Talk:Council of Five Elders

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[edit] Naming

... council of five regents seems a little generic for this group. The article on Mori Terumoto originally linked to an article called "the five Tairo" — which is what the Japanese article is called — but no other article did, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi's actually had the phrase 'council of five regents' just asking to be wikified. Still, I'm hesitant to provide a redirect that might need to be overwritten immediately. Any suggestions? --Aponar Kestrel (talk) 03:13, 2004 Sep 6 (UTC)

Yeah, I've got lots of suggestions, but are any of them any good?

1. Gotairo
2. Go-tairo
3. Five Regents
4. Five Regents of Hideyori
5. Five Regents of Toyotomi Hideyori
6. Council of Five Regents (the present title)
7. Council of Regents
8. Council of Regents of Hideyori
9. Council of Five Regents of Hideyori
10. Regents of Hideyori
11. Regents of Toyotomi Hideyori
12. Five Elders
13. Council of Elders
14. Council of Five Elders

Don't have any history books at hand, but if they use a single term or a better one, let's adopt it. Anyone have the biography of Hideyoshi?

Don't have much preference either... The present title's not so bad. It might even stick!Fg2 07:33, Sep 6, 2004 (UTC)

Eh, then it can stay until someone comes along who objects. Adding the alias five Tairō now. --Aponar Kestrel (talk) 18:40, 2004 Sep 6 (UTC)

Now I objects after 1.5 years later. (^^; "regent" is usually used for translation of Sessho. An example in Wikipedia is Five regent houses. So I think it is confusing to use "regent" for "Tairo". I prefer "Five Elders" or "Five Great Elders" because there were lesser elders called as "Churo" (Middle Elder). Tairo also existed as a Prime Minister in Tokugawa Shogunate and it is traslated as "great elder". I think their english translation can be same. --Corruptresearcher 22:44, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

• I agree, the kanji 老 (rō) may be translated as "elder", "old person" rather than "regent".So I think "the five elders" or "the council of the five elders" might be a more suitable translation.--紅会心 Kurenai Kaishin 13:22, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if it's too late to contribute to this slow-moving discussion. But if discussion is not closed, I would vote to move this page to "Go-Tairo," or perhaps to "Council of Five Elders" (but not "Council of five elders," as that implies the article refers to any council of any five elders). LordAmeth 02:12, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reopening Discussion on Title

"Council of five regents" is too generic, and just a poor title in my opinion. I have suggested "Go-Tairō", but would be equally happy with "Council of Five Tairō", "Council of Tairō", "Council of Five Elders" or most variations on that theme. The important thing, if we do not use the word Tairō, is to use capital letters, implying the specificity of the subject. The Statue of Liberty, Declaration of Independence, and in fact the United Kingdom and United States themselves are capitalized to separate them out from any other statues of liberty, declarations of independence, united kingdoms and unions of states that may exist. LordAmeth 17:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I would oppose Go-Tairō in general; we should use English terms where they exist. I will consult sources on whether this body, which was clearly one-time, was sufficiently formalized to warrant a proper name. Septentrionalis 18:41, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

After a year, and after reading Berry's Hideyoshi, I'm no more certain what the title should be. The English "Council of Five Elders" (capitalized as you suggested) seems fine. Fg2 22:30, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Another possibility is to merge the article into Toyotomi Hideyoshi, noting that it's only a few sentences long (this Talk page is longer). Fg2 22:33, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I suppose that is a possibility, as it is so short. But at the same time, it played a fairly major role in Japanese history, and a lot of articles link here. What might be a better idea (and I'm not sure if I'm volunteering myself to do it) would be to expand upon this article to include the extensive role they played in leading up to Tokugawa Ieyasu's rise to power. LordAmeth 13:39, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'm making the move. I hope no one minds... if you do, I'm perfectly open to moving it again, to any of the above discussed variations. LordAmeth 11:52, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Have anyone bothered to look up in the dictionary to see what the word "regent" means? If you did, you would know that Council of Five Regents is a perfectly valid rendering of gotairō. That doesn't mean that it is the only valid rendering, but I wonder how anyone who knows that a regent is a person or group selected to govern in place of a monarch or other ruler who is absent, disabled, or too young could seriously argue that the term is too generic in this instance. Also, I suggest that you also reference how the term is rendered by professional historians. The Encyclopedia Britannica, for example, refers to it as "a council of five regents."

My personal opinion is that there is no problem capitalizing this as if it were a proper noun, but I think that the "council of five elders" rendering is too literal and should be abandoned.

Spventi 23:52, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem with either "Council of Five Regents" or "Council of Five Elders". I do think that Elders sounds more dramatic, more romantic. But my argument has never been that "Regents" is too generic in the sense of not acknowledging the meaning of the word. I think all of us who've been discussing this issue know full well the meaning of the word "regent." The argument is that, without capitalization, it can be too generic in the sense of referring to any council of any five regents anywhere and anytime in history. Capitalization makes it a title, and thus makes it unique. Much like United Monarchy, which refers to a very specific time and place in history, while "united monarchy" or "United monarchy" is vague, seemingly referring to any monarchy that's ever been united i.e. all of them. LordAmeth 20:28, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, after looking into this a little more, it would appear that there is a good reason not to capitalize this name. Apparently, there was no official name given to this group, which was called gonin gobugyō at the time, and the name gotairō was devised during the Edo period to distinguish it from other similarly named groups. This information is available in ja:五大老.

Anyway, my conclusion is that "a council of five regents" is probably the best rendering in the body of an article. Also, I would be in favor of merging this article with either the Hideyoshi or the Azuchi-Momoyama period article, since this group was apparently little more than a formality that did not perform any real function.

Spventi 01:01, 30 September 2006 (UTC)