Talk:Cuju

God
There is a God worship for this game.

Kemari & Sepak Takraw
Kemari is a variation of cuju in Japan. And in South East Asia the Sepak Takraw is originated from China. Even the rules and court layout is similar.

Parallel evolution, common origin, or contact?
The mesoamerican ballgame seems to have at least approximately the same general idea. It would be nice if we could find some information about what relationship if any the games might have. For example, since the modern Inuit play a ball game "Akraurak" or "Aqijut", it is plausible that ancestors of Native Americans might have indulged in the sport even during their migration through Siberia and Alaska, but certainly any adventurer on a Kon-Tiki style raft could have carried the idea between continents, or what was invented once might have been invented twice. I suppose the best to hope for is that we can find some sourced speculation or enumeration of such possibilities, but I can still imagine some "smoking gun" might be out there (a player in football regalia crushed under a frozen mammoth, maybe? ;) ). 70.15.116.59 (talk) 15:52, 28 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I really doubt the games have any connection. Ancient civilizations all over the world had their own form of football. These include: Harpastum, Kemari, Knattleikr, La Soule, and Sepak Takraw. I would say Cuju and Harpastum have more in common because both were originally taught to soldiers to prepare them for battle. But this does not necessarily mean they are related. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 14:11, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Australian Rules Football has a hotly debated relationship with Australian indigenous games of football (see https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-14/afl-latest-stance-proves-history-of-aussie-rules-is-in-debate/11202802 for a serious sporting journalist's exposition of this). The Y-DNA (male-determinant chromosome) of most of the indigenous population of the Americas, Europe, North Asia and East Asia descends from the haplotype K2* which is currently found only in Australian Aboriginal men. The gradation in variants of this chromosome suggests a migration from Australia through South-East Asia to the other regions. Perhaps these emigrants brought skills in a range of ball games with them?

FIFA quote
I have started this discussion in the hopes that an agreement can be reached. Basically, an editor (possibly operating under several anonymous I.P.'s) keeps changing the meaning of a cited quote. I am unsure of their reason, but putting it in the wrong context is the same as misinformation. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 16:35, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * he quote is being used out of context. fifa have not claime that cujo is the basis of football, they merely repeated somebody elses claim. its insertion in this article implies this claim to be fact, which it is not, and is why i have reverted it. Dead-or-Red (talk) 17:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * You are still perverting the meaning of the quote by removing the info. I will change some of the wording of the sentence leading up to the quote, but the quote should stay. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 17:23, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with Dead-or-Red (I just saw your entry). It is obviously the same user who keeps inserting the controversial in the lead again. Note that the lead is only for summarizing the contents, so from purely formal reasons alone the quote is out of place anyway.Gun Powder Ma (talk) 12:37, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Again, the claim does mostly obviously not represent any official claim by the FIFA, but carelessly phrased words by an anonymous journo. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:26, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

On the Chinese origins of the game
This FIFA source gives a more definitive impression:



"On the contrary, apart from the need to employ the legs and feet in tough tussles for the ball, often without any laws for protection, it was recognised right at the outset that the art of controlling the ball with the feet was not easy and, as such, required no small measure of skill. The very earliest form of the game for which there is scientific evidence was an exercise from a military manual dating back to the second and third centuries BC in China.

This Han Dynasty forebear of football was called Tsu' Chu and it consisted of kicking a leather ball filled with feathers and hair through an opening, measuring only 30-40cm in width, into a small net fixed onto long bamboo canes. According to one variation of this exercise, the player was not permitted to aim at his target unimpeded, but had to use his feet, chest, back and shoulders while trying to withstand the attacks of his opponents. Use of the hands was not permitted. "

This is no mention of the term cuju but is the "exercise" they refer to that game? Should we use this source and alter the wording the article?

Lotsofissues 14:43, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * It is already mentioned that it was used as training to prepare soldiers for battle. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 17:27, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * There is a mention of Cuju here: the word would be transliterated Tsu Chu in Wade-Giles. ExOttoyuhr (talk) 17:11, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Football and Cuju
I moved the speculative part, rather more a casual remark, on the transmission of "football" from China to England to the bottom. The hypothesis is not published in a scientific source, and it is suffice to say that this goes against the universal opinion of the origions of football as we know it. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 12:30, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Since it was banned in london in 1321 and in the whole of England in 1364 (being among the earliest references to it, though some to ball games go back another 2 centuries) I doubt it was a cultural import from china during the 17th century. 83.104.138.141 (talk) 00:26, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Legacy and speculation
Moved to Talk for analysis: It has been argued that this “primitive version of football existed in China centuries before it was modified and given rules by English scholars to become association football, as it is known today, in the mid-18th century.” FIFA describe it as the "very earliest form of the game for which there is scientific evidence.". Modern football, association football, was introduced into China around 1900. The China Football Association, formed in 1924, did not become affiliated with FIFA until 1931. ''


 * This is a little naughty. The text at the archived cited FIFA page (here) says this:
 * It was recently argued that a form of football, or "cuju", as it was named originated in the Shandong Province of Linzi during the West Han Dynasty. A primitive version of football existed in China centuries before it was modified and given rules by English scholars to become association football, as it is known today, in the mid-18th century.
 * Given that it doesn't say who argued it, it's just an unsourced assertion that can hardly be viewed as a reliable source. 86.139.251.23 (talk) 03:29, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

FIFA, Association football, and Cuju
The FIFA ref you provided in which Cuju is presented a forbearer of association football is "misleading". Cuju does not have any connection with any code of football. The root of this was the World Cup in 2002 in which China first entered a team. FIFA were keen to promote their football product in an opening Chinese market so rebranded association footballs origins. This however does not make their marketing work historically correct. In an encyclopedia this should be the case. Other codes of football such as Rugby, Gridiron, Australian rules football and Gaelic football all have the same origins as association football. None of the governing bodies in any of these sports supports FIFA's rewriting of football world history.

The reality is football can be traced back to a variety of very similar medieval ball games played at Shrovetide, Eater and Christmas in many European countries. The influences for these games were Celtic, Roman and Ancient Greek. There games are also older than Cuju. It is now a part of football history that FIFA tried to rewrite the history of association football and inadvertently the history of all other codes.

Regards Adrian Roebuck — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adrian Roebuck (talk • contribs) 19:38, 4 May 2013 (UTC)


 * How about you post this on the more-public talkpage of the article? Also, first, you're the one who made that interpretation of cuju with association football. The text only states that cuju is the earliest form of football, nothing else. Second, the cited text does not state anything about "association football" or its origins. Simply said, you're just making fantasy tales between your ears about what is stated in that wikipedia article. If you wish to continue this discussion, kindly copy-paste this to the article talkpage. --Cold Season (talk) 19:48, 4 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Directly related to content of this article, thus moved from my talkpage. I have now tagged your uncited so-called information. --Cold Season (talk) 20:16, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

There was a need for work to the done to the opening paragraph as a whole. The implied connection with association football is misleading. That is not something I created it was on the page before I ever edited. And the "so-called information" is verifiable. I will identify and provide a ref for the tag. Adrian Roebuck — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adrian Roebuck (talk • contribs) 20:37, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
 * You know why you said "implied" and not another word, because the article does NOT state what you claim it does and that's the best word you can come up with to nothing. Similarly, you make your own assertion that cuju is not the "earliest form of football for which there's evidence" by providing references that does not state that. So, yes... it is technically verifiable, because I can verify that your references does not support your so-called information.--Cold Season (talk) 22:38, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

The original opening sentence, which I note you have now changed, read "Cuju is an ancient ball game with simulates to association football". That connection is by definition "implied" and the reason I used that word. I have now inserted a suitable reference and changed the word "misleading" for "speculative" briefly expanding on the reasons for this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adrian Roebuck (talk • contribs) 16:48, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Your loose use of references (to make your own conclusions) was unacceptable and against WP:INTEGRITY. Also, the thing I changed was removing from the lead that cuju had similarities to association football (because I found it unsuitable as lead sentence and nothing else). Anyway, that info definitely did not imply anything "by definition" rather it's a faulty interpretation on your part. --Cold Season (talk) 21:42, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

The definition of "implied" is to 'hint at or suggest express or indicate indirectly' and that fits precisely what the original opening sentence was intended to do. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adrian Roebuck (talk • contribs) 06:28, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Add to cultural...
A match of Cuju was shown in the 1982 Jackie Chan movie Dragon Lord--92.114.148.141 (talk) 20:55, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

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External links modified (January 2018)
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'Cùjú' vs. 'Cùjū'
The second syllable of the Chinese name for this sport has a variable pronunciation, with most online resources listing it as being pronounced "jū," i.e. with a high-level tone rather than a mid-rising one. Even the Chinese Wikipedia article lists it as this pronunciation: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%B9%B4%E9%9E%A0

The Wiktionary page for the word notes that the high-level tone is used in Standard Mandarin, while Taiwanese Mandarin uses the mid-rising tone. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%B9%B4%E9%9E%A0#Chinese

Therefore, I think it's wrong to list the pronunciation as the less-used one, as Mandarin speakers number around 1.3 billion, compared to around 25 million Taiwanese Mandarin speakers. Perhaps listing both is the best option. Also, the Wade-Giles transcription doesn't have any tones listed at all. 199.127.112.87 (talk) 09:40, 13 May 2021 (UTC)199.127.112.87