Template talk:Koryu

Japanese year numbering and era timeline
How about adding a link in the CE boxes to the Japanese timeline and era names? That would make it a little more utilitarian. Whatcha think?? 220.26.47.47 04:47, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about the edit
I missed the "no stubs" rule when editing...sorry. Mekugi 11:07, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * No problem - and also, both of those articles looked very close to Start-class to me. Why don't you check out the assessment guidelines at WP:WPMA/A, make the necessary (probably very minor) improvements, and get them promoted - then they can both go back on the template. Bradford44 15:51, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Togakure Ryu
Togakure ryu, and unfortunately many of the other Bujinkan schools, are undocumented in terms of scholastic dates of origin. That is to say, there is no other references anywhere as to the start dates of the schools (or any other documents outside of the Bujinkan). Should these be included in the Navbox Koryu?? Additionally, these seem like stub articles that were upgraded to "starts" in order to put them in the box. Mekugi (talk) 17:16, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

In fact, there's actually very little evidence that they even predate Masaaki Sensei's teacher. That is to say, the majority of the schools are almost certainly products of Meiji era development and are almost certainly not koryu. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.115.66.33 (talk) 03:14, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Daito-ryu
Daito-ryu almost certainly is koryu. It is commonly accepted in Japan that Takeda Sokaku could not have invented Daito-ryu syllabus by himself in such a short time. Daito-ryu is a member of the Nihon Kobudo Kyokai and the Nihon Kobudo Shinkokai, the two largest and most important organizations in Japan for koryu martial arts. Daito-ryu's status as a koryu is unquestioned in Japan and by the largest koryu organizations there. It should be in the box. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drosera99 (talk • contribs) 02:41, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * There is no doubt in my mind that the art taught by the school known as Daito-ryu predates the Meiji era. However, there is a difference between the age of the art and the age of the school.  There presently is no evidence that the school was founded prior to the Meiji era.  If we based the age of a ryu off of the age of the technical syllabus, all of the schools listed would be substantially older than they are listed as.  However, this template deals exclusively with the age of each discrete organization, which for Daito-ryu cannot be substantiated as being any older than the late 19th century.  If you can direct me to a reliable secondary reference that states otherwise, please do so. Bradford44 (talk) 14:09, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

That's true. As an institution, it dates to the late 19th century. However, I still think it should be included in the navbox even by that standard because it is so closely tied to other koryu both in terms of organization but also in pedagogical terms. -Drosera99 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.115.66.33 (talk) 18:38, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Itto Shoden Muto-ryu
Don't you think that this ryuha is need to be in the 19th century section? I think it is strange to find through the Itto-ryu article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tsubaki Sanjuro (talk • contribs) 12:17, 6 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Please see the guidelines for adding articles to the template. As soon as that article is has some references and is Start-class or better, it most certainly should be added to the template. Bradford44 (talk) 14:12, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

English common names are to be used as stated in policies and guidelines

 * Opening statement of MOS:JP states "An English loan word or place name of Japanese origin should be used in its most common English form in the body of an article, even if it is pronounced or spelled differently from the properly romanized Japanese; that is, use Mount Fuji, Tokyo, jujutsu, and shogi, instead of Fuji-san, Tōkyō, jūjutsu, and shōgi."
 * MOS:FOREIGN states, "The use of diacritics (accent marks) on foreign words is neither encouraged nor discouraged; their usage depends on whether they appear in verifiable reliable sources in English and on the constraints imposed by specialized Wikipedia guidelines."
 * WP:COMMONNAME states, "Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it instead uses the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources."

Mugai ryu is the English common name for this martial art (61 books for this versus 0 for the macron name). The rules do not call for "consistency", only that the names are to be used in accordance how they are used by English sources (if any). Jappalang (talk) 00:38, 16 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Please take a note of WikiProject_Martial_arts that says:
 * For articles that are about a school of martial arts (ryū), capitalize the proper name part and add the suffix -ryū. For example, "Shintō Musō-ryū".
 * This topic specific guideline overrides (specializes) the more generic MOS:JP. It does not make any sense to use Google to check ryu vs. ryū for every indivisual koryū case by case as the choice made by any webpage author is more or less arbitrary, i.e., non-macron version is used for easier typing whereas our goal should be accuracy and high quality (which implies consistency IMHO). jni (talk) 09:39, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Topic specific guideline dictated by a small group (Wikiproject relative to Wikimedia) do not override the general policies and guidelines, which are established to facilitate general readership. Just like a Wikiproject cannot decide on their own to ignore WP:BLP or WP:V, a decision to do something against general policies and guidelines should be broached to the community and be approved.  The rules for common names are for their use by reliable sources, not any tom-and-dick website.  If there are no (or very few) reliable English source that uses a non-macron name, then obviously a macron name is used. Jappalang (talk) 10:46, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
 * We are discussing editing guidelines here, not core policies like WP:V so your analogue is incorrect. Wikiprojects are not closed cliques outside of Wikipedia but just helpful organizational structures for editors sharing common interests. The text in WikiProject_Martial_arts reflects consensus, and is in fact referenced in MOS:JP (although only in 'see also' section, but that is defect in MOS:JP; it should really tell explicitly where to find the existing Japaneses martial arts specific naming guidelines) You should go to talk page(s) of the wikiproject martial arts in order to get consensus for naming conventions of koryū articles changed instead of moving pages based on some Google test. It is typical for published books about this subject matter to either use or omit macrons consistently, instead of trying to figure out what the "English common name" might be ryū by ryū. Older books like Draeger's pioneering work omit macrons mainly because of poor support for them in typewriting equipment of that era, newer scholarly treatises by Friday use macrons consistently for every ryū he discusses. I don't remember what Skoss, Amdur, Lowry etc. use but I'm sure that the norm is consistency-within-book so I don't see how you are going to reliably decide on what the English common name of X-ryū is by sampling the reliable sources (or random wabsites, like you did). jni (talk) 11:31, 16 June 2011 (UTC)


 * This is about terminology, not Japanese vocabulary. You claim I used random websites to substantiate my opinion; please back up that claim with facts.  You are the first person to bring up the subject of websites in this thread, and I have not posited any website as a reliable source.  In fact our view points on websites are similar, so I have no idea why you are misrepresenting my position.
 * "Shogun" (shōgun) is an English common name and we use the non-macron name; however, seii taishōgun is still used because the macron version is still much used in English sources (non-macron vs macron). Similarly, aikido (aikidō) has an English common name but that does not mean we convert every "-dō" into its non-macron form.  The same goes for "-ryū"; if more reliable sources discuss the non-macron form (which is the case for "mugai ryu"), we use the non-macron form for the name of the school.
 * "Mugai ryu" (macron or not) is not discussed in any scholarly text I can find; if there are scholarly texts that talk of Mugai ryu (macron form or otherwise; I can find none on JSTOR, Credo, or the Bibliography of Asian Studies), then it would be great to bring them onto the table for discussion. However, the term has moved into the "popular" sphere (due to the spreading of Japanese martial arts abroad) so as to speak and the non-macron form is used there.
 * Where is the discussion that led to a consensus that all Japanese martial arts must be suffixed with a macron? None of the hits in these searches through the relevant Talks appears to me as a consensus of such.  Jappalang (talk) 01:23, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I did not say you used unreliable websites as source material but I do object your use of Google test to decide on article name against established consensus (okey, I see now you did a book search not web search, sorry about the confusion). One only needs to take a look at Category:koryu bujutsu and observe that nearly all articles there use "-ryū". This in itself is indication that there exists consensus about how to name articles about various ryūha. Perhaps there is no discussion about this in talk pages because you are first one trying to change the existing practise, others being more content with the current convention. ryū is a Japanese word, not just a part of martial art name, see ryū (school) article which uses macron, which makes sense to me because ryū is not as popular word (try finding it from English dictionaries!) as judo or aikido. That article was moved in citing MOS:JP. Spelling A-ryū with macron and B-Ryu without in encyclopedia makes as much sense as having articles about "A high school" and "B High School" capitalized differently. I don't have any scholarly source material about Mugai-ryū readily available either, but I would not bother checking irrelevant details like romanization even if I had. Draeger uses non-macron in his earlier books for A,B,C,D... Ryus but Draeger & Warner in Japanese Swordmanship use macrons for B,D,L,M,N,P,...-ryūs. Otake's Deity and the Sword series uses A Ryu while Otake's 2007 book about TSKSR uses A-ryū for same A. Do you really suggest we should search the koryu literature and count the - more or less arbitrary - variations in romanization to decide on article names? It is hard enough to find good references for these articles (araki-ryū was deleted while it is certainly fixable) and I double there are volunteers for such nearly nonsensical task. If the spelling of ryu without macron becomes more used in English language sources, then we could switch from ryū to ryu for every koryu, but it is just waste of time for editors and confusing for article readers to try to decide on this case by case. jni (talk) 08:58, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The situation with ryū (school) is the same with dō (Way) (both words are proper nouns), and yet we have aikido and judo commonly used in non-macron form. I am not proposing anyone to take up the task of analyzing every ryūha that has an article and deciding whether the macron or non-macron name should be used.  That should be left to editors interested in the concerned article/subject(s) to decide based on the common name of the school in reliable sources (per policies and guidelines).  Jappalang (talk) 08:36, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * What makes you think that Mugai ryu is in "popular sphere" like aikido or judo? It does not make much sense to seek out the established English language spelling for something that has only few dozens reliable sources in English, as the result is more or less arbitrary (that is, opposite of established). All ryūha are small and obscure entities compared to more mainstream Japanese arts. Google Ngram viewer does not find many occurrences of name Mugai: . I posted notes to relevant talk pages to invite more people into this discussion. jni (talk) 14:33, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Articles are supposed to be constructed from reliable sources, and common name is based on the usage in reliable English sources. Since those sources (publications on martial arts) chose to use the non-macron form for "Mugai ryu" and none chose to use a macron form, then in my view, it has become the recognized form for them and their readers. "That article was moved in citing MOS:JP.": Note that that move was done in March 2007, and there has been a shift in the cited MOS:JP section regarding Romanization (primarily the addition of Determining common usage section).  This shows a marked change in the policies and guidelines. Jappalang (talk) 01:34, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the issue here is that 'ryu' is not a common English word - we are not discussing the spelling of "Mugai". Please see WikiProject Martial Arts. To discuss 'ryu' vs 'ryū', please continue this discussion at WPMA/L talk page. jmcw (talk) 12:05, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I have just done a google test and find 8k entries for "Mugai ryu" and 12k entries for "Mugai ryū". jmcw (talk) 12:09, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I am not talking about "ryu/ryū", the subject here and term in question is "Mugai ryu". Per above, we do not ascribe to simple Google searches.  The basis of common name determination is reliable sources, of which websites are not.  Jappalang (talk) 12:40, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I see that you are defending that Mugai ryu should be treated differently than other ryū in wikipedia but that you do not want to change the community standards. jmcw (talk) 12:50, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
 * No, I am talking about titles (and hence naming of articles based on Common names), not vocabulary, and judging each subject on a case by case basis. It is the same principle as aikido, judo, and kyūdō among the dō.  Jappalang (talk) 08:09, 25 June 2011 (UTC)