Talk:Dukha

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I found this after reading a New York Times article, but this seems slightly biased. Any experts out there? 68.48.166.146 11:30, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Incidentically, my gf has spoken with some neighbours of the family mentioned, and they (the neighbours) complained all the time that the reindeers belong to Tsagaannuur and not to Khövsgöl nuur, that this family makes too much money, that they are uncooperative etc etc. We also had had some milk tea with that Tsaatan family (w/o pay). I'm not an expert on the matter, but I know that envy is a prominent part of Mongolian culture, so I wouldn't take every single complaint too seriously. Another question is whether neighbourhood quarrels on the western shore of Lake Khövsgöl deserve to be mentioned in an encyclopedic article at all.Yaan 13:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Pretty much all of this article is highly opinionated Original Research and must be removed. As far as I can tell, only the first two paragraphs with the basic facts have any chance of getting confirmed by reliable sources.

This article should be about an ethnic group, and not about the personal quabbles of a few individuals. --Latebird 18:36, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Most likely it was copied from some website. --Stacey Doljack Borsody 18:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

If so, then it wasn't a literal copy (nothing found ing Google) or the original isn't online anymore. In either case, this is not the type of information typically found on what WP considers a reliable source. Thinking about it, yaan is correct: "some neighbour said" type stories don't belong in an enyclopedia. I'm going to remove that stuff. --Latebird 19:32, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dukha vs. Tsaatan

Is Dukha the Tsaatan's self-designation, or just the Russian designation ? If the latter, I propose moving the article to Tsaatan, as this seems to be the more common term, at least on google (212 netto hits for Dukha reindeer, 420 netto for Tsaatan reindeer). Yaan (talk) 17:18, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Dukha is the self-designation. Why was this article moved to Tsaatan without further discussion? --Stacey Doljack Borsody (talk) 18:21, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Tsaatan is the Mongolian designation. That word gets used more due to Mongolian tourism.

http://library.thinkquest.org/C0114235/geography_NATIONAL.htm "the Tsaatan (meaning "reindeer herdsmen" in Mongolian) are one of Mongolia's most fascinating social groups. Traditional reindeer herders, the Tsaatan are part of the Turkic-speaking Tuvinian ethnic group known as Dukha, reindeer herders who today inhabit parts of Tuva, the region just across the border in Russia."

http://www.thegreatwalk.com/flashNuevo7.swf "The name Tsaatan (also known as The Reindeer People ) originates from the word tsaa , meaning reindeer , and tan , meaning possessing it"

--Stacey Doljack Borsody (talk) 18:33, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

This article really needs to be moved back to Dukha. The self-designation is the preferred article naming convention according to WP:NCI. --Stacey Doljack Borsody (talk) 04:44, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

But your first quote says Tsaatan is a (strict) subset of Dukha, not that Dukha and Tsaatan are one and the same. I did find other links which say Tsaatan and Dukha are one and the same, but I am not in position to judge which links are correct and which are not. As the article is now, it only deals with Tsaatan, not with any other Dukha, so moving it to Tsaatan again seems to be the safer way until we can reliably determine what the self-designation of those Dukha in Khovsgol is or, respectively, if Dukha and Tsaatan are really synonymous. I know Tsaatan is the Mongolian designation, that's why said we should move it in case Dukha is only the Russian (as opposed to self-) designation.

Just a small remark in case someone wants to put second quote into the article: I think the possessive form of reindeer would be Tsaatai rather than Tsaatan. Some french sites seem to insist that "tan" is for people, but this seems even further off. Yaan (talk) 17:09, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the first quote is somewhat misleading actually. The reindeer herders in Tuva are Tozha. There are also Tofa further north and Soyot further east. See the map at http://totempeople.hypermart.net/campaign.htm --Stacey Doljack Borsody (talk) 20:36, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, suffix "-tan" implies possessing or having something which is represented by the stem word. Erdemten -- that who has knowledge and skills, Oyutan --that who has intellect, Jiguurten -- those who have wings, Moriton --those who have horses, Araatan -- those who have molars etc (literally).

Inflection "-tai" (хамтрахын тийн ялгал) means "with".

Suffix creates a new word (e.g. creating the name of an ethnic group from the name of a beast, etc.), inflection only defines the relations of a word with the other words in a sentence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gantuya eng (talk • contribs) 04:28, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Education

The statement concerning the young Tsaatan education was based on Mongol Messenger 7 January 2004 article "Tsaatan face difficult future" by B. Oolun who cited an officer of the National Human Rights Commission B. Khishigsaikhan. Gantuya eng (talk) 04:11, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Please make it a habit to reference your additions, especially if they touch sensitive subjects. And even with this source, I don't quite understand the context. Is it a human right to have urban relatives? And is this problem really specific to the Tsaaatan, or maybe common to all students from rural regions, independently of their ethinc background? Just because some journalist wrote something (possibly with her own bias) doesn't necessarily make it useful, reliable, and especially NPOV enough information for Wikipedia. --Latebird (talk) 09:18, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Education is the human right. Just that and perhaps some other articles about the Tsaatan in press made me feel sorry for them. Maybe it's not encyclopedic. Gantuya eng (talk) 10:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I think most Mongolian families have some aunt or cousin in Ulaanbaatar. And having relatives in Ulaanbaatar of course helps tremendously whenever there is something to do in town, esp. preparing for picking up a place at the university etc. Having no relatives is a real handicap, I think Mongolians say "If you know many people, you are as big as a steppe, if you don't, you are as small as a hand". If we can provide the reference, I think this factoid is relevant enough to include it in the article. Higher education seems quite important if the Tsaatan want to be more than just a tourist attraction.

That said, I think those neighbours of that Tsaatan family at Khovsgol nuur told us that these particular Tsaatan only spends the Tourist season at the lake, and the rest of the time live in UB. So maybe there is something that the Mongol Messenger did not know. The neighbours of the Tsaatan were actually very very nice people btw, I just felt that not all their complaints were really based on fact. Yaan (talk) 17:25, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

This type of newspaper article usually only provides anecdotical evidence colored by the personal opinion of some editor. What they wrote may be true for one family, but not necessarily for another one. As long as we can't find an independent study looking at the big picture, that is not encyclopedic information. --Latebird (talk) 05:20, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

While I'm not familiar with this problem specifically among the Dukha, I do have source material regarding the barriers to higher education that are present due to language among the Tuva living in China (the Dzungar Tuva who are not an officially recognized minority). They have to learn the local Mongolian dialect, Kazakh, and Chinese to get a higher education. --Stacey Doljack Borsody (talk) 20:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)