Talk:Clan

Ain't nothin to F*** with
I find it hillarious that wu tang is added to this list.71.138.165.190 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 11:39, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Is a clan substantially different from a tribe? Pizza Puzzle

It should be, but since the Scottish clans ressembled small tribes, the distinction is blurry. I have translated ätt as "clan" since the definition oeved to start in the time of Vikings, it is also German, Irish, Greek, and many other cultures.

If the editor can supply sources it can be rewritten and reinstated. 67.87.67.56 20:27, 29 June 2006 (UTC
 * Clan means family in Gaelic. Such as don't mess with the family/clan. So why would the word the Gaelic word for family be used to describe Iranians chineese Jews etc? It refers to celtic people of british and irish descent such as the welsh scottish and irish. For that reason it has taken on negative meaning(example KKK) as it is supposed to be non inclusive.It is a celtic term not germanic.


 * The English word is derived from the Gaelic word but not specific to any country or group of people. It refers to the idea of a clan not any clan or group of clans in particular. --sony-youth 22:30, 12 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Clan is from the word Clann, and does not mean family, this is a common misconception, see clann at wiktionary. The meaning is children, or offspring. As such it is not an appropriate term for some of the other countries "clans". However, if good references can be found to link these countries tribes, families, nobility, groups, etc, to the term clan, and specifically describe them as such, who are we to argue? Yours ever, Czar Brodie (talk) 01:02, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

--149.255.148.254 (talk) 07:09, 21 November 2014 (UTC)--149.255.148.254 (talk) 07:09, 21 November 2014 (UTC)Italic text'' 
 * 1) Numbered list item

99999 Is it a coincidence that the word for son in Etruscan is clan? Meursault2004 06:50, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Further delving in the OED points to the word Clan having a Latin origin not Gaelic. Cassandra — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.74.41.241 (talk) 14:20, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

clans in video games
apart from seeing clans in real life, you commonly see clans in your every day online games. a clan in a video game is much like you would see in real life, they organise themselves and commonly seek dominance against other clans. you can find clans in most online games. clans in online games usually consist of a leader, a co leader, council members and your basic soldier. clans in these video games usually use forums to recruit new members. a clan can have anywhere from 2 to 500 members. the clans most commonly seek battles against each other. the winning clan gets bragging rights and establishes themselves as "dominaters" or "owners"

clans usually get together on set schedules and go out to do events. the average online clan has about 1 to 4 events a week. you can most commonly find clans in runescape, a game by jagex. in runescape clans get really serious. and even start websites and make videos. clans most notably found in runescape are the vice lords and damage inc. both clans have almost 500 members. and most of the top clans have around that much. clans will be found anywhere where organisation in numbers is possible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by The vice lords (talk • contribs) 09:35, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Scottish clans category
I have removed the Scottish clans box at the bottom of the page which listed all the Scottish clans. I felt this was unnecessary as it is catered for in the Scottish clans article itself and adds a somewhat Scottish bias to the article. It has been removed, but is still in place in the Scottish clans article where it should be. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.171.129.74 (talk) 17:03, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

English clans
Hi, I was just looking at this to read more about English clans - of northern England - who were collectively known with Scottish border clans - as the Reivers. I think it is unfair to ignore the Reiver clans as not being actual clans as they effectively acted as one. I understand that it is covered under Reiver page - but I do think the English clans do deserve a mention. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.107.3.139 (talk) 17:16, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * wiki is about references, so if you have good reliable references that say / speak of / or refer to English clans and refer to them as "clans" then go ahead. Yours ever, Czar Brodie (talk) 14:13, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Cali saleeban darood majeerteen harti Haykal2021 (talk) 02:59, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Khatri clans
I found the entry for "Khatri clans" (in India) all garbled, and not usable by readers. The sourcecode actually gave a long list of their surnames at this location: wikt:Appendix:Khatri surnames, where wikt stands for wiktionary. Anyway, I can't judge how useful that wiktionary list might be to readers if they could still access it, but I don't like to lose such information, so I am preserving that sourcecode information here. Of course I removed that information from the sourcecode, in order to make the "Khatri clans" entry useful to the readers of Wikipedia. Good luck to us all, For7thGen (talk) 22:38, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Deleted paragraph
I deleted the following paragraph from the "Clans as political units" section. It had nothing to do with "clans as political units", and not much to do with clans in general. It also seems rather dubious to me - it can't possibly be true that such a lifestyle has "continued to be the most common form of life through human history", given that such a lifestyle was generally abandoned in the neolithic, i.e. while we were still prehistoric. (And the language is overblown and not particulalry encyclopaedic, and seems to me to be giving off a bit of a "noble savage" vibe).
 * Large families or clans wandering in the lush woodlands have continued to be the most common form of life through human history. Axes to fell trees and sickles for harvesting of the grain were the only tools people might bring with them. All other devices were made from materials they found at the site, such as fire stakes of birch, long rods (vanko), and harrows made of spruce tops. The extended family conquered the lush virgin forest, burned and cultivated their carefully selected swidden plots, powered one or a few crops, and then proceeded on to forests they had registered before. In the temperate zone the forest regenerated in the course of a lifetime. So swidden was repeated several times in the same area over the years. But in the tropics the forest floor gradually depleted. It was not only to the moors, as in Northern Europe, but also in the steppe, savannah, prairie, pampas and barren desert in tropical areas where shifting cultivation is the oldest (Clark 1952 91-107). 

Iapetus (talk) 12:20, 26 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree to your edit. The contribution was made by user:svedjebruk a norwegian contributor with a sympathy for a new theory on agricultural history. Bw --Orland (talk) 16:43, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Kshatriya Clan
Dear Writer Please write content under Kshatriya clan, it is empty Pleas write from ancient to present(when Kshatriya word evolved, and who are Kshatriya now) as per social hierarchical and chronological order — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.93.212.18 (talk) 06:24, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Clannism merge
The Clannism page would benefit from being included with the description of Clan, so I support the June merge proposal. Klbrain (talk) 18:30, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅ Klbrain (talk) 15:46, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Kinship - ignotum per ignotius
In anthropology, kinship "is the web of social relationships that form an important part of the lives of all humans in all societies, although its exact meanings even within this discipline are often debated...Kinship can refer both to the patterns of social relationships themselves, or it can refer to the study of the patterns of social relationships in one or more human cultures (i.e. kinship studies)." Kinship is a vague term and its ambiguity is certainly not understood by the general reader. Defining one term ('clan') in terms of another even vaguer term ('kinship') is unhelpful. Calling a clan a "distinct social grouping" is much more meaningful.


 * (1) You seem to presenting just your point of view on this. "Kinship" is perfectly understandable to most people and the wikilink is there for those who need more. How you imagine that "distinct social grouping" is an improvement escapes me - it is certainly substantially more vague than the original. (2) The cited works of the article use the term "kinship". There is no reason for Wikipedia not to follow its sources - as you know, Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia that is based on its sources. Do you have any RSs that suggest that we should do otherwise? (3) You need to study WP:BRD and decide whether your revert of a revert fits this widely accepted protocol. At present, you are at risk of slipping into an edit war. (4) Please remember to sign your posts on talk pages. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 11:11, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

AmaXesibe Clan
Xesibe,Nonzaba,Mbathane,Nondize,Bhelesi,Matshaya ngeNqaw'ende abanye betshaye ngemfutshane,Matshin'eybheka njengomntana,Khaulel'intomb'entabeni ithi "bhut ndizeke noba awunalobola iyobonwa ngabadala",Nxele,Bhimbi,Madib'udonga luqhekeka,Khandanyawana,matsaka,Mganu,Mnune,Mkhuma,Tshonela ka Matsho,Mchumani,Mpofana,Ntswayibane,Nxanda ka Xesibe 41.115.37.172 (talk) 20:43, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Endogamy and exogamy
I'm not familiar enough with the site's edit policy to want to make a substantive edit, but the endogamy statement in the first paragraph of this article really has problems. Obviously, this sort of claim warrants a citation, and once the citation is found, "indigenous societies" should probably be reframed in terms of the source, as it seems inapt ("indigenous society" not being a mode of social organization). I have no idea what the state of scholarship is on this topic, but if the exogamy bit is just coming from Durkheim or something, it seems best to present it as a second-hand argument.

That's not all, though: the sentence has also gotten into a peculiar state over multiple rewrites, so its meaning has drifted in a way that may not be intentional.
 * The very first version of the page listed exogamy as a definitional characteristic of a clan, This was subsequently changed to "exogamous (or closely related)", suggesting some confusion about the term.
 * The ancestor of the current sentence comes from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Clan&oldid=5170302 (12 Aug 2004), which says "Most clans are exogamous, meaning that its members cannot marry one another."
 * In https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Clan&oldid=174719452 (30 Nov 2007), this shifts from "most clans are" to "Clans in Indigenous societies are likely to be". Aside from changing "are likely to" to "tend to", this sentence remains essentially intact for 14 years and hundreds of edits.
 * Then, in https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Clan&oldid=1023567901 (17 May 2021), the sentence is changed to "Clans, in indigenous societies, tend to be endogamous, meaning that their members can marry one another", precisely the opposite sense (and, as an aside, an incorrect definition.)
 * Shortly after the prior change, a [clarify] tag is added to "indigenous societies", rightly in my opinon. It lasts until https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Clan&oldid=1050504014 (18 Oct 2021) where it's removed with the explanation "tag doesn't make sense."
 * In https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Clan&oldid=1178657882 (5 Oct 2023), someone seems to have noticed the inversion from 2021, and changed it to "Clans, in indigenous societies, were not endogamous, meaning that their members can not marry one another", where it remains.

This is an odd place to end up. It's almost back to where it was in late 2007, but it's less correct -- because "tend to" has become "were", and because "not endogamous" is not the same as "exogamous". (The definition provided refers to exogamy, as opposed to non-endogamy.) The simple fix would be to restore it to the 2007 version, but I didn't want to do that myself because it's unclear that this sentence is even warranted, to whom it's referring, or in what generality. 184.144.108.123 (talk) 05:15, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

From Old Irish
If the English use is from Old Irish why did it only show up, according to the article, in 1425, hundreds  of years after Middle Irish was in use?

There is also the similar word cinel, cenel

74.104.144.218 (talk) 14:29, 19 November 2023 (UTC)