Talk:Nara (city)/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Nara used to be the capital of Japan

I think this should be mentioned in the history section, probably in the first sentence. At the moment, the only mention of this fact is this oblique reference:

"Even after the capital moved to Kyoto in 784"

I don't know enough about the history to make this edit myself, but I think the history section should begin something like "From (date), Nara was the ancient capital of Japan, until (Emperor) moved the capital to Kyoto in 784", then get into the detailed information. PaulHammond 12:36, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

Found what I was looking for at the Nara period article. PaulHammond 12:49, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

Origin

I don't care that most of the origin of the name Nara is deleted but the citation I provided seems to suggest that a Korean origin for the name for the Nara is at least a credible theory. Please discuss before deleting the sentence again. I don't think it's a neutral point of view if you supress interesting and relevant information. Thanks. Tortfeasor 03:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

The citation you provided supports Korean word nara for "country" has a near-alike pronunciation. It does not, however, support "Nara" actually comes from Korean "nara". --Kusunose 04:40, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Yep, if you'll notice i'm not the one blanking the whole page every time Korea is mentioned. And the citation I added was for the specific point you mention above. I'm not the one who deleted the rest of the "theory"/original research which is why what I readded may look weird by itself. What do you want to do? Tortfeasor 04:49, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm no linguist but this at least seems to suggest that nara is from the Indian/Korean for land/territory. "Bruno Lewin 113 connects the final -ra of Kudara with the final syllable of the names Silla, Kara 加羅 114 , Nara 奈良, and says that -ra means "land, territory" 115 . This -ra was studied also by Hayashi Taisuke 林泰輔 in a research about the relation between Korean and the languages of India 116 . As a matter of fact, if not with the languages of India, -rah of the MK narah "country" and the -rak which appears in the names of Shiragi 117, Karak 加洛 (= Kara) and Naraku (= Nara) 118 can be connected to an altaic root which appears in Turkish as -laγ, "dwelling" 119. From the analogy between the name Kudara and the various names of small states listed in the Chinese sources concerning Korea, we can think that perhaps also the -ra of Kudara could derive from the same root, but with the drop of the final fricative. " Tortfeasor 04:52, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to have a reliable source to the claim itself. Per Wikipedia:No original research#What is excluded?, we should not introduce a theory without a citation.
As for the above citation, it looks interesting. In that theory, Japanese "-ra", not "Nara", is a cognate of Korean "nara" and Turkish "-lay". This suggests "Nara" originally meant "land of Na". --Kusunose 07:13, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
It's not a big deal to me either way. Although I wouldn't agree necessarily that it's original reasearch per se. It's a pretty easy inferrence just based on what the article says and this part also says something about Nara being based on a Korean loan word. "As regards kudŭ, the addition of a final vowel in the name Kudara is not difficult to explain 214 and refers to the current of Korean loans that in Japanese underwent the addition of a vowel or the loss of a final consonant for phonetic reasons (cf. for instance the Korean kom "bear", Japanese kuma id.; Korean narah "country", Japanese Nara, name of the capital city of the period with the same name). The final -a would anyhow be more consistent with an ancient pronounciation *kudɑl, because it is more logical that the vowel added after the last consonant were homologouos of the last original vowel of the Korean word. This problem, anyhow, is easily solved because we know that the character 達 (tal) in ancient Korean did transcribe also the meaning of "stone" 215."
I'm not going to go out of my way to search for a source (I doubt that there is one in English) and I just stumbled on this while doing other research. But I would still think this is a sufficient source to introduce the theory. At the very least, based on the above quote, I think its okay to leave it in the status quo. Let me know what you think.
Not to seem "tit-for-tat" but I am curious if the Nara = flat plain has an English source? Tortfeasor 07:41, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Please examine the meaning of Nara in the language dictionary of Japan. It becomes the most correct answer.
The reference to [1] seems irrelevant to me as well. I could not find the Japanese name 奈良 mentioned even once on that site (Google search on "奈良 site:corea.it"). However, the idea that there is a connection with Korean exists elsewhere. It is mentioned in both the Spanish version of Wikipedia and also on the Japanese one. Both pages dismiss the theory, but they find it worthwhile to mention that it exists. Google finds more matches - none of them reliably supporting the theory, as far as I could find. My conclusion would be: 1) remove the irrelevant reference. 2) Mention the theory and say that it is not widely accepted. Mlewan 22:00, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Nara, with the Chinese characters, is mentioned on that site. Please read the first excerpt I wrote above. The second excerpt says Nara may be a from Korean loan word. But, I'm fine with mentioning that it is a minority opinion. It seems to be cited. Tortfeasor 22:22, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, the theory is minority opinion, and dinied. So, we should write the theory as a denied fact briefly. Gegesongs 23:05, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Tortfeasor, you are right. Nara is mentioned on the page. Google played tricks on me. There are two identical looking unicode characters, 奈 and 奈, and my query got to include the wrong one. No idea how that happened. I think we agree on everything else. Mlewan 05:50, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
Mlewan: I thought I was reading something different than everyone else :) So it should be okay to leave the sentence with the current citation, and be described as the minority theory? Thanks. Tortfeasor 17:19, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
>Tortfeasor, Please cite primary sources of the pronunciation about "nara" in 7th cent in Korean peninsula. It is said that what you insist is not worthy of being called a reserch, because as it was the primary sources are not exist. To fathom it from contemporary pronunciations is unreasonable. Mythologia 18:41, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Can someone else explain to Mythologia how a neutral point of view works at Wikipedia and why a primary source isn't needed or probably shouldn't be used because that would actually be original research as opposed to the citation that I provided which explicitly says Nara may be a loan word of the Korean Narah. Tortfeasor 18:46, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

>Tortfeasor: It is not insisted that "Nara" has Korean origin in the paper which you cited. What you insist is a pure original research of you. Please cite a direct paper of this point. As I wrote above primary sources of the pronunciation about "nara" in 7th cent in Korean peninsula are not exist, so I think such type of paper is not exist. Mythologia 19:10, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
I'd have to agree with Mythologia. The author (Valerio Anselmo?) categorically says "if not with the languages of India", and then says Kudara MAY have derived from the Korean/Altaic roots, and is related to the MK (Middle Korean?) word narah.... not Nara (奈良). Valerio Anselmo denies an Indian connection for Kudara only, but doesn't clarify whether Nara (奈良) has an Indian connection or not. Since the Japanese word for narayana is naraen (那羅延) and one of the alternate kanji for Nara (奈良) was 那羅 according to Yahoo / Daijisen Japanese dictionary, Nara (奈良) indeed appears to have an Indian connection. (Narayana is of Sanskrit origin.) So while Valerio Anselmo says Nara (奈良) had a Korean pronounciation, nara-ku (寧樂 / 寧楽), he never says what the origin was. Therefore, if you say "it comes from the modern Korean word nara" based on this citation, that would be pure original research.--Endroit 15:21, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

But no one is saying that it comes from the modern Korean nara based on the citation. Tortfeasor 15:29, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I assume it violates WP:NOR then.--Endroit 15:31, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry but what violates original research? Tortfeasor 15:33, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
Your wording "it comes from the modern Korean word nara" will violate WP:NOR, since there would be no source.--Endroit 15:35, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
Hi Endroit: Thanks for your comments but I think you're jumping too conclusions. Please take a look at the page history for the last couple of days or so and see why this current version is the way it is and why it is still in discussion and why I have not reverted Mythologia's unilateral deletions and also why myself have added some citations needed brackets and then I will be happy to discuss your issues with the sentence but please don't kill the messanger :)

The source also says Nara may be a Korean loan word. Tortfeasor 15:45, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. Valerio Anselmo only establishes that there was a Korean pronounciation. Your interpretations of Valerio Anselmo amounts to original research.--Endroit 15:49, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
I just fixed the wording to conform to the source. However, I also vote to delete this text. If there is enough consensus, this text should be deleted altogether.--Endroit 16:07, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree with you >Endroit. The paper that Tortfeasor cited has actually little relation to the origin of the word "Nara". I think that Valerio Anselmo only offered a hypothesis about the word "Paekche"'s origin. I'll wait to the source for a certain time, and vote to delete this text.Mythologia 20:39, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
It's not really a matter on whether the Korean etymology is good or not. I think most of us agree that it is bad. (Personally I think it is ridiculous.) The problem is that the idea is out there, as can be seen from the Japanese Nara page and googling around. If an idea is there, we should mention it and dismiss it. It's like Intelligent design or Astrology - mention and dismiss.
We don't improve the Nara page by removing it. We can rephrase it. We can add a lot of other things about Nara. But simply deleting this sentence without a trace is not a solution. Sooner or later someone else will add it again anyhow. Mlewan 05:49, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I think someone else will add it again too. But we can delate this sentence again. We should keep WP:NOR and if the sufficent material is offered, it will be added. Or the NPOV of WP will be violated. Mythologia 15:18, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Overall readability and Gallery section

Nothing personal, nor against the photographer or the person who created the Gallery section, the number of pictures, with always the deers, seems excessive.

In an attempt to improve the readability of the page, I also tried to re-locate the World Heritage infobox, but without real success, so I gave up --- nothing is changed for the moment.


Suspected Copyvio

The whole paragraph added on April 11th 2007 appears to match a part of [ http://www.jamesswan.com/sacredjapan.html this webpage]. --OhMyDeer 23:47, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for noting that. I had already removed part of it because it was off-topic, and now I've reverted to the last version by you. The added text contains some errors, so even if the editor who added it is the copyright owner, it'll need some touch-up. Fg2 01:42, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Translating temple names

An editor has correctly used the Japanese names for temples. I think they need the English translation attached though. It is difficult for those of us educated only in the Roman script to differentiate between these names. Until translated, they are just "a bunch of incomprehensible names." "The Western Temple" would be more understandable, IMO. Student7 (talk) 01:23, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

That's an interesting topic. Articles have been written about temple names, and they have meanings. To Japanese speakers, those meanings are more accessible than to those who don't speak (or read) the language. A case can be made for translating them. However, at least for temples for which articles have been written, the right place for the translation would be the article on the temple, rather than articles that refer to it. How do other editors view this? Fg2 (talk) 02:23, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
Every name has some sort of meaning. Most people don't care about the majority of cases. I say leave it out unless it's particularly notable. If the subject has its own article, include it there. -Amake (talk) 11:07, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Nara, Nara, Nara!

The name of the article looks funny. I realize that Nara is properly in Nara Prefect but it still looks funny in English. Can it be a one word title? Just "Nara"? Having unique ownership of a four letter word is unusual in English and there will probably be conflicts but I would think this city would win. Every time I see the title now I think of a movie or a joke. "Nara" alone would solve the problem for me. Student7 (talk) 14:00, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

This has been debated in numerous places time and time again. The answer is no. -Amake (talk) 17:37, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Twinning

Is Vladimir,_Russia still in fact still twinned ? (91.104.81.55 (talk) 20:00, 13 April 2009 (UTC)).

Nara says not, so I removed it a couple of times. Fg2 (talk) 22:05, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Is Nara also an important person in Bouddhiste culture? Popcorn296 (talk) 15:04, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Jafeluv (talk) 08:59, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Nara, Nara → Nara — "Nara, Nara" sounds bizarre, I propose renaming to Nara or at least to Nara (city).  Dr. Loosmark  19:17, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

  • Why? New York, New York isn't bizarre, it's even used in song, so why would Nara, Nara be bizarre? 76.66.200.95 (talk) 04:08, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
New York, New York is a song. There is no article "New York, New York" article on wikipedia.  Dr. Loosmark  06:48, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
New York, New York is a redirect. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 12:17, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
Okay. How about then moving this article to Nara (city) and then making a Nara, Nara redirect.  Dr. Loosmark  12:43, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
No. See WP:MOS-JA. The article title is correct as it is. -Amake (talk) 15:32, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Current naming conforms to WP:MOS-JA guidelines. --DAJF (talk) 15:42, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment: Just because some wikipedians inserted that nonsense guideline into MOS it doesn't mean the title here is correct. The name of the city is Nara not "Nara, Nara". Apart from looking stupid it is also very confusing.  Dr. Loosmark  15:45, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
    • Comment so what? The name of just about every city with "xxx, yyy" articles is just "xxx". There's a comma, why would it be confusing. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 04:24, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Opposte Changing the city name from Nara, Nara to Nara (city) would be against WP:Naming conventions. For example New York, New York. Naming conventions state that for cities the city name comes first and then the country/providence/state. --Alpha Quadrant (talk) 15:05, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
May I ask what are you talking about? New York is not under "New York, New York" but under "New York City".  Dr. Loosmark  15:11, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
What I mean is the title of the New York city article is New York City and not New York, New York because the phrase New York City is most commonly used. However New York, New York redirects to New York City. The title should be the most commonly used name. It should not be changed on the grounds that the title, as you put it, looks stupid. If Nara is the city's commonly used name then yes, I think the article needs to be changed, but a reference would be needed to prove that it is the commonly used name. --Alpha Quadrant (talk) 15:25, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
Of course Nara is the city's commonly used name, Nara is Japan's historical capital: [2], [3], [4], [5], [6] etc, etc, etc. "Nara, Nara" is most certainly not the city most common name, in fact no sources call the city "Nara, Nara". It's an invention by some wikipedians.  Dr. Loosmark  15:38, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Support - another example of naming conventions being applied in the face of common sense. We don't call New York City "New York, New York", and didn't do so even when the US city naming convention would have required it, so I don't know why that's been brought up in support of the present name (it's an argument against the present name).--Kotniski (talk) 14:52, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 23 December 2014

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No consensus to move. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:17, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

– As the various comments above attest, this title is a reducio ad adsurdum of a poorly thought out guideline. If you think that anyone in the real world calls this city "Nara, Nara", check out the first page of hits on Google Books: [7] Not one is a bona fide double named English-language reference to the city. The WP:MOS-JA creates an exception for designated cities. Nara's population is not quite large enough to be a designated city. But as a major tourist destination, it is better known than most of the designated cities. Cf. WP:UKPLACE, which recommends "Lincoln, England, not Lincoln, Lincolnshire." NotUnusual (talk) 03:15, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Lots of (most?) people are unhappy with MAS-JA's disambiguation scheme, but no alternative has found consensus. The consensus seems to be that the current one sucks, but alternatives all have issues as well. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 06:54, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Extended recent discussion of this sort of move at Talk:Shizuoka, Shizuoka#Requested move saw strong opposition. Many of Nara's tourist destinations are not in the city of Nara (e.g. Hōryū-ji, Mount Yoshino, Ishibutai Kofun, Mount Miwa, Asuka-dera); a significant proportion of references to "Nara" on and off Wikipedia mean Nara Prefecture and not the city. Only about a quarter of the population of the prefecture lives in the city. Dekimasuよ! 03:54, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
    • Comment Nearly four times more people are looking up city than the prefecture: [8][9] English-speakers think of the attractions as being in the city or the surrounding area. Where they are located physically is beside the point. NotUnusual (talk) 04:21, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
      • I doubt it's beside the point; the surrounding area is the prefecture. Nara period has another 24K views in the last 90 days, about 60% the number of the city; combined, those two entries are up to 85% the hits of the city. Given that there are over 20 other entries (most not related to Japan) on the dab, the page views do not bode well for the "A topic is primary for a term, with respect to usage, if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term" criterion of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Dekimasuよ! 04:58, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
        • OK, we could run through the dab page cand clean it up first. there are bound to be some things that do not really belong here, but yeah, doubtful that a primary topic from the word Nara is going to gain a consensus.--Mark Miller (talk) 12:10, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
  • oppose per Dekimasu; also the Nara period being frequently called "Nara" -- 67.70.35.44 (talk) 04:08, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
    • Plain "Nara" is never used for the period unless the context is very clear it refers tot he period. The only plausible potential for confusion for plain "Nara" is the city versus the prefecture. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 06:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
      • It is used as an adjective -- 67.70.35.44 (talk) 12:39, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
        • Mmm-hmmm—and never unless it is crystal clear it is talking about the period. Typing "Nara" into the search box and expecting to get the period is simply not plausible. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 21:06, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Support, or move to Nara (city) as the second choice. MOS:JA is just a guideline for Christ's sake, and should not override common sense (and IAR, if you like). It should be overridden or amended to cover cases when the prefecture and city name match, to avoid abominations as this one. No such user (talk) 09:58, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose, insufficient evidence that this is the primary topic for "Nara" among the 25 entries on the dab page, which is probably still incomplete. At the least, while the city has clear long-term historical significance, so does the modern prefecture that contains the modern boundaries of the modern city covered by Nara, Nara, and Yamato Province and Heijō-kyō (Nara no miyako) are also among the valid targets. Dekimasuよ! 18:41, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
    • Surely Google is a better source for what readers are looking for than a disambiguation page? Google's top three results are for the city. There are also two results on the first page for the prefecture. The rest of the hits are for commercial institutions like restaurants that we don't have articles about. If primary topic is between the city and the prefecture, the city's page view advantage is wide enough to be decisive. The first purpose of a title is tell our readers the name of the subject. That a city this prominent has a title that is comically not-the-name-of-the-subject should be an embarrassment. NotUnusual (talk) 01:13, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
      • Re: the last sentence of your comment—that's not something to be decided here, but at MOS-JA, as it affects every disambiguated city in Japan. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 06:51, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
    • With due respect, Dekimasu, you have it backwards. Our first concern should be benefit of the reader, and the principle of last astonishment, and there's the broad consensus that the title Nara, Nara sucks is awkward in a number of ways. Sensible solutions for that include move to Nara, Nara (city) or Nara City, whichever, according to what we decide is the primary topic, but the current situation is just not sustainable. Even if it technically violates MOS-JA, it is a guideline not set in stone, and if guidelines prevents us to improve the encyclopedia, they should be ignored. No such user (talk) 08:28, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose barring some shocking new developments with regard to primary topic. But support in principle - this title is a little silly. Red Slash 08:35, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment. I proposed an amendment of the guideline at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles#Nara, Nara so feel free to comment there. No such user (talk) 10:49, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Support Yes, it is perfectly true that there is a song "New York, New York", but as far as I know this is a purely American thing -- adding "comma - state (or abbreviation)" is absolutely standard. To all non-Americans, I suspect, the "Nara, Nara" locution sounds simply bats. Since it is not used anywhere else (even by Americans, as far as we can tell), it has no place as the Title of an article. Imaginatorium (talk) 11:22, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
    • The proposed move is from Nara, Nara to plain Nara, not to some other proposed naming scheme; that discussion would take place at MOS-JA, not here. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 11:44, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
      • In case I wasn't clear: I mean that a change from "Nara, Nara" to practically anything (short of "Nara, NA" I suppose) would be an improvement. I can see no problem whatsoever with "Nara" as the title -- compare London, where there are at least two other areas of that name centred on the city. While Nara can also be Nara-ken, this is not an unrelated topic, so it is hardly "off-putting". I prefer Nara to "Nara (city)" and similar, though even those would be merely irritating, and not comical. Imaginatorium (talk) 12:03, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
        • Again, this is off-topic—either you agree or diagree that the city of Nara is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. If you think a better disambiguation scheme would be preferable then take it to MOS-JA, or we'll end up with hundreds of these little discussions. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 12:20, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
          • PRIMARYTOPTIC and MOS-JA are two different guidelines. I don't see anything in PRIMARYTOPIC that would prevent us from making the city primary. If there was, we would not be able to change that at MOS-JA. NotUnusual (talk) 07:09, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
            • Sure...consensus. My, have I fallen on just about the right subject at the right moment (for me anyway! ;-)) with naming conventions and disambiguation page guidelines being recently contentious discussions for Hawaii related articles. First there is a Nara page. It is a disambiguation page. The question, I suppose is, should the city in Japan be considered the primary topic for a move.
The disambiguation page history shows the page was originally created on 17:25, 12 July 2002‎ by Willsmitugcs.caltech.edu (talk | contribs) originally as a redirect to Nara, Japan[10], which was redirected on 13:25, 27 September 2003[11]‎ by TakuyaMurata (User talk:TakuyaMurata|talk]] | contribs) for...you guessed it Nara, Nara.
The question in regards to the disambiguation page is whether it follows the WP:dab. No...it doesn't. The word that is supposedly being disambiguated is Nara. OK...but the only disambiguated articles listed are Nara (ship) (a ship from Imperial Japan) and Nara (clan). I would pose to editors that Nara (clan) be moved to Clan Nara) as it nothing to do with the truly unambiguous topic that is related to Japanese culture and not Chinese culture. I believe the disambiguation page is far from needing to exist as it only list articles that have the word in the title and not truly a disambiguation page but is simply an index page and therefore...Nara is the primary topic needing only to be disambiguated with a hat note on the top of the two articles about the city and the ship.--Mark Miller (talk) 09:11, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
Nara (clan) actually redirects to Nara (Manchu clan). You seem to be reading WP:dab as applying only to dabs using parentheses—the guideline also mentions natural disambiguation, which applies to Nara language, and comma-separated disambiguation, which applies to Nara, Attock, etc. You're probably correct with the "People with the name Nara" section.Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 09:58, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
That is not a natural disambiguation. What the guidelines call a natural disambiguation is when the words mean the same thing or are related terms. Nara language is not the Language of the Nara era, or of Nara Japan, nor of the Clan Nara (seems to be the most encyclopedic). It is also called Barea (Barya) language and is a Nilo-Saharan , making it unrelated as English is to English language. I have decided that the article cannot defend itself with no references. The Nara clan article is a prime candidate for deletion.--Mark Miller (talk) 10:04, 26 December 2014 (UTC)--Mark Miller (talk) 10:04, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
Ethnologue says the alternative names for the Nara language are all pejoritives. I have to admit, I'm not sure what the rest of your comment is getting at. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 10:46, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
If that is true we need to seriously fix that article to remove that as a legitimate alternative name. I am just saying that not all of the listed articles need to be disambiguated. You disambiguate when there is a natural disambiguation as demonstrated. The Nara Language doesn't disambiguate to Nara....or any other article. It isn't a broad concept article. its unrelated but similar. It has the name in the title, but in adding it to the page it makes it an index page to unlrelated articles. Disambiguation is for a single term. The term here is Nara. Nara does not disambiguate to Nara Language. It is a separate topic, unambiguous but also just containing the word in the title.--Mark Miller (talk) 11:03, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
So, I would like to ask Curly Turkey, Dekimasu, Red Slash and 67.70.35.44 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) to consider that the dab page actually does violate the dab guidelines and that there is actually an excellent argument to both the primary topic (as the term Nara alone is a Japanese topic) being Nara a lone and that the dab page was made as a redirect to the city in Japan that let dab guidelines fall off and I do not believe it was a conscious decision to IAR.--Mark Miller (talk) 09:35, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
If the consensus is indeed that the city of Nara is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC then you're right—in which case the culprit is the old MOS-JA rule that required all non-designated cities to have the prefecture appended whether disambiguation was needed or not. I'm on the fence whether the city really is the PRIMARYTOPIC—I prefer to see page hits more on the order of ten-to-one than four-to-one—the farther from 50%+1 the better. Thus I've withheld my !vote. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 09:58, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
I believe it is the primary topic based on the factors that it is a major and ancient city or a historic period in the culture of the nation it pertains to. The Nara clan (just as an example and no disrespect, I have both Japanese and Chinese ancestry) is historic but not in the same major way to the Chinese culture, as it is a collateral family line within a larger clan. If not for a more notable history, the Clan Nara would have been the primary topic similar to Moana. Nara the city would be what came before the era or period if it becomes the capitol for that period so that would carry the name alone.--Mark Miller (talk) 10:48, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
Nobody's arguing whether Clan Nara has precedence over the city of Nara. The argument is between the city and the prefecture. If the consensus is neither is PRIMARYTOPIC, then Nara should remain a dab. Do you believe that readers typing "Nara" into the search box are overwhelmingly searching for the city rather than the prefecture? That would be the case with Hiroshima, for instance, not not with many other cities that share a name with their prefectures. That's the issue. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 10:57, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
OK, thank you for distilling that. The city over the prefecture. But also the Nara period was mentioned above as having some importance. And...when looking at this a little further it seems that articles sourcable (that's not a word) city name would be Nara no miyako[12] the ancient name of the royal city now modern Heijō-kyō. Let's everyone dwell on all of this and consider the next move here.--Mark Miller (talk) 11:14, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose renaming Nara Nara (disambiguation). (from support) but not to rename Nara, Nara until more reseach and further work on the dab. Curly is uncomfortable with the numbers for a primary topic of Nara and I keep finding more notable subjects not covered by the dab page. Is there something else that could go past Curly turky's threshold for percentages? This might do well to be advertised at Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation as well as Wikipedia:WikiProject Japan. This should be discussed here, not at the disambiguation page (now I get it...the consensus here can override that page) or at the MOS. We can ignore the MOS if need be until it is changed (if it even needs to be).--Mark Miller (talk) 09:40, 26 December 2014 (UTC)--Mark Miller (talk) 09:40, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
I really feel it is important to have disambiguation pages but feel strongly that when there is clearly a primary encyclopedic topic topic (not just dictionary definitions), the disambiguation page should be "TITLE (disambiguation)" (So since there is no clear primary topic I oppose that as well. (OK so, my train of thought had to do a bit of a dance on this one).--Mark Miller (talk) 10:53, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose Nara as primary topic. NARA has a far higher Google count. Nara, Nara = 9,940,000 results . NARA= 72,700,000, nara nara prefecture japan= 527,000 results.--Mark Miller (talk) 12:04, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
    • Nara is not NARA, at least not on Wikipedia. What is the "Nara, Nara" search supposed to show? Only Wikipedia calls the city this. Google doesn't distinguish between Nara and NARA, so that search is meaningless as well. See this ngram. NotUnusual (talk) 12:48, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
      • NARA is part of the disambiguation of the term Nara that has more Google hits than say, just Nara, or Nara, Nara Prefecture, Japan, a way of gauging the primary source. Its not the only way, but in this case there are enough other articles that have a higher Google count than the city in the prefecture. The ancient royal city for example, mentioned above has 4,030,000. Nara, Nara only has 527,000. That has to tell you something. Doesn't it tell you that a primary source could well be a different part of Japanese history not even listed on the disambiguation page that could make a decent article and could be primary (or more so than this) or just impossible to conclude at the moment? It fails to establish a reasoning for the primary topic. Sure, there could be 50,000 hits for "Foo", but there may be 250,000 hits for "Foo (fighter)".--Mark Miller (talk) 13:07, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
        • I couldn't say exactly what you have been smoking, but I can tell you that "NARA" will always yield the same number of Google hits as "Nara". Google is not oriented toward giving accurate hit counts, but rather toward creating a page of results that the reader is likely to be interested in. The hit numbers I get are very different from the ones you reported above, but equally meaningless. NotUnusual (talk) 15:09, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
          • If you have supportive Google counts that can demonstrate your position, that is fine. Please show them. Google counts are being used here because it is a part of the guideline to establishing a primary if there is one. Please don't be a jerk.--Mark Miller (talk) 22:47, 26 December 2014 (UTC)--Mark Miller (talk) 22:47, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
            • I got 70 million nominal hits for Nara. These hits were supposedly found in 0.27 seconds of computing time. This is just a nonsense number; No computer can search that fast. I kept clicking the numbers on the bottom until I got to the last entry. There are actually more like 340 results (or 800, if you include the "omitted results.") NotUnusual (talk) 23:58, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose to moving city to "Nara" as there is insufficient evidence of a primary topic. Not clearly more than all the others combined (especially considering National Archives and Records Administration). No opinion on whether JA naming conventions for cities should be tweaked, or ignored in this case. older ≠ wiser 12:31, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Sure, the title may be a little silly. But we still call "Virginia Beach" Virginia Beach, Virginia, and "Colorado Springs" is Colorado Springs, Colorado.
    • Those are under the very controversial rules at WP:USPLACE which are rejected almost everywhere else on Wikipedia; further, it's a well-established convention in the US, but unheard of in Japan—it's a Wikipedia invention to refer to Japanese places in such a way. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 00:20, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
The entrance sign of Kyoto Prefecture and Kyoto City

On the top, it is said that "The discussion may be closed 7 days after being opened, if consensus has been reached.". However, I think this condition is far from consensus, so I think the discussion is still going on.

Well, I uploaded a picture on commons(right).I think this picture can be the evidence that 府 or 県 can be translated into Prefecture and 市 is City. And they are used in practical life. Probably, it is the same in every Prefecture(City). Currently, Nara City is Nara, Nara and Kyoto City is Kyoto. But they are 奈良市 and 京都市. Then the end of the title should be matched, I think.
Because of the reasons, I think Nara, Nara etc. and Kyoto should be renamed to Nara City... or Kyoto City--Psjk2106 (talk) 16:21, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
IMO, "Nara City" is an overly literal translation from Japanese. Even so, it's certainly an improvement on the current title. NotUnusual (talk) 16:32, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Move to Nara, Japan, Nara (city) or something. While this place is not clearly the primery topic, the article title Nara, Nara is clearly ridiculous.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:08, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Agree with SMcCandlish. It probably is the primary topic, but even if it isn't, the current title ought to be changed. Nara (city) looks the optimum solution to me. It runs counter to Wikipedia policy to do stupid things because a guideline tells you to do them. W. P. Uzer (talk) 11:19, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Dekimasu – There is nothing wrong with the present title, and it adequately disambiguates the prefecture and the city as appropriate. The idea that the title is "ridiculous" is absurd at face value. Is "Lancaster in Lancashire" ridiculous? Not at all. It provides adequate information, which is to say, it tells one that this article is about the city named "Nara" in the prefecture named "Nara". There is nothing confusing about that, and it is the best possible way to disambiguate in this instance. Parenthetical disambiguation is non-natural, and our guideline says to favour natural disambiguation over parenthetical. I agree. Let's stick with what we've got. The existing guidelines work well. If it ain't broke...(WP:TITLECHANGES). RGloucester — ☎ 18:37, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
Hello, hello! Don't you think that "Lancaster, Lancaster" (which would be a valid comparison) sounds at least just a tiny, tiny bit odd? Or "London, London"? I really, really can't get my head around how you evaluate something as "absurd at fact value", and claim that parenthetical disambiguation (used all over WP, for obvious reasons) is "un-natural". Anyway, anyway. Imaginatorium (talk) 19:23, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
I assume RGloucester's comment was meant ironically - everyone can surely see that this method of "disambiguation" is totally unnatural and highly confusing to real people. W. P. Uzer (talk) 19:41, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
It isn't odd at all. Lancaster in the county of Lancaster, i.e. "Lancaster, Lancashire". Nothing confusing. Nothing confusing about "London, County of London", as opposed to "Westminster, County of London". Not relevant anymore, because there is no "County of London" nowadays. I did not "claim" that "parenthetical disambiguation is un-natural". That's what our guidelines say. See Wikipedia:Natural disambiguation. The only alternative I'd accept is Nara, Nara Prefecture, but that seems un-necessarily long, and fails WP:CONCISE. The present situation is a perfect and reasonable balance. RGloucester — ☎ 19:57, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
Huh? Lancaster is not the same as Lancashire, London is not the same as County of London. (Nara is THE SAME as Nara. That's why the present title is unnatural.) Nara, Nara Prefecture would be a lot less stupid, though still probably not the best option. Also you seem not to have read the policy that you link to. That classifies comma-separated titles, just as much as parenthetical titles, as "unnatural". (Unless you're claiming that Nara, Nara is a name commonly used in English reliable sources, which I can confidently predict it isn't.) W. P. Uzer (talk) 20:09, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
"Nara" is not the same as "Nara". One is a prefecture, one is a city. What's the trouble? RGloucester — ☎ 20:20, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
Like I said at the other page, I'm sure you are entirely aware of what the trouble is. The two words are the same - we (I mean normal users of language) don't interpret pairs of identical words in the way that we are being asked to interpret them here. My last word on the subject, this is really just obvious, we should not be wasting time discussing this, but considering the best alternative title if this city is not considered the primary topic for Nara. W. P. Uzer (talk) 20:25, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
This is the best alternative. It is a nice scheme that has is both organised, and has worked well for years. It is not a "pair" of identical words". A comma separates the two. RGloucester — ☎ 21:03, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
Gee, if this nomenclature is so great, perhaps we can can evangelize and get other projects to adopt it? At the moment, this issue seems to be peculiar to the Japan project. The UK project bans double naming. See WP:UKPLACE. NotUnusual (talk) 01:10, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
I agree. The present guidelines for British places are absurd. I have special hatred for the use of council areas for disambiguation of Scottish places. Registration counties MUST be used. RGloucester — ☎ 05:27, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

「なら、なら」とは、なかなかならない、ね。 ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 01:05, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Etymology section

I have been working on this, trying to make it a bit more readable. There were lists of placename of no real significance, as long as they could be found in the references (exactly which villages record the adjective narui meaning "flat, etc.". I also struggled even to find the bit in the Yoshida reference about "oak", and frankly it is just a passing mention. Anyway, (painfully) the more I look into it the more I wonder how significant it really is. Well, yes, we have a record of the debate over possibilities, and the fact(!) that the origin is not 100% unambiguous. But I wonder if it should at least go further down the page? Any suggestions? Imaginatorium (talk) 19:28, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry, energy ran out, and I left this rather half-done. User @Froggieboy: just made some edits, which I can't really understand. You say: "The latter book actually states the place name Narahara derives from this nara tree." -- but is this "latter book" the one from 715? (You can read 1300 year old Japanese?!) Which placename is this Narahara? There　are a number of places called 楢原, and there seems no reason not to assume this name comes from a 原 meadow with 楢 trees on it, but this tells us nothing about the origins of the Nara of the article. (And I don't understand what you mean by "actually states".) Frankly, the "level" theory seems overwhelmingly more likely, and all of the rest are little more than random musing. I really wonder: does anyone think this stuff is worth having in the article? Imaginatorium (talk) 12:25, 19 February 2016 (UTC)


"The latter book" is Harima-no-Kuni Fudoki, which says 楢原（ならはら）と号（なづ）くる所以は、柞（なら）此の村に生へり。故、柞原といふ (The reason for the name is that nara trees grow in the village, thus it is called Narahara) in kudonku. Narahara in Harima (south part of Hｙogo-ken). It may support Yoshida's theory. Remember, at the time, the Japanese didn't have original letters to describe their own language, so that they used kanji to do it instead. There were a lot of ways to represent one Japanese word with kanji, as this article explains as well. This 奈良 was mentioned as 楢 too in Man'yoshu. The kanji itself is not that important but the sound is important. NARA and NARAhara. Kusuhara et al. refuse the explanation in Fudoki that Narahara derives from nara tree, and they infer both Nara and Narahara derive from flat land, after Yanagita's theory. On the other hand, 角川日本地名大辞典 introduces the nara tree theory as likely. Etymology is really ambiguous, difficult and complicated... I'm not a native English speaker and not able to make the description readable. If you are good at reading Japanese, could you look over the Japanese version? https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A5%88%E8%89%AF I made it ahead of English version. I think it's more concise... --Froggieboy (talk) 17:07, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

It was me who added this loooong stuff for the first time. So I myself think this kind of thing is worth mentioning. --Froggieboy (talk) 17:35, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

In the page version as of 2020-08-25, the etymology describes various theories in a cogent and relatively clear fashion. However, a couple issues remain.
  • Beckwith's proposed Middle Chinese */nrak/ is his own reconstruction, and this is not shared by others, such as Zhengzhang or Karlgren. See also wikt:壌#Chinese for further details there -- all other reconstructions have a voiced velar nasal coda as */nraŋ/. Given what we know of Chinese phonological processes, this coda consonant may have been subject to lenition, but not fortition and devoicing. In addition, Old Chinese is widely regarded as having been monosyllabic, so there are no apparent grounds for Beckwith to reconstruct older bisyllabic */narak/.
  • Looking just at the Japanese, Old Japanese spellings are inconsistent, but many of them include apparent evidence of a final /-kV/ mora.
Grouping these spellings by the readings, we have:
  • /nara/: 名良, 奈良, 奈羅, 那良, 那羅, 楢, 儺羅
  • /naraku/: 那楽, 寧楽
  • ⟨naraki2⟩ → */narakwi/: 平城
This final -kwi could represent either nara + kwi (城, "castle, fortress"), or an alternation / apophone of naraku above.
  • ⟨no2ra⟩ → */nora/: 乃羅
  • ⟨no2raku⟩ → */noraku/: 乃楽
  • Ambiguous: 常 (man'yōgana for ⟨to2⟩ → /to/), 諾良 (expected reading of nakura), 諾楽 (expected reading of nakuraku), 寧 (man'yōgana for na)
I don't have any data on the frequency of each spelling, but the evidence for a final /-kV/ mora of some form, in turn possibly suggesting an underlying final /-k/ consonant, appears to be backed up by ancient Japanese kanji spellings. This would rule out the internal derivations currently listed:
  • nara "flat" -- no final /-kV/ mora
  • nara "oak" -- no final /-kV/ mora
Both of the above main points (the originality / inconsistency of Beckwith's reconstruction, the existence of a final /-kV/ mora in many ancient Japanese spellings) should be mentioned somewhere in the etymology section. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 18:20, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

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Blithering idiocy

The absolutely idiotic name of this article, along with the cramped little pedantic asinine minds of opposition to moving it to something sensible, with this niggly wiki-lawyering that insists on strictly applying guidelines that aren't intended to be the final word on 'anything', make me absolutely certain that my decision to never log in to Wikipedia ever again, and rarely to touch an article unless there's some obvious housekeeping that really bugs me (e.g. broken links) was the correct decision.

Jesus fucking Christ, you people are annoying.

And to think I came here merely to complain about some meaningless drivel in the article text.("This first relocation was due to the court’s transformation from an imperial nobility to a force of metropolitan elites and new technique of dynastic shedding which had refashioned the relationship between court, nobility, and country." Seriously? Someone wrote that thinking it conveyed information? And with a citation from the 1930s when there are mountains of recent research? Research I just finished reading, so I know for a fact it's nonsense, whatever it's supposed to mean?) 2601:647:CA00:46FC:163:1276:BBD7:C6A3 (talk) 05:49, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

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