Talk:Tsunami/Archive 1

message: The origin of the term tsunami is from fisherman who came back from fishing and found everything devestated  in the port though they didn't see or noticed the wave in the open water.
My English is not sufficent so could someone else add this info
I am a Japanese(so that I can't write English well), and I am sure we Japaene have the word of Tsunami.
Tsunami is actually discribed by two Kanjis(Chinese Characters) like Tsu-Nami.
Tsu means as everybody says, small port or quay where boat can land.
Nami means wave.
Usually Japanese does not know why TSUNAMI comes from PORT-WAVE. Even to me, I don't know.
(For instance, can you answer why you say "knock on woods", when you hope a good luck? Maybe no one can. It might be same thing.)
     
But my guess is as follows. Tsunami comes from big wave which strikes a port with village. "With Village" is an importatnt point. I mean, originally s TSU meant small port or quay in front of village, but long time after, TSU could become to mean a village name which is with port. That's because I can find several city with "TSU" on its name.
So that I would say TSUNAMI means BIG WAVE hitting coastal TOWN.     
Of course Tsunami strikes everywhere on coastal line, but if no one was there, then no one can see it hitting coastal line and breaks some stuff. So I guess usually you see a lot of people there at village and when you got Tsunami, then possibly someone among them can see it hitting and breaking the village. That's my best guess from Japanese knowledge.
We Japanese believes that usually Tsunami is caused by a  bigearthquake. Arigato.(Massy,SC Japanese redneck)
:It would be interesting to know (for me, anyway) if the word tsunami predates the adoption of Chinese characters -- the reading "tsunami" is the kunyomi, so surely it is possible that the kanji used, while related to the meaning of the world, do not actually give us any indication of its roots.  Perhaps people 1500 years ago were marvelling at the power of he strong waves "tsuyoi nami", which gradually became contracted to tsunami.  I realize that's a very unlikely theory, but I wonder if someone (more knowledgeable about old Japanese) knows if the kanji can be entirely trusted to indicate the root of tsunami? -- Oarih 03:51, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, I wasn't seriously suggesting that "tsuyoi nami" was the root of tsunami.  What I meant to say was that if the word tsunami is very old, and was created before the introduction of kanji to Japan (as the kunyomi reading might indicate), then it might be incorrect to deduce its "meaning" by looking at the meanings of the individual kanji.  -- Oarih 05:43, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin of wave in port

message: If the distance between LA and Tokyo is just under 9000km, and tsunamis travel at 700km/h, it would take just under 13 hours - not 18 as stated - for a tsunami generated off the US west coast to reach Japan... or am I missing something here? --Centauri 11:54, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Speed?

message: When a tsunami is approaching shore, the beach waters retreat, yes? What is this called, and where would an article on it be found? Shouldn't it be mentioned here? --Golbez 18:23, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)
:: It's mentioned in the "characteristics" section of the article.  It happens when the trough of the wave reaches shore before the crest.  I wonder if this could explain the story of the Red Sea parting to let Moses cross it, and then collapsing again over his pursuers.  Could there have been an undersea earthquake?  I don't remember that story real well. Phr 01:57, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  No, the Red Sea parting is a different phenomenon.  For one, if it was a tidal wave, there wouldn't've been enough time for even one person to cross.  The origin of that parting appears to have been caused by wind.  I can't remember the details now, but in essence, what happens is that along a certain stretch of water, from time to time, a strong wind coming from the north will push the water into a "wall" along the southside, revealing the seabed.  Napoleon is said to have taken advantage of this phenomenon as well.
reply to Golbez:  I can't find a specific name for this phenomenon, although it has been frequently described.  Just before the tsunami hit Lisbon in 1755 (see 1755 Lisbon earthquake), the harbor waters retreated, revealing lost cargo and forgotten shipwrecks.  Perhaps this description should be added to the tsunami page as well?  --Sandover Dec 27, 2004
The water does not always retreat! In some cases it might, but this does not always happen. A tsunami is just a repetition of BIG waves, which go up and down, but which one comes first depends on the situation. --Anthony Liekens 16:50, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Retreat of water 

message: Any video available?
The video in the past few days was made widely available through Wikipedia links posted on the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake website.  This footage has profoundly changed our popular understanding of what a tsunami looks like.  See my posting about 'phenomenology' below.  -- Sandover 19:35, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Video 

message: "A tsunami (from Japanese 津波 meaning wave in port or "harbour wave") is one or a series of ocean surface waves that can occur after a large earthquake"  I think there is a problem with that statement. Tsunami occurs along the whole cross section of the ocean from the ocean bed to the surface unlike the wind propelled waves? Am i missing something here?
A tsunami definitely involves the entire cross section. BTW, I figured out the scaling behaviour of phase speed, particle speed, amplitude and wave length for a tsunami wave approaching the coast. See the German WP. -- Frau Holle 01:20, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  tsunami waves are shallow water gravity waves 

message: There is no real description of a tsunami (phenomenological explanation) in a human readable level on this page... The reader is immediately dumped into the physics of a tsunami -- which is a section that is dubious anyways -- before even being explained in normal english what a tsunami is all about. I think that an easier to read explanation of what a tsunami is, from where it begins, how it propagates, to how it ends should be added to the page. Maybe we can also provide an explanation along the lines of an example, e.g. move your legs around in your bath and see waves moving around. Update: looks better now than before --Anthony Liekens 15:18, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Phenomenology - A new section to be developed 

message: In the "characteristics" section of the tsunami article, it states: "Tsunamis propagate outward from their source, so coasts in the "shadow" of affected land masses are fairly safe."  Yet both Kerala (in India) and the Colombo-Galle train line (in Sri Lanka) were heavily affected by the tsunami, and both are on the "shadow sides" of their respective land masses.
1. Does this mean that the statement about "shadow" areas is untrue?
2. What is the mechanism by which a tsunami would affect the shadow side of a land mass?
:1. "Fairly safe" means just that... fairly safe, not 100% safe all the time.
:2. Waves can diffract around a land mass. To see this, first click on Kerala to see where it's located, then click on the complete animation of the tsunami waves to see how the waves swept around and hit Kerala.  Warning, it's about 1 MB, so it might be a bit slow to load if you're using dial-up. -- Curps 09:30, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tsunamis and the shadow side of land masses 

message: It's being claimed that the current Indian ocean tsunami is the most destructive in history.  It seems like this is true, but I was wondering if anyone can confirm the existence of a 1703 tsunami that hit Awa, Japan and also caused over 100,000 dead?  There are a couple references to this in Google, see e.g.  but it doesn't seem to be mentioned at all on WP and on some other sources.  Terry 20:42, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Why not just use the term 'modern history' - that would sort of solve the problem of not knowing much about the really old trsunamis. Egil 23:25, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Most destructive tsunami in history? 

message: Why were the links and refs taken out should they be put back?
:Sometimes people vandalize articles, or inadvertently delete material due to editing problems or carelessness.  The links and refs are back (you can find old versions in the "history" link). -- Curps 23:16, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where did the links and refs go??? 

message: :That'd depend on where it hits and how big it is. -- Cyrius|✎ 17:22, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is the economic effect of a Tsunami? 

message: I will admit that I don't know much about tsunami, but given the definition: "it simply has a much smaller amplitude (wave heights) offshore, and a very long wavelength (often hundreds of kilometers long)", is Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa really a tsunami?  It seems more like "the sort of cresting waves that are formed by wind action upon the ocean (with which people are more familiar)".  Maybe this is just hair-splitting, but it seems to me that there is the danger of confusing tsunami with any kind of "big wave" if we have this picture on the tsunami article page. CES 17:17, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't worry about it for now. I'm trying to get permission to use some much more impressive pictures of the tsunami hitting Thailand - I'll let you know how it turns out. -- ChrisO 16:21, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: Keep in mind that it's a famous 180 year old piece of art, not a modern technical diagram. I think it serves well as an introductory image. -- Cyrius|✎ 18:42, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: Once there is a better lead image for this article, this Hokusai woodcut could be placed down in the history section. It will still be a red herring for anyone who wants accurate information about these waves.  If Hokusai were painting a tsunami, he did not have an accurate concept of it as a shelf of water and a higher sea level coming in.  In fact,  his woodcut illustrates a common misconsception about tsunami, that there is 'air' behind the wave which softens the impact of the wave.  I believe this was probably the last misconception many people had who were overtaken by it. It would almost certainly have tricked me. Sandover 19:52, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Why keep the print at all?  It's a print mostly about Mt. Fuji, definitely not tsunamis.  Well, not that I'm a Hokusai expert or anything, but I have seen a similar view of Mt. Fuji over the waves from Kamakura, Kanagawa. -- Oarih 20:45, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: Hopefully someone will come up with a better picture.  I think part of the problem is the somewhat ambiguous translation of the woodblock's title ... Hokusai calls it an okinami (沖波), not a tsunami (津波).  I did not want it to seem like I was splitting hairs, my point was just that it seems like the picture for the tsunami article should be of ... a tsunami! =) CES 00:45, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a wonderful picture, but I really don't think it belongs here.   Illustrating Tsunami with something which is not a tsunami, but which matches popular misconceptions of one, is rather unhelpful. Mark1 05:16, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: Yes, it doesn't help that it's translated as "great wave" when okinami just means a wave that crests offshore.  In any case, the illustration is a part of Hokusai's 36 views of Mt. Fuji -- if he had wanted to make a print about a tsunami, then I'm sure the tsunami would have been the subject of the print and it would not have merely appeared as an aside (labelled as an offshore wave) in his Mt. Fuji series.  IMO, the sooner the image is replaced with something else the better.  -- Oarih 05:44, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: For the moment I've moved the Male pic up (it didn't seem to have any particular relevance to the section it was in anyway).   The Swedish mother  picture would be good, but I'm too paranoid about copyright to put it in. Mark1 06:15, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: Hokusai's print was simply an overdramatization of a offshore wave (=Okinami) and nothing more. He had made a surrealistic print just to show that waves are much larger at Kanagawa than in the sheltered Edo (or Tokyo) harbor where he lived. Many artists does this kind of things too, see Napoleon I of France riding on a horse. In reality, he would not be pointing while the horse is acting up. Revth 02:25, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: I have added a picture from sv:Wikipedia of the 2004 tsunami striking Thailand to commons, if you are interrested. Link: :image:2004-tsunami.jpg  Salleman 18:14, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Great Wave off Kanagawa 

message: From yesterday's Observer newspaper (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1386027,00.html):
:Try looking up tsunami in the online edition of Britannica (www.britannica.com) and then in Wikipedia. While you're at it, note the extensive entry the latter has for the recent disaster and compare it with the video provided by Britannica of the tsunami that devastated Hawaii - in 1946. 
Good work, everybody! -- ChrisO 16:21, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article commended by media 

message: Hello all, I'm very impressed with this article... but I have to ask: why is there only one reference to a SMH article about a specific event? This article must have had more information gathered from elsewhere. - Ta bu shi da yu 00:14, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  References! 

message: Lived in Japan for ten years and "tsunamis" is not a word and irritating to boot.  Tsunami are like sheep.  I have 10 sheep and there were 10 tsunami. Revmachine21 05:21, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Please see rules for use of foreign words in English  http://www.editfast.com/english/grammar/spelling/spelling_2.htm Revmachine21 05:25, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  The link instructs to "check a dictionary." I checked your link and a dictionary. Sorry, it's "tsunamis" (pl.) in English. Zosodada 06:15, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: I don't make the rules for proper English grammar, I just expect that they be followed.  Again, refer to the rules of English's foreign word usage.  Revmachine21 05:30, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: Sushi is an uncountable noun, so has no plural: you eat a little sushi, not a few sushis.  Mark1 07:40, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: Japanese does not have a distinction between countable and uncountable nouns.  English does.  Sushi, in English, is an uncountable noun.   And the plural of tsunami is tsunamis.  Mark1 08:31, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: Uh, it's tycoon that's borrowed from Japanese.  As for typhoon, it seems to have mixed Greek and Chinese etymology.  A fine dilemma... which language's rules would be used to form its plural? -- Curps 09:06, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: English's! Mark1 09:14, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: That's interesting about typhoon.  Since typhoon is tai-fuu in Japanese, I just assumed that the etymology was Japanese.  Tai-fuu still seems closer than the Chinese tai-feng or the Greek Typhon, but I'm no expert on the subject.  I agree about sushi - my point wasn't that it should be written sushis, but that it's an example of a Japanese noun which is not considered to be a countable noun, as you say, in English. -- Oarih 09:27, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: By the way, I just looked it up on and tycoon is a pretty irregular example of an English word that came from Japanese; "大君" is not commonly used in Japan, and was borrowed from the Chinese primarily to fool foreigners into thinking that the Shogun was the head of state .  (I think it's time to edit the tycoon article...) -- Oarih 10:06, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Um, for all you out their thinking pluralized Tsunami is 'tsunamis' according to Wikipedia, plural Japanese loan words DO NOT carry an 's'.  Seems pretty silly if we don't follow wiki's own information in this matter.  See reference:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_plural Revmachine21 09:49, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Revmachine, your earlier citation to support your argument instructed to cite a dictionary. We have. This citation from Wikipedia notes "...kimonos, following the French model, is now generally accepted in English." Acceptance is dependent on historic precedent. "Samurai" is accepted as plural due to innumerable previous useages of such, i.e. Kurosawa's film "Seven Samurai" -- "tsunami" (pl.) has no precedent. Please cite several commercial or academic articles that have implemented the use this form to support your argument and I may concede on this. I find none.Zosodada 16:06, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: Hmmm...I'm not sure anyone claimed that Wikipedia itself prescribed any course of action. However, the first two sentences of the section to which you refer state "Because English includes words from so many ancestral languages, as well as many loanwords from Classical Greek and Latin and other modern languages, there are many other forms of plurals. Such nouns often retain their original plurals, at least for some time after they are introduced" (emphasis mine). In this case it appears quite clear that tsunami has not retained its original plural. — Knowledge Seeker দ (talk) 10:00, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: It's best to be consistent within an article. -- Cyrius|✎ 23:48, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: I don't think "tsunamis" is more popular only here... I believe its's more widely used by oceanographers and English-language news media (including English-language media in Japan and Japanese oceanographers writing in English), and I cited some sources to this effect. -- Curps 01:36, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plural of tsunami is tsunami?  

message: The tsunami article has got a lot of vandals. Just to let you know. Trying to get rid of them.
--Relaxation 17:45, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism. 

message: See this edit: .  This anonymous editor wrote some interesting material, expressed in language more readily understood by laypersons, but I reverted because a lot of material was also summarily deleted without explanation.  Can someone knowledgeable look into this and perhaps merge the anonymous editor's paragraphs into the article? -- Curps 10:50, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changes by anonymous editor 

message: If this is not a tsunami depiction, should we have this Hokusai image in the article at all?   
I support its inclusion, with the caption, because it's a very well-known image which can actually help debunk a popular misconception about tsunami.  There's a public service element to Wikipedia, and I think more people are likely to read (and remember) the caption and its warning than are likely to understand and heed the implications the long scientific explanation to the left.  Sandover 21:36, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Hokusai vote

message: Is  an external link, or is it a reference? Seems like a reference. - 203.35.154.254 06:56, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reference query. 

message: I was here to fix the Korean interwiki link, but finding a good equivalent for Tsunami in Korean language is somewhat ambiguous. We have term "Hae-il"(해일; 海溢), which incorporates high waves caused by tropical cyclones as well as Tsunami. Is there a term in English for waves caused by hurricanes, typhhons, etc.? --Puzzlet Chung 00:48, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Storm surges. -- Arwel 00:55, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  What's called waves caused by [[tropical cyclone]]s?