Talk:Sesshō and Kampaku

This article's a bit of a mess.
I'd clean it up, but I don't really have the prerequisite knowledge.--ByrnedHead 02:17, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Romanization
Is "Kampaku" more well known than "Kanpaku"? WhisperToMe 06:23, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I, personally, have never seen it spelled 'kanpaku', but then my main history texts are nearly 40 years old. I think it's one of those things like shimbun, where some romanization systems make 'n' into 'm' before a 'b' or 'p' as that's a little closer to the pronunciation. LordAmeth 13:53, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Writing ん as m before "p", "b" and "m" is a characteristic of traditional Hepburn romanization. Some dictionaries still use traditional Hepburn, but it is now generally regarded as outdated. The question of which method the Wikipedia article should use would depend on whether Kampaku is already a familiar term to historians. The same goes for using Sessho instead of Sesshō, which is correct Hepburn (the former is not the result of any official method of romanization). Seeing as Matsuo Bashō uses Hepburn romanization in the English version and nonstandard romanization in the Simple English version, it's obvious there is no standard as to how things are done on Wikipedia.
 * Echnin
 * The impression I get recently is that there is beginning to be a push for a move to more proper romanization - e.g. using macrons in article titles - but that there is no true official consensus on the policy. That said, I stand by my earlier statement, that Kampaku seems to be one of the exceptions to the modern romanization rule of calling ん "n". Plenty of things have changed, e.g. Yedo-->Edo, Kwannon-->Kannon, but this seems to be the standard for this particular term. To be entirely honest, I don't know if we need to have a truly strict overarching policy on this sort of thing... LordAmeth 23:51, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The important thing is that whichever spelling you use for the title, you should also make redirects with the other spelling. Tocharianne 03:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Sesshō after the Meiji Restoration
This was moved from the main page by -- Taku 09:35, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
 * 1867–1912 Meiji
 * Imperial Chief Advisers
 * 1864–1868 Nariyuki Nijo
 * President of Government
 * 1868 Prince Taruhito
 * Ministers to the Right (acting chief ministers)
 * 1868–1871 Sanetomi Sanjo
 * Chief Minister
 * 1871–1885 Sanetomi Sanjo
 * Prime Minister
 * 1885–1888 Marquess Hirobumi Ito
 * 1888–1889 Count Kiyotaka Kuroda
 * 1889–1891 Duke Aritomo Yamagata
 * 1891–1892 Duke Masayoshi Matsukata
 * 1892–1896 Marquess Hirobumi Ito (2nd time)
 * 1896–1898 Duke Masayoshi Matsukata (2nd time)
 * 1898 Marquess Hirobumi Ito (3rd time)
 * 1898 Marquess Shigenobu Okuma
 * 1898–1900 Duke Aritomo Yamagata (2nd time)
 * 1900–1901 Marquess Hirobumi Ito (4th time)
 * 1901–1906 Duke Taro Katsura
 * 1906–1908 Duke Kimmochi Saionji
 * 1908–1911 Duke Taro Katsura (2nd time)
 * 1911–1912 Duke Kimmochi Saionji](2nd time)
 * 1912–1926 Taishō
 * 1921–1926 Regent—Prince Hirohito
 * Prime Minister
 * 1912–1913 Duke Taro Katsura (3rd time)
 * 1913–1914 Count Gonnohyoe Yamamoto
 * 1914–1916 Marquess Shigenobu Okuma (2nd time)
 * 1916–1918 Count Masatake Terauchi
 * 1918–1921 Takashi Hara
 * 1921–1922 Korekiyo Takahashi
 * 1922–1923 Tomosaburo Kato
 * 1923 Yasuya Uchida (acting)
 * 1923–1924 Count Gonnohyoe Yamamoto (2nd time)
 * 1924 Viscount Keigo Kiyoura
 * 1924–1926 Baron Takaaki Kato (from 1925, Count Takaaki Kato)
 * 1926–1927 Reijiro Wakatsuki

RfC: Move to Sesshō and Kanpaku?
Proposal: move this article from Sesshō and Kampaku to Sesshō and Kanpaku. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:33, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Discussion

 * An NGram makes it clear that "Kanpaku" has been the preferred romanization by a wide margin for the whole 21st century to date—a romanization that is also more in line with the standards at MOS:JAPAN, and thus more predictable for editors. The sorts of articles the terms sesshō and kanpaku are likely to appear in are also the most likely to use other terms that conform to the modified Hepburn MOS:JAPAN recommends. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:33, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment First of all, the Ngram should be "case-insensitive" checked and "smoothing" made 0. Resulting Ngram becomes like this. Secondly, Ngram compares a total occurence of a word ("match_count") not number of books ("volume_count"). If a word appears 100 times in "one" book, match_count and volume_count becomes 100 and 1 respectively. While the word appears once in each 100 books, match_count and volume_count becomes 100 and 100 respectively. Apparently the prevalence of the word should be measured by "volume_count" not "match_count". See Google Ngram Viewer for details.
 * The followings are Google Book search result:
 * "Kampaku" "Sessho" OR "Sesshō" 1,270
 * "Kanpaku" "Sessho" OR "Sesshō" 516
 * "Kampaku" 5,510
 * "Kanpaku" 3,630
 * ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 23:48, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Phoenix7777: The data doesn't seem to make much of a case for giving precedence to a spelling that's at odds with MoS recommendations. Exceptions should be exceptional, and "kampaku" is not exceptional by a long shot.  Also, are LLC Books et al filtered from those results?  Three of the books on the first page of hits are reprints of Wikipedia articles—obviously using Wikipedia's current spelling. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:21, 23 January 2017 (UTC)


 * It's listed as kanpaku in the 4th edition of the Kenkyusha J-E dictionary, which normally would be good enough for me. For spelling, simply choosing an authoritative dictionary and following it avoids a lot of problems. But in this case, all of the top results on Google have kampaku, including Britannica, Sansom's history, and books from academic presses like Harvard and Cambridge. It looks like kampaku has been an accepted term for a long time, at least in academia. So I would tend to leave it as it is. – Margin1522 (talk) 04:58, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Margin1522: Sansom died in 1965 and his spellings include "Ōye Masahira" and "Ichi no Iye". I assume the "Cambridge" you refer to is The Cambridge History of Japan, published in the 1980s.  More recent books from Cambridge use the spelling kanpaku: . Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:34, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The second of those books seems to have one of each. Either way is OK with me. I don't think the arguments are decisive either way. – Margin1522 (talk) 11:14, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
 * When the arguments aren't decisive either way, the normal thing is to fall back on standards, isn't it? MOS:JAPAN calls for modified Hepburn except in exceptional cases, and "kampaku" is in no way exceptional.  We end up with entire articles in modified Hepburn except for the word "kampaku", which might make sense if this were an everyday word readers have come to expect to see spelt that way—but "kampaku" most clearly is no such word. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:17, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose, though Sesshō and Kanpaku should be a redirect per MOSJA. Any likely alternate spelling should be. I'm not seeing the support in sources for moving it at this time. ··· 日本穣 ·  投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WP Japan ! 23:30, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't understand this rationale. Why do we have a MOS if we're just going to ignore it? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:39, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Support (strongly): As Curly Turkey says, there is a standard (Hepburn romanisation), which is overwhelmingly the most common standard for writing Japanese words in roman letters, and which is the standard Wikipedia has adopted. (Very wisely, in my opinion, even though personally I think I could design a much better standard in about 10 minutes, as could any Finn in about 20 seconds.) It simply doesn't matter what odd "spelling" (not really the right term, IMO) this or that author might have used, nor indeed what different romanisation standard some dictionary might have used. Imaginatorium (talk) 13:29, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment: Not changing my vote on the narrow issue, but I just realised this is on my list. en:WP is an encyclopedia in English, and I think it is important that it is as accessible to English speakers as possible. This article starts (is this a "hatnote"?) "This article is about the regent of the emperor of Japan." This immediately raises the question: then why isn't it titled "Regent of the emperor of Japan"? In the first (real) paragraph, we learn of the two Japanese words in the title, neither of them exactly English household words, that there was not much difference between them. So why use two opaque foreign terms when one English one would do? Of course I think en:WP should show the original terms (including the kanji, which are a lot easier to grasp), because this is providing useful information; but requiring the person looking for information to know the terms already is not helping. Imaginatorium (talk) 13:48, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Imaginatorium: On that note, they're probably not looking for "Regent of the emperor of Japan"—they're probably clicking through from one of the hundreds of articles that link to it. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:22, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

But that only seems to support my point. The first one I looked at was one of the years, but these all say things like:


 * 804: Fujiwara no Yoshifusa, Japanese regent (d. 872)
 * 836: Fujiwara no Mototsune, Japanese regent (d. 891)
 * 866: Fujiwara no Yoshifusa becomes regent (sesshō) to assist the child emperor Seiwa, starting the Fujiwara regency.
 * 872: Fujiwara no Yoshifusa, Japanese regent (sesshō), dies at his native Kyoto, having ruled since 858. He is succeeded as head of the Fujiwara clan by his son Fujiwara no Mototsune.
 * 876: ...appoints Fujiwara no Mototsune as regent (sesshō)...

It seems to me that in no case is the Japanese term relevant. The simplest and clearest way is as in 804, where the English word "regent" is linked to a discussion of the details of Japanese regents (however titled). If the specific title is given, it should be as "...the regent (sesshō)", italicised of course.

Then Alessandro Valignano included a reference to "the Kanpaku Toyotomi Hideyoshi", which I changed to a generic "ruler". TH did indeed have this title, but (modulo my very feeble grasp of Japanese history) I do not think this article will be helpful -- the reader needs to go and look at Toyotomi Hideyoshi to understand the power structure of the time.

Fujiwara no Mototsune has a list including:
 * Tadahira (忠平) (880–949) - Daijō Daijin, Sesshō and Kampaku

(I do not intend to criticise the editors responsible for this; there is a lot of work involved.) But this is not really very readable, with lists of unglossed Japanese roles. In particular, how can Tadahira have been both Sesshō and Kampaku? If we cannot distinguish them, saying "Regent" would be both more accurate, and immediately understandable in English.

And so on. Imaginatorium (talk) 08:21, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Imaginatorium: I'm not disagreeing with the "keep it English" principal, but aside from the years articles you'll find virtually all of them link via either Sesshō, Kampaku, or Sesshō and Kampaku—this is why I opened the RfC.
 * "how can Tadahira have been both Sesshō and Kampaku"—according to the Fujiwara no Tadahira article, he became sesshō in 931 and kanpaku in 941. If we change the article title to "Regent blah blah blah", how would you handle the Tadahira article.  He became regent in 931, and then regent in 941? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 10:29, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
 * (As an aside, even it the artiecl were moved to a "Regent" title, we'd still have to decide whether to use kanpaku or kampaku in those cases where it would have to appear in running text—as it inevitably would somethere in the text of this article). Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 10:33, 19 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Support: (Is this discussion still open?) I was a bit surprised to see Kampaku in the title, since I'm more used to the romaji system. Wiktionary doesn't have an entry for kampaku, but it does for kanpaku (not using this as an argument in favor... just citing it as a curiosity). —capmo (talk) 02:02, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

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