Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan/Archive/April 2021

Miyamoto Musashi's adopted sons
Hello, I've come across this figure Takemura Yoemon whom is refered to as one of Miyamoto Musashi's adopted sons (along with Mikinosuke and Iori) in several English language sources (as well as Musashi's own English language Wikipedia article, which also states he was married to Musashi's sister), but the figure's own article only refers to him as a senior student and there is no paternal or in-law relationship mentioned in the Japanese article on Musashi (as far as I can tell). I also found this page which I think may be relevant.

This page also claims that his eldest son had a younger biological brother whom Musashi likely adopted as well. I believe this Japanese Wikipedia article is about this man. I can't find any reliable English language sources on this person sadly.★Trekker (talk) 12:23, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * By sheer coincidence, I just recently finished listening to the unabridged translation of Yoshikawa Eiji's famous (and LONG) novel; I don't recall any Takemura Yoemon being mentioned in it, but certainly a lot of information floating around about everyone related to Miyamoto Musashi is suspect because of (a) actual Edo-period legends likely originally propagated Musashi himself, his disciples, and his enemies, but later also by the descendants thereof who didn't know any better, and (b) pure fiction (different from legends) that has been confused for either early-modern legend or historical fact because of the large number of people both in Japan and overseas who are familiar with the story invented by Yoshikawa but not with the fact that it was invented by Yoshikawa (or even with the fact that there was a writer in the 20th century named Yoshikawa Eiji). Perhaps two of the three people most commonly associated with Musashi, Hon'iden Matahachi and Otsū, appear to be completely fictional, but it's likely that only a small proportion of people who associate them with him are aware of this.
 * As for the specific issue you raise, the Yoemon article's cited source (already cited in the earliest version) does indeed say that, so at least it's not a complete Wikipedia hoax like a lot of pre-modern Japan martial arts articles written around the same time (...ahem), but yes... he seems to be an obscure figure: the Nipponica article on Niten-ichiryū lists a 竹村与右衛門頼角 (Takemura Yoemon Yorisumi) as one of his disciples, as does this article, which repeatedly calls 竹村与右衛門 (Takemura Yoemon) Musashi's disciple without seeming to imply a familial relationship. However, Ishikawa Kiyoyuki, a professor (apparently of history) at Aichi Prefectural University seems to have no problem putting his name on a document that describes Yoemon as Musashi's 義子 (adoptive child). A lot of other pages I came across seem less reliable than the above, but those ones ironically are more carefully, saying "he is said to have been" Musashi's adoptive child.
 * So... yeah, the article is definitely suboptimal and needs better sources, but at least one not-terrible source written (or at least overseen) by a history professor in a Japanese university does explicitly call him an adopted son, so it would seem not to be just something ignorant westerners believe.
 * Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 10:28, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you a ton, I appreciate your reply immensely.★Trekker (talk) 10:42, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Genealogy of the Kings of Chūzan
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Genealogy of the Kings of Chūzan that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ~ Aseleste  (t, e &#124; c, l) 10:39, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Template:People of the Sengoku period listed at TFD
Please see the TFD entry here. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 01:22, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Proposition to change how we approach the Japanese names in the openings of the articles.
Hello everyone. I wanted to propose a change how we approach the Japanese names in the openings of the articles. For all languages, we write something like "(German: German name)", example: "Szczecin (German: Stettin)", ect, but with Japanese, it's always just "([something in Kanji], [romanization])" without even mentioning it is in Japanese and most of the times without inclusion of hiragana (or katakana).

So, I wanted to propose a change, similar to how we treat names from Chinese language that we usually write as "(simplified Chinese: [name], traditional Chinese: [name], pinyin: [name])", example: "Mao Zedong (simplified Chinese: 毛泽东; traditional Chinese: 毛澤東; pinyin: Máo Zédōng)

So my proposition is to write Japanese names in like:
 * English name (Japanese kanji: [name], Japanese hiragana: [name], romanization: [name], pronunciation: [IPA])
 * (Japanese kanji: , Japanese hiragana: , romanization:  , pronunciation: )

For example:
 * Hokkaido (Japanese kanji: 北海道, Japanese hiragana: ほっかいどう, romanization: Hokkaidō, pronouciation: [hokːaꜜidoː])

Instead of previously used:
 * Hokkaido  (北海道, Hokkaidō)

Thank you for your attention, TheEditMate (talk) 12:28, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I'd say brevity is important; many/most articles about things Japanese mention the Japanese connection, so readers may be able to make the mental leap and conclude that the script and transliteration relates to Japanese; as yet I haven't encountered any expressions of aporia on the talk pages I watch suggesting readers are at a loss as to what the naming they are presented with is all about; and in general, if it ain't broke, don't fix it; but perhaps that's just me, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 15:27, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think the hiragana or katakana is relevant, it's not the name and you won't see it used anywhere. We should only list the actual name and the English name where appropriate, not back translate it to the kana. The comparison with Chinese I believe is erroneous, as they're actually used forms whereas the kana isn't used outside of young children. We're not a dictionary or translation service. Canterbury Tail talk 18:51, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Well-intentioned proposal, but this is too much information. The lead sentence of an article is important real-estate, and brevity and utility should be the key considerations. Hiragana is not helpful at all as a pronunciation guide for an English speaker, as it would be for a Japanese speaker. Hepburn romanization often does the job of indicating pronunciation well-enough, with some exceptions (like Karaage, where an IPA version is a helpful addition). We do currently have the  parameter inside of Template:Nihongo, which produces a display like this:
 * Hokkaido (北海道)
 * — Goszei (talk) 18:52, 31 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I don't see a need to include kana (which will almost always be included in the Japanese article). This seems to be a solution in search of a problem. As others have mentioned, comparing to Chinese is not valid as everything you mentioned that's included in the Chinese articles is used by everyday people, whereas the kana isn't generally used for the words in Japanese. It ain't broke, so there's no reason to fix it. ··· 日本穣 ·  投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WP Japan ! 19:05, 31 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I do not think the suggestion is a good one. For a start, this bit is misleading: 'For all languages, we write something like "(German: German name)", example: "Szczecin (German: Stettin)",...' -- This is a different sort of issue entirely, where a place has a German name but is not within the (current) boundaries of Germany. Also, I think the really big improvement needed in WP is to get rid of this idiotic business where the first sentence of each article begins with a topic noun phrase, followed by an indefinitely expandable sequence of bits of information, mostly good in their own way, yet serving to make the article not immediately readable. Putting information like this in some kind of infobox seems the obvious way to achieve this, yet raises an irrational degree of hatred in some editors, for reasons totally beyond me. Imaginatorium (talk) 19:46, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Also I think this conversation should happen at MOS:JAPAN and not here in the Wikiproject. Canterbury Tail talk 21:05, 31 March 2021 (UTC)


 * "Japanese hiragana" is not a standard way of writing Japanese names or any other Japanese words except for certain exceptional words where the kanji are problematic for whatever reason and in documents for very young children or those intended for consumption by Japan's foreign residents but written/produced by people without the budget to pay for proper translation. Brevity is of course an important consideration, but we should be open to making exceptions in cases where the circumstances merit them; including a Japanese phonetic orthography that, among our target readership (which does not include Japanese children who can read hiragana but not English), is only useful for those who are learning Japanese but have not yet mastered the two kana scripts and therefore need the practice, is not such a circumstance. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 10:28, 1 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I agree with what others have said - best to keep info on foreign names and pronunciations to a minimum. I don't think the hiragana is particularly helpful to English readers either. Cheers Fredlesaltique (talk) 01:43, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Districts in lead sentence?
So I've been expanding and sourcing some smaller Japanese town articles, but wanted other input on what to do about "districts." (I couldn't find anything in the archives).

Right now, a lot of the articles start like this:


 * "Kawanishi (川西町) is a town located in Shiki District, Nara Prefecture, Japan."

So the lead sentence/paragraph should quickly introduce the topic to an unfamiliar reader without excessive info (MOS:OPEN and MOS:LEADSENTENCE) Thing is, districts have no governing function in Japan—they're just used to group towns and villages, most commonly for postal addresses. I think they clutter the lead sentence. My ideal first sentence would look something like this, which I think is informative enough to a lay reader:


 * "Kawanishi (川西町) is a town in northern Nara Prefecture, Japan."

Note that I removed the redundant "located," removed the district name, and added "northern" to give a bit of context. Districts are already listed in the infobox, so the info is still in the article.

What do you all think? Are districts important enough to be in the lead sentence? I know there's no one right answer, and I don't want go around "fixing" other articles, but I like trying out new ways to see if I can improve things.

Cheers, Fredlesaltique (talk) 03:06, 9 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm reluctant to support the removal of information from the main text of articles with the reasoning that it is still available in the infoboxes, because I think that infoboxes should generally not provide general information that isn't already in the article body, but I also think that this kind of information shouldn't be in the lead unless it is also in the article (if I had written these articles myself, the information would be in the article body, attributed to a reliable secondary or tertiary source, and the lead could be changed as appropriate), so my !vote would be a firm meh. Someone should fix the articles so all non-WP:BLUE information ("BLUE" here meaning information that is patently true for the vast majority of readers and editors of English Wikipedia, not information that can be easily verified in any Japanese pocket dictionary) is sourced in the article bodies, but until that happens it doesn't really matter what is done with the non-fixed articles. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 09:39, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Trying to create an article on Kobayashi Kaichi
Hi all, trying to create an article on this artist (I saw one of his prints and loved it), but unfortunately I've hit the point where any other references I find are in Japanese and I can't read Japanese. Does anyone know of any English-language (or French or German) resources on this artist? (Draft article if anyone wants to look or add to it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Kobayashi_Kaichi) Red Fiona (talk) 17:40, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * , I added another museum collection & two citations to the draft - one for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston where he is in the collection; the other is about a show he had at a museum in Japan (not a great citation, but it proves he had the show). BTW, it's ok to use non-english citations. Netherzone (talk) 19:16, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks. With French and German I can read enough to translate so I feel more confident about using those but I completely can't read Japanese so I try to be more careful :)  Red Fiona (talk) 21:18, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Question
Hello. At the Simple English Wikipedia, I run the WikiProject Japan, (see here for the page) although, WikiProjects are not official on the Simple English Wikipedia, can we hardcode a interwiki link to that Wikiproject from here? Also how do I join this Wikiproject? Thank you つがる   Talk to つがる:)  🍁 20:45, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Help request: Sakubei Yamamoto
I've started a new article about Sakubei Yamamoto, a coal miner and artist, but I have two difficulties owing to the fact I don't know the language. The first is a confusion over his birthplace, and whether the village was called "Tsurumio" or Kasamatsu" (or, perhaps, the village is Tsurumio and it was within an area called Kasamatsu that was itself within an the Kama District). The second is that one of the sources I've used very helpfully refers to several books by or about Yamamoto, but it doesn't include enough detail that I'm comfortable basing a "Further reading" section on them yet and I'm finding it difficult to look them up. I've put some more detail on the talk page.

If anyone would be able to help me with either of those issues, I'd really appreciate it. Additionally, if a Japanese speaker is able to verify that my summary of what Ren Fukuzumi said (in the Style section) is a fair paraphrase, that would be helpful. &rsaquo; Mortee  talk 03:20, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Based on the J-wiki, it looks like he was born in Tsurumio, an area/suburb within Kasamatsu Village, which no longer exists (it's a part of current day Iizuka, Fukuoka). --Prosperosity (talk) 03:41, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, like comment above, the Japanese wiki says 福岡県嘉麻郡笠松村鶴三緒 (Tsurumio, Kasamatsu Village, Kama District, Fukuoka).

I couldn't find any definitive info on the (former) village of Kasamatsu online. Tsurumio has been a part of Iizuka, Fukuoka since at least the 1920's, but no clue before then. source (in Japanese)  Fredlesaltique (talk) 05:20, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks everyone, much appreciated! &rsaquo; Mortee  talk 13:22, 23 April 2021 (UTC)