Talk:Japanese units of measurement

Intitial info source

This is from the German Wikipedia (that's why there're bits of German in it). This should be useful. This might be also. Jimp 23&26Oct05

Merger of shaku and koku to here

• Keep both. These are the most-familiar (in English, anyway) Japanese units of length and volume, and unlike many of the historical measurements around the world, these were used well into the 20th century. In addition, merging them will lose the interwiki links. Any other length units can redirect to the shaku, etc.Gene Nygaard 13:22, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, but a lot of the material in the shaku article should be moved here, since it concerns the units in general rather than just the shaku unit. The koku page can stay as it is I think. The Germans have a page for each unit, which is not unreasonable. By the way, whoever suggested the merge, it would be nice if you would sign in with a user name. --DannyWilde 13:38, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment: I should note that User:Jimp did so on the Talk:Shaku and Talk:Koku pages but I added a note there to continue the discussion here, which is also the page linked to for discussion in the tags added to both articles. I didn't know if I should move his comments or not; he didn't actually make any arguments at that time, just posed the question of whether they should be moved, so I'd rather invite him to stick in a short statement of why it was proposed here, at the top of this section. Gene Nygaard 13:56, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

• Keep both. As long as a unit has a non-trivial history or interesting explanation of how it came into existence, how it's maintained, etc. and it's not an obvious derivative of another unit then I think it warrants its own article. Both shaku and koku fit this criteria. To contrast, centimetre is an obvious derivative of metre, so its own article is not justified. --Ds13 19:38, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

• Comment: No, I made no arguments. Here's my only argument: consolidation. Both Koku and Shaku are quite short and not likely to grow much. Put everything together and you'll have a decent size article. No, it's not much of an argument that's why I just put the question. On the other hand, there are good reasons not to move them as you've mentioned above. I think I'll remove the tags. Yeah, and sorry for not logging in. I really should do and also should have done when I started this article. Jimp 26Oct05

Romanisation

It's Wikipedia's policy to use Hepburn Romanisation however, this system has a serious defect viz. it maps different kana onto the same sequence of letters. To overcome this, I'm adding hiragana to the words in question. Jimp 26Oct05

Also, should we have "momme" as the German & Japanese Wiki has or should we have "monme" as per Wiki sytle manual? Jimp 27Oct05

"Momme" (double-m) is correct according to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)#English words of Japanese origin. It's in authoritative English dictionaries with the double-m spelling. See M-W and OED. Fg2 02:06, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Fractions

From the Japanese version of this page.

• 分 -- 10分の1
• 厘 -- 100分の1
• 毛（毫） -- 1000分の1
• 糸 -- 1000分の1

translated

Submultiples
bu (分)	1/10
rin (厘)	1/100
mou (毛, 毫)	1/1,000
shi (糸)	1/10,000

Jimp 26Oct05

I edited these into the usual English fraction format. It's easier to read. --DannyWilde 07:28, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Official date of metrification

, and use of the old units for official purposes was forbidden after 31st March 1966

I deleted this sentence fragment. The recent census (Oct 2005) asked people to describe their home size in square metres or tsubo, which is clearly a use of traditional units for official purposes. Rhialto 00:18, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Don't delete things in this way. If you have something to add to the article, add it, but don't start destroying stuff like this. It's possible that the census asked people for this value, and then converted into metres, but it is very unlikely that the units are produced or used by any official body. The statement above is correct and has been reverted. --DannyWilde 00:22, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

The words were produced and used by the Japanese government itself, which is about as official as any usage can get. if an encyclopedia contains incorrect information, is it right that the incorrect information should be left in? Do you have a cite which shows that traditional units were absolutely banned? Because tsubo were very definitely in that census. Rhialto 00:42, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

They were allowed as a means of input in that census. That is different from producing them. The information that these units are no longer officially allowed (produced) is correct; the date is correct; the article was correct, and you removed correct information from it. Please, do not do that. --DannyWilde 00:46, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Unless you can produce a cite, all you have done is convince me that Wikipedia is no longer an authoritive encyclopedia that can be relied on for correct information, as my own experience of that census directly contradicts that dating. Rhialto 00:57, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

As per the cite page, I have removed the disputed information, and placed it in the discussion page. I hope that a source for this information can be found, but until then, the style manual is clear that it should be placed in the discussion page, and not the main article. Rhialto 01:09, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

The Japanese law on measurement is easily to be found online, and if you can read Japanese, you will easily be able to confirm that it clearly states that the only official system of measurement in Japan is the metric one. If you cannot read it, I'll be glad to quote and translate the relevant passages from it for you here. I have added a reference at the bottom of the main page. Details of the revisions of the Japanese laws are also found on the Japanese Wikipedia. --DannyWilde 07:53, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

I would be grateful if you could highlight the relevant section of that page. My japanese is not as good as yours. Rhialto 10:31, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Length of a jou

I had been maintaining another page relating to weights and measures here. For length units, I noted a jou as being 12 shaku, not 10, and with correspondingly larger values for teh two higher units on that scale. I cited my source as New Nelson Kanji Dictionary, p1268. Unfortunately, I no longer have that book, so I can't double check. It seems unlikely that such an authoritive book would intentionally produce an error though. Is it possible that they were referring to the standards from a periof period to that noted in this article? Rhialto 03:35, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not specially convinced about the Nelson kanji dictionary. I think it was only authoritative by default when there were no other comparable works. The Japanese Wikipedia and several other web pages [1] all give ten for the multiple. (The "no" kana in the search string is to eliminate Chinese language pages.) The Kojien dictionary also gives only ten. --DannyWilde 07:37, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Which of the several other web pages were you thinking of? The first one listed was a discussion of Chinese units, not Japanese, and the next 2 were broken links, followed by the Japanese wikipedia article and a newspaper article about the size of priests' rooms. Given the nature of wikipedia, I don't think it's a terribly good idea to regard another wikipedia article as being an authoritative reference. Your method of pointing others to vast amounts of Japanese text, only a small part of which is relevant, comes across as a way of boasting how much better your Japanese language skills are. If you want to cite an article to back your views, by all means cite one that is relevant. But that link admirably demonstrates the weakness inherent in relying on a search engine. By teh logic you used, any search for weights and measures in the English language would only ever find English language units, which plainly isn't true by virtue of this discussion we are having. Rhialto 12:12, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I hope the kojien dictionary provides enough evidence without the web links. --DannyWilde 12:15, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Don't you find it at all curious that the two dictionaries differ though? Why don't you take that dictionary cite I noted as being from a serious scholarly work anyway? Rhialto 12:17, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I've just checked the old edition of Nelson & it just says "jo 10 feet". It doesn't say anything about "shaku". My above comments were actually directed at old Nelson. Looking back I see that you mention New Nelson; excuse me for the error. Anyway, why don't you get a hold of the book and check that it does say "12 shaku" before going any further with this discussion? The web page reference you've just added to the page says "10 shaku" as well, doesn't it? --DannyWilde 12:22, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I'd love nothing more than to check that dictioanry. Unfortunately, my copy is currently a few thousand miles away. I was hoping that someone who does have this book could check. At this stage, I'm even willing to entertain the idea that it was a transcription error on my part, which is why I haven't made any change in the article on this issue. Rhialto 12:32, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I am not interested in your web page. --DannyWilde 08:35, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I never asked you to take any interest in my web page. But I did ask you to take an interest in a respected reference work that cites a different value from that mentioned in this wiki. Rhialto 14:30, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Since it's a matter of such burning importance to you, I'll take a look at a copy and check whether it says "twelve" or not next time I'm near one. However, the fact that no one else says "twelve", including one of the most widely respected Japanese dictionaries, should make you start to wonder, shouldn't it? What will you do if New Nelson doesn't say "twelve" and your web page turns out to be wrong? Commit seppuku, perhaps? --DannyWilde 14:44, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

This attitude of yours is entirely unwarranted, and makes it almost impossible to take you seriously. Rhialto 15:06, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm very sorry about that. --DannyWilde 00:37, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps you could explain how suggesting that I kill myself if proved wrong is not a blatant attempt at trollery? Rhialto 01:52, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

I have not suggested that you kill yourself. --DannyWilde 02:04, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Howe do you feel about submitting this dispute for mediation? I feel very strongly about people suggesting I kill myself, or, as you phrased it, commit seppuku. Rhialto 03:23, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

As I stated above, I have not suggested that you kill yourself, so there is nothing to submit to mediation. --DannyWilde 03:26, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Wow, there's some pretty harsh arguing here. I hope there was no thought that someone was actually requesting someone else commit suicide. It just seems like a reference to a Japanese custom overblown by westerners in a sad attempt to make a comment Japanese.

For what it's worth, I found no fault with the values in the article although it's been years since I learned this stuff. I asked my fiancèe and an instructor of history with whom I work and they both agree that there are no faults (at least with the tables, which is all they can read). Smoove K 06:54, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your efforts in verifying the table. --DannyWilde 07:54, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Hiragana

Why has the hiragana been removed from the article? As I've mentioned above the Hepburn system of Romanisation maps different kana onto the same sequence of letters. That's why I started putting hiragana in in the first place. The link to the Nihingo help page hardly overcomes this. Jimp 2Nov05

If that was your reason for adding the kana, you were incorrect, since none of the romanizations on the page was ambiguous. --DannyWilde 08:35, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I'm actually quite surprised that no one has made a plugin yet to take advantage of modern browesers' ablity to display furigana (through the 'ruby' html tag) properly. That would solve the problem almost entirely. Rhialto 06:34, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Solve what problem? --DannyWilde 08:35, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Not so. "Jō", for example, could be "ぢょお", "ぢょう", "じょお" or "じょう". Jimp 5Nov05

Fair enough, you're right, it could be any of those, but the default assumption would be じょう. If it was one of the others, it might be worth adding the hiragana, but in this case the default assumption is correct. In general, Wikipedia doesn't add hiragana. It's not necessary. The kanji version of the unit is certainly necessary to disambiguate, but as for the kana, I don't see why it's necessary. --DannyWilde 09:08, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

No, not necessary but I think it would be helpful to someone interested in Japanese. Ambiguous romanisations of Japanese have been on my nerves ever since I started learning the language. The best thing for a learner of Japanese is to write the pronunciation of any new words he learns in kana and avoid Roman letters as much as possible. The is the approach I take. It's made difficult when you have to guess the correct kana. You could always make the defult assumption but there'll be time when you're wrong. There's nothing to tell you when you're going to be correct or not making this assumption. Nothing in most dictionaries nothing here at Wikipedia. But I should take this argument to its appropriate place. Jimp 11Dec05

Table format

I've tried to make the tables look better with centred first column and italics. I'm not really sure I've succeeded though; any other opinions? --DannyWilde 02:17, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Litre

I've noticed that "ml" and "l" have been changed to "mL" and "L". I wonder why. Both are correct. Jimp 21Nov05 I have reverted it & also, for consistancy, used the spelling litre. Jimp 23Nov05

edits by CiudadanoGlobal

mostly undid by me.

• no such unit as a "double yard"
• the fathom has multiple definitions, and even among users of traditional anglo-saxon units it is unfamiliar, so revert to yards for conversion table.

Rhialto 20:00, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Conversion Programs?

Has anyone written a program that can covert to and from Japanese units? It would be really helpful. Hill of Beans (talk) 22:08, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Most general unit conversion programs include Japanese units. I am not aware of any that specifically do just Japanese (and metric/imperial), since all of them seem to cover pretty much everything, and there wouldn't be any market for a more limited converter. Check out the lists at the bottom of the conversion of units page. Rhialto (talk) 10:45, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

If you're looking for a template to use on Wikipedia, {{convert}} can handle tsubo. Other units can be added easily enough, just ask. Jɪmp 02:41, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Shōsōin in Nara

According to the article.

The Shōsōin in Nara has an ivory one-shaku ruler, the kōgebachiru-no-shaku (紅牙撥鏤尺).

The following hidden comments pertaining to the above have been moved from the article.

Can this comment be expanded a little to say what the significance of this ruler is? I'm not sure what to do with this at the moment.

My guess is it's analogous to the one-meter ruler kept in Paris as a reference

I'd guess the same. Don't think it's necessary to do anything. Actually, I started the article on Shosoin, and when I saw in the Japanese Wikipedia that one of the treasures was a ruler with a name, I immediately thought of this article, which was frequently being edited at the time. Fg2

Jɪmp 05:31, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

See them. 甲 and 乙. Oda Mari (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 06:31, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I added them to the article. Oda Mari (talk) 07:03, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Jɪmp 02:01, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

those 1804 ml

This comment under volume is confusing: The shō (about 64.827 cubic sun) is a common sake-bottle size (generally labelled as 1800 ml).

What is meant by the term "generally"? Either the bottle is filled to 1800 mL or it isn't? Is the 1800 mL the legal fill and thus the primary measurement or does other units appear on the bottle and 1800 mL is the supplemental unit? Can someone show a close-up of the label to see what is shown? 68.105.199.216 (talk) 13:52, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Is there a pattern: I have noticed that the fractionate number is <math>7^4:11^3 {{subst:UnsignedIP|1=82.134.28.194|2=13:04, 11 November 2010 (UTC)}}

This comment under volume is confusing: The shō (about 64.827 cubic sun) is a common sake-bottle size (generally labelled as 1800 ml).

What is meant by the term "generally"? Either the bottle is filled to 1800 mL or it isn't? Is the 1800 mL the legal fill and thus the primary measurement or does other units appear on the bottle and 1800 mL is the supplemental unit? Can someone show a close-up of the label to see what is shown? ~~~~ {{subst:UnsignedIP|1=68.105.199.216|2=13:49, 30 March 2013 (UTC)}}

Census

This statement is in the body of the article: The 2005 Japanese census freed people to give the area of their houses in either square metres or tsubo.

Can someone explain in details how a census is used to codify units of measures into law? Does the comment imply the tsubo is now a legal unit of area for all area measurements in Japan or does it only imply that the word tsubo was allowed be used to describe area in the 2005 census only? What is the legal status of the tsubo in Japanese law outside the census? ~~~~ {{subst:UnsignedIP|1=68.105.199.216|2=13:57, 30 March 2013 (UTC)}}

Census

This statement is in the body of the article: The 2005 Japanese census freed people to give the area of their houses in either square metres or tsubo.

Can someone explain in details how a census is used to codify units of measures into law? Does the comment imply the tsubo is now a legal unit of area for all area measurements in Japan or does it only imply that the word tsubo was allowed be used to describe area in the 2005 census only? What is the legal status of the tsubo in Japanese law outside the census? ~~~~

Census

This statement is in the body of the article: The 2005 Japanese census freed people to give the area of their houses in either square metres or tsubo.

Can someone explain in details how a census is used to codify units of measures into law? Does the comment imply the tsubo is now a legal unit of area for all area measurements in Japan or does it only imply that the word tsubo was allowed be used to describe area in the 2005 census only? What is the legal status of the tsubo in Japanese law outside the census? ~~~~