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"Nihonto" and "Katana"

According to the Japanese version of the article (ja:日本刀), "Nihonto" is the term for the generic category that covers all sorts of Japanese swords ("Nihonto" is literally "Japanese swords" in Japanese language), whereas "Katana" only refers to the longer variants (viz. Tachi and Uchigatana). This is not consistent with the lead section of this English article which writes as if Nihonto and Katana are synonymous. Is this due to the difference usage of the words in English and Japanese? --Saintjust (talk) 03:21, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I think it is the fact that the word Katana is more well known in English community and Nihonto is not. The original Nihonto article is so pathetically short, it is better to merge it over here. Of course, if you want to propose moving this article to the title Nihonto, I would agree with that proposal. (bolding it to save time in AfM motion :P) MythSearchertalk 03:31, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
I raised this issue because there is an AfD going on at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chinese swords now. (It concerns Japanese swords also.)--Saintjust (talk) 03:53, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
The Japanese swords page is of no use, if this page is moved to Nihonto, it would serve the same purpose. (The Japanese classification does this as well) MythSearchertalk 06:55, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Should this article be renamed to Nihontō or Nihonto (without macron)? --Saintjust (talk) 09:25, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
I think so. MythSearchertalk 13:16, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Moved to Nihontō. --Saintjust (talk) 00:08, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Wouldn't it be more appropriate to title this article Japanese sword per WP:Use English? Bradford44 (talk) 17:07, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
Absolutely. Moving the article to a title which is virtually unused in English is a bad idea. It'd have been nice to have given this more time in discussion prior to the move. That said, I do agree with the more generic title, given the article content. Chris Cunningham (talk) 09:02, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
Although nihonto (日本刀) literally means "Japanese sword," it's actually a proper noun that refers to a specific type of traditional Japanese swords that was developed around the late Heian period. Swords had been used and produced in Japan before then also, and those swords are not classified as nihonto, although now they are a minority in the category of Japanese swords and since the invention of nihonto pretty much every Japanese sword has been nihonto. --Saintjust (talk) 09:36, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
that's missing the point. We're not talking about moving to Japanese sword because it's a more accurate term; we're talking about moving it because "nihonto" is meaningless in English and unlike "katana" cannot reasonably be supported as a loanword or culturally notable noun. Transliterations are really only acceptable where there is no common English term. Chris Cunningham (talk) 09:59, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
The terms "nihonto," "katana," and "Japanese swords" all refer to slightly different groups of swords to be precise. There are tons of Wikipedia articles on Japanese things that are hardly known in the English-speaking world anyway.
If you want to rename this article to "Japanese swords," you need to expand it so that it covers pre-nihonto/katana-era Japanese swords also. Or, split the article into three independent articles, "nihonto," "katana," and "Japanese swords." --Saintjust (talk) 10:46, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
That "there are tons of Wikipedia articles on Japanese things that are hardly known in the English-speaking world" is an indication that Wikipedia attracts a lot of attention from anime-obsessed Internet users; this isn't necessarily a good thing. The difference between "katana", "japanese sword" and "nihonto" is that the first and second are recognisable by average readers, whereas the third is recognisable only to enthusiasts and carries no meaning in the English language. It is thus a poor name for the article.
Regarding splitting: splitting has been a goal of mine for a long time, but there doesn't appear to be much of a push to actually make it happen. The problem is that the term "katana" is, in English, synonymous with the Japanese longsword, and this is really the most notable facet of the subject for Wikipedia. The problem is that many people think that concentrating on this English definition is assigning undue weight to a term which in Japanese is only part of the picture. Chris Cunningham (talk) 10:58, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
"Nihonto" is a better term because it's more accurate than the other two. But as far as you will modify the content of the article to fit the new article name, I don't mind whatever name you will choose.
Also, there are independent articles for Wakizashi, Tantō, etc. already, that are categories of nihonto by length (where katana being the longer, and primary, variant). Much fewer English-speaking people and common Japanese people recognize these terms. But renaming them to "Japanese short swords" would be a bit weird. --Saintjust (talk) 11:22, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
Specialist articles can have specialist titles. This is a master article, and should have a name recognisable in English.
In addition, you've broken the talk page archives. Assuming the page is staying at the current title for now, the archives should be moved to the appropriate name as well. Chris Cunningham (talk) 11:39, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
If you are going to revise this article to be a master article, then that's fine. --Saintjust (talk) 12:24, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Then perhaps the best course of action is to create a new article at Japanese sword, beginning by copying the entire content of this article there (because this article is pretty broad, and covers most of what "Japanese sword" means to the average reader.) At that point, an overview of other types of Japanese swords can be appended (with "Main article:" links for Wakizashi, etc...), and simultaneously, this article (Nihonto) can have it's overly broad sections whittled down or eliminated. Thoughts? Bradford44 (talk) 16:33, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

That does not sound right. Nihonto IS Japanese swords, and creating a new article is just strange. This article should include all of those, and redirect Japanese swords to this article. MythSearchertalk 17:09, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, then we've come full circle. If Nihonto = Japanese sword, then this article should be titled Japanese sword per WP:Use English. Some editors here disagree with that equation, however... Bradford44 (talk) 20:01, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
Some guy moved it back to Katana without discussion, I must say this again, Katana is only a sub-category, Nihonto is the super-set of Katana. It does not matter which one is more common, if anyone wanted the Katana article to stay, create an article that reflects its sub-set notion, not have an entire article talking about Nihonto and put it under the Katana name, since it is not only totally incorrect, it is also against the consensus made here. MythSearchertalk 12:38, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Shinshinto

The wiki page Shinshinto currently redirects to the New Frontier Party. Should a disambiguation page be placed at Shinshinto, or should a selfref link be added to the top of the NFP article? Clayhalliwell (talk) 18:30, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it should be made into a dab. --Saintjust (talk) 09:17, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion 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 proposal was move the page to Japanese sword and the disambiguation page to Japanese sword (disambiguation), per the discussion below. I have read all of the discussion related to whether to move this to Katana instead. In the end, it is clear that Japanese sword is an unambiguous title for this article, while the same is not true of "katana", which is used (correctly or incorrectly, like it or not) in both broad and narrow senses. (In any event, there does not seem to be a need to actively exclude double-edged swords from the scope of the article.) I will add a dablink at the top of Katana pointing to Japanese sword for users who end up in the wrong place. The disambiguation page is probably unnecessary, but dabs are generally recognized to be cheap. Please let me know if you have any further concerns. Dekimasuよ! 06:38, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Let's get final resolution on this issue, one way or another. The article currently titled Nihontō extensively details the history of the primary types of Japanese swords. The word nihontō (日本刀) literally translates to "Japanese sword", and is more or less unknown in English. As such, the article should be moved to Japanese sword per WP:Use English (and Japanese sword should be moved to Japanese sword (disambiguation).

Bradford44 (talk) 16:02, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Move to "Katana" or "Japanese sword"?

This subsection has been created solely for the purpose of voting and discussion regarding which new name the article should be moved to. Please continue to discuss whether the article should be moved at all in the top level heading, above.

  • Japanese sword, because the article discusses in detail the history, use, and forging process that applies to many variants of the Japanese sword, not just the curved, single edge, longsword worn thrust through the sash commonly associated with the word "katana". Bradford44 (talk) 21:24, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Katana. Both "katana" and "samurai sword" are essentially synonymous with "japanese sword" in the vernacular, and "katana" is the most common. The argument to avoid it boils down to a technical nuance. The current title is unacceptably foreign to most English speakers when there are common English names. Chris Cunningham (talk) 21:49, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment, no, Katana is specifically single-edged sword, the original term used in Japan is 刀. While Japanese swords contains the category of tsuguri which are double-edged sword(actually, tsuguri can also mean all swords in a general way but formally it is double edged). So using the Katana naming for the general article is just plain incorrect. Commonality is no excuse of being wrong, just because you do not know other Japanese swords existed. (obviously you ignore the fact that straight, double-edge ones existed and the royal family sword, 天叢雲剣, is one of those) They do not mean the same thing, thus the discussion is not about commonality, but correct use of the term. MythSearchertalk 06:34, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Katana — If you go back to the 11 May 2007 version, this article was about katana to begin with... talking only about single-edged swords. The more obscure tsurugi (double-edged sword) was never intended to be covered in this article. The samurai used mostly 2 types of swords: the katana proper and the wakizashi... both are considered katana in the broad sense. All the great Japanese swords since Masamune are katanas as opposed to tsurugis. And Amakuni is cited in the article as the first notable katana, while the older Kusanagi was deliberately omitted.
This article needs to move back to katana. The topic of Nihontō, added later into this article can have its own separate section or simply deleted. It wasn't part of this article to begin with. The current Katana article can be deleted or merged into this article. A separate article can be created for Japanese swords later, to cover the Nihontō, as in Kielbasa vs. Polish sausage, Emmental (cheese) vs. Swiss cheese, Baguette vs. French bread, Katana vs. Japanese swords.--Endroit (talk) 13:06, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment, the current version is about nihonto, and it is generally describing Japanese swords as a general term, whatever has been added into the article since May, which is 7 months of time, obviously got the article out of your control and thus you have to ignore all of those in your comment and use the 7 month old version to support your arguement. I have gone through the article and moved the specific parts to the Katana article, and you can copy whatever you think is important in this article over there as long as you can get it to be useful in the specific katana article. Where the fun fact is that even the Naginata, Tantō, Wakizashi, Nagamaki, Yari, are all considered inside the Nihonto category and are all definitely not katanas. MythSearchertalk 13:42, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Well the history of single-edged swords in Japan, Amakuni, Masamune, Muramasa, etc., belongs in the Katana article. A large portion of the current Nihontō article belongs in the Katana article. The later additions in the last 7 months are relatively minor. Why not just move this article there?--Endroit (talk) 13:56, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
The term Katana is also used to describe ALL single-edged swords in Japan, including Wakizashi.--Endroit (talk) 14:01, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
A new article for Japanese swords should be created from scratch, based on the Japanese Nihontō (ja:日本刀) article. The new article can include Old swords (古刀, Kotō), Kusanagi, and tsurugi. (Sorry, this current article was, and still is, inherently a Katana article.--Endroit (talk) 14:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Reply The term Nihonto, or Japanese Sword is the most general term including Katana and everything it includes, thus your point is obviously not helping your arguement. Also, technically the naginata and nagamaki are not katanas but nihonto but is still using the single-edged forging method same as katanas. The term Katana is obviously NOT describing all single-edged weapons that are not even considered swords in English and Japan but is included in the Nihonto category in a broad sense. It is inherentely a katana article but is written by people who cannot distinguish katana from other nihonto, and the incorrectness should not be encouraged. MythSearchertalk 14:28, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Use of the word "incorrect" is a WP:NPOV violation, since it is unsourced. You need to reword it somehow to make it conform to what the sources actually say.--Endroit (talk) 14:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
If someone called general cheese as blue cheese or chedder cheese is incorrect, it is NOT POV, calling nihonto as katana is the same, katana does NOT cover every category in nihonto, it is only one of the main categories that is most commonly seen. So calling nihonto katana is incorrect, try to do it in a Japanese test and write the term 日本刀 into かたな and you get you answer wrong. It is as simple as that. You are trying to call all swords as sabre, how can that be correct? MythSearchertalk 14:53, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
The primary definition of "Katana" in the Japanese language is 武器として使った片刃の刃物。 (My translation: "Single-edged sword used as a weapon.") The word Katana has MULTIPLE definitions, and it would help to spell out each major one in the article. "ANY single-edged Japanese sword" is the correct primary definition of the word "Katana" in Japanese, and we can mention that in the article rather than speculate on what is "incorrect". (Your position is unsourced, Mythsearcher).--Endroit (talk) 15:14, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia and not a dictionary. --61.198.209.248 (talk) 15:16, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Like I said, "ANY single-edged Japanese sword" is included in "ANY Japanese sword". 武器として使った片刃の刃物。 literally translates to Any single-edged blade that is used as a weapon. However, if you read the source more closely, the other meanings it provided are more specific as "江戸時代、武士が脇差(わきざし)とともに差した大刀。" , "太刀の小さいもの。", "小さい刃物。きれもの。" are "Long blade worn with wakizashi by bushi in the Edo period", "Thing smaller than the Odachi", "Small blade used to cut things" respectively, which obviously 1) did not mention katana as the general term for nihonto; and 2) specifically mentions the use of the word as a special term defining it differ from odachi and wakizashi. You did not source anything to make the use of the word katana correct in the general sense to replace the term Nihonto at all. MythSearchertalk 15:24, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
The secondary definitions don't prove that the primary definition of Katana is "incorrect", so the "dubious" notation shall stay in the article until that erroneous statement is corrected. Also, the mention of Nihontō (with the WP:NPOV violation) was a later addition, and can be easily deleted, pending the result of this RM survey.
Also, "ANY single-edged Japanese sword" was the scope of the article to begin with, hence the previous title "Katana". There's still no mention of Kusanagi and tsurugi, which fall outside of this scope, and I will oppose inclusion of any such topics here. A new article should be created for "Japanese swords" based on the Japanese ja:日本刀 article. And this article should be moved to Katana, where it originally was.--Endroit (talk) 15:37, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Your source give perfect description of nihonto as the most general term, either you are not really capable of reading Japanese at level-3 as your user page said, or you did not even bother to check before using it as a source, that source only helps my arguement, not yours if you go type in 日本刀 over there. You do not own the article, and thus you opposition of modifying the article to a better state is irrelavent it a consensus is made to use it as the Japanese sword article. You sourced dictionary gives the perfect example of the term nihonto as any sword used that forging method, thus nihonto is more general term if you want to place all those forging and sword types. MythSearchertalk 15:40, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
My linked source is a perfect description of Katana (刀), not Nihontō (日本刀). That link does NOT mention Nihontō at all. It's all there for everybody to see.--Endroit (talk) 15:48, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
It is an online dictionary, thus all you need to do is input the term nihonto into the nice little box on the top and you get the definition of nihonto, cheers. MythSearchertalk 15:55, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Which brings us back to the discussion... Later additions about Nihontō can be easily deleted, moved to its own separate section here in this article, or moved to another article.--Endroit (talk) 16:00, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Like I said, the word nihonto, or Japanese sword(literal translation) should contain all the forging and history, while the katana article should only focus on the history and aub-category of its own varients and stay as that and forget about the general discriptions since it makes more sense to have those on the root category article, not the branch category. And the article currently have more information than the katana article requires, thus it should not be moved back. MythSearchertalk 16:05, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I do not oppose the deletion of the whole sentence claiming it is also called katana, I only oppose the deletion of the word incorrectly since the page is not only about katana, but nihonto as a general term. Thus that edit is fine. However, I still stand my ground as keeping the current article and modify it to suit the needs of nihonto or Japanese sword, while copy rewrite minimal necessary info to the katana article to reflect its single-edged blade sub-category status. MythSearchertalk 16:27, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Actually, can anyone source katana being the most common type? I know it is pretty much common sense now to know what a katana is, but not know anything about nihonto, but is there any possible way to source it as the most common? Just thought the sentence I added sounds pretty unsourced. (Though if nobody doubt it, it really don't need to be sourced since it is not disputed or anything) MythSearchertalk 16:48, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
My second source, "The New International Encyclopaedia" (1906) classified Japanese swords into 2 categories: the tsurugi (double-edged sword) and Katana as single-edged sword in general. It further declared that "The tsurugi is the primitive weapon of Japan, and is now rarely met with except as an ornament in temples." So yes according to them, the Katana as single-edged sword is the most common.--Endroit (talk) 16:59, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
The fun thing is that tsurugi's kanji is 剣, in which is used for 剣道(kendo), 剣術(kenjutsu), 木剣(bokken), etc. Informally the terms katana/tou and tsurugi/ken are pretty much mixed and have the same meaning in Japan (where the term 刀剣 touken is used formally) unlike Chinese where they are totally different categories. Suggest reading for tsurugi, which describs it as a more general term just like nihonto, or even more, which includes description of non-Japanese made double-edged swords. MythSearchertalk 17:14, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. 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.
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