Talk:Kouxian

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Title

The title should be Kouxian, not Kou Xiang. Badagnani (talk) 23:57, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The title is correct as it is. There are more search results for Kou Xiang than Kouxian (294,000 compared to 3040).--Codell^Talk 15:30, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, then, please show those search results. Also, what are the Chinese characters for this name? I'm curious, because I'm pretty sure they are 口弦, which is "kou xian." There is no "g" to be heard or seen. It would be like calling something a "mangdolin." Badagnani (talk) 18:26, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since this object's name has two words, both words should be put in quotation marks "like this" when searching the term using a search engine. The search which I told you about before was skewed because I forgot to use quotation marks.

A Google search reveals that:
"Kou Xiang" comes up with 2990 hits [1] Seems correct.
"Kouxian" comes up with 3220 hits [2] Seems correct.

Most foreign words which aren't English are likely to be Anglicised.

From Wikipedia's article on Anglicisation:

“

Anglicisation is a process of making something English. The term most often refers to the process of altering the pronunciation or spelling of a foreign word when it is borrowed into English.

”

Right now, both "Kou Xiang" and Kouxian seem to be equally correct, even though it may be pronounced differently in your language. --Codell^Talk 21:33, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Kou Xiang" is a completely wrong spelling on two counts: first of all, as something other than a proper noun, "Xiang" should not be capitalized. Secondly, it is not problematic to pronounce "xian" in English, and unnecessary to change it to "xiang." There is a city in China named "Xian," and its name is not anglicized the way "Moskva" is to "Moscow." If "Kou Xiang" was an example of anglicization, it would be anglicized from "kou xian" (the proper spelling) to "ko shian," "koe shee-an," "ko shan," or something similar, because the letter "x" is not used for the "sh" phoneme in English. All of this confusion seems probably to have been caused by an Israeli performer, the first to use the instrument prominently in recordings in the West, who spelled it in an incorrect way. It would be as if a foreigner picked up the violin, failed to check the actual pronunciation, and insisted that it be called a "violing," or that a mandolin be called a "mangdolin." "Xian" (the Chinese word for "string" is never pronounced "xiang" in any language, ever. The proper spelling of the Chinese Jew's harp is "kouxian" or "kou xian" (口弦)--the pinyin spelling (without tone marks) being used, without exception, for instruments with Mandarin Chinese origins. Badagnani (talk) 00:05, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Further, "kouxian" (literally "mouth string") is a generic term referring to all Jew's harps used in China, yet this article discusses only one variety: the multi-leaved brass variety. It fails to mention the many bamboo kouxian, and the names of the various ethnic groups that use it (and where they live). This should be fixed. Badagnani (talk) 00:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You have convinced me that the correct spelling is Kouxian. I will change the article's name and will make Kou Xiang a redirect.
Regarding the other varieties, it seems that you know a lot more about kouxian than I do, can you add this information in?
--Codell^Talk 22:06, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]