Talk:Marquis of Qin

Marquis of Qin
To User:星光下的人, I strongly object to the comment you made in this edit, implying I was making up citations from offline sources. Since it sounds like you have access to Han Zhaoqi's Annotated Shiji, please read note 7 on page 348, which says that Duke Zhuang of Qin is called Duke in a similar way that Marquis of Qin is called Marquis. They are not authorized by the king of Zhou but that's what they are called anyway. I've clearly explained that in the article.

Please note that Marquis or Marquess of Qin is also the common English translation for Qin Hou. For example, this translation is used by the Chinese Text Project and China Knowledge. So the article should be called Marquis (or Marquess) of Qin per WP:Commonname. --Zanhe (talk) 19:05, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Translating Qin Hou to Marquis of Qin
韩兆琦的注叫做“或曰”，你不会没看到这两个字吧？这仅仅是梁玉绳一家的猜测，他自己都不能肯定，而且根本没人支持此说，你还要坚持？ ——星光下的人 (talk) 01:54, 6 May 2012 (UTC) (discussion moved here from User talk:Zanhe)


 * Liang Yusheng (zh:梁玉绳) is a famous Shiji expert, and Han Zhaoqi obviously approves it, which is why he quotes Liang in his annotations of Shiji. And I haven't seen any reliable source rejecting Liang.  Besides, Liang's quote is just part of the justification for translating Qin Hou to Marquis of Qin.  As I mentioned in the previous thread, other English sources also translate Qin Hou to Marquis of Qin.  --Zanhe (talk) 00:49, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
 * What a holy joke别逗了好吗，什么叫引注懂不懂？引注的要求是原封不动的引用前人的研究，如果同意，后面写个“然”或者“是也”， 不同意也带上自己的意见，韩兆琦写了没？他分明是存疑的，还别说梁玉绳就是“或曰”，梁玉绳自己都不能确认这种意见. 你没有列出任意一个 other English sources ，就是有，也没有意义.
 * Do you even read people's posts before responding? Read the thread above, I already gave examples of other English sites that translate Qin Hou to Marquis or Marquess of Qin, such as Chinese Text Project and China Knowledge. --Zanhe (talk) 17:31, 7 May 2012 (UTC)


 * 《毛诗正义·卷六·秦车邻诂训传第十一》：陆曰：秦者，陇西谷名也，在雍州鸟鼠山之东北. 昔皋陶之子伯翳，佐禹治水有功，舜命作虞，赐姓曰嬴. 其末孙非子，为周孝王养马於汧、渭之间，封为附庸，邑于秦谷. 及非子之曾孙秦仲，周宣王又命为大夫. 仲之孙襄公，讨西戎救周，周室东迁，以岐、丰之地赐之，始列为诸侯. ——星光下的人 (talk) 03:49, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Again, nobody disputes the fact that the Qin rulers did not have formal nobility ranks until Duke Xiang. The argument here is that the Qin people still used titles such as duke (as in Duke of Zhuang) and marquis (as in Marquis of Qin) to refer to their early ancestors in an unauthorized way, and these are the titles they are known as in history.  I mentioned the fact in the article from the very beginning, and just added another sentence to further elaborate the point.  --Zanhe (talk) 17:30, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
 * 我再次给你强调一下，请阅读陈恩林 《先秦两汉文献中所见诸侯五等爵》《历史研究》1994年06期，先秦爵位的复杂不是可以不靠资料就凭想能想得通的. 秦侯的侯是个什么意思，根本没人搞得清楚，翻译成Marquis of Qin至少存在疑意，而Qin Hou不存在任何争议. ——星光下的人 (talk) 04:42, 8 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the link, it was a good read. I've read this article before, although didn't pay close attention back then.  And it's been mostly a pleasure discussing the issues with you (when you're not accusing me of fabricating sources, that is), as you're easily the most knowledgeable person I've met on Wikipedia on the subject of ancient Chinese history.
 * Honestly, choosing between Marquis of Qin and Qin Hou was a close call. Each has its merit.  "Marquis of Qin" has its issues, which we've discussed ad nauseum, but the issues are not introduced in the translation process, but inherited from the Chinese original "Qin Hou".  Because unlike Bo or Zi, Hou is the most unambiguous of the five nobility ranks, and there's basically no other plausible way of interpreting the title Qin Hou.  On the other hand, directly using pinyin "Qin Hou" obscures its meaning to English readers, thus "improving" on the Chinese original, so to speak.  My gut feeling is that the job of a translator is to try to as closely preserve the original meaning as possible, rather than try to "improve" on it.  Again, it was a tough call, and the deciding factor was that there are a few other existing English sources that use the "Marquis of Qin" translation.  I wish there were more reliable English sources available to make the decision easier.  --Zanhe (talk) 22:48, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

The fundamental problem here is that somewhere in the mists of time one or more scholars decided that grafting the titles of the English nobility onto an unrelated set of Chinese characters was a good idea. In many cases this causes more problems than it solves but I guess that we're stuck with it. In this particular case I don't think 秦侯 should be translated to "Marquess of Qin" because a) he is not a well known figure so "Qin Hou" is acceptable and b) because the translation is not accurate. In some situations where a figure is well known like the Duke of Zhou (周公), the name is well established in English and changing it to Zhou Gong would be confusing. On the opposite side of the coin, Qin Shihuang (秦始皇) is an example where a translation is superfluous.► Philg88 ◄ star.png 05:56, 10 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Actually the Chinese nobility ranks correspond to the English ones quite neatly and I think the translation of Hou to Marquis is reasonably accurate. The real problem is that the ancient Chinese did not use the ranks in a consistent manner.  No matter what the actual ranks of the ancient rulers were, they preferred to be called dukes or marquis and their subjects and descendants were glad to oblige.  Consequently most of the rulers are recorded in history as dukes even though they were really marquis or counts (Duke of Zhou was actually one of the few true dukes).  The dilemma we face is whether to faithfully translate their inflated titles or use pinyin to mask the meaning of their undeserved titles from English readers.  The prevalent practice seems to be to stick with the inflated titles.  In the case of Qin Hou, there is so little English literature about him that I can't find enough sources to decisively choose either way, although the ones I have found so far lean toward translating it as Marquis of Qin. --Zanhe (talk) 18:55, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
 * My opinion is that we should report titles as they are known in history, as that probably is in line with the commonname policy. If the titles are inflated, then just mention that in the article. Hanfresco (talk) 11:21, 22 May 2012 (UTC)