Talk:Nothing to My Name

Date Discrepancy
This song page gives the premiere date for Nothing to My Name as being in 1986, while the Cui Jian page gives it as 1985. Can anyone clear this up? MalignantMouse (talk) 15:42, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
 * All the sources I have here (such as Brace's 1992 dissertation, Zhou 2008) give 1986.
 * The Cui Jian page seems to suggest that he first performed the song in shows in 1985, and didn't record and release it until 1986. But it's unsourced, so until a source is provided I would go with what's written in this article, which has been reviewed more carefully than Cui Jian. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 16:02, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Found another source
r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 05:25, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Nothing to my name
The set phrase "Yi wu suo you" does correspond to "Nothing to my name". As the article suggests that in Chinese the phrase has no subject, so therefore the phrase is open to interpretation, then perhaps it is better to translate it into the corresponding English "Nothing to one's name". 86.178.161.209 (talk) 02:26, 31 March 2011 (UTC)


 * This is the common English translation. Wikipedia does not prescribe usage, it only strives to reflect the the usage that is already around. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 03:38, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Claim needs justification
The introduction proclaims the song to be one of the most influential songs in the history of the People's Republic of China. Are we talking social influence, influence in its own musical genre, what? This should be clarified and sourced before it appears on the Main Page. Kevin McE (talk) 08:47, 23 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Both; those are both elaborated on in the Release and impact section. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 11:51, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Mandarin-language -> Chinese-language
This is in response to user:Rjanag's revert of my  Chinese-language> edit in the opening sentence of this article. The issue here lies in the fact that the term "Mandarin," as it is commonly understood in English, refers to only the spoken variety of Standard Chinese, and not as a full-fledged language. For example, the American Heritage Dictionary states: The official national standard spoken language of China, which is based on the principal dialect spoken in and around Beijing. Secondly, it is uncommon in English to refer to a "Mandarin language" (or any variants similar to it). The preferred choice is almost always "Chinese language":

(I have copied a comparison list of search queries compiled by user:Taivo in the Standard Chinese discussion page comparing the popular uses of "Mandarin language" and "Chinese language" in popular news outlets and academia. I understand that "Mandarin-language" may not be the exact same thing as "Mandarin language," but it is sufficient enough to get the point across.

Usage of "Mandarin language" vs. "Chinese language" in News Media

 * New York Times, searched over last year: Chinese language 401 results; Mandarin language, 64 results.
 * The Times (of London), searched last 30 days: Chinese language, 22 results; Mandarin language, 9 results.
 * Sydney Morning Herald, entire site: Chinese language, 1033 results; Mandarin language, 138 results.

Google Scholar, Google Books (English searches)

 * Citations between 2000-2010: Chinese language, 815,000 results; Mandarin language, 21,300 results.
 * Standard Chinese, 982,000 results; Standard Mandarin, 66,900 results.

Per WP:COMMONNAME, I propose that the sentence "...the English title of a 1986 Mandarin-language rock song..." be changed to "...the English title of a 1986 Chinese-language rock song..."

Northeast Tiger (talk) 05:50, 24 July 2011 (UTC)


 * The language the song is in is Mandarin. This is not controversial. Anyone who knows anything about Chinese knows this. This song is not in Cantonese, it's not in Shanghainese, it's not in Taiwanese. It's in Mandarin. This whole argument is pointless. I don't want to waste my time continuing to argue over these silly ideas with someone who doesn't know the first thing about the Chinese languages. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 06:26, 24 July 2011 (UTC)


 * The issue here is not one of specificity, but one of commonality. It is simply uncommon in English to refer to a "Mandarin-language" rock song. It is more appropriate to substitute "Mandarin-language" with either "Chinese-language" or "Mandarin Chinese" in this case. Northeast Tiger (talk) 07:59, 24 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Depends on where you live, I suppose. Having grew up in the south I've never heard of a song referred to with a language family. Note that for academic usage, many refer to the common written language (Vernacular Chinese), not the many spoken languages.  Jim Sukwutput  11:54, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Academics may do that when talking about written works. A song is spoken; no one would describe a modern song as being in "Vernacular Chinese", although it makes perfect sense for a modern song to be described as being in Mandarin, in Cantonese, in Taiwanese, in Shaanxihua, or whatever, as opposed to some other language or dialect. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 22:59, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Exactly :). I was pointing out that Northeast Tiger's Google Scholar hits were not a reliable indicator of popularity.  Jim Sukwutput  02:59, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * More often than not, people just use "Chinese" to specify the language of the song. Sure you can argue it's ambiguous, but it's by far the most common descriptor used. If you guys are so hung up on the term "Mandarin," perhaps we can just change "Mandarin-language rock song" to a "Mandarin Chinese rock song" per WP:COMMONNAME. Northeast Tiger (talk) 20:18, 24 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Mandarin is still a commonly-used term for the Mandarin language, even if you manage to dig up random google test results that happen to show "Chinese" occuring numerically more frequently (regardless of all the shortcomings of the google test, specifically the fact that you don't know what all these hits are referring to, since "Chinese language" and "Mandarin language" mean different things). The fact that one term is more frequent than another doesn't mean the other term is unheard of. Furthermore, you clearly haven't read WP:COMMONNAME, which is a policy about article titles, not article content, and which also says that an accurate name can be favored over a numerically more common but less accurate or more ambiguous name.
 * As for specificity, I already explained to this user at my talk page that there is a difference between, e.g., Mandarin music and Cantonese music. This is not a Cantonese song, it is a Mandarin song. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 22:55, 24 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Compare "Mandarin Chinese" (12,500,000 hits) with "Mandarin language" (1,940,000 hits). Clearly, in relative terms, "Mandarin language" is not as common as either "Chinese language" or "Mandarin Chinese." In the case of the latter, it refers to the exact same thing, only that it is more commonly used. Is there a reason why you object to that change?
 * You can talk about there being a "Mandarin language," but it is not recognized by most scholars as such. And yes, political (and other) considerations do matter since many respected linguists specializing in Chinese and East Asian linguistics such as DeFrancis and Ramsey have tended to steer away from identifying Chinese fangyan as full-fledged languages, despite recognizing their mutual unintelligibility. Your reference to Mair's paper deals precisely on the issue of the proper English translation for the Chinese fangyan, which he identifies as "topolects." Haugen's widely-cited article (the one I mentioned in your talk page) talks about these kinds of "undeveloped" languages. Your layman attempts to disregard such well-established scholarship is pretty laughable. Northeast Tiger (talk) 01:50, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The vast majority of linguists worldwide agree with the recognition of Mandarin, Cantonese, Min-nan and so on as languages, not dialects (see the Ethnologue data, for example). This is also the consensus that is adopted by Wikipedia with respect to Chinese languages, although many related articles are in a messy state at this moment. If you disagree with this consensus, bring it up in Varieties of Chinese, not here. Also, you might want to read WP:CIVIL.  Jim Sukwutput  02:56, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * That is not the main issue here. As I've stated time and again, the issue is one of common usage. The use of "Mandarin Chinese" is more common than "Mandarin language." Whether or not these fangyan are in fact languages is irrelevant. Also, I have read WP:CIVIL, perhaps you can advise user:Rjanag to refrain from calling editors "idiots" and other disparaging remarks. Northeast Tiger (talk) 03:13, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I told you to read WP:CIVIL, because you made an insulting remark in this discussion. What he writes in an edit summary while replying to you in his talk page is none of my business. If you don't feel comfortable about his remarks, initiate a dispute-resolution process rather than respond with an insult. "Retaliation" is not an acceptable explanation for personal attacks.  Jim Sukwutput  03:32, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, to expand on what I said in the edit summary of this edit, your use of the "disputed" tag is misleading. There is no factual statement that is being disputed; you simply feel uncomfortable with the use of the term Mandarin-language rather than "Standard Mandarin" or "Standard Chinese". This is not a dispute about accuracy, but about style and WP:NPOV, in which case the norm had always been to restrict the discussion to the talk page rather than tagging whatever sentence you have a disagreement with. And, while I respect (and to some extent sympathize with) your opinion, this dispute frankly does not belong here, but to Talk:Varieties of Chinese.
 * Some further advice: You're very close to breaking WP:3RR here, and given your previous edit warring in this thread (3 reverts in addition to your current 3), there is a significant possibility that you might receive a temporary block. I'm not going to report you, because I find this debate pretty pointless, but the user you just insulted might not be such a gentleman.  Jim Sukwutput  03:56, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Current status of the song?
Congratulations to everyone who got this article in shape to be today's featured article. Is there any info out there on the current status of this song in China? —  AjaxSmack  13:20, 24 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I can try to look around for it; I don't know of anything other than my own anecdotal impressions. <b class="IPA">r ʨ anaɢ</b> (talk) 23:00, 24 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I was thinking more along the lines of is it performed publicly by anyone including Cui Jian. — <span style="border:1px solid #000073;background:#4D4DA6;padding:2px;color:#F9FFFF;text-shadow:black 0.2em 0.2em 0.3em"> AjaxSmack   01:15, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

"recognized as the first rock song in China"
Recognized by whom? There were NO rock songs in China before 1986? Heck, rock songs were certainly imported (legally or not) into China long before then. Maybe the first rock song officially released in China? In any case, this needs some clarification or, at the very least, a link to the section of the article explaining the claim. - Sum mer PhD  (talk) 22:05, 24 July 2011 (UTC)


 * This is a good point. I'm looking back through the sources and it seems to be the point is more that it was the song that made rock popular in China, or more specifically was "the first Chinese rock song to have received wide popularity in mainland China" (Matusitz 2007:4, sourced to Lee 1995); I will try to reword to something more along those lines. <b class="IPA">r ʨ anaɢ</b> (talk) 23:44, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Requested move
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 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: no consensus.  Calidum Talk To Me 04:36, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Nothing to My Name → Yi wu suo you – or yiwusuoyou or yiwu suoyou. Using 20th century sources, English translations vary: "I Who Have Nothing", "Nothing to My Name", "I Have Nothing", "I've Got Nothing To My Name", etc. No matter how popular the current name is currently, name must be changed to pinyin name. As for 21st century ones, I wouldn't use them, unless the year is not the peak of Wikipedia's rise. --Relisted. Armbrust The Homunculus 07:04, 18 June 2014 (UTC) George Ho (talk) 21:59, 10 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Support there is no official or consistent English name for this mega-famous song. As to the break up of the WP:PINYIN, as you have done it seems most logical. In ictu oculi (talk)
 * Actually this is a classic example of why we should bend the normal rule of hiding artist names wherever possible, where title is difficult either way readers would benefit most from redirects to Nothing to My Name (Cui Jian song) or Yi Wu Suo You (Cui Jian song). See RFC at Talk:Damaged Lady. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:13, 26 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose per WP:UCN (use common names) and WP:UE (use English). There doesn't seem to be any policy reason mentioned by the nominator or others to support a move.  The existence of multiple English titles does not warrant a move to a far less common transliteration that is far less recognisable to readers.  Peruse the online sources for the article (e.g.,, ) and recent coverage (e.g.  from 14 June 2014) and note that current title is quite common and the pinyin name is rarely mentioned.  — <span style="border:1px solid #000073;background:#4D4DA6;padding:2px;color:#F9FFFF;text-shadow:black 0.2em 0.2em 0.3em"> AjaxSmack   21:20, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Those sources that you provided may be dependent on Wikipedia and Google nowadays. Other sources use "I Have Nothing": . Other sources use only pinyin: . Other sources use different names, especially literal ones: . --George Ho (talk) 22:13, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't deny that there are several names for the song in English sources. But the current title is the most common name and it has the benefit of being English.  The pinyin title is neither and there is no other compelling reason to use it. — <span style="border:1px solid #000073;background:#4D4DA6;padding:2px;color:#F9FFFF;text-shadow:black 0.2em 0.2em 0.3em"> AjaxSmack   02:00, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
 * These sources don't prove that it is the most common name, and even the Chinese title doesn't contain "I" (我), "my" (我的), or "name" (名字). And even Google doesn't collect offline, inaccessible books. --George Ho (talk) 02:21, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Your research on the best translation is interesting but Wikipedia should not use editor-developed forms that are not widely used in sources. (This was also addressed by User:Rjanag above.)  "Nothing to My Name" (1560 Google Books results) alone is more than ten times more common than the pinyin versions suggested below (129 results and 12 results).  I acknowledge the shortcomings of web searches but that's a pretty big gap.  — <span style="border:1px solid #000073;background:#4D4DA6;padding:2px;color:#F9FFFF;text-shadow:black 0.2em 0.2em 0.3em"> AjaxSmack


 * Those search results include a bunch of 21-century sources, and it must have included Wikipedia pages. The internet must have made the current name totally common. 20th-century sources have not commonly used it as recent ones do now. However, take out Wikipedia, and you get 500+. "I Have Nothing" results in 300+ pages. The Guardian and WSJ use the current name, while AllMusic and CRI use the other name. --George Ho (talk) 04:55, 27 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Weak oppose. Is there a reason why there's several pinyin transcriptions or are you unsure of the proper one? And... if you argue that the Chinese name should be used due to the purported lack of an established English name, shouldn't it transcribed as Yi Wu Suoyou (the main contributor did)? I would like the input of someone with more knowledge in using pinyin. At the moment, I'm not convinced about the suggested proposal. --Cold Season (talk) 22:35, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
 * All right, we can use "yi wu suoyou" (caps or no caps), but I prefer no caps, unless the article title is the Chinese person's name. For me, "yi wu suo you" looks better than squeezing words together because of common sense (or attempting to attract average reader). I don't think an average English reader would understand English titles of this Chinese song, as far as I can understand pinyin. dandan youqing doesn't have a very good proper English title, and translations may vary. --George Ho (talk) 05:47, 21 June 2014 (UTC)
 * An integral concept with two or three syllables is written linked together as one word; the first letter of each word is capitalized if a proper noun consist of two or more words. That's the applicable part of pinyin orthography, based on the national standard of China (DeFrancis, ed. ABC Chinese-English Dictionary). When applied to the title, that's the form that I won't oppose to (not saying that I support this move either), considering the reasoning for the move to a title based on a transcription. I'm not trying to be fanciful. --Cold Season (talk) 20:47, 21 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm not changing my opinion on moving the article to a less common, non-English title but I just want to note that pinyin usage calls for title caps like in English. See Section 4.9.2. — <span style="border:1px solid #000073;background:#4D4DA6;padding:2px;color:#F9FFFF;text-shadow:black 0.2em 0.2em 0.3em"> AjaxSmack   03:04, 24 June 2014 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Regarding the claim Cui performed the song live at the Tiananmen Protests
I'm doing a project on the Tiananmen protests and as a result did some more digging into this particular claim which I found to be very interesting.

"Cui performed the song live at the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989."

There are two references, but looking more into the sources, I believe the editor may have been mistaken when first adding the information. The book it references, "China Off Center: Mapping the Margins of the Middle Kingdom", states that the students themselves had taken to singing it in the square. The other article (reference 3) also mentions the same, although with the added fact that Cui performed with a red bandana over his eyes. However, as the previously referenced book and the Wikipedia article on Cui Jian both state; this action (tying a red bandana) was not done until 1990 and Cui's national tours for the Asian Games. I would like another editors opinion on this, but I may very well remove the claim if no one responds.

Whsun808 (talk) 01:24, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
 * One source reads "by 1989 in Tiananmen Square, it had become their battle song. Standing in the square, Cui Jian tied a red bandana over his eyes and sang to millions of Chinese"; the other reads "Cui Jian and punk rocker He Yong performed protest anthems at Tiananmen Square to hunger-striking students". It's not difficult to find other sources either: On May 20, 1989, a Chinese singer and guitarist named Cui Jian walked onto the makeshift stage at Tiananmen Square, During the 1989 pro-democracy protests, Cui performed at Tiananmen Square for students on a hunger strike, In 1989, he had performed to protesting students in Tiananmen Square. We must follow reliable sources and they are universal in saying he did sing there. Saying he didn't sing is original research. DrKay (talk) 17:17, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

WP:URFA/2020 notes
Some sentences have no citations. "Understood as social commentary, the substitution of "we" along with the replacement of every "you" with the Communist Party..." is confusing/needs more context. "It has been described as "the biggest hit in Chinese history"" is maybe outdated? Heartfox (talk) 18:46, 6 April 2021 (UTC)