Talk:Shiji

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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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

I translated the Editions section from the Chinese Wiki.

This article contains a translation of 史记 from zh.wikipedia.

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

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]

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]

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,

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

Oh wow! Now can someone help me change the redirects in all the pages I've ensured consistency in saying the previous title in for the past year? I think it's unfortunate in the sense that many links will have to do more to explain what the work is, and I worry it will just be indistinguishable to the average reader in running lists. Remsense诉 02:38, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Redirects are WP:NOTBROKEN, so there's no pressing need for us to undo the work you've kindly done. Whenever I need to cite the Shiji (or, more commonly, fix a citation to it), I always include a |trans-title= parameter for readers who might not know what it is, and provide a brief description if it's mentioned in prose.

I was a bit surprised by the results of my own research into this, even though it jived with my impression of the literature. I suppose the polysemy of the word 史 may have helped bolster the popularity of rendering the title in transliteration more often than translation.

You know I like and respect you, Remsense, so if you do want the links you've changed over the past year to reflect consistency with the article title following this RM, I'll put NOTBROKEN aside and will absolutely help you change them all. There are 1380 links. A good tool to get us going would be a bespoke citation template, {{Cite Shiji}}, which should reduce the necessary copypasta, and I will try to write it for us.

Which running lists are you concerned about? Folly Mox (talk) 09:18, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly! To be clear, the move is obviously correct, and I was mostly joking around about urgency. It'll happen naturally. :) There are certainly more pressing things I need to get off my butt and write a proper script for. Per running lists, this is just a general point: if we're listing some classics for the reader, like this from Chinese characters:

Historically, character literacy was often acquired via Chinese primers like the 6th-century Thousand Character Classic and 13th-century Three Character Classic, as well as surname dictionaries like the Song-era Hundred Family Surnames.

If these used the pinyin names here, it feels like a net negative for the average reader without additional explanation. That's how it goes, though. Remsense诉 09:33, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Remsense: I agree with you there: translation in running prose, in articles where the titles aren't even cited as sources, is superior to transliteration irrespective of the actual article title. How we talk about a topic in prose has more leeway in terms of editorial discretion than how articles are supposed to be titled.

Speaking of polysemy, I don't read Generalissima's comment above that we really should just use the romanization on the classics as applying to every work whose title ends in 經, and (without having looked into it whatsoever) I can't think of a reason e.g. San zi jing / Sanzijing / San Zi Jing would ever overtake Three Character Classic as WP:COMMONNAME.

I do think the article titles in the topic area could use a revisit in some cases. Aza24's suggestion of the Shijing is a good one, and Generalissima's suggestion of the Xiaojing, and I might have a look at the Shan Hai Jing and Sima Fa. We're probably screwed when it comes to the 尚書 / 書經 / Classic of Documents / Book of Documents / Classic of History / Venerated Documents due to the whole variety, but I do think Book of Documents (the current article title) is the both the most ambiguous option and least closest translation of the titles. We also have a lot of weird ambiguity and iirc inapt redirects around the 周禮、儀禮、禮記 subset, which is partially a consequence of their transmission history.

Similarly, Chinese classics the article is a mess. It's a prime case of why we should have an exception in MOS:CHINA for permitting native names in lists and tabular data even when a local article exists, and if you look at the wikicode, we have a number of piped links where the linktext matches the article title and it's being piped to a redirect, as well as cases where the article title, linktext, and link target all differ. Probably a conversation for another page, or a WP:SOFIXIT which was on my radar last summer but lost contact in the autumn. Folly Mox (talk) 11:52, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll just interject here, in a reply to my own comment that I posted in a single diff as two comments because it got too rambly and tangential, the additional tangent that I'm extremely fond of how titling was handled for Durrant, Stephen; Li, Wai-yee; Schaberg, David, eds. (2016). Zuo Tradition. Zuozhuan. 左傳: Commentary on the "Spring and Autumn Annals". University of Washington Press. ISBN 978-0-295-999159. Of course we have |title=|script-title=|trans-title= for use in citations, but I wish our article titles had such flexibility. We're pretty stuck with the conventions chosen decades ago, so this isn't really actionable, and I should start prototyping templates instead. Folly Mox (talk) 12:22, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reading Module:Template wrapper/doc in another tab right now. It seems like a source-specific CS1 wrapper shouldn't be particularly difficult to implement, even for me.

Altering the links to Records of the Grand Historian to a bespoke citation template I haven't started writing yet to bypass the redirect should still be done manually, since sometimes we'll want to cite multiple chapters while only displaying once the full bibliographic information, or use guoxue instead of Wikisource for the chapter-url, or etc., and I haven't yet looked into all the different use cases. My impression is that the first thousand or so will be Han / pre-Han biographical articles which have been content-stable for the last ten or fifteen years, where the reference will be plaintext Records of the Grand Historian, vol. NN, which we could probably AWB / JWB into a template. The other uses may prove more complicated. Folly Mox (talk) 11:52, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I have to run errands here for awhile momentarily, but I've put together a bespoke citation template at User:Folly Mox/Cite Shiji. It mirrors how I've cited the book, but supports comma-separated author names as well. As a proper CS1 template wrapper, it also supports overwriting any of the defaults, but can also be used to link Wikisource easily. Haven't added support for other online sources yet.

Let me know if there's anything that seems stupid or wrong. I plan to finish the documentation, move the template to the Template: namespace, and start adding transclusions this weekend, but I created it in my userspace so the TfD regulars don't spawnkill it for being unused. Folly Mox (talk) 16:44, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, that's super nifty! I just learned how to do proper wrapped templates two days ago because the first time I looked it seemed too scary because it had 7 parameters instead of 3. Remsense诉 16:46, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Because I made a horrible error, and mistook the source of one Wikisource page for the source of a different Wikisource page, TIL I've been providing incorrect publication information every time without exception I've ever cited the Shiji since I started using citation templates in the late 2010s.

The forcing factor that led to me making this error in the first place is the CS1 templates' refusal to display |orig-date= when |date= is empty, combined with the inability to set |date= in BCE. I think I must have grabbed the Zhonghua 1959 edition information from the pdf I had of it back before 2021, but it's the annotated edition, at zh:s:史記三家注, not the one I've been consistently linking at zh:s:史記.

So after a lengthy digression into the textual transmission of the Shiji, and a visit to the hoary and decrepit chinaknowledge.de of all places (amongst many others), I think I determined the correct publication information of zh:s:史記, up to punctuation. As a side effect, User:Folly Mox/Cite Shiji now supports citing 《史記三家注》. I think I'm satisfied with the functionality, and the testcases all seem to check out, but I'm not 💯 on how I'm rendering the annotated edition in translation, and need to expand User:Folly Mox/Cite Shiji/doc#Examples.

I still haven't even looked at how the book is actually cited in the wild, and anticipate eventually incorporating functionality to cite multiple chapters for all the old articles using general references, but uh I thought I'd just make a status report here. Folly Mox (talk) 20:00, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I'm not sure whether this is discussed before or not. Lan Pee (talk) 07:08, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As a historical person, he's only mentioned in the article 244 BC, and doesn't even have a mention in Lü Buwei. His story does seem to have been fictionalised in multiple modern media, mostly variations on the title 甘羅拜相. zh:甘羅 exists. I'd say start with adding contextualised information into related articles. I'm not yet informed enough to posit an opinion on notability, and I have to go to work now. Folly Mox (talk) 11:15, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]