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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Dekimasu (talk | contribs) at 01:43, 3 August 2024 (→‎Requested move 21 July 2024: closing move discussion: result was to move the page). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 13:45, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Shijia", I think it should be "Hereditary Families" instead of "Hereditary Houses". Anermay (talk) 15:54, 23 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

About Shijia

In Chinese "世家", the first character means "Hereditary", this is noncontroversial. But for the second character "家", it is complex and hard to translate with one word. In ancient Chinese language, this character means more than a family, but a tiny kingdom. It contains hosts, servants, land, property and sometimes armies. It is usually a vassal of a kingdom. It is led by chief of the clan just like kingdom by the king. But above all the core of "家" is the clan of its hosts. So I changed it to "Hereditary Clans". --Anermay (talk) 10:12, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Contents

Many thanks to Guss of the Dutch wiki, who made and formatted a complete list of the contents by chapter. I found this very useful so I have translated it. I did consult the original titles to try to ensure the translation is correct. Will add links later.Evangeline (talk) 07:40, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

about the spreading and supplement of shiji,could anyone find source in English?What I could find is written in Chinese,that would make no sense in English wiki.Gisbrother (talk) 08:22, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

the commentaries

As I vaguely remember from my graduate classes, there are three major commentaries on the Shi ji from the Tang era; these commentaries are of immense importance in interpreting the often-obscure language of the 2,000-year-old history. Someone more knowledgeable should, I think, at least refer to these in the article. Jakob37 (talk) 02:09, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

translation

the follow section need grammar correction：source materials, edition ,annotations and commentaries Gisbrother (talk) 16:52, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have fixed about half the "Source Materials" section. No time for the last two paragraphs. Will try to do later. Evangeline (talk) 22:43, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are so many Chinese characters.are they all necessary?Gisbrother (talk) 15:54, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe not. I don't feel strongly about it. I just left the Chinese characters in because the first editor, who was not a native English speaker, put them in under "Sources." But if you think it makes the article hard to read, feel free to take them out. The Chinese characters are all found below in the list of chapters anyway.Evangeline (talk) 23:57, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Please leave them in!! --JWB (talk) 01:48, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Would the following sentence make readers confused that Spring and Autumn Annals of Yanzi is a work of Guan?

I have read Guan's Mu Min... and the Spring and Autumn Annals of Yanzi

  • the chapter Qingzhong (轻重,literally Light and Heavy) talks about what is important and what is less important.
  • Chengma (Chariot and horses) isn't a chapter but many chapters on economy and war.
  • Dayue liezhuan 大宛列傳 may be Dayuan liezhuan
  • Fan Yu Cai Ze liezhuan, 范睢蔡澤列傳 may be Fan Sui Cai Ze liezhuan
  • 谍记 and 谱谍 only talk about grandfather father son grandson and so on,no events. 历 talk about events and which year an event happend.

Gisbrother (talk) 16:55, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much, Gisbrother! I have used all your corrections. I hope this version is better. Evangeline (talk) 20:23, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why is 史記 literally "Historical Records"? Shi 史 doesn't mean history. Bao Pu (talk) 02:55, 30 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Shi 史 does mean history. See here. -Zanhe (talk) 06:26, 1 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

At the time the Shiji was written, 史 did not mean "history," but rather was a word for "scribe." (Hence the translation of Nienhauser et al of Shiji = The Grand Scribe's Records. That it reads like a book of history to later readers facilitated the word shi being understood as "history." History wasn't Sima Qian's official duty, his title, Taishi 太史 is often translated as Grand Astrologer (not that 史 meant "astrologer" either, but that was duty of a person with that title in the Han).Bao Pu (talk) 10:51, 27 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed "Historical Notes" after the title Shiji, because that is clearly not what it means. Shiji is short for Taishiji 太史記, i.e. Records of the Taishi, or Records of the Grand Historian. I don't know the original source of the misconception that Shiji means "Historical Records," but it's demonstrably wrong.--72.94.172.49 (talk) 08:13, 3 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That is all true, but unless we get a good source to give us a better rendering it's irrelevant.  White Whirlwind  咨  15:13, 3 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Editions

I translated the Editions section from the Chinese Wiki.

Evangeline (talk) 08:56, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Request for Ancient Chinese History References in the Sons of noah article

Hi! I was curious if anyone has good references on what descendant of Noah is supposed by scholars to be the father of the Sinitic peoples...--Gniniv (talk) 23:34, 10 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am not aware of any sons of Noah specifically identified with Chinese mythological figures. But an ancestor of Noah, Enoch, was identified by a school of 17-18th century French Jesuits, known as Figurists, with Fu Xi. John Webb identified Noah himself with Emperor Yao, and thought that people of China and India descended from his son Shem. See e.g. any of David E. Mungello's books on Jesuits in China: a bit at http://books.google.com/books?id=ioOfxzJe8AQC&pg=PA100 in his recent The great encounter..., and a lot more in his Curious land; go to http://books.google.com/books?id=wb4yPw4ZgZQC and search for "Noah" (in particular, p. 179, 337 there). -- Vmenkov (talk) 23:56, 10 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the info...--Gniniv (talk) 23:59, 10 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Names

what other names do scholars use except Records of the Grand Historian? Gisbrother (talk) 11:37, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The most recent scholarly translation (still ongoing) is William Nienhauser's published by the University of Indiana, which will be the first complete translation into English. It is called "The Grand Scribe's Records". Herbert Giles translated Shiji as Historical Record. Nienhauser may have used a different name for his translation just because of copyright laws. Evangeline (talk) 00:23, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

More in-line citations, please

This is quite a good article, but it badly needs more in-line citations. Unfortunately, I am bedridden at the moment and not well - can anyone else help? many thanks,

Til Eulenspiegel & Nienhauser Series

I'm not sure what User:Til Eulenspiegel is so fired up about, as he has been making wild accusations in his edit comments. To all editors – the Nienhauser series is clearly listed in the "Notable translations" section. Please stop trying to add it again in a "Further reading" or other section, this just clutters up an important article that already needs a good bit of work as it is. It was initially listed in the "References" section as a number of individual volumes, even though none of them were actually cited in the article. If you decide to cite a Nienhauser volume in the article, then by all means add the appropriate entry in "References", but otherwise let's leave it as it is.  White Whirlwind  咨  16:10, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any English translations of the full text?

I would like to add them to the links if they exist. If not, it's a pity- such a magnificent work should be translated in full... Tabbycatlove (talk) 01:42, 21 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ed: I should specify, I mean ebook translations. I can't believe no one has made a full ebook of it yet... There must be one?! Tabbycatlove (talk) 01:44, 21 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I can't believe how stupid I am... There was an ebook version on Amazon under the same ISBN! I'm such an idiot. Could we please delete this thread to save space and face?  :( Tabbycatlove (talk) 01:56, 21 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Zhonghua Shuju editions

As far as I'm aware the 1959 (1982) ZHSU editions do include the commentaries by the three experts. It's possible that there is some other edition that I'm not aware of that excludes them, but the 10 volume text that is still printed does indeed contain them. The only other edition from ZHSU that I'm aware of is a Simplified Chinese edition intended for mass consumption rather than scholarly research. Ymwang42 (talk) 21:04, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I misread Hulsewé's description, though he doesn't specifically state that the ZH edition added the commentary back in. Thanks for catching this.  White Whirlwind  咨  21:33, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies for the duplicated text -- I should have read the previous half of that paragraph! Ymwang42 (talk) 21:38, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"...now usually known as..."

If that were actually true, which is possible, it should be proven here and the page should just be moved.

Also, remember that we don't use tone marks in the English running text or triplicate the Chinese text. If it's in the infoboxes or a name section, it doesn't also clutter up the lead sentence.

Fwiw, I'm very much in favor of a name section to cover the major English translations of the title with some sourcing. Probably also worth noting in such a section that the work is very often referred to as simply "Sima Qian". — LlywelynII 04:43, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

longer than Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War and longer than the Old Testament

The three works were written in different languages (Chinese, Greek, Hebrew) and they all work differently. How does one compare the length of the content? --2001:16B8:31AD:7400:D997:E88E:9CD2:E3FA (talk) 12:15, 22 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Quoted translation seems to have a small error

In the Source Materials section, it quotes the translation of Burton Watson as follows

余嘗西至空桐，北過涿鹿，東漸於海，南浮江淮矣，至長老皆各往往稱黃帝、堯、舜之處，風教固殊焉，總之不離古文者近是。

I myself have travelled west as far as K'ung-t'ung, north past Cho-lu, east to the sea, and in the south I have sailed the Yellow and Huai Rivers. The elders and old men of these various lands frequently pointed out to me the places where the Yellow Emperor, Yao, and Shun had lived, and in these places the manners and customs seemed quite different. In general those of their accounts which do not differ from the ancient texts seem to be near to the truth.

— Sima Qian, translation by Burton Watson[24]

Here Sima Qian writes 南浮江淮. It should not be "I have sailed the Yellow and Huai Rivers" but should be "I have sailed to the Yangtze (江) and Huai (淮) Rivers". In classical Chinese, 河 or 河水 is used to denoted the Yellow River (nowadays called 黄河), while 江 or 江水 is used to refer to the Yangtze (nowadays called 长江). Nowadays 江 and 河 can be used to refer any general rivers, but in the classical time, 江 is exclusively for Yangtze and 河 exclusively for the Yellow River.

It also does not make much sense by saying "to the south I sailed the Yellow and Huai River", because (1) Yellow river is in the relatively northern part of the Han empire and (2) Yellow river is very far away from the Huai River. While the Yangtze and Huai are indeed in the south and the two are relatively close to each other.

I checked the source of Watson's translation (Ssu Ma Chien Grand Historian Of China, 1953 https://archive.org/stream/ssumachiengrandh012602mbp/ssumachiengrandh012602mbp_djvu.txt ) and I confirmed that this is but a mistake by the contributor, but that Watson's translation did say "sailed to the Yellow and Huai". I think It should be a mistake.

But I still do not know what should we do to improve this. If the quotation of a translation has a mistake, how should we improve it?

Perhaps adding a small note below the quotation to clarify the mistake? Lujialin1996China (talk) 07:42, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Years

I want to know more about the dates that the author wrote. JWsympathizer (talk) 02:15, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 21 July 2024

The following is a closed 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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved as requested per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 01:42, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Records of the Grand Historian → Shiji – WP:COMMONNAME Folly Mox (talk) 16:48, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This has been bothering me for years. The subject is only very rarely referred to in English language texts as Records of the Grand Historian (Watson's 1964 translation as a separate title excepted), and further only translated as Records of the Grand Historian in a modest plurality of cases. The common term in English usage is Shiji.
I conducted an incomplete survey of English language sources published over the past 25 years that were in my personal library, until I had to go shopping and got bored. 71 data points comprise this set. I looked at how the book was referred to in English prose, how the title was translated or transliterated as applicable depending on the primary term of reference, and how the title was cited, if different. Identical results from the same scholars (n=6) were discarded, along with one source that only mentioned particular translations as distinct titles, leaving 64 data points. The sources assessed were divided into three categories:
  1. Sources entirely about the subject, its author, or the treatment of some other topic as recorded by the subject (includes books, book chapters, and academic articles) (n=11)
  2. Sources which cited the subject a lot (like ≈30 times or more) (n=25)
  3. Sources mentioning or citing the subject in passing (n=28)
Of the eleven sources in the first group, eleven of them referred to the subject in transliteration: nine as Shiji and two as Shi ji. Of the 25 sources in the second group, seventeen referred to the subject in transliteration (eleven Shiji and six Shi ji), and eight in translation. Of the 28 sources in the third group, twenty transliterated (fifteen as Shiji, four as Shi ji, one as Shi Ji) and eight translated. Of the sources across the second and third groups that referred to the subject in translation (n=16), five cited in transliteration despite using translation in the prose. Across these sixteen sources, the transliteration Shiji was given nine times, Shi Ji twice, Shi ji and Shih-chi once each, with a further three sources providing no transliteration: two citing the title as "Sima" and one citing as SJ, meaning I probably missed an abbreviations section somewhere.
Oh my gosh do we still have data visualisation templates available? The Charts extension seems like it's not very far along. Describing all this data in prose is confusing me and probably you as well.
Ok so summing up that first bit, the takeaways are that sources that go in depth on the article subject universally (out of eleven sources I happen to have in book or pdf) use transliteration in prose as well as citations. Other sources tend heavily towards transliteration. Totals are 48 for transliterating in prose and citations both, about five for translating in prose and transliterating in citation, and I guess eleven for just using translation (I don't think I was rigorous in making this particular distinction; I was more interested in the terms being used). Total transliteration score is 44 Shiji (35 as primary term of reference), 13 Shi ji, 3 Shi Ji, and 1 Shih-chi.
We're almost there, I think. For the translations, results were of course more varied. I don't want to talk through all this data but also don't want to tab away to look up pie chart templates. Of the sources in the first group, where the article subject is also the subject of the source, 6/11 opt not even to translate the title. The other five all translate the title differently. Of the sixteen sources that use a translated title in prose, the scores are as follows: 6 Records of the Historian, 1 Records of the historian, 3 Records of the Grand Historian, 2 The Grand Scribe's Records, 1 Grand Scribe's Records, 1 Historical Records, 1 Historical records, 1 Annals of the Historian. So, even sources in my library that choose to refer to the article subject in translation do not prefer the rendering that is the present article title.
When combining all translations in the sample (n=33), whether used as the primary term of reference or given as a gloss to the more common transliterated title, normalising to title case and ignoring the distinction between the presence or absence of initial definite article, the totals are as follows: 11 Records of the Historian, 7 Records of the Grand Historian, 5 [The] Grand Scribe's Records, 5 Historical Records, 1 Annals of the Historian, 1 Archivists' Records, 1 Archivist's Records (subtly different, downplaying the role of Sima Tan), 1 Historical Notes, 1 Historians Records ( [sic], likely a typo).
WP:UE, part of the Article title policy, says In deciding whether and how to translate a foreign name into English, follow English-language usage. The usage in English-language sources is primarily to use Shiji to refer to this subject (35/63 in the sample surveyed). Even Shi ji, the much less common transliteration (13/63), is still more common a term than the most popular translation in the sample, Records of the Historian (7/63).
In summary, this ngram, which supports my major finding and not so much my minor findings, and which I could have lazily posted without doing all this reading and typing, but I wanted a stronger argument. Wearily, Folly Mox (talk) 16:48, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Unformatted notes Folly Mox (talk)


Full chapter / article / book
Zhang 2018 Shiji
Riegel 2023 Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian)
van Ess, Domová, Schaab-Hanke ed 2015 Shiji
Wang 2014 Shi ji (Historical Records)
Nylan 2016 Shiji (Archivists' Records)
Leung 2019 Shiji
(Nylan 1999 Shiji)
McKay 2018 Shi ji
Chin 2020 Shiji
van Ess 2006 Shiji
Waring 2022 Shiji (Archivist's records)
Klein 2019 Shiji (Records of the Historian)

Lotsa citations
Cao 2017 Annals of the Historian (Shiji)
Chard 2021 Shi ji (Records of the Historian)
Shen ed 2014 Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian)
Lewis 1999 Shi ji
Ma, von Glahn ed 2022 Historical Records (cited as SJ)
Loewe 2012 Shi ji
Nylan 2009 Shiji
Gu 2023 Shiji
Tse 2017 Shiji
Kern 2004 Shi ji
Puett 2002 Shiji
Goldin 2020 Shiji
CHAC 1999 Shi ji
Denecke 2010 Records of the Grand Historian (cited as Shiji)
Gentz, Meyer ed 2015 Shiji
(Nylan 2007 Shiji (Archivists' Records) (cited as SJ))
Kern 2011 Records of the Historian (Shiji)
Loewe 2011 Shiji (cited as SJ)
Goldin 2005 Records of the Historian (Shiji)
Goldin 2017 Shiji (Grand Scribe's Records)
Hunter 2021 Grand Scribe's Records (cited as Shiji)
(Hunter 2017 Shiji (Grand Scribe's Records))
Spawforth ed 2007 Records of the Historian (Shih-chi) (cited SC)
Liang 2019 The Grand Scribe's Records (Shi Ji)
(Loewe 2015 Shi ji)
Barbieri-Low & Yates 2015 Shi ji (Historical Records)
Schmidt-Glintzner, Mittag, Rüsen ed 2005 Shiji (Records of the Historian)

Passing mentions
Sørenson 2010 Shiji
Lander 2023 Shi ji
Ge 2018 Records of the Grand Historian (cited as Shiji)
McNeal 2004 Shi ji
Demandt 2020 Shiji
Korolkov 2023 The Grand Scribe's Records (cited as Sima)
Rom 2020 Shiji
(Tse 2023 Shiji)
(Zhang ed 2022 Historical Records & Records of the Historian)
Boileau 2023 Shiji
Pines in Goldin ed 2013 Records of the historian (cited as Sima)
Kohn ed 2000 Shiji
Galambos 2018 Shiji
Brashier 2011 Historical records (cited as Shiji)
Song 2015 Shiji (Historians Records)
Zuozhuan trans 2017 Records of the Historian (Shiji)
Rainey 2010 Records of the Historian (Shi Ji)
Wilson 2002 Shiji
Lee 2020 Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji)
Rosker 2017 Shi Ji (Historical Notes)
Allan 2007 Shi ji
Tse 2020 Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian) (cited as SJ)
Lagerway, Kalinowski ed 2009 Shiji
Shi 2022 Shiji
Pines, Biran, Rüpke ed 2021 Shiji
Pines 2016 Records of the Historian (Shi ji)
(Nylan 2021 Shiji)
(Nylan 2000 Shiji)
van Ess 2022 Shi ji (Historical Records)
Amitai, Biran ed 2021 Shiji (Records of the Historian)
Brown 2003 Shiji
Milburn 2014 Shiji (Records of the grand historian)

Notified: WikiProject China. Folly Mox (talk) 16:54, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I did end up looking at {{Pie chart}}. Apologies to Aza24 for dutifully slogging through my nonsense. Apologies also for the obvious maths error I failed to catch in the OP, where I enumerate the sample size both as 64 and 63.

Term of reference in sampled sources about [an aspect of] the subject

  Shiji (81.8%)
  Shi ji (18.2%)
  any translation (0%)

n=11

Term of reference in sampled sources, running prose

  Shiji (54.7%)
  Shi ji (18.75%)
  Records of the Historian (10.9%)
  Records of the Grand Historian (4.7%)
  [The] Grand Scribe's Records (4.7%)
  Other (6.25%)

n=64

Folly Mox (talk) 11:09, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support — wow this is quite something :) That is a rather revealing ngram; I should also note that it seems like this article's existing sources heavily favor Shiji. Given that (as you note) the current over-stylized title is derived directly from Watson's translation, it is not really reflective of the entire scholarship. Other translations seem to favor very different (and completely inconsistent) title translations. Amid such discrepencies, it would be best to resort the pinyin, particularly given its proven dominance in the above analysis. I'm now wondering if a similar move is need on the Shijing page (does anyone really call it the "Classic of Poetry"?). – Aza24 (talk) 07:01, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've wondered about Shijing as well: I feel like I see Shijing most commonly, followed by Book of Odes. Our article on Shang shu is particularly out of sync with my educational background, and I can never remember what title we have it at (probably not helped by the fact we give the native name as 書經 – a word not even in my Chinese keyboard's predictive text – instead of the common 尚書). Also many other works listed at Chinese Classics (*Zuo Zhuan seems particularly ripe for downcasing to a more common form, although a different problem at root). Super late for work, Folly Mox (talk) 11:22, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support on renaming to Shiji, and I echo Aza's ideas that we really should just use the romanization on the classics. The Book of Documents/Shujing seems like a good candidate. The Xiaojing gets translated a fair bit, but "Classic of Filial Piety", "Classic of Family Reverence" and "Book of Filial Piety" are all in fairly common use there. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 16:50, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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