Talk:Names of the Qing dynasty

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Possible needs for the article[edit]

Thanks to Cartakes for starting this useful article. To justify it however, we should expand on this good start by making it more substantial than the section in the Qing dynasty article. I've made a stab, but am not knowledgeable enough to go much farther. I did add that there are names in the other court languages, and suggested that the emperors did not call their realm "China." But I do not know the Mongol etc names for Qing. The other western European languages use some cognate of "China," which goes back to the Persian, but Russia uses Khitai for China (cognate to "Cathay" from the Khitai kingdom) and I don't know what for Qing dynasty. Perhaps Rajmaan could help once more?

In any case, everyone should please explain their edits in edit summaries.

All the best.ch (talk) 20:00, 3 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously I was mainly talking about the English names for the Qing dynasty as this is the English Wikipedia. But names in other languages may be fine too. The Qing rulers did not directly use the name "China" obviously, since probably none of the emperors even understood English. However, their plenipotentiaries or so who signed the treaties etc obviously understood English, since they needed to check the text and make sure the Chinese/Manchu and English (or other western) versions of the treaties were the same. Other western versions of treaties I found made reference to some cognate of "China" too, such as French, Russian and Latin. For example, the Russian version of Treaty_of_Nerchinsk [1] used "китайского", which means "Chinese". Qing officials also used "China" when they said (such as during diplomatic) and wrote in English. --Cartakes (talk) 20:10, 3 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your quick reply! It's good to know that this is an article in progress. But it was not "obvious" that the article "Names of the Qing dynasty" was focusing on English names, as "Zhongguo" was prominently featured. I apologize if I stepped in before you could finish what you had in mind.

I should also mention that we should not call any of these names "official," since that concept is anachronistic. I hit upon "court" names, since that seems to cover the situation without getting all "inside baseball" and giving readers a headache. I am pulling together some references which I hope can be useful, as the points in Zhao Gang's article (and subsequent book) are not accepted by some of the major scholars. The article Names of China includes some of these references, but that too needs to be tweaked.

Cheers and thanks once more for your good efforts!ch (talk) 20:26, 3 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at the two sections that actually list the names for the Qing, all of them are in fact English names. I did not put names in any other languages in the list. But I agree with you that calling there was an "official name" is anachronistic and some points in Zhao Gang's article are not the mainstream consensus. However, "officially used" should be fine, which does not mean there was an official name, but simply used in official situations such as treaty texts. --Cartakes (talk) 20:31, 3 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't follow: you very usefully also included sections "Origin of the name Qing" and "The name China or Zhongguo for Qing." I applaud you for an article on the full range of names, so I'm not sure why you want to back away.ch (talk) 20:51, 3 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What two sections originally meant were where the name "Qing" and "China" for the Qing dynasty in English came from. They are originally intended as the "Etymology" for these two English names. I already added the "Names in other languages" section for detailed discussions of names for the Qing in other languages. --Cartakes (talk) 21:02, 3 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Court or "official" names and "other" names[edit]

Apologies if I've lost track -- I don't understand the edit which moved mention of the Manchu, Mongol, Tibetan, and Uighur names to "Other languages." How an article titled "Names of the Qing dynasty" not include the "names of the Qing dynasty" used by the emperors and their officials? The languages of the dynasty were Manchu, Chinese, Mongol, Tibetan, and Uigur. This must be included in the lead.

To be sure, this is the English Wikipedia, but the lead is meant to summarize the important points in the article, not focus on a sub-point.

The sentence in the lead is a logical non-sequitur: "Although .... established by Manchus... unrelated to the Han ... it became widely known in English as China." The word "although" means that there is some contradiction, but in fact it has nothing to do with the Manchus. ch (talk) 21:17, 3 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, let's talk about my understanding of the title "Names of the Qing dynasty". My understanding of this term is that this article in English Wikipedia will primarily talk about the English names that are used to refer to the "Qing dynasty", not primarily "(native or non-English) names used by the Qing dynasty". I think we need to decide the focus of this article first. As for "Although", what I meant by it is that the English name for the Qing dynasty should typically not be "China" since the empire was founded by Manchus and not (native) Chinese. However, "China" and "Chinese Empire" had became the most common names in English since the early Qing dynasty (instead of "Manchuria" and "Manchu Empire" etc). That's why it was mentioned in the article. --Cartakes (talk) 21:41, 3 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Now I have split the section for other languages to "Names in languages within the Qing dynasty and contexts" and "Names in other languages". The former is for Chinese, Manchu, Mongolian etc and the latter is for French, Russian, Japanese etc. --Cartakes (talk) 02:32, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There shouldn't be a contradiction. In Chinese there is no contradiction because Zhongguo and Han are two separate words and absolutely no confusion between them. Manchus in China say they are Zhongguo ren without any comprehension issues. It is because western translators chose to translate both Zhongguo and Han as "China" and "Chinese" that English speakers will get confused. There is a recorded incident of a Qing official named Zhang Deyi complaining about this very problem to westerners.Rajmaan (talk) 03:53, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's because the Manchus during Qing said they are Zhongguo ren/Dulimbai gurun i niyalma though. The Mongols during Yuan (even during Qing) on the other hand never said they were "Zhongguo/Dumdadu Ulus". That's why Yuan is not officially called China or the Chinese Empire (but a Mongol state or khanate). --Cartakes (talk) 11:14, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Xianbei called their state as "Zhongguo" 1,600 years ago so its not something new to the Qing that a non-Han dynasty used that name.Rajmaan (talk) 18:10, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

By Xianbei, do you mean the Xianbei state or states founded by the Xianbei in China such as the Northern Wei? If you mean the former, then no, the Xianbei state did not call their state as "Zhongguo", which is a Chinese term and not a Xianbei term. If you mean the latter, well, even the Jurchen Jin dynasty did refer to their state as "Zhongguo", but it was more like a "legitimate" thing (according to traditional Chinese political orthodoxy, that is) rather than actually (officially) use the term "Zhongguo" to call their state, such as in international treaties etc. Even the Meiji and pre-1945 Japan called their state "神州" but they did not use that name to refer to their state during international communications or so. Instead, they still called their state as "(Empire of) Japan" ("日本" in Japanese) . --Cartakes (talk) 18:20, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I meant Northern Wei, because the Xianbei state did not rule the Central Plains area. One Northern Wei Emperor even called Xianbei food like yogurt as food of "Zhongguo".Rajmaan (talk) 13:39, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

New article[edit]

I have established this new article. Some of materials in this new article came from Qing dynasty#Name, and they had been greatly reworded and restructured etc to fit in the new article. --Cartakes (talk) 14:52, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]