Talk:Mandarin (bureaucrat)

Modern usage primarily satirical?
Any comments on this text in the article? I usually hear the word used without emotion or satire and used complete interchangeably with "bureaucrat" or "official". I propose either referencing the text or deleting the satirical element. Thoughts? Thanks, Hu Gadarn (talk) 15:52, 8 May 2009 (UTC)


 * My common experience is in the UK its used as a minor insult or slur for a civil servant (often implying further a kind of tribalism within a department), similar to the term bureaucrat in the US which isnt used much in the UK however the term bureaucratic is quite commonly used in the UK. WatcherZero (talk) 02:34, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Etymology
I think there's something wrong with the etymology. ("The English term comes from the Portuguese mandarim, borrowed from Malay, and ultimately coming from Sanskrit mantrin (Devanagari: मंत्री) (meaning councilor or minister)."). I've seen the word mandarin (滿大人) used in a Chinese context, so the word mandarin does exist in the Chinese vocabulary. I found this explanation: "Most English dictionaries state that the etymology of the Mandarin comes from Portuguese mandarim, from Malay menteri, from Sanskrit mantrin counselor, from mantra counsel. Other source states that it was based on the Chinese word "Man Da Ren" (滿大人) or Manchu officer (from government)." (source). So, the etymology appears to be wrong. Alfons Åberg (talk) 23:40, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Do you have a reliable source? The "Man Da Ren" theory does not fit with the use of "mandarin" by Jesuits such as Alessandro Valignano and Matteo Ricci in the 16th century, while the Ming dynasty was still going strong.  Kanguole 01:36, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I have no reliable sources. I didn't even know what 'mandarin' was in Chinese. I just saw the words '滿大人' on a grave in Vietnam (i.e. not Qing dynasty) and figured: this is 'mandarin'. When I further found support for it on the internet, I thought I had a valid point. But maybe I don't.
 * I'd like to conversely ask: is 滿大人 a Chinese approximation of Portuguese 'mandarin', or are they completely unrelated? Both options seem unlikely, to me at least. Cheers, Alfons Åberg (talk) 03:47, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * 滿大人 is a folk etymology theory suggested by modern Chinese people to explain the origin of the English word "mandarin". It is unlikely to be true, as there are many evidences showing the word was already commonly used by Europeans before the rise of Manchus(they were known as Jurchens at the time, as the name "Manchu" was not yet invented). The inscription you see on a grave in Vietnam is probably referring to an official whose surname was Man(滿), or its Vietnamnese equivalent.--113.87.122.98 (talk) 12:11, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

In any event, regardless of the actual origin (I think the "backronym" theory makes sense), the characters are wrong. The text uses the modern (simplified) 老爷, when it should be using the era-appropriate (traditional) 老爺 characters. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.203.10.199 (talk) 17:36, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Mandarins after 1913
After the Confucian court examination system in Vietnam was replaced by French education in 1913 (Duy Tân 6) and the last imperial examinations were held in 1919 (Khải Định 4). However, newer Mandarins kept being appointed by the Nguyễn Dynasty government such as Ngô Đình Diệm, whom as far as I can see he was educated at the School of Public Administration and Law in Hanoi in the year 1921 (Khải Định 6), this was a French school.

So what were the requirements of Nguyễn Dynasty Mandarins between 1920 and 1945? This article doesn't seem to show any information regarding this but it does state that Mandarins were usually people who passed the imperial examination programme. --Donald Trung (talk) 17:52, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Crane or Egret
The painting of the mandarin mention that he is of 6th rank since it shows crane, however the page about mandarin square https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_square use the same image as an illustration of the Egrets, symbol of the 6th rank (while crane are used for the first rank). Which page is correct ? Egrets or Crane on this mandarin square ? 137.222.42.24 (talk) 14:35, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Overlap with scholar-official page
If the topic of this page are the bureaucrats of ancient to early modern China it would seem appropriate to me to merge into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholar-official

On the other hand, if the topic is just the term 'mandarin', the first phrase of the intro could reflect that better, perhaps something along these lines: Mandarin (Chinese: 官; pinyin: guān) is a term that was generally applied in Europe to the bureaucrat scholars of China, Korea and Vietnam.

At the very least, I think a clearer link to Scholar-official is warranted here, maybe at the very top or even just in the See also section. While the page is currently linked to from the word `scholar` in the intro, it is not obvious at all on a casual read through (someone might well expect it to lead to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholar and skip hovering). LichMint (talk) 19:37, 17 June 2023 (UTC)