Talk:Nakhi

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Contents

[edit] Goullart

Goullart was not a doctor.

- Karolus 2006/6/2

[edit] Grammer

Mel, please do not revert minor gramatical changes. See one for an example:

One could see from it the traditional custom still has its own spiritual power to influence the villagers.

It should be customs, not custom.

Tan 22:52, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Mr. Tan, I suggest you write but don't delete others' efforts. Feel good about adding INFORMATION, but accept that your English is very very poor. I agree that "customs" makes more sense. Yet to make the sentence grammar correct, changing it to singular is one valid solution. Changing the rest of sentence to be correct with "customs" is indeed another way to make it grammatical. My problem with the sentence is that customs without "power to influence" aren't customs in the first place. One might as well as well say Village leaders still have the ability to influence the villagers. Naturally!!! What else?? I'd delete the whole sentence myself, but I try not to involve myself in endless battles. Cheers. 4.250.27.228 15:25, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How many errors can YOU spot?

"The reason for the preservation of the forseowes to the fact that upon the beginning of Summer on the seventh solar term, when most temperate plants and wild animals regrow and reproduce after the long winter. Being conservative, the village people were prohibited logging, and the cutting of tree branches and gathering of dry-pined needles from the coniferous tres were not even allowed." 4.250.27.228 15:25, 14 May 2005 (UTC)


Quite a few, to say the least. Grammar, word usage, spelling, capitalization, meaning. That's one, two, three, four, five in all. Break those categories down and you get a lot more errors. JMBell° 21:10, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
I make it twelve altogether:
"The reason for the preservation of the forseowes to the fact[2] that upon[1] the beginning of Summer on[1] the seventh solar term[1], when most temperate plants and wild animals regrow and reproduce[1] after the long winter. Being conservative, the village people were prohibited logging[1], and the cutting of tree branches and gathering of dry-pined needles[1] from the coniferous tres[1] were[1] not even allowed."

(the eleventh and twelfth are the omission of main verbs from both sentences)

Any advance on twelve? (I'm being a bit generous about the choice of vocabulary.) Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:47, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

I am trying to correct the errors you stated above, and here you revert again.

Tan 23:14, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Grammar again

The grammar of the article is awful, as has been pointed out, but Mr Tan's tinkering only serves to make it worse. "Music" is not a count noun in this context; you can't say "The Nakhi music is..."; the correct grammar is: "Nakhi music is...". Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 16:55, 14 May 2005 (UTC)


I'm sorry for your error, but in the process, you have reverted the grammar change that I have stated at the very top!

Tan 01:02, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Do you mean that you're sorry for your error? Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 17:33, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Concerning about The Nakhi music.

Tan 01:36, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Obscure passage on religion

I'm doing a thorough copy-edit of the article, but in a number of places the English is too obscure for me to be sure what was intended. I've generally simply commented in the text, but the following is too extensive for that, so I've copied it here (and commented it out in the article):

Dongba customs are related to the concept of "Nature and Man", with specific reference to the concept of Nature and Human, who are two brothers born to the same father and different mothers, which deeply reflected in Dongba Religion. Especially in the villages of Yuhu, Yulong, Longquan and Shuming, elderly villagers knew the nature gods such "Shu", and the community's rituals such as "Shu Gu" were practised to appaese the god.
Prior to communist rule in China, many Nakhi villages had religious places for worship, most notably for nature gods such as Shu. Until recently, the concept between nature and Man the two half-brothers still remain in the mind of many villagers in the mountainous Shuming village of the Tacheng Township, which is located in Lijiang-Naxi Autonomous county. Shuming is located in forested areas of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, which is not far removed from the main town of Lijiang.
One of the best examples tells about He Shun, a Dongba priest, strictly forbidden his three sons to be involved in any kind of logging for benefits, as he thinks that if one cut trees over his daily demand, it is definitely against the will of the nature gods, and the traditional custom. It is believed that logging will would bring disasters to his family and offspring.

I've tidied it a little, and bits of it are clear — but those bits don't stand alone. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 12:17, 21 May 2005 (UTC)


If there's anything wrong, let me attend to the points which you think that is unclear.

Tan 20:24, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

If you can't tell which bits are unclear by reading the passage, then you're not in a position to clarify them. Could someone who's knowledgeable and able to write correct English look at the passage? Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 12:27, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

I've completed a copy-edit of the article. That's not to say that there are no problems now; leaving aside things that I might have missed, there are obscure sentences, some of which I've commented out until someone can explain them. Still, I think that I've done enough to warrant removing the "copyedit" template. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 13:57, 21 May 2005 (UTC)


(After edit conflict) Who wrote this? Anyway, I think I know what it's supposed to mean:
Dongba customs are related to the concept of "Nature and Man", with specific reference to the concept of Nature and Human, who are two brothers born to the same father and different mothers, which deeply reflected in Dongba Religion. Especially in the villages of Yuhu, Yulong, Longquan and Shuming, elderly villagers knew the nature gods such "Shu", and the community's rituals such as "Shu Gu" were practised to appaese the god.
The Dongba religion is based on the relationship between Nature and Man. In Dongba mythology, Nature and Man are half-brothers, having different mothers. The villages of (see above) call the nature god "Shu," and they practice the ritual "Shu Gu" to appease their god.
Prior to communist rule in China, many Nakhi villages had religious places for worship, most notably for nature gods such as Shu. Until recently, the concept between nature and Man the two half-brothers still remain in the mind of many villagers in the mountainous Shuming village of the Tacheng Township, which is located in Lijiang-Naxi Autonomous county. Shuming is located in forested areas of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, which is not far removed from the main town of Lijiang.
Before the Communist rule in China, many villages still had shrines or places of worship dedicated to nature gods, such as Shu. Until (or since) recently, locals still believed in the "Nature and Man" concept. (Here follows some misplaced text on the village of Shuming).
One of the best examples tells about He Shun, a Dongba priest, strictly forbidden his three sons to be involved in any kind of logging for benefits, as he thinks that if one cut trees over his daily demand, it is definitely against the will of the nature gods, and the traditional custom. It is believed that logging will would bring disasters to his family and offspring.
The attitude towatds nature is clearly told by this anecdote: He Shun, a Dongba priest, forbade his sons to cut down more trees than they needed, as this would anger the gods and bring misfortune to his family.
JMBell° 14:14, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes, most or all of that seems feasible — my worry is partly whether it's genuinely what was meant, and partly that there's no support for the claims being made. Perhaps I'll leave it for a little while before rewriting the text and putting it back in the article. (It's had the obscure and poorly-written version for so long that havign nothing shouldn't hurt.) Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:22, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

I suppose that I shouldn't be surprised that Mr Tan tried to improve the section, introducing all sorts of grammatical and spelling errors. I've reverted them. I'll try to sort something out myself, but someone with knowledge of the facts here should check what I've done to make sure that I haven't misunderstood. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 12:29, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Where is my problem then? Why dod you delete everything for what? I want the previous text in the talk page in this section, and point out the mistakes for me.

In fact, I'm trying to help out. Your summary rm Mr Tan's worsening of problem section is a personal attack.

Tan 21:21, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

The mistakes should be very obvious. No need to point them out; look for them yourself and correct them. JMBell° 13:28, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

I have already corrected some (incomplete), but why Mel deleted them? Give me back my old version and paste it here to let me clear them.

Thanks, JMBell.

Tan 21:30, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

  1. My edit summary wasn't a personal attack, just a statement of the facts.
  2. If you really can't wait to see if someone who knows about the subject answers my question, I'll have to do what I can. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:06, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

OK, I've done what I can. the text is still vague and allusive at best (what relationship between nature and man? Who was the half-brothers' father? how do we know about current or recent beliefs? etc.). Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:12, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

  1. What is your view of personal attack?
  2. The "vague" content comes from [1]. Mine is an improved version.


Go ahead and try to improve the "vague" content (I acknowledge that it is vague and find it hard to interpret the information from the given source above. Do not delete information without reasons, anyway.

Tan 22:24, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

  1. If I were call you an illiterate idiot, or a Nazi, or say that all your edits were deliberately obstructive, that would be a personal attack. If I say that your edits made a passage worse, that's my opinion of your edits in that particular case, not of you.
  2. The source you give has been translated from Chinese into English that's pretty poor, and sometimes opaque — but the vagueness of the article is mainly the result of your omitting a great deal of pertinent information. In other words, your version isn't an improvement; it fails to improve the English, and omits much that's important. I'll try to make sense of the source, and add the relevant material to the article.
  3. Your usual patronising permission to improve the vagueness (why the scare quotes?), and your arrogant command not to delete information without reason, I'll pass over.
  4. The passage isn't only about scripts, so "writing" is more accurate as a header. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:45, 22 May 2005 (UTC)


  1. Whatever, people POV can differ. To me, it seems half an attack. Fine, I ignore it anyway.
  2. No, I was trying to clarify the english from the source. I don't care what you say, but I have no objections for you to adding the article as long as the points are not redundant.
  3. What do you mean?
  4. Never mind about the side content, what the main content says is about scripts. Thus, I see no reason why writing should be used instead.

Tan 00:07, 23 May 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Nakhi vs. Naxi

Why isn't this article under the Pinyin name "Naxi"? -leigh (φθόγγος) 13:36, Jun 11, 2005 (UTC)

Cause the original contributor can't pronounce 'x'.