creators do not object. The table of "Ten Heavenly Stems" and "Twelve Earthly Branches" should go, as those topics have separate articles (with similar tables) of their own. The "Sexagenary Cycle" table should probably stay as is. The remarks following it need to be cleaned up or deleted, however. The endless tables correlating the sexagenary cycle with the international calendar should also go, to be replaced with two sentences describing the relationship. The "24 Cardinal Directions" image should go (or go somewhere else) since it is not connected with the sexagenary cycle. 
All references to the on-line astrology web-page should go, as it is simply not a reliable source.
The final table for months and the accompanying comments make very little sense. Unless a better source can be found for it, it should go.--TheNothingNihilates (talk) 03:05, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Improvements to article 

message: The formula section is unsourced, and the formula's don't work, mathematically, that I can tell, per above. I've added an expert tag, an unsourced tag, and restored the tables back to 1804. If there are working formula's please do update that section so we can easily figure out using the formula method, but you'll need to do a better job explaining how they work and with clear examples that actually work as described. Until then please don't delete the tables.Green Cardamom (talk) 01:05, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I've done some rewriting on the part of calculation. There are indeed working formulas for both BC and AD years; now it is just up to providing it with more good sources. NoNews! 05:00, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Formula's vs tables

message: I deleted this sentence from the history.
"According to Chinese historical records, the calendar was invented by the Yellow Emperor in the year 2637 BC, the 61st year of his reign"
It cited Aslaksen's paper as basis. But what Aslaksen actually writes is "Some claim that the calendar was invented by the Yellow Emperor,Huángdì (黄帝)), in 2637 BCE in the 61st year of his reign….Modern scholars consider the Yellow Emperor to be a mythological figure. So this whole discussion of ancient dates [what is year 1] is just a curiosity."
But in any case, it is not relevant to the history of the cycle 
since the cycle was not used for dating years until the Han Dynasty. It was at first related to the location in the zodiac of the planet Jupiter during the year (Smith's paper), and so it is clear that the dates of the Yellow Emperor's rule were based on the year cycle, not visa-versa.
But when illustrating repetition, in lieu of a better date, I used his reign (not the start of the calendar) and added an explanation. Stone-turner (talk) 02:19, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yellow Emperor 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The sexagenary calendar cycle isn't just "a cycle of sixty terms used for reckoning time in China and the East Asian cultural sphere." It's also used in the traditional Tamil calendar and possibly other traditional South Asian calendars that are similar. Can someone please verify exactly which traditional South Asian calendars use this cycle and update the first sentence? Otherwise the beginning feels like it's only favouring the East Asian traditions and insulting other traditions.
— Jclu: talk-contribs 10:02, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not just Chinese/East Asian 

message: In the section "Overview" the first sentence ends with "the twelve Earthly Branches representing the years of Jupiter's duodecennial orbital cycle". From a historical point of view, this must be a much later "representation", as the Sexagenary cycle was first used for the recording of days (as a kind of "week" of 60 days, running without any kind of interruption through both lunar months and seasonal years) in the late Shang era about 1250 B.C.E. Only about 1000 years later (in the Qin and early Han eras, as earliest about 250 B.C.E.) do we find any evidence for use of the Sexagenary cycle for recording of years. As Jupiter's sidereal orbital cycle is (a bit less than) 12 years, it seems, at least to me, to be probable that the Chinese at this time correlated "the twelve Earthly Branches" with Jupiter's "residing" in different parts of the Chinese "zodiac" (possibly from contact with astronomers from India, whose "Indian 60-year cycle", however, really follows Jupiter's "true" orbital period and therefore often only has 59 years), but this cannot be the original source for the cycle of "the twelve Earthly Branches", which existed more than 1000 years earlier. Does anyone have any information about the "true", historical source of this Chinese cycle of "the twelve Earthly Branches"? And if so, could that information (of course from a scientific, cited source) be incorporated into this Wikipedia page? /Erik Ljungstrand (Sweden)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.241.158.201 (talk) 07:30, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin of Earthly Branches 

message: It would be very useful if this page also included some more text about the very ancient counting of days by means of the Sexagenary cycle. After all, this "60-day-week" is, as far as we know, the oldest use of the Sexagenary cycle, possibly more than 1000 years older than the counting of years which the page tells us a lot about. Above all, the page should give its readers some "fixed point" for calculating this Sexagenary counting of days, as e.g. the information that yesterday, Monday 2 April 2018 C.E., i.e. 17th day of the 2nd Chinese month, year "wù-xū" ("戊戌"), was the first day of this Sexagenary day-count, i.e. a "jiǎ-zǐ" ("甲子") day - which, to the best of my knowledge, is true. /Erik Ljungstrand (Sweden)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.241.158.201 (talk) 13:35, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sexagenary cycle for days 

message: Since the ToC is auto-generated I don't see how this could have happened, but the ToC lists a subsection called Algorithm for mental calculation, and nothing happens when you click it. I can't find that text in the page either. Equinox ◑ 12:19, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: That section was added and immediately hidden without removing the bracketed "===" that made its title a heading. I removed "===". The section is still there, and still hidden (click on [show]), but without a section title. — Joe Kress (talk) 17:33, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error in table of contents?! 

message: Adding on to the discussion above, the current look-up table for the sexagenary days is quite confusing and I could not find any explanation on how to use it. Considering that it looks different from its counterpart on the Chinese page, I think that we should check its correctness. I am especially critical of the fact that both days and months are on the same side of the table, both are referring to columns, so you cannot find any intersection of them, as is done in the Chinese version.
If I have understood the Chinese table correctly, in order to find the stem-branch for a given date, e.g. 25 January 2020, one first needs to check whether or not one needs to use the red numbers. Since both century (20, left side) and year (20, left side) are marked in red, we do need to use the red numbers. Then check the intersection of day (25, top) and month (red 01, left side), and arrive at 乙. Then look for the rows marked by the century (20, left side) and the year (20, right side). In the row for the year (20, right side) search for 乙. In this column, move up (or down, accordingly) until you reach the row marked by the century (20, left side). In the intersection you will find 丁, so the stem for 25 January 2020 is 丁.
For the branch, do the same in the bottom half of the table, that is: Find the intersection of day (25) and month (red 01), arrive at 未. In the row marked by the year (20, right side), find the cell with 未, then move up in that column until you reach the row marked by the century (20, left side) and in the intersection find 卯, so the branch is 卯 and therefore the stem-branch for 25 January 2020 is 丁卯, which can easily be verified through Sinocal.
However, I could not figure out how to use the tables provided on the English page. If we do not provide any information on how to use it, I think we should remove it from the article.
Ph. Immel (talk) 14:48, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Look-up table for sexagenary days 

message: :
How can that be accurate?  Is the BC year number considered to be negative?  That could be made more explicit. —Tamfang (talk) 06:36, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  BC conversion