Talk:Liao dynasty

re: Good Article nomination
I contributed some material, mostly on culture, to help round it out a bit. Other than that I think that it might include a bit more in the scope of the history of musical instruments (which could always be added later), as far as I can tell, this should be a pretty complete and stable article. Dcattell (talk) 21:41, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * also infobox display needs to be fixed (previous and succeeding) Dcattell (talk) 21:56, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The infobox is fine, technically. The issue is that there are no flags for the preceding and following entities, and just throwing something in there just to make the boxes not-empty would be way, way past the acceptable level for WP:OR. As for your additions, I tweaked them a little bit and I'm going to head over to your talk page to ask you to fix one of the sources. Thanks for the help.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  03:11, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Storage for the source...


 * OK, the Former Countries infobox issue is a general problem shared by many articles, and not particular to this article. I looked at "Tang Dynasty", "Srivijaya", and some others. It's not very helpful for someone reading an article not to see the link destinations simply and obviously displayed, and to rather be served up the sin escudo image. I thought of various work arounds, but they seem problematic, given the complicated nature of this template's functionality: this is indeed an issue for template design, rather than one in regard to this particular article. Dcattell (talk) 19:22, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually, sin escudo image better than rectangular border, in infobox ([[Image:Sin escudo.svg|20px|Image missing]])?
 * Aside from that I really hate those filler images, this also isn't the correct usage for them. These filler images' primary purpose is to encourage people to find replacement images and replace out the filler. In this case, there isn't a replacement. I also think that a question mark over a shield is misleading. First, shield identification isn't a concept that existed in China at that time as far as I'm aware. Secondly, the question mark implies unknown, where in this case, it's not unknown but instead never existed. All in all, I just think using that image isn't a good idea.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  03:27, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Hey guys i'm doing this project in civ and I need help, if you know anyone or a event that starts with a K or a N that has to do with china before 1500 ce please tell me~ Ethan 15:49, 15 November 2015 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by EthanTheBam (talk • contribs)

Issues, impressions
This article does not read as neutral to me.

Shrigley (talk) 22:47, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) It vaguely places the Liao within "East Asia", and by the sidebars equally within the Chinese and Mongolian historical traditions (not to mention Korean and Russia, the only connections which would be by modern boundaries), rather than with China, as China-focused sources - which are the ones most consulted for this article - do.
 * 2) In many places, elevates foreign titles over Chinese ones; i.e. "Great Khan" rather than "Emperor"
 * 3) Unproblematically treats "Mongolia" and "Russian Far East" although Russian incursion didn't come until centuries later. Yet somehow northern China must be qualified as "proper", as if those nearby parts are more integral to Russia or Mongolia than they were to China.
 * 4) Endlessly, anachronistically, and without context hammering home the point that the Khitan were more feminist or gender egalitarian than "the Chinese", despite describing institutionalized abduction and rape of Han and Khitan women by Khitan men.
 * 5) Implying that the Khitan were not Chinese; using Chinese instead of Han Chinese or southern Chinese.
 * 6) Claims that the Northern Liao administration had a "Uighur" population, but links to our article which describes an ethnic category that was created no earlier than 1921.
 * 7) Unproblematically places Khitan within "the Altaic language family", despite the current linguistic consensus rejecting Altaic as a genetic category.
 * 8) Too much emphasis on revisionist F.W. Mote's opinion that the Khitans were not acculturated, without giving evidence of longstanding sinicization thesis
 * Interesting points, and I appreciate your raising them. I'll leave it to Sven, who has easier access to the sources, to respond in detail. But for quick comparison, the Encyclopedia Britannica appears to use similar language to what you object to here, including distinguishing between "Khitan" and "Chinese" and using the term "China proper" ; the British Museum also distinguishes between Khitan and Chinese. Obviously neither is the final word, but that suggests to me that this language at least isn't prima facie non-neutral. Perhaps you could note some major works or sources that use your preferred terminology so that their views could be included?
 * I agree that it's worth adding a "what is now" in front of the Russian Far East in the lead; it does appear sufficiently clarified in the other two uses in the article, though. Ditto Mongolia.
 * Anyway, I won't pretend my depth goes beyond a quick assessment of readily available sources, but this article does seem in keeping with those. If you think the problems run deeper in the article than can readily be fixed, you might consider appealing at Good Article reassessment. Hope this helps, and thanks again for the comments... -- Khazar2 (talk) 23:34, 24 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Your comments provide an interesting read. I am a student of East Asian history and culture, and my studies tend to be heavily concentrated in dynastic era China, however I am not a credentialed scholar in the field. When I started working on this article a year ago, it was almost entirely a close paraphrase of Mote, to the point where I felt that nothing short of a complete re-write would bring the article into 'safe' territory. I didn't choose the article because I knew a lot about the Liao before hand, I chose it because it was extraordinarily needy. As for the source selection: I used everything I could find, and tried to balance diverging views as best as I could. With all that in mind, let me try to respond to your comments:
 * 1. I don't see a problem with placing the Liao within East Asia. Most of the Liao territory wasn't located in what is now China or what was historically controlled by the Han Chinese dynasties. The Khitans don't trace their origins to China, the Song didn't consider them Chinese, and while one faction within the Liao leadership wanted to be Chinese, that faction was constantly struggling with a faction that wanted to retain a fundamentally Khitan identity.
 * 2. Considering the above, I don't see an issue with that.
 * 3. If you want to remove the word "proper", go ahead. I was using China proper as a stand in for "modern geographically defined China", since during the dynastic period borders tended to change dramatically from dynasty to dynasty.
 * 4. I do not want to get into an argument over whether Khitan abductions leading to rape are any better or worse than Han Chinese arranged marriages leading to rape, but I would argue rather strongly that the role of women in Khitan society was significantly more egalitarian than the role of women in Han society.
 * 5. Umm... yeah, the Khitan were not Chinese. They trace their origins to a different region, trace their language and culture to groups not associated with China, and were, up until they conquered the Song, referred to by the Han Chinese as barbarians (read: not Chinese). If you want to replace instances of Chinese with Han Chinese, go ahead. If you want to argue that the Khitans were Chinese, you're going to need to show me some scholarship that backs that up, because I'm not seeing it anywhere.
 * 6. The sources called them Uighur. A better link might be Uyghur Khaganate, because the Khitans were a tributary/client group to the Uyghur Khaganate for some time, but that article really doesn't deal with the people from the Khaganate. That being said, the article on Uyghur people does mention the Uyghur Khaganate before it even mentions 1921.
 * 7. That's very much out of my area of expertise. If you have sources that indicate a different linguistic origin, you're free to add it in. As for your claim that there is a consensus rejecting Altaic, the article Altaic languages doesn't paint it as nearly as settled as you do.
 * 8. Based on the sources that I have access too, I would say that Mote is not an outlier.
 * Suffice to say that I disagree with a lot of the points you make, and especially disagree with the assertion that the article is not neutral. I would be willing to work with you on incorporating some of your views into the article if you have the sources to back up your assertions, however. History has multiple perspectives, and with something with as many knowledge gaps as the Liao Dynasty, there is room for multiple POVs. It's also worth noting that throughout my response, I tried really, really hard not to take offense to your wording choices, because you came dangerously close to accusing me of trying to push a POV. If we're going to work together in the future, those kind of assertions are going to have to stop. Redacted, per below.   S ven M anguard   Wha?  01:48, 25 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Hey, sorry if you were offended by my comments. I don't think you're intentionally pushing a POV, and I have a lot of respect for you as an editor. Sometimes we just reflect the viewpoints of the sources that we have access to, which might themselves use careless language or stereotypes. The issue of whether dynasties founded by families whose mother tongue was not Sinitic is complex and not unique to Liao, and I think I will do a rewrite of Conquest Dynasties (CDs) to elucidate some of the issues. We know how certain ethnic separatists like to claim that the Qing was "non-Chinese", for example, because such labels have non-trivial implications. But, there's a powerful idea that has been endorsed by many governments throughout Chinese history - mostly the CDs, but including the current one - that to "be Chinese" is something that transcends blood lineage, and that one could "become Chinese" through certain rituals. Again, some of our articles on these subjects are bad or unclear: Altaic can be accepted as a sprachbund - which few people would contest - but that it is a genetic language family is at the very least, a minority opinion. Similarly, there is already a proposal on the talk page of removing the pre-20th century stuff from the "Uyghur people" article. Consider my comments a to-do list. I will bring sources, but you can look for them too, especially if you're unsure or even if you want to fortify your position on controversies like the "X ethnicity was more misogynist" front. Shrigley (talk) 04:58, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
 * It's good to hear that it was just a misunderstanding, and that I was apparently just reading too much into "This article does not read as neutral to me". Sorry about that. As for the different opinions on the content, I understand where you're coming from, but having not seen the sources you're basing your assertions off of, I'm not sure what conclusions to draw. Unfortunately, while I would like to bring this article up to FA status one day, that would take more time and resources than I can devote to the project at the moment. I am planning on revisiting the article over the summer. You should feel free to to work on it before then though, if you'd like.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  08:14, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Uighurs
The Liao state did indeed have a Uighur population, but they were not related to modern uyghurs/uighurs. The modern day descendants of the Old Uighurs are the Yugur people of Gansu. Keep this in mind, whenever you see an interwiki link that says "Uyghur" and its about old uyghurs, make sure it redirects to Uyghur Khaganate and not the modern uyghur people. I have used a source which explicitly uses "Old Uyghur" to refer to the ancient people to differentiate them from modern Uyghurs. the source notes that they are of different origins, ascribing karluk ancestry to modern uyghurs. Eventually an article will be created for Old Uyghurs and the Old Uyghur language. Nvm the old uyghurs just spoke a dialect of old turkic.Rajmaan (talk) 14:43, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

More sources
http://cces.snu.ac.kr/article/jces3_4biran.pdf

http://www.turuz.info/Turkoloji-Tarix/430-Mongols,%20Turks,%20And%20Others%20-Eurasian%20Nomads%20And%20The%20Sedentary%20World%20(Reuven%20Amitai%20And%20Michal%20Biran)%20(Brill-2005).pdf

Rajmaan (talk) 03:22, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Liao had more Han Chinese people than Khitan people
"The peak population is estimated at 750,000 Khitans and two to three million ethnic Chinese." From that I infer, and even before seeing this sentence suspected, that the Chinese population outnumbered the Khitans multiple times throughout the empire years, at least since the annexation of Sixteen Prefectures. I have no way of investigating this claim, but even if it weren't completely true, it is still very wrong to use "Liao culture" and "Khitan culture" interchangeably. For example, stuff like "The sexual freedoms of Liao also stood in stark contrast from those of the Han Chinese" are problematic. In fact the entire "Society and culture" section is biased towards the Khitan culture, probably a minority of the population. While all the information is good, we need to add more about that of the majority ethnicity - the Chinese; and if there is lack of information, need to address it, and correct all instances where "Liao" is equated with "Khitan". Timmyshin (talk) 18:57, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

RfC: Bohai or Balhae
So when I rewrote the article (it was poorly written in some parts and close paraphrasing in the rest; none of the original prose remains), I used "Bohai" instead of "Balhae" when describing the kingdom in this article. While the article might be called Balhae, both Balhae and Bohai are correct, with Balhae being the transliteration from Korean and Bohai being the transliteration from Chinese. While it is true that the Liao Dynasty had influence in both what is now North Korea and what is now the PRC, the Khitans are associated much more closely with Chinese history (as that was their primary military, cultural, and political focus, and they made far greater inroads there), rather than Korean history. As such, contemporary English language sources use the Chinese transliteration, Bohai, in the context of Liao-Bohai/Balhae relations. That's why I used Bohai, not Balhae. disagrees, and since we're unable to edit back and forth any further without getting into an edit war, and neither of us seem liable to drop the issue, I'd like to put it up for broader discussion.  S ven M anguard  Wha?  06:40, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
 * That's are another matter. Both Balhae and Bohai are correct I agree to 's opinion. But, I'm not tell you about Liao is partially Korean history by the territory of present-day, and, Balhae was more close to Korean history rather than Chinese history. That was just pronouncing problem from transliteration, not historical continuity.--Historiographer (talk) 06:48, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
 * plus, I think we need to make an adaptation for Wikipedia by its title, not a follow source to the letter.--Historiographer (talk) 06:51, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Peruse Naming_conventions_(geographic_names) for which one ought to be used. For the sake of consistency, I think Balhae is currently what's used on WP:English. Proposals towards changing that to Bohai ought to happen on the Balhae article itself and not here. Lathdrinor (talk) 01:14, 12 November 2013 (UTC)


 * The page on Balhae already lists "Bohai" as a Chinese alias of the same state, so it is no need of changes. The matter is how to refer to the state in this article. How about stating this with a parenthesis, "Bohai (Balhae)" or "Balhae (Bohai)", when that state is first mentioned and then consistently use one form for the rest of the article? Dimadick (talk) 17:08, 15 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Google books returns 748 results for "Bohai Kingdom" and 110 results for "Balhae Kingdom". So Bohai seems to be the WP:COMMONNAME for the kingdom. But I agree with Dimadick that Balhae should be mentioned in parentheses when the state first appears in the article. -Zanhe (talk) 04:35, 16 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Bohai ; per Common Name convention, appears to be the "correct" name in this circumstance. Both, however, should be mentioned in the article, such as Bohai (Balhae).  I also agree with  that the Balhae article should undergo a name change—to be discussed at that article.   GenQuest  "Talk to Me" 03:42, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

PUA
A PUA character(s) somewhere on this page is preventing maintenance bots from cleaning it up. I can't find it/them. — kwami (talk) 08:41, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I've replaced the two occurrences of two Khitan characters in the title of an article by Aisin-Gioro Ulhicun with question marks as nobody can correctly see the characters, even if they have the appropriate fonts installed. I removed these PUA characters once before, but I guess someone must have put them back, which I think is very unhelpful to our readers and editors. BabelStone (talk) 09:15, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I've now replaced the question marks with glyph images of the two Khitan characters, which is the best solution at present. BabelStone (talk) 13:43, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Move request to decapitalize all Chinese dynasty articles
There's a move request to decapitalize "dynasty" in the Chinese dynasty articles, as in Han Dynasty → Han dynasty. For more information and to give your input, see. --Cold Season (talk) 18:25, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

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If it was called the Khitan Empire, people would call it the Khitan Empire, not the Liao
You don't need a "The" in the title. You also should not change the title of the article to a name that's mentioned in the entire article a total of three times, all of which are found in the introduction.

vandalism and non-consensual edits by User:Qiushufang
This user has taken to spamming the article by making many small, non-consensual edits in a row in order to spoil the article in their interests and increase their correction rating. Since I can not cancel all his activities and the article is in poor shape and I do not know where to turn, I will try to bring the article to an encyclopedic form. How much power do I have.

Information without reliable and verified sources will be deleted. Only statements that have verifiable and reliable sources will remain.

This user is engaged in falsifying sources - he writes his own author's text and, in order to confirm it, put a link to a source that is not verifiable, or an unreliable source, or even simply turns the article into a platform for his own position. A complaint has been sent to the administration, but I do not know all the procedures. I will do what I can.Ulianurlanova (talk) 19:24, 7 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Could you explain to me what you mean by "correction rating" and "I try to restore the article before the encyclopedic type, I remove fabrications without reliable and verified sources from the Qiushufang user"? As far as I can tell, the content added is provided in the source. One part of the content you deleted is even a direct quotation. Qiushufang (talk) 20:08, 7 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Could you explain what you mean here by "You are making an absolutely non-scientific statement with an unverifiable source."? The source provided is in
 * Here is the direct quote from p.44: "In 345 the Yü-wen were crushed by the stronger Mu-jung group of Hsien-pei, who had founded the state of Yen, and they split into three tribes, one of which was called the K'u-mo-hsi, to which the Khitan belonged. In 388 this group again split to form the K'u-mo-hsi (later usually called simply the Hsi) and the Ch'i-tan." It is not a scientific topic so I do not understand why it matters that it is non-scientific. The source is a monograph on the Liao dynasty and other conquest states in China published by the Cambridge University by historians on the subject. How are they not verifiable?
 * You also deleted referenced content without reason here. Qiushufang (talk) 02:33, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
 * You also deleted referenced content without reason here. Qiushufang (talk) 02:33, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Correction needed to infobox
Shouldn't the infobox be corrected to note that Shangjing was only the first of the capitals of the Liao Dynasty, not its only capital? 98.123.38.211 (talk) 20:05, 21 November 2023 (UTC)