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Ta-Hia - Ta-Hsia or Daxia

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Why is this page called Ta-Hia? The correct romanisations are Ta-Hsia or Daxia. I don't think Ta-Hia is current anywhere but at this article.

Unfortunately the articles on Ta-Hsia and Daxia both redirect to Bactria. This makes it difficult to move "Ta-Hia" to "Ta-Hsia" (or Daxia) where it should belong.

Bathrobe 08:17, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ta-Hia or Daxia?

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I am planning to move the Ta-Hia page to Daxia and make adjustments throughout the article for the following reasons: Daxia is the proper spelling according to the Pinyin system of romanising Chinese - the system used by far more people today than any other - including just about everyone in mainland China and people studying Chinese today. It has also become the standard for articles in the Wikipedia (often with the Wade-Giles version included as an alternative). Ta-hsia is the name according to the Wade-Giles system which is an old English system still in use in Taiwan and by older Western scholars, while Ta-hia is from the French E.F.E.O. system and, therefore, not appropriate at all in an English-language article. Please let me know if you don't agree with my changes. Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 21:55, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi John. Fine with me! Best regards PHG (talk) 21:59, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Move. I agree that Ta-Hia should be moved to Daxia.--Neo-Jay (talk) 22:32, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Use the actual Wade-Giles spelling and move it to Ta-Hsia. This was notable ages before pinyin was introduced, and should be under the name which is in fact most used. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:11, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Why should this article use Wade-Giles, not Pinyin? Please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese): In general, Chinese entries should be in Hanyu Pinyin. And I don't think the exceptions are applicable here. --Neo-Jay (talk) 22:26, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The first of those exceptions, and the one which applies here, is:When there is a more popularly used form in English (such as Taoism). While this subject is not as well known as Taoism, most of the English literature on it, being by classicists, still uses the form established when the discussion began, long before pinyin was invented. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:58, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Apparently Wade-Giles had been used for almost every ancient Chinese entry long before pinyin was invented. You have burden of proof to provide reliable sources to prove that nowadays Ta-Hsia is still more popularly used than Daxia. Please check the incoming links. 17 main pages in Wikipedia are linked to Daxia, and only 1 is linked to Ta-Hsia. My Google search shows that there are 113,000 pages for Daxia and just 3,450 for Ta-Hsia. Of course not all of them refer to this ancient state. But how can you prove that Ta-Hsia is still more popular now? If there is no proof, the principle, not the exception, should be applied to this case.--Neo-Jay (talk) 05:39, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Let's see: Neo-Jay cites (unspecified) raw Google searches and Wikipedia links as his sources. Wikipedia is never a reliable source, and raw Google is, if possible, worse; in this case, it has the endemic problem that it will find every instance of Daxia, without checking that it refers to the subject of this article, or is indeed a transliteration of Chinese at all. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:49, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Data

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The first page google search on Daxia reveals nothing but false positives; I have taken the elementary precaution of excluding wikipedia per WP:GOOGLE.

Using Google Scholar, which is recommended by WP:NCGN, shows that Daxia still begins entirely with false positives: two proper names (Daxia Ge and Chen DaXia0 and references to the modern Chinese names (the Daxia River and another Daxia from Qinghai). There also appears to be a willow genus Daxia. These also have nothing to do with the problem at hand.

WP:NCGN recommends, under such circumstances, using another search term to force references to the intended meaning; searching with Bactria gives 10 results, several of them still false positives (two are not in English; the book A Wild Deer Amid Soaring Phoenixes discusses another term_. Searching for Ta-Hsia and Bactria gets 35 hits, all of which appear to be genuine, and as recent as 2004. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:12, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, please understand that the burden of proof is on you, not me. It's you that argue to apply the exception, not the principle, to this case. Please provide your reliable sources that Ta-Hsia is more popularly used than Daxia. And unfortunately you have not done it yet.--Neo-Jay (talk) 06:16, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have just done so; to wit, that using the methods accepted by our guidelines as showing English usage, Ta-hsia is some seven times as popular as Daxia, and will be more familiar to the mere English reader. Please go and do actual research. You have provided raw google searches (even more irrelevant in this case than they usually are), citations of our guidelines which are misleading to the point of misrepresentation, and resounding noise. I have no interest in the nationalist quarrels between the PRC and the ROC; but they should have nothing to do with this question, dealing as it does with the first century BC. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:29, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note in particular the use of Ta-Hsia in "Horses, Silver, and Cowries: Yunnan in Global Perspective* by Bin Yang, (Journal of World History, Vol. 15, No. 3, 2004) an article which uses pinyin often, including the author's name.
  • also the following entry, quoted in full:
    CHINESE HISTORIOGRAPHY AND MUSIC: SOME OBSERVATIONS - all 2 versions »
    C WEN-CHUNG - The Musical Quarterly, 2002 - Oxford Univ Press
    ... of Ta-Hsia, he reached the northern slope of Yiian-yii, and took bamboos from the
    valley of Hsieh-ch'i." Ta-Hsia has been identified as Bactria, according to
I do not in this case have access to the full text, but the google sample seems decisive enough. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:38, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
First, I also have no interest in the nationalist quarrels between the PRC and the ROC. I don't understand why you mention this totally irrelevant issue here. Second, let's analyze your sources. Since we are talking about the recent usage of the term, let's just cite the sources published after 1979, when the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) adopted pinyin as the standard romanization for modern Chinese. In the 35 articles for Ta-Hsia, 21 of them were before 1979, 4 in the 1980s, 5 in the 1990s, 4 in the 2000s, and 1 unclear. In the 10 articles for Daxia, 7 of them were in the 2000s. This result cannot be interpreted as that Ta-Hsia is still more popular than Daxia nowadays. The Google search for the all webpages on the Internet shows that there are 629 pages for Bactria + Ta-Hsia, and 3,750 pages for Bactria + Daxia. There is still no proof that Ta-Hsia is more popularly used than Daxia.--Neo-Jay (talk) 07:07, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Wow! This is becoming an increasingly silly and pointless argument! It is true that some older readers may be more familiar with Wade-Giles - but they (including myself) are a "dying breed". There is no getting around the fact that most modern scholars use Pinyin - and, therefore, Daxia rather than Ta-hsia is to be preferred. For example, see my own two draft books posted some years ago on the Silk Road Seattle website (at: http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/hhshu/hou_han_shu.html and http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/weilue/weilue.html). Even famous scholars like Burton Watson in his revision of his Records of the Grand Historian changed from Wade-Giles to Pinyin as long ago as 1961. Almost all recent dictionaries - see, for example, the John de Francis' Chinese-English Comprehensive Dictionary and Schuuessler's Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese and Edwin Pulleyblank's 1991 Lexicon of Reconstructed Pronunciation in Early Middle Chinese, Late Middle Chinese, and Early Mandarin use ONLY Pinyin (to just mention the 3 I have handy on my desk). I could go on and on giving further examples but I don't want to waste my time. How about just sticking with the recommendations given by Wikipedia itself? What's so wonderful about Wade-Giles? I used to use it exclusively myself - but it has no real advantage over Pinyin and is not nearly as commonly used or recognised these days either in general or scholarly use. The use of Wade-Giles is rather quickly dying out. John Hill (talk) 07:03, 17 December 2007 (UTC) PS. In addition, I just searched Google using the two names - Daxia Bactria (to avoid getting unrelated references to other uses of the word Daxia) and came up with 3,740 entries compared to 613 for Ta-hsia Bactria.[reply]
  • I agree this argument is silly; I proposed WG because, as elsewhere, we should consider it for names notable befpre the introduction of pinyin. As for Wikipedia's recommendations: WP:GOOGLE recommends against trusting www.google.com itself for these purposes, WP:NCGN recommends Google Scholar, and the naming conventions for Chinese recommend using non-pinyin when that is more common. It may be that the problem (aside from the nationalism that holds pinyin to be the only transliteration of Chinese) is that Bactria is, by its nature, the intersection of different fields with different traditions. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:26, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Requested Move : Ta-Hia -> Daxia

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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. This had to be a judgement call, the argument which convinced me was John Hill's description of how the academic standard has been moving in recent times. A result confirmed by reading Martin Palmers latest book. --Salix alba (talk) 13:12, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

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  • If you are not a sock puppet, I welcome you to participate in the discussion, not just declare your position. I am interested in seeing what new argument you can bring on. I highly suspect that you cannot. --Neo-Jay (talk) 03:59, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Since your argument is "x is a sockpuppet". I highly suspect you don't care. Since you are being insulting, I want to see what proof you have of my being a sockpuppet. You've made the accusation, so put up, or shut up. 132.205.44.5 (talk) 22:41, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry, I apologize that I used that word. At that time I was irritated that you just voted and did not participate in discussion. I acknowledge that my accusation is uncivil and unfair. Hope that you can forgive me. I am eager to hear your substantive comments on the naming issue. Thank you.--Neo-Jay (talk) 23:58, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

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All this is from #Data above. Neo-Jay has presented plenty of declamation, but no evidence whatever.

The first page google search on Daxia reveals nothing but false positives; I have taken the elementary precaution of excluding wikipedia per WP:GOOGLE.

Using Google Scholar, which is recommended by WP:NCGN, shows that Daxia still begins entirely with false positives: two proper names (Daxia Ge and Chen DaXia0 and references to the modern Chinese names (the Daxia River and another Daxia from Qinghai). There also appears to be a willow genus Daxia. These also have nothing to do with the problem at hand.

WP:NCGN recommends, under such circumstances, using another search term to force references to the intended meaning; searching with Bactria gives 10 results, several of them still false positives (two are not in English; the book A Wild Deer Amid Soaring Phoenixes discusses another term_. Searching for Ta-Hsia and Bactria gets 35 hits, all of which appear to be genuine, and as recent as 2004. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:12, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My God! I really don't want to repeat what I said. But it seems that you have not read what I said at all! OK, I repeat it again: 1. The Burden of Proof is on You, not Me. 2. Your So-Called Google Scholar Search Cannot Prove that Ta-Hsia is More Popular than Daxia. I paste my former analysis on your so-called Google Scholar research here: Since we are talking about the recent usage of the term, let's just cite the sources published after 1979, when the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) adopted pinyin as the standard romanization for modern Chinese. In the 35 articles for Ta-Hsia, 21 of them were before 1979, 4 in the 1980s, 5 in the 1990s, 4 in the 2000s, and 1 unclear. In the 10 articles for Daxia, 7 of them were in the 2000s. This result cannot be interpreted as that Ta-Hsia is still more popular than Daxia nowadays. The Google search for the all webpages on the Internet shows that there are 629 pages for Bactria + Ta-Hsia, and 3,750 pages for Bactria + Daxia. There is still no proof that Ta-Hsia is more popularly used than Daxia. OK? Please respond my new comment and stop repeating your old opinions. Thanks for your understanding.--Neo-Jay (talk) 20:23, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Congratulations.
  • Raw google searches prove very little, and we deprecate them, for several reasons: Chiefly, they represent the usage of a relatively small portion of the English-speaking world, selected for posting on the Internet; a criterion which has nothing to do with Bactrian historiography. Two of the others also flaw these "3,750 pages for Bactria + Daxia": they include Wikipedia and its mirrors; and (since neither search term is English) there is no reason to believe these are English hits. Simply enabling Google's language filter (flawed though it is) and removing Wikipedia reduces this to 718 hits, and one of the results on the first page is still a Russian page, hosted on a Finnish server.
  • Limiting the pool to the nine twenty-first century Google Scholar results is a remarkable effort at ittelevant selection. Nine is too small a sample to be statistically significant. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:27, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • As for the burden of proof: if the concept were relevant, the burden would lie on those who prefer a particular move, not those who oppose it; but in factWikilawyering is also deprecated; it is the resort of those who are losing the argument. Septentrionalis PMAnderson
Now, first of all - I think we are all agreed that a move is necessary. No one surely is suggesting we stay with the outdated French E.F.E.O. version of Ta-Hia that we presently have (or any of the many other European systems), are they? Now, of the many choices there are, I believe, only two that are worth considering. The Wade-Giles - which was commonly used in the English-speaking world until some years ago (but is less and less used every year), or Pinyin, which has now become the standard amongst both scholars and students, and the one Wikipedia recommends. I can't see why there is any argument about choosing Pinyin. I myself had originally wanted to keep my books and articles in Wade-Giles until about 15 years ago when I realised that it was no longer the standard and so I changed them all over to Pinyin (several thousand pages - a big job!) and have never regretted the change. What I can't understand is why Pmanderson feels so strongly about retaining Wade-Giles? It really is a system that is being phased out just about everywhere except Taiwan - certainly everywhere in the English-speaking world - not to mention in the PRC itself. I do hope we can resolve this amicably. Best wishes to you all, John Hill 23:05, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
My position has nothing to do with Taiwan; if the governments of China were to unite tomorrow, it would make no difference to me. I quite simply hold that certain fragments of WG have established themselves in English, and this is one of them; because it has wandered out of sinology into classics. In ten years' time it may have been disestablished; but Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. Any strong feeling I may show on the issue is due to being called a troll. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:15, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please be nice to each other, you are all right

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In my opinion this looks like a clear border case. Google (language=English) says "Ta-Hsia Bactria" is slightly more popular than "Daxia Bactria" (96:82). Google Scholar says it is more popular (35:10). But in both cases I am not sure it's actually significant. Perhaps, perhaps not. And yes, people are moving to pinyin, for good reasons. So both points of view are absolutely reasonable. How about alternatives?

  • Status quo. Google Scholar has 51 hits for "Ta-hia Bactria". That's more than the other two together. (No, I don't like this either.)
  • Are there any political reasons against merging the article into Bactria? Google Scholar has vastly more hits for "Bactria Chinese Silk Road" (964) than for either "Ta-Hsia Bactria" or "Daxia Bactria".

--Hans Adler (talk) 23:19, 18 December 2007 (UTC) (two later edits)[reply]

No, Google (language=English) says "Ta-Hsia Bactria" is NOT more popular than "Daxia Bactria". I don't know how you got 96:82. Please see my discussion above: There are 844 hits for Bactria+daxia-Wikipedia in English pages, and only 328 for Bactria+"ta-hsia"-wikipedia in English pages. Daxia pages are twice more than Tahsia pages. And as for the Google Scholar search, as I said above, only 13 of the 35 pages for Ta-Hsia were published after 1979, when pinyin was adopted by the ISO as an international standard, and only 4 were published in the 21st century. Thank you for your understanding. --Neo-Jay (talk) 03:22, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You are right, I get similar numbers for the raw hits. But when I try to actually look at the last result I get 73 vs. 86. I don't know why it is reversed. This probably just proves that the difference is not significant. In my experience a Google search typically shows that one term is more than a hundred times more popular than all the others. That's when it is useful. Also, I know that pinyin is a superb way of transcribing Chinese, wish it were generally adopted, and believe the main reason why it isn't is political. (Whereas there are much more legitimate arguments against simplified characters.) But I believe that neither side can win here by appealing to policies, because it is a border case. It might be a good thing if the policies said "when in doubt use WG if it is about Taiwan, and pinyin otherwise". But that's not in Wikipedia_talk:Naming conventions (Chinese)/Transcription of Chinese. Something like this is currently under discussion, and it looks as if your input could help there. But I believe this has been a hot topic for a long time. --Hans Adler (talk) 08:34, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree that neither side can win here by appealing to policies. All the discussions at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese)/Transcription of Chinese were before February 2003. They are apparently obsolete. The Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese) clearly says: In general, Chinese entries should be in Hanyu Pinyin. The two exceptions are: 1. There is a more popularly used form in English; 2. The subject of the entry is likely to object to romanization in pinyin. Septentrionalis exclusively relies on the 1st exception, but he fails to prove that Ta-Hsia is more popular than Daxia. Please note that: the policy does not require that pinyin should be used if it is more popular. It requires that pinyin should not be used if it is less popular. That is to say: if it is not clear whether pinyin or Wade-Giles is more popular, then pinyin should be used. Therefore, according to the naming convention, pinyin, i.e., Daxia, should be used.--Neo-Jay (talk) 09:04, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am slightly irritated that you refer to the obsolete discussion on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese)/Transcription of Chinese when there is a very prominent link there to the place where the discussion is currently going on. This looks like a cheap rhetorical trick, but I find it hard to believe that you would try such a thing after having accused another editor in the way that you did. It would also make no sense in this context, because you have actually made me read the relevant naming convention Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese) (I found the other by a Google search) – with the result that I am now convinced that it says essentially what I thought it should, although in more precise and perhaps more politically correct language. In my opinion this article should be renamed to Daxia, and Ta-Hsia and Ta-Hia which are also significantly used, but not significantly more, should become redirects to Daxia. The WG transcription should of course also be mentioned on the page. I now believe that this is what follows from the naming convention. --Hans Adler (talk) 11:20, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your supporting renaming Ta-Hia to Daxia. As for the very prominent link in Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese)/Transcription of Chinese, do you mean m:Use pinyin not Wade-Giles? Sorry I ignored it and did not read it. But after I read the discussion at m:Use pinyin not Wade-Giles, I found that most of the discussions were before July 2006. Only 3 users have discussed since then. And it seems to me these recent discussions were irrelevant to the naming conversion. Two of them, IP users, discussed whether pinyin is incorrect form of Romanization. The other one proposed to mention Wade-Giles in certain articles, not use Wade-Giles as the titles for certain articles. Anyway I will read your opinions more carefully in the future. Thanks. --Neo-Jay (talk) 12:02, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The merger sounds good to me; the only question is whether this is too detailed in comparison with the rest of Bactria. I find the results on Ta-Hia odd; one reason is that not all the hits are in English. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:31, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I didn't check the results. I share your concern that this article might be a bit too detailed as a part of the other article, but I am not very experienced and I mainly edit in mathematics. My real plan was to be beaten jointly by all the experts, so you can be friends again. --Hans Adler (talk) 23:39, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the text is already there: Bactria#Contacts with China. Only the introductory sentence and the nice hanzi image are missing. Unfortunately it looks as if it would be out of place there. So "merging" the articles would really mean just replacing this article by a redirect to Bactria. --Hans Adler (talk) 00:02, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
... but this is has been opposed by PHG here. If PHG is right and there is a reasonable dispute whether Daxia=Bactria, then this should be reflected in the text of both articles. Unfortunately I have to leave this discussion now, but perhaps you want to invite PHG. --Hans Adler (talk) 00:18, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know of any source for this doubt, but I will ask an editor whose field this is. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:02, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have consulted. Sponsianus reminds me, quite rightly, that there are reasonable arguments placing Ta-Hsia as far south as Kabul; but since it is the same text, the simplest solution would appear to note the uncertainty under Bactria and do a section redirect. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:47, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There is always some level of uncertainty with the attribution of ancient Chinese geographical names with modern geographical places, or whether modern geographical limits are consistant with ancient ones. For examples Ta-Yuan or Daqin. As such things are never totally settled, it is better in my opinion to maintain separate articles and cross-link them as necessary. PHG (talk) 05:52, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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.

Reply

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I told myself I would not get involved in this dispute again, but here I am! Oh, well! First, "Bactria" is the term used by western authors to describe the basically Greek-ruled state based around the middle valleys of the Oxus River (Syr Daria). Daxia (or Ta-hsia) was only used by the Chinese as a precise location after the visit of Zhang Qian in the 120s BCE, after the c ollapse of the Greek state and the arrival of the Yuezhi and, probably, other nomadic tribes who had subjugated the region. It is clear that there had been a complete political change and i is very possible that the physical boundaries were also different. For these reasons I think it is wise to keep the two separate.

On the subject of Pinyin: Daxia vs. Wade-Giles: Ta-hsia - while I obviously strongly support the use of the former - either would be much better than the present romanisation (Ta-hia) taken from the outdated French E.F.E.O. system (even the French don't use it anymore) and redirects can be made to allow for whichever form the heading of the article takes so proponents of the other system are kept happy and all links are kept active. Is there any chance of some Administrator making a decision on this before Christmas, please? It is crazy keeping the heading as Ta-hia while this whole matter is disputed. Please believe me, I am not trying to attack anyone - just trying to get some resolution to this problem so we can move on to more interesting issues. Cheers, John Hill 09:38, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I would be perfectly happy to move to Ta-Hsia as a holding position and continue discussion; I agree that Ta-Hia is eccentric and unhelpful. I would also be happy to merge. But this proposal was only made on the 15th; it is not due for closure until the 20th. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:27, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You still have not replied to my comment. I presume that you virtually acknowledge that you cannot prove Ta-Hsia is more popular than Daxia. I post my former comment here in case you ignored it:
There are still 844 hits for Bactria+daxia-Wikipedia in English pages, and only 328 for Bactria+"ta-hsia"-wikipedia in English pages. Daxia pages are twice more than Tahsia pages. As for Google Scholar search, if 9 is too small a sample for Daxia, then 4 is of course also too small a sample for Ta-Hsia! Regarding the burden of proof, please remember that you argue to apply the exception (use Wade-Giles) while I argue to apply the principle (use pinyin). Of course the burden of proof is on those who favor exception. If neither of us can prove one is more popular than the other, then the principle, not the exception, should be applied. Now, it's time for you to acknowledge that you cannot prove Ta-Hsia is more popular! --Neo-Jay (talk) 03:07, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for your attention.--Neo-Jay (talk) 03:54, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have responded to everything of substance that Neo-Jay has said here.
  • This post uses www.google.com results, which are strongly deprecated where our guidelines discuss them: There is no guarantee, and little likelihood, that all the hits for Daxia are in English; Google's language switch is only a single byte. Even these results are close; and the hits for Daxia use Ta-Hsia quite often to translate Daxia into a form English-speakers will understand. (Our article titles cannot do likewise; attempts to double-title articles produce more trouble than they are worth.)
  • Unless Neo-Jay does say something substantive, or apologizes for his personal attack, I do not intend to address him further. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:44, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't know what personal attack I made. But if I did anything offensive to you, I APOLOGIZE. I hope that you can forgive me and continue our rational discussion. I have to say: you have not responded to my key question: Can You Prove that Ta-Hsia Is More Popular than Daxia? All your reply above is a negative argument that Daxia cannot be proved more popular than Ta-Hsia. Please understand the key difference. You are only arguing that I cannot prove Daxia is more popular than Ta-Hsia. But you also cannot prove that Ta-Hsia is more popular than Daxia (as I have analyzed that your Google Scholar research fails to prove Ta-Hsia is more popular). If neither of us can prove one is more popular than the other, then the principle, not the exception, of the naming convention should be applied. That is to say: pinyin Daxia, not Wade-Giles Ta-Hsia should be used. I have pointed out this for several times. Please let me know whether you disagree. Thank you. --Neo-Jay (talk) 18:16, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Care to consider troll?
    • But this is one sign of a failure of Sprachgefühl which is characteristic of Neo-Jay's entire approach to this issue; and his lack of understanding that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, and "burden of proof" is the wrong approach to these issues. The question is what will be most useful for the general reader, many of whom will have come here from standard texts on the Hellenistic East which use Ta-Hsia, and Ta-Hsia only. Neo-Jay is so hepped up on legalisms, and the alleged "rights" of pinyin, that he has never addressed this question.
    • I will consider the question further, but I do not see that repeated reference to patently unreliable evidence, like www.google.com, can be regarded as a "rational discussion". Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:43, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oh, my English is poor. If troll is an offensive word, I apologize again.--Neo-Jay (talk) 19:13, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • If the term burden of proof looks legalistic, then let's forget about the term. But the issue is still there: if neither of us can prove one name is more popular than the other, then what will happen? I think that the principle, not the exception, of the naming convention should be applied. Please remember that many of general readers also come from texts which use Daxia only. I did not use the term "right" of pinyin at all. I try to forget that you accused me to be a nationalist. But I really hate the word nationalist. I sincerely tell you that I am not. What I am relying on is only Wikipedia's naming convention on Chinese entries. Let's stop mentioning nationalism.
    • OK, even though my Google.com search is unreliable, I did not repeat it in my last comment when I mentioned rational discussion. My point is that your Google Scholar search also fails to prove that Ta-Hsia is more popular. It's time for us to talk about what if neither of us can prove one word is more popular than the other. Thank you.--Neo-Jay (talk) 19:13, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Google Scholar gives 35 hits on Ta-Hsia and Bactria to seven (at most) for Daxia and Bactria. A ratio of five to one, on a sample size of 42, seems proof to me. However, I will not make any more attempts to convince someone so loyal to his national folkways. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:17, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Hey, friend, it seems that you totally ignored what I said for your Google Scholar search. I have to repeat it for the 3rd time: "Since we are talking about the recent usage of the term, let's just cite the sources published after 1979, when the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) adopted pinyin as the standard romanization for modern Chinese. In the 35 articles for Ta-Hsia, 21 of them were before 1979, 4 in the 1980s, 5 in the 1990s, 4 in the 2000s, and 1 unclear. In the 10 articles for Daxia, 7 of them were in the 2000s. This result cannot be interpreted as that Ta-Hsia is still more popular than Daxia nowadays." (I said this 1st time at 07:07, 17 December 2007, and 2nd time at 20:23, 18 December 2007) OK? Any comment? And I hope you can focus on the issue, not the person. My arguments have nothing to do with nationalism. They are all about Wikipedia's naming conventions and policies. I have apologized to you and repeatedly told you that I am not a nationalist. If you still cannot discuss rationally, do as you please. --Neo-Jay (talk) 20:31, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • I have already responded to this argument. Hans Adler is right that pinyin is becoming more popular than it was, but no rational statistical conclusion whether this subject has made a transition or not can be drawn from the sample of 9 hits in this century. Repeating fallacies does not make them sound. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:11, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
            • Unbelievable! I responded to your this argument at as early as 03:07, 19 December 2007: "if 9 is too small a sample for Daxia, then 4 is of course also too small a sample for Ta-Hsia!" Please remember that most of the 35 hits for Ta-Hsia were published before 1979, the year when pinyin was adopted by ISO as the standard romanization of Chinese. If we calculate the Ta-Hsia hits after 1979, there were only 13 (not 35), and 9 of them were published before 2000. You already said "Nine is too small a sample to be statistically significant". How can you be sure that 4 (after 2000) or 13 (after 1979) is not too small?? I highly suggest you read our old discussions carefully before you post your comment again. --Neo-Jay (talk) 21:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
              • Nine is the total of hits on either (and Bactria) in this century; that is what sample size means. But I see no point in discussing statistics further with someone genuinely ignorant of them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:39, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
                • It is you that said "Nine is too small a sample to be statistically significant." (you said it at 22:27, 18 December 2007). Whatever the 9 is, how can you argue that 9 is too small while 4 or 13 is not?? I highly suggest you understand what you were talking about before you come back (if you will). --Neo-Jay (talk) 21:55, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
                  • There is about an 18% chance that a sample of 9 will split 7-2 (as in this case) or worse, purely by randomness; that is not significant. See binomial distribution Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:04, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
                    • Thank you for your teaching. I learned a lot from you. Your argument is that the samples size for the hits after 2000 is too small to prove that Daxia is significantly more popular than Ta-Hsia. That's fine. But the point is whether Ta-Hsia is significantly more popular than Daxia. If we expand the sample size to include the hits after 1990, then we'll get 9 for Ta-Hsia and 9 for Daxia. It is not significantly different. If we include all the hits after 1979, then we got 13 for Ta-Hsia and 9 for Daxia. It seems significant. But it also rightly indicates that Ta-Hsia is more and more unpopular. It should be born in our minds that it's not fair to include the hits before 1979, the year when pinyin was adopted as the international standard. My conclusion is still that neither of us can prove that one name is significantly more popular than the other. Therefore, pinyin should be used as the title. --Neo-Jay (talk) 23:45, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

comment In the english speaking world and on wikipedia from my knowledge of the subject Ta-Hia is the correct title rather than Ta-hsia which looks like an old fashioned spelling convention whether you are looking at google or whatever. We should follow the guidelines for all articles and ensure there is consistency in the naming. A move to Ta-hsia would seem inappropriate -I'd rather more effort went into writing a good article on it itself. Regards to all ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ Talk? 20:02, 20 December 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Another proposal

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I think most of the following points should be uncontroversial.

  • At least part of the effort that went into this discussion would have been better spent on improving the article.
  • The name of the article is the Chinese word which is transcribed as "Daxia" in Pinyin, "Ta-Hsia" in Wade Giles, and "Ta-Hia" in EFEO. All three transcriptions of this word are or have been in use. The question is only which transcription should be used in this case.
    • Pinyin is the leading standard for transcription of Chinese and should generally be used in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese). However, there are many exceptions. There are specific rules for place names, but they are perhaps not very helpful here: "Mainland China place names should be in Hanyu Pinyin. Place names in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and overseas (such as Singapore) should be romanized in whatever way is commonly used for those places. Same goes for non-Han Chinese place names. So use Hohhot, Kashgar, and Shigatse, not Huhehaote, Kashi and Rikaze."
    • Wade Giles used to be the standard for transcription of Chinese in English speaking countries and is still the standard in Taiwan.
    • EFEO used to be the standard for transcription of Chinese in French speaking countries and is now obsolete.
  • In any case the article should be reachable (via redirects) from all three transcriptions, and it should mention them all.
  • Currently the name of the article is Ta-Hia, while Daxia and Ta-Hsia are disambiguation pages that also offer Daxia River and Xia Dynasty. The first of these can be replaced by a link ("This article is about the historical region. For the river see Daxia River"). If the "Xia Dynasty" actually makes sense here (I have no opinion on this) we can treat it similarly.

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese) says that if another spelling (i.e. other than Pinyin) is more popular it should be preferred. It seems clear that this rule is not intended to prefer another spelling just because it is marginally more popular, and the example given ("taoism") is one where the non-Pinyin spelling is vastly more popular. But the rules for place names are less clear, and they may or may not take precedence here (both views are reasonable). We cannot agree which of the three spellings is most popular or whether or not any differences are significant. The rule does not say whether uses before the introduction of Pinyin are counted or not. It is reasonable to believe that they should be counted; it is reasonable to believe that they should not be counted. Here is a suggestion, in the hope that everybody can agree to something like this.

  1. For now, leave the article name as it is. (By now we even have someone who actually thinks that's the best choice.)
  2. In the article text, say it is spelled "Daxia", "Ta-Hsia" or "Ta-Hia" (in this order).
  3. Make Daxia and Ta-Hsia redirects, as described above.
  4. And then, after somebody has shown a deeper interest in the article by extending and improving it, the matter can be discussed again.

--Hans Adler (talk) 18:40, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • I comment here, because I have a separate comment below. The only major improvements I can see to make here is to comment that the Han Shu disputes Sima's account, and to note that identifications of Ta-Hsia and related places vary widely; I believe that Narain said in the 50's that no two geographers had agreed on them. This should be done both here and in Bactria; why do we need two separate articles? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:48, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

PS: I would have expected accents in the Pinyin spelling, but I could not find out what they should be, since I left my Chinese dictionary in Germany and they don't seem to be used in any web sources for Daxia. If the correct tones can actually be determined (or are there problems because it's a historical word?) then the correctly accented word should also redirect to this article. --Hans Adler (talk) 18:45, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting point. We do not appear to specify tone in most pinyin titles. One consideration may be that this makes the title less likely to display legibly. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:58, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I see. That I didn't know this shows how clueless I am. I thought the tones were needed since the titles don't provide a context. But I suppose the context is really "a Chinese word likely to appear in a Wikipedia title", which is actually quite restrictive. --Hans Adler (talk) 16:10, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tone indicators in Chinese romanisations

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Tones are often not indicated at all for Chinese words - especially for ancient words (as no one can be sure what the tones were in ancient times) - and often, to fluent Chinese-speakers, tone indicators are not needed as the context will indicate what the tone should be. However, they are often of help in narrowing down the characters to check if one is looking for words in an alphabetically arranged dictionary and are of great help to people who are not fluent in Chinese. Tones are generally indicated in either of two ways: either by placing the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4 after the romanised form of the character or, preferably, by using accents. Thus, Daxia may be written either as Dàxià, or as Da4 xia4 (the numbers are employed because some computer fonts do not have all the necessary accents available). Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin#Numbers_in_place_of_tone_marks (and the discussion below) for a detailed account.

By the way, I just discovered (while reading that article) something I didn't know before: Taiwan has officially adopted a new, and somewhat different, form of Pinyin called Tongyong Pinyin in October, 2002. However, its use is voluntary, and many people are instead using the general form of Pinyin (as employed in the PRC and most other countries) which is technically known as Hanyu Pinyin. I certainly don't want to go into the pros and cons of the various systems here (they all have serious problems - discussed in detail in the various articles I have given links to), but the net effect of all this will certainly lead to a steady decrease in the use of Wade-Giles in Taiwan, which, I believe, is another good reason not to be using it as the heading for articles in the Wikipedia. Of course, redirects can and should be made for those who may be searching for the Wade-Giles form of a word, and the Wade-Giles form of the title word can be included near the beginning of each article, if one wishes. Whatever the outcome of all these discussions, I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to comment on the subject - and I hope it is resolved very soon ("Ta-hia" simply cannot be allowed to remain the heading - it is from a defunct French system). As I have said before, I strongly support the use of the standard Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin which is also suggested as best practice for the Wikipedia. Best wishes to you all for 2008! Cheers, John Hill (talk) 01:12, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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