Talk:Laozi/Archive 2

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was no consensus. —Nightstallion (?) 10:41, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

Laozi → Lao Tzu — Per wikipedia:naming conventions (common names):
Google:
* 1,620,000 English pages for "Lao Tzu" -wikipedia
* 137,000 English pages for Laozi -wikipedia
Google Book Search:
* 19600 pages on "Lao Tzu" -wikipedia
* 8780 pages on "Laozi" -wikipedia — Francis Schonken 13:55, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Survey

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

• Support (nominator) --Francis Schonken 13:55, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose, "Laozi" is more common in modern sinological literature. Kusma (討論) 15:11, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose for the reason above and the reasons that Wikipedia uses Beijing rather than Peking. Google hits are not necessarily a good determiner of encyclopedic usage. (Compare "fart" and flatulence.") AjaxSmack 16:30, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
• Support, Lao Tzu is more common in regular books. 132.205.93.89
• Oppose Wikipedia uses Hanyu pinyin. Consistency is important. Lao Wai 19:25, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose for all the reasons that I gave the last time this was suggested (and rejected). Googling is not a good indicator; published texts are better, and I gave a breakdown of a large number of academic and popular books showing that "Laozi" is by far the most common Romanisation. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:34, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
• Support - In ENGLISH, this is still the most common spelling. elvenscout742 22:34, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
• Support I am not convinced, especially outside narrowly scholarly usage, that Laozi is the most common; it may yet become so, but that requires proof. I reject all arguments on the grounds of consistency; we should not attempt to be more consistent than English. Thus, we use Beijing, but Hong Kong because English does. Septentrionalis 22:37, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
• Support Lao Tzu is a well known Chinese figure; I have never heard of Laozi. Common English names should be used regardless of uniformity of transcitpion. Eluchil404 00:54, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Wikipedia does not use pinyin or any other system for all such names, it uses what is most common in English, especially for the most well-known ancient figures. Lao Tzu is a traditional Anglicised name and is still the most common in the books on my shelf, including ones printed this decade. Jonathunder 02:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. We should use pinyin except in cases where there is an overwhelming tradition for another transcription in English. Haukur 11:56, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
• Support: use the more common spelling, as is done for Confucius. Thumbelina 22:17, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
• Support per Haukur, even though he drew the opposite conclusion, since this case in my mind represents the exception he's citing. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 00:33, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose since hanyu Pinyin is used as standard transcription in Wikipedia, so it should be used here too for reasons of consistency. --峻義 Jùnyì 論 20:46, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose Lao Tzu is not an English name, but a Wade-Giles transcription of the Chinese name. It is important to be consistent and it is confusing to use pinyin for some names and Wade-Giles for others based, of all things, on a Google search. If you only consider academic publications since the 90s you will see that Laozi is definitely much more common. --AngelRiesgo 15:13, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments

• Google gives 768 unique hits for Laozi and 620 for "Lao Tzu". Kusma (討論) 15:11, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, you have to take into account the number of ethnic Chinese using pinyin on their English language websites, when they certainly do not make up the majority of English-speakers (i.e., the target audience of this encyclopedia). elvenscout742 22:34, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

• I object to the imperialistic pinyin-ization of Wikipedia. This is not the Pinyin Wikipedia, this is the English Wikipedia, and as such should in all instances use the common English romanization. If or when pinyin versions of names overtakes the traditional one, in COMMON SOURCES (not narrow sinology field sources) then a rename should occur. This does not prevent the mention of the pinyin version in the article, or a redirect sitting at the pinyin version. 132.205.45.148 18:16, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

(In case anyone is wondering, I also object to the Germanization of English Wikipedia, where non-English letters are used)

What does that have to do with anything? Are you just making a personal attack against certain voters here for an entirely unrelated issue about Norse mythology? elvenscout742 22:15, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

---

I am a strong proponent of using English for English Wikipedia but "Lao Tzu" doesn't rise to the level of a true exonym. It's not a "traditional" spelling -- just a older (Wade-Giles) transliteration of 老子. This is why Google hits are a poor measure of encyclopedic usage -- there is no temporal context for the hits. The Laozi form is denigrated above as "narrowly scholarly usage" but knowledge of Laozi among English speakers is not that wide outside of specialists or adherents. Mao Tse-tung, Peking, and Chou En-lai were dropped for Mao Zedong, Beijing, Zhou Enlai and these persons/places were far better known to average English speakers than Laozi. AjaxSmack 02:04, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

But you're not looking at the big picture. Those spellings were dropped because the others are overwhelmingly more popular in the English-speaking world now. It has nothing to do with their widely-known-ness. Lao Tzu may not be well-known, but the scholars who know of him are not all fervent proponents of pinyin, and English-speaking ones in general are not. elvenscout742 11:28, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

It's depressing that so many people are merely "voting" on the basis that "Lao Tzu" is more copmmon without paying any attention to the evidence to the contrary ("this is hoiw I know it, so it must be more common"...). Depressing, but oh so familiar. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:57, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I think consistency is extremely important with Chinese names. Older academic publications used to use the Wade-Giles system, whereas recent publications have adopted hanyu pinyin as the standard. The tendency in favour of hanyu pinyin is clear, and I don't think anyone seriously interested in Chinese studies would dispute that fact. For example, the older Cambridge History of China books all use Wade-Giles whereas the more recent Cambridge History of Ancient China uses hanyu pinyin throughout. This is also true of most recent publications about Chinese history. What I find crazy about current usage in Wikipedia is the complete lack of consistency. No serious academic publication would ever use Laozi, Sun Tzu, Xun Zi, Zhuangzi and Mozi within the same text. And this is what Wikipedia does! I support using English names for Confucius and Mencius, because these are real anglicised names and not mere transcriptions. For the other "masters", I think we should conform to the hanyu pinyin standard: Laozi, Zhuangzi, Sunzi, Mozi, Xunzi, Leizi, Han Feizi and so on. --AngelRiesgo 15:33, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:22, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Neutrality?

It doesn't seem very Wikipedia-ish to put such a great deal of emphasis at the start of this small article on a (probably) historical personnage on the claim that he didn't exist, or was simply a pseudonym for a less interesting figure. I mean, the only section really relating directly to him or his life is the section with that title, and about half of it is a series of possible explanations for the belief that he existed. About as much is not known about the life of, say, Jesus, but before any argument that he did not exist or was somewhat different to what people believe is made in that article, there is a body of text longer than this whole article on his "life and teachings based on the Gospels". Can we not get some perspective here? elvenscout742 22:30, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

He probably didn't exist, in fact; the probability of his existence is roughly at the level of Homer. In the case of Jesus, there's next to no independent evidence of his existence, but little serious doubt that he existed; in the case of Laozi, there's a great deal of serious doubt. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:59, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I am pleased to see at least an alert visitor like elvenscout742 is raising queries on bias towards Laozi's non-existence. Once again to the editor Mel, I wish to include other descriptions and legends, duly described as such, to the Intro on Laozi, purely as narrative of what Taoists know for a fact [this will be another subject to be debated] that the scholars who thought they know about Taosim but actually don't. It will probably run like this :

"According to legends(some in the Taoist Canons), although rejected by some scholars, Laozi had had 13 incarnates in the times of 3-sovereigns and 5-kings ......up to the Zhou Dynasty...." Will this be koshere?

And perhaps a small paragraph in the Taoism Section between "....managing and governing." and "As with most other....." to read:

"Central to Daodejing prescriptions to Man is the insignificance of the SELF in Man and this SELF is part of an overall pattern of the Universe. Rather than to assert ourselves over Nature, Man ought to recognize the modus operandi and participate in Nature, in a process the ancient Greek scholars called methexis." I will make sure the other canons of WIkipedia is not sidestepped, RSVP. Alex26June06

Lao Tzu founder of taoism?

I think it's a little misleading to credit Lao Tzu with founding Taoism. He is, as John Blofeld has written, "a compararive late-comer on the scene." The concept of yin and yang arising from the one (Tao) can be traced in the I ching, and it can be argued that there is much evidence of Taoist thought/behaviour, though no surviving texts, that predate the Tao Te Ching. Worth changing?