Talk:Sun Tzu

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[edit] Romanization of article name

Why was this moved from Sun Tzu? I've always have seen his name spelt that way and never have seen it spelt as Sun Zi? --mav

I've been wondering the same thing about Manzhouguo (the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo). At least there is a redirect. Danny

I put it back. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions under common names. --mav

I have also seen it spelled as Sun Tsu and Sun Tze. Pinyin is better to standardize these variants of romainzations but feel free to revert the change. User:kt2

Standardizing on any one romainzation is a bad idea since this will often be counter to common usage by English speakers. All variants should redirect to the most commonly-used term. --mav

And if you include in "most-common" all countries except China, maybe the "most-common use" is (or will soon be) pinyin Sun Zi, no ? gbog 17:28, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I think, this being the English-language portion of the encyclopedia, what matters is what name is most commonly used for Sun Zi in the English language. That would definitely be Sun Tzu. That in other languages he may be called something else is not relevant to choosing an article title, because this is an English language encyclopedia and people will look up the name they normally use. Other language versions of Wikipedia should likewise use whatever they call him most often in that language, even if their language is the only one in the universe that spells it that way. Of course, listing alternate spellings in the article itself, is good form, including Sun Zi and the others mentioned, as is setting up appropriate redirects.

--Furrykef 08:13, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well... my claim wasn't clear. I try it again with an example. Suppose I'm a French student and I speak English as well (so I should be counted as "English speaker"). If I'm looking for infos on Sun-tzu here, I will look at English version, but I probably won't know the exact spelling (Sun tsu?) of Wade-Giles romanization. Instead, I will probably know EFEO (French) one, and pinyin.

For me, pinyin is a very usefull common ground for "English speakers" from many different countries, except "English speaking countries' natives". And I guess the first group is heavier than the second one here, but I'm not sure. gbog 10:53, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, even if you count English speakers who natively speak another language (who, by the way, are often better served by trying their native-language Wikipedia first), I think articles belong where a native speaker would expect them. We're not using Basic English, after all; Wikipedia assumes some reasonable degree of fluency with the appropriate language, so why wouldn't it apply to article titles? Moreover, Sun Zi can always just redirect to Sun Tzu (and I just wrote redirects for Sun Tze and Sun Tsu), so people who don't know what to look up will probably get where they need to be anyway. So, then, it's a matter of what article title looks more natural to native English speakers. That would be "Sun Tzu".

I'm as much of an advocate of pinyin as the next guy, and I like to spell it "Sun Zi" myself, but clarity and comprehension are more important, so I often spell it "Sun Tzu". This is the logic I'm following here. While it doesn't make much of a difference in the article itself, since it's just one line of text at the top, the name will appear on other pages, e.g., Recent Changes, other pages that link to it (I prefer to link to the actual article title and not link to a redirect, nor write silly links like [[Sun_Zi|Sun Tzu]]), and so forth. I don't see any reason to name it "Sun Zi" other than to just try to promote the standarization of the use of pinyin. Perhaps the world ought to do that, but it isn't a decision for Wikipedia to make. That on top of this Wikipedia itself suggests that the "most commonly used" name be used, and given that use of the name in other languages is, as I believe I've shown, not very relevant, I see no practical reason to name the article anything other than "Sun Tzu".

Forgive my long-windedness. :) Are there any points I have insufficiently addressed?

--Furrykef 03:29, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

That's ok with me but, as you guessed, the underlining debate is more or less this of accepting pinyin or not. Where I don't fully agree with you is when you say "non English native speakers should search their own wikipedia before" is a little bit far from current reality, especially for, say, Lettonians or Nepalese. For now, en: is a mature and powerfull tool for deep researches as other ones are still in teen age. That's why, imo, en: has a specific place in wikipedia's world and should be as "universal" as possible, trying to be easy to use by anyone in the world that has sufficient skills in English, not only by those who are "natives" (English speakers). When most languages will have a "mature" wikipedia, and they all deserve it, the debate will be quite different... (In fact, I have no claim here, I only would if pinyin was to be globally replaced by Wade-Giles for any Chinese words) gbog 08:40, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, I do see your point: other language editions of Wikipedia aren't as complete yet, especially for languages spoken by few people or languages used in places where computers are rarely seen, therefore the English version serves as an alternative for anybody who happens to know a little English. But I still think my point stands: of all English-speakers (native or not) likely to be using Wikipedia, the name they're most likely to be familiar with is "Sun Tzu". Since Wikipedia's policy suggests we follow this convention, perhaps you ought to be seeking a change of policy. :)

--Furrykef 21:14, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Merging with Art of War

The article The_Art_of_War should be merged into the Sun Zi. Very little is known of the Wise Sun, and most off the material is related to the book anyway. Others (like the Germans in w:de:Sun Zi) also have the two entries in a single article Francois Genolini 07:47, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sun Tzu is so important as an author that I think that even the little knowlege we have the facts, the speculation and how that has been derived deserves a detailed exposition. Please don't merge. Links are easier to follow than pages are to turn so it makes sense to be different from the paper encyclopedias. Please rather do further research. I think that one of the key problems is that much material is not easily available in English, but that doesn't justify giving up. Mozzerati 18:43, 2004 Dec 22 (UTC)

Far from me the thought of degrading Sun Zi ;-) Maybe some of the words related to the Art of War should go there, and material specific to the man himself could then be developed further here? Francois Genolini 17:04, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] About His and the Other Chinese Names

I prefer to use Pinyin all the time to standardize the translation from Chinese to English. Since all the mainland Chinese use pinyin and no one else, it is easier for them to realize who the person is and it is easier to get more information for Wikipedia from the mainland Chinese. It is helpful to expand the pages. I suggest use "Sun Zi".

[edit] name and title of book

I can't help but notice that this person's name, Sun Zi, is the same as the first two characters in the name of his book, Sun zi bing fa (I don't know Chinese, but I compared the Chinese characters in the articles). Is that coincidence, because his name literally means something like war, or because the name of the book is literally something like "Sun Tzu's Art of War", or for another reason?

it is literally "Sun Tzu's Military Strategy".

Sun Zi Bing Fa is Pinyin; in Wade-Giles it would be Sun Tzu Ping Fa Cao Wei 21:37, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bad revert comment

Sorry about the revert comment. My browser auto-completed on me, and I got a previous comment instead of simply "rv". -Harmil 10:41, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sun Tzu is an honorific, not the real name

The man purported to be the author of The Art of War is actually named Sun Wu 孫武 . "Tzu" is a generic honorific meaning something like "teacher"; all famous Chinese philosophers from the Spring & Autumn and Warring States eras carry that suffix--Kong Fu Tzu (Confucius), Meng Tzu (Mencius), Hsun Tzu, Han Fei Tzu, Lao Tzu, and so on. The article should make this clear in the first paragraph. (This is not to suggest that the page be re-indexed under Sun Wu; that's like trying to index Lenin's article under Vladimir Ulyanov!)

Also, I don't follow the article's argument that difference in writing style and content means that "the suggestion that [Sun Wu and Sun Bin] are related is obviously spurious." Generational gap (the two are several generations apart, if you believe Sima Chen), difference in upbringing (Bin left home in his youth and did not return, again according to Sima Chen), and of course difference experience in battle seem to be adequate to explain the difference between the two. Granted, I have never read Sun Bin's Art of War, and maybe there is some other decisive evidence against the two being related; but if that is the case, the sentence needs to be reworded.

Right. He also has another name which I'll include in the article. Since many Chinese people used to have multiple given names (eg. register name, milk name, school name, etc), it may be possible that Sun Wu is one of the author's aliases. Shawnc 00:28, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Usually they had their birth name, a courtesy name, and then if you were important enough, an honorary name and an honorary title. --67.67.235.230 12:54, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of Link

I have removed the last link, since it seemed to be dead? This was the link:

[1] The Art of War by Sun Tzu - Chinese-English Bilingual version

[edit] Question about tone mark

Is it correct to have the 3rd tone mark on the "i" of the pinyin "Zi"? As in Lao Zi, I thought the honorific "Zi" should be pronounced in this context without tone (the so-called "fifth tone"), and thus also without tone mark. Badagnani 03:38, 19 December 2005 (UTC) Nobody answered this in a month's time, so I will ask again. (Hope some Chinese language experts can answer this.):

I think because of the way "Sun" is pronounced, the following Zi tone is much more pronounced in speech (obvious 3rd tone) than the very slight 5th tone?

[edit] The art of war- a collection of philosophers?

I've never heard of this theory, I've always thought of the author as being Sun Zi. So does anyone know any websites that can further elaborate on the theory because I would really like to know more.

[edit] Terrible Photo(picture)

I feel uncomfortable with the hand writing of Sun Zi's face...My younger sister draws much better than the author Here is a img from zh.wikipeida.org:= http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/zh/d/d5/Js_sunwu.png Anyone who feels uncomfortable too?Can I change it?

Please do, the wood block thing makes him look constipated. Cao Wei 21:40, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I replaced the image, though it would be nice to have more source info on it-- the image page zh.wikipedia doesn't include any, other than the obvious {{PD-art}} and the caption at on the Sunzi article there just describes it as "portrait of Sunwu" (孙武画像). siafu 23:33, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sun Tzu's wife?

"Yet the furious determination of Sun Zi himself in military affairs is not to be underestimated. When hostilities broke out between the states of Lu and Qi, he offered his services to the duke of Lu, who hesitated to accept Sun Zi's expert advice because of his marriage to a native of Qi. The issue of loyalty was settled by killing her. Sun Zi said he could find another wife more readily than an opportunity to direct a campaign."

This quote is from Arthur Cotterell's "Chariot" (ISBN 1-8441-3549-7). Reliable? Worth mentioning? 200.172.40.88 04:24, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Historicity and timeline

Ok, I wrote some of the early text of this article based on the extensive introduction in Griffith's 1963 translation. The gist of it was that 1) Ssu-ma Chien's (Sima Qin's) biography was the only surviving source and that there were clear inconsistencies between that and other sources about the 6th century BC, and 2) that the form and content of the book (eg. the lack of cavalry) indicate that it was most likely written between 400 BC and 320 BC.

As of now, point 2 has disappeared from the article. A few words of point 1 remain ("only surviving source"), but are then contradicted by offering more biographical details on the basis of "tradition". In particular, exact dates of birth and death are given, with no indication that these might be very uncertain. Now, I am certainly not an expert on Chinese history, but can someone comment whether all the research of Griffith's time has turned out to be bunk, and what sources there are for the information given in the article? 84.239.129.42 18:30, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cultural depictions of Sun Tzu

I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information. I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list. Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article. Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this approach as a model for the editors here. Regards, Durova 17:29, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

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