Talk:Emperor of Japan/Archive 2

Just to point out some obvious inconsistency:

The names of emperors in the eras of Meiji, Taisho, Showa, and Heisei are, respectively, Mutsuhito, Yoshihito, Hirohito, and Akihito.

In order to keep things consistent, I think "Meiji" and "Taisho" should actually be replaced by "Mutsuhito" and "Yoshihito." (like the emperors before and after them are.)

Or, for some reasons, if the names of era are prefered for the modern emperors, Hirohito and Akihito should be Showwa and Heisei.

reference (in Japanese):, Tomos 01:35 Mar 16, 2003 (UTC)

This is getting more and more bizarre. The agreement on wiki was that Hirohito and Akihito should be used. Are some people intent on ensuring we have Japanese imperial names that no-one outside Japan can make head or tail of. It is one thing to insist that era name is used to personal name for emperors who were largely unknown outside Japan, but when it has agreed that Hirohito and Akihito, the universal agreement was that as they both are internationally known (and used such names on their own english-language websites or references), they at least would stick to that formula. So no, they must stay as they are. We have enough chaos on wiki already thanks to Taku and his renaming. The last thing we need is for these two to disappear into the blurred mess we currently have. I know what we have is a mess, but it is Taku's doing. Please do not make it any worse (if such a thing was possible) by changing Hirohito and Akihito. Taku's aim at this stage seems to be pure accuracy at the expense of any international recognisability. We don't do it anywhere else (we call Greek kings 'Kings of Greece' not 'kings of the Hellenes', the recognisable taking priority over the unrecognisable technically correct). But Taku insists on the unrecognisable in Japanese monarchs over the logical, but please leave Hirohito and Akihito alone. We don't want to reduce all Japanese monarchs to a status akin to the Bermuda triangle, with is the effect of Taku's renaming of most monarchs. STÓD/ÉÍRE 03:28 Mar 16, 2003 (UTC)

Here is a constructive suggestion.


 * 1) Rever any renaming titles of emperor of Japan given the situation that new convention is unlikely reached in foreseeable future. This should be easy thank to the status that most of articles remain linked to old style name, Emperor {name} of Japan.

Remember wotking too much for discussing the covention is simple waste of time. If whatever the reason is, it is difficult to change things then leave them same. Anyway I am not going to edit or rename articles of "Emperors of Japan". I found contributing to them is wasting of my time and only damage my reputation. Am I guilt of making mess? Whatever. I am not interested in putting punishment or something.

This suggestion should make the situation fluent hopefully.

-- Taku 03:54 Mar 16, 2003 (UTC)

STÓD/ÉÍRE and Taku; In short, that's okay to me. I personally think "Mutsuhito" and "Yoshihito" should replace Meiji and Taisho, because only those two emperors' names are currently in a different style (Era names) on this wiki, and other japanese emperors' names use thier first names (or some equivalent of that). I don't see that this would create any mess, but perhaps it's because I am not aware how unstable things are/have been. Hoping your judgments are better than mine, I respectfully abstain from taking any action. Tomos 22:44 Mar 16, 2003 (UTC)

I'm in the process of moving all the emperor articles of "Emperor {name} of Japan", simply so I can fix all the broken redirects. -- Stephen Gilbert 02:15 Mar 27, 2003 (UTC)
 * Finished down to Emperor #75. -- Stephen Gilbert

Whoa! Wait a minute. What about all the talk on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (names and titles) arguing against preemptive disambiguation? I thought this issue was taken care of there - which is the appropriate page to discuss this. ---mav

Mav, Stephen has been contacting people involved in the debate and as far as I understand got the go-ahead, even from Taku. Taku's changes produced broken links by the dozen, name formats that even some Japanese people were disputing. BTW according to a Japanese embassy official I spoke with, when asked how does one call Japanese emperors, said Some of the sites Taku left had five and six redirects that sent around in circles, sometimes back and forth. Stephen, for his sins, has taken on the task of making sense of this maze of links, relinks and redirects and as they all were originally at [emperor {name} of Japan] he is going back there, given that some are at {name} emperor, others {name} Emperor, some Emperor {name}, more emperor {name}, others {name} of Japan, more [Emperor {name} of Japan, etc. STÓD/ÉÍRE 05:43 Mar 27, 2003 (UTC)
 * Emperor {name} not {name} emperor in english ('you do not follow a literal translation of Japanese, but reformat it to follow english rule. So one inverts the order in the english language')
 * always Emperor of Japan ('of course, 'Emperor of Japan'. That is how you translate them into english'.)


 * There still is no reason at all to disambiguate when there is no ambiguity (as has been explained in great detail on the relevant talk page for this). A consensus of three does not do a convention make. These pages and their redirect chains will just have to be fixed to go to the simple titles so Stephens work will only have a temporary benefit. --mav


 * Yes, but the truth is we have not yet the new naming scheme. Even though the current convension is undoubtedly violating our nameing convension that says use common name and don't do disambiguation if not necessary, we don't know how the articles should be named. That is why people including me wasn't going to fix broken links. -- Taku 04:01 Mar 28, 2003 (UTC)

Mav, to disambigulate is to add in a form of clarifying words. According to Japanese diplomats, there is no such thing as a Japanese emperor referred to as anything but the Emperor of Japan. This is not a case of disambigulation, not a case of adding something in for clarity, it is a case of actually using the correct titles according to Japan! Using any form of words without those words, according to the diplomat I spoke to, would actually be wrong. Taku's version is the equivalent of calling the President of the United States the 'President United of the' and then you saying 'because there is no other title that has the words 'president' and 'united', wiki should run with 'President United of the' meaning President of the United States. Zeech! This is getting frustrating. I don't know how many more times and how many more ways I can say this before wikipedians actually get the message. (and please don't think I am being impolite! I am supposed right now to be writing a briefing document for a candidate seeking to run for the president of Ireland!) According to the diplomat, the problem is that taku is trying to take Japanese titles and transfer them literally into english without understanding you cannot do that. You NEVER to that. For example the Irish language word for president, Uachtaráin is a made-up early 20th century word which litterally means 'the cream', ie someone who rises to the top. Imagine if I called the page on the President of Ireland Uachtaráin na hÉireann (subtitle: the cream of Ireland) and insisted you cannot use the word 'president' because there is no such gaelic word as president, and the page must be called the cream. And a chorus breaking out 'there is no problem is as no-one else called the cream, no more clarity is needed'. There'd be a queue of people forming to say 'hold on a dang minute. How the f*** is anyone outside Ireland going to follow this? And anyway, the people of Ireland use Uachtaráin to mean 'president' so why doesn't wikipedia?'

That is exactly what is going on here. Ignoring the english language translation of the term used by the Japanese state, ignoring the fact that Taku is taking literally things which in inter-language communication are not translated litterally, trying to apply literal Japanese translations to terms and titles when even Japanese diplomats say cannot be used literally in English because in that form they make no sense in English (eg. {name} emperor), misunderstanding that not just is 'Emperor of Japan' not wrong, any other form in an english language setting is regarded as absurd (word used by a professor of Linguistics). And youself described the decision to return to the form of nomenclature recommended by a Japanese diplomat, recommended by a Professor of Linguistics, recommended by a Japanese college lecturer, as offering a 'benefit'. Actually, Taku's changes reduced the entire section on Emperors of Japan to a cross between a black hole and the Bermuda Triangle. (Question No 1: If we cannot call an emperor 'emperor of Japan' in the title, why do we explicitly call him that in the article then? Question No. 2: if we should not call someone 'emperor of Japan', why then do we have a list of Emperors of Japan? (using that term except singular).


 * Because I already addressed my arguments several times, I don't waste repeating them. For those who are unfamily with that, consult the archive. I would like to say some only for clarification. For those who don't know, the Japanese don't speak English mostly but Japanese. So simply we can't use the actual official name, because the offical title is expressed in Japanese not in English. No Japanese refer to their empeor as Emepror of Japan but use a Japanese word for it. Needless to say, I never translate anything regarding the name of Emperor of Japan. I have never consult Japanese references to learn about the general convension among English-speaking academic community. The convention widely acknolwedged in wikipedia says in that case, use the most recognized title for it. I totaly agree with your argument that the title, Emperor of Japan is correct. Mav, sorry but the debate is not about ambiguity but the correctness. If you do some research, you will know Emperor of Japan should be a proper title. The fact although is simply no one uses a proper name anyway. -- Taku 04:03 Mar 28, 2003 (UTC)

Ok. I've said my piece. Peace, man. Don't mean to be rather dogmatic but this just seems so. . . . bizarre. Zoe has just given up on the whole Japanese naming thing. My lecturer friend (from Toyko) said she didn't know whether to laugh or cry at it all. Even Taku seems to have run out of steam, having realised what a complete balls he made of it all. I don't envy Stephen his task. Trying to sort out this mess it like trying to do a thousand piece jigsaw where the people cannot even decide what the picture on the jigsaw should evenof - with Taku every so often kicking over the box  saying 'no no no. You have to put it the other way round and do it backwards!' (I'm now being sarcastically humourous, BTW.) And so. . . to bed. Oiche saimh. STÓD/ÉÍRE 08:37 Mar 27, 2003 (UTC) PS: Yoda speak. huh? I that something the Shrub (or Baby Bush) says to Jacques Chirac every so often? Or do you buy it in a supermarket? I'm curious. *smile*


 * JT, this is the same arguement you've been making for a while now so I'm not going to attempt to refute it yet again. You still haven't answered my last post to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (names and titles). --mav

My only interest is fixing the four and five level broken redirect chains. Please note that the majority of the articles are currently at "Emperor {name} of Japan" already. The ones that aren't are mostly lost in broken redirect hell. Thus, I'm moving them back to their original titles and pointing the redirects there. That way, if people want them at "Emperor {name}" (or "{name}", or whatever), the whole lot of them can easily be moved via a script without breaking all the redirects again. -- Stephen Gilbert


 * Carry on then :) We can fix the naming problem later. --mav

em. . . Ed has renamed the renamed pages that Stephen had renamed following Taku's renaming, so at this stage the names appear to change by the hour!!! (This whole debate is like something from Groundhog day!!!) BTW, Mav, I did answer your point. And I checked with academics, Japanese academics, Japanese diplomats, etc. What they say is:


 * 1) {name alone} (which is what Ed did tonight) - 100% wrong
 * 2) {name} Emperor - an incorrect literal translation of Japanese into english, that fails to take into account that you must invert names in translating into english. Though used in some texts, the universal advice was 'don't use this'
 * 3) Emperor {name} - better that Number 2 but inadvisable unless it has already been clarified what he is emperor of. This form is formally a 'second paragrapher', ie a form of secondary reference used when it is no longer necessary to repeat the word Japan from the first paragraph
 * 4) {name}, Emperor of Japan - a workable and often used format particularly in sourcebooks that rely on accuracy rather than mis-translated usage
 * 5) Emperor {name} of Japan - an alternative and often used format. Both 4 and 5 are used explicitly endorsed, used and recommended by the Japanese Imperial Court and government when using english, depending on context. Number 5 is particularly used for the two most recent emperors when attached to the english language name; eg. Emperor Hirohito of Japan.

Whether 4 or 5 is used, diplomats suggested it would be 'disrespectful' not to use the 'state name' in the title, arguing that the Emperor should be 'treated with equality' ie, the same as western monarchs. Leaving out the state in their view would show "disrespect" by in their eyes implying that they were some sort of lesser monarch than the rest of the world's monarchs who "of course are shown respect through their national titles." According to a Japanese academic, 'the Emperor is Emperor of Japan so of course should be called 'Emperor of Japan'. It would be deeply disrespectful and seen as such by people not to say that."

Examples of Title Usage


 * ''With reference to "Their Majesties the Emperor and Empress of Japan 2002" issued by Ministry of Foreign Affairs."' How the Emperor and Empress are described on the official website of the Imperial Couple.  See http://www.kunaicho.go.jp/e03/ed03-01.html  - Imperial Website


 * http://www.kunaicho.go.jp/egokansou/egokansou-15-01.html 2003 New Year Greeting by His Majesty the Emperor of Japan (official wording of title used)


 * His Late Imperial Majesty Hirohito, the 124th Emperor of Japan, Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum, Order of the Rising Sun, Order of the Sacred Treasure, Order of the Seraphim (Sweden) . . . " official list of biographical details of Emperor Shÿwa'' at http://www.geocities.com/jtaliaferro.geo/showa.html


 * Message From the United States President to the Emperor of Japan December 6, 1941 (Dept. of State Bulletin, Vol. V, No. 129, Dec. 13, 1941) at http://www.isop.ucla.edu/eas/documents/us-jpn411206.htm (words as recorded in the National Archives)


 * Hirohito%