Talk:Sun Tzu

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Sun Tzu article.
Article policies
This article has been reviewed by the Version 1.0 Editorial Team.

Contents

[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)

At least the two articles should be reconciled, as they contain different information eg the date of the first translation into French. m.e. 10:24, 2 August 2007 (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.):

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 17:27, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
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.

Gen. Griffith mentions this theory of a group of original sources compiled under a single author in his 1963 thesis and translation. I am uncertain whether he is the originator of that theory; it would be necessary to survey any previous translations to be sure. Hotfeba 16:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

It is believed the Art of War is his own writing, though the first paragraph is really misleading, sounds like Sun Tzu being one member of the international author's association which wrote a collection of ariticles called the Art of War. Oscar Liu

[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)

Gen. Griffith (ISBN 0195014766) mentions this story with regards to Wu Ch'i (all his spellings) in his Appendix I, "A Note on Wu Ch'i" just before the six appended chapters of "Wu Ch'i's Art of War" on page 150. On page 15, he cites Han Fei Tzu (in Five Vermin) and Hsün Tzu (in A Debate on Military Affairs) for both describing Sun Tzu and Wu Ch'i as separate individuals. Of course, Griffith also mentions that many different editions of Sun Tzu and Wu Ch'i's writings that were reported by various other catalogers simply fell out of existence, and he admits the possibility that one or more nobles over time had various ancient editions available to them and then produced some compilation that best impressed them as 'original'. Objectively, there is no telling how many re-writes there were before Sun Hsing-yen and Wu Jen-chi produced their edition about 200 years ago. Hotfeba 09:17, 9 April 2007 (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)

[edit] Birth and death dates

The most precise dates are that Sun Tzu is born and died between c.500-320. BC. The exact dates are not known (from Britannica, Hachette French encyclopedia and many other references). If you have exact dates, well please mention the source because I really don't think we know them today. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Thomas (talk • contribs) 21:59, 24 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Birth/death dates

Though I appreciate everyone's contribution to Sunzi's life, there's much to learn by a few contributors who obviously know very little about Sun Tzu and yet they keep changing the wiki to circa dates based entirely on an outdated entry from another encyclopedia (one that wikipedia is trying to surpass). New discoveries have made theories of Sunzi living during the Warring States obsolete so these circa dates are WRONG. Whatever you guys decide but clearly this is just one example of the problems of the wiki concept. Too many amateurs and too few experts.

It will help if you sign your edits with --~~~~, Victoriaah.
Wikipedia can't tell who is an amateur and who is an expert, and even experts sometimes disagree. To help deal with this Wikipedia demands citations (that things be verifiable.) We obviously have citations for the circa dates. We need a citation for the more exact dates. So far, all evidence I've seen is someone changing to those dates who says "these dates have already been determined. they're not exact but they are what some scholars have agreed to"; i.e. they're wrong.--Prosfilaes 14:05, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Prosfilaes, google it and you'll find plenty of citations. We're all wasting our time changing the dates back and forth since you're so insistent on the circa dates which erroneously include the Warring States period. You're doing a disservice to the users giving them outdated information based on early 1900s research. One thing's for sure you won't find me contributing any more to this wiki because of this bad experience.

A few citations from google: sun.thefreelibrary.com/ "Sun Tzu was born around 544 B.C.E." www.sonshi.com/why.html "Most scholars surmise he lived from 544 BC to 496 BC." www.scienceofstrategy.com/History/life_of_sun_tzu.htm "Sun Tzu (544-496 BC) wrote the original text of The Art of War shortly before 510 BC. He remains a man of mystery." www.literaturecollection.com/a/sun_tzu/ "Sun Tzu was a Chinese military general who lived from 544 BC to 496 BC."

496 BC isn't exact. Giles in 1910 believed, based on the lack of mention of Sun Tzu after the death of his King Helü/Ho-lu in 496 BC, that he must not have lived past this point, but that is not the same as that he died then. The main thing is - there is no confirmed data on his life from contemporary sources so every date must be conjecture. In fact a separate section discussing this might actually make sense for the article, rather than bickering about it here 64.81.51.178 18:21, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Birth/Death Dates

I find it interesting that people have started the debate as to who on here are "amateurs" and who are "experts." Of course, anyone can have access to this as it is a Wiki and that is the nature of this sort of online project. Some people have 4-year degrees (or higher) in related areas (such as myself), but even without that one can still be an "expert" in a particular field. As such, when considering the life of Sun Tzu (or Sun Wu, if you prefer), it is hard to "pin down" an "exact date" of birth (or death, for that matter) for him. Samuel Griffith brought up an interesting point in his edition of The Art of War when he set the time period of, "possibly," 400-320 B.C. Griffith pointed out that in 320 B.C. cavalry were introduced by Wu Ling of the Chao State, and thus the author would have most certainly noted this in his writings. Similarly, Griffith pointed out that it must have been written after 400 B.C. due to the numerous references to the crossbow, a weapon introduced around that year (and, for example, seen at the Battle of Ma Ling in 341 B.C.). Griffith throws out the idea that Sun Pin may have been the author of the Sun Tzu Ping-Fa, but that is uncertain. We do know what Griffith and his consultants point out, however, which is that during that era (the Warring States, or after the Spring and Autumn), authors would often attribute their work to men of previous eras in order to boost their own credibility. To quote Fung Yu-lan: "[it] was not at that time looked upon as requiring any distinction and hence today cannot for the most part be distinguished any longer." --Yahweh 01:02, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Since you wanted some specific examples, when looking at Griffith's translation, in Chapter II, verse 14 we see "As to government expenditures, those due to broken-down chariots, worn-out horses, armour and helmets, arrows and crossbows, lances, hand and body shields, draft animals and supply wagons will amount to sixty per cent. of the total" (Griffith notes in the footnote that "Here Sun Tzu uses the specific character for 'crossbow').
In Chapter V, 16 we see "His potential is that of a fully drawn crossbow; his timing the release of the trigger." (Griffith notes that "Here again the specific character meaning 'crossbow' is used").
As for the issue of the cavalry, the author does not mention them, so the only reference to this idea is in the commentary (most of which is from the 11th-Century A.D. or earlier). --Yahweh 04:10, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Tell me, Yahweh, when Griffith published his findings? It was in the 1960s. Old stuff and lots have happened since then such as the discovery of Sun Pin's work which disproves Griffith's conclusion. Regardless we compromised by adding in the "c." for circa on those dates; I think it's the best way to go. Thanks for your input.

Call me an amateur because my military education ended after I went through the NCO Academy at Fort Knox, but I can use a research library, and among all the graduate theses and peer-reviewed articles I run into, Gen. Griffith's translation appears authoritative. I have yet to find anyone required to use MLA, APA or another journal publication style standard under peer review who is willing to cite anyone else, even though later translations are available. Those who do cite later translations are generally non-academic sources such as defense industry consultants without the benefit of peer review. I'll continue with my recon as it is not exhaustive at this point.
As for Sun Pin's work disproving any of Griffith's conclusions made in 1963, that may be overreaching. The problem with getting any reliable scholarly translation from the one copy of Sun Pin's work extant is the same problem anyone would have in traveling to the People's Republic of China to gain access to any recently discovered national treasures. Evidence of this is in the dearth of academic analysis with respect to the quality of authorship in Sun Pin's work that was allegedly discovered 35 years ago; Professor Killigrew's summary appeared 8 years later with the note that he was heading to China to see original Chinese documents after basing his summary on a single transcription. In any case Prof. Killigrew made no report on his trip that I can find, and there appears to be no published translation under Killigrew's name, so the recon continues.
If Griffith's 1963 translation is old stuff, then the unobtainable work imputable to Sun Pin is much, much older, and his citations of battles, personages, or writings considered ancient even to him (provided that they were transcribed accurately for Li Ming Publishing in 1976) must be viewed with suspicion where they contradict the texts of the many contemporary sources in modern Chinese and Japanese collections that were available to Griffith. It bears mention that Griffith did have to endure the rigor of publishing his thesis through the Oxford University Press. It would be helpful to have a comprehensive analysis of many contemporary Chinese authors from the same period to determine with accuracy their tendency to appropriate the works of other authors as their own, but I know of no such analysis that can stand the light of day. At least there does not seem to be any modern scholarly work to contradict Griffith's claim that some Warring States authors appropriated the works of others as one's own, and it is not unreasonable that if Sun Pin was indeed related to Sun Wu Tzu, then Sun Pin may have been culturally entitled to claim the earlier author's work as his own. At the same time, I have no problem with the theory that if one is buried with a book, there is a good chance in pre-Communist China the dead claimed it as her or his own regardless of where it came from.
At best, we have a single unobtainable source that may cast some doubt on Griffith's conclusion concerning authorship while potentially being contradicted by the many sources used by Griffith for his translation. The degree of contradiction cannot be answered without availability of at least a facsimile of Sun Pin's alleged original bundles of bamboo. Academic rigor requires a disciplined approach to establishing an analysis that concretely refutes Griffith's own scholarship, or we risk continuing the trend of reported scholarly resistance to and growing academic prejudice against the Wikipedia. Hotfeba 07:39, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for the correction to Sun Tzu

I think I clicked the wrong button and saved a past version I was looking at that reverted back the Sun Tzi. I went back a couple of versions to find his picture which is Sunzi.png. I thought I had opened a new version of the article to correct the picture's name but must have goofed. Thanks, Ronbo76 06:14, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 04:28, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sun Bin's epithets

Even if they are relevant in this article (which is highly questionable given that this article is not about him), "Sun the Mutilated" and "Sun Tzu II" are not commonly accepted epithets for Sun Bin. I've made an argument on Talk:Sun Bin. --Nlu (talk) 05:20, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sun Jian and Sun Tzu

Hey, just wondering whether I should add a small part that says that Sun Tzu was a possible ancestor of Sun Jian, who was a Warlord and father of Sun Quan, The First Emperor of Wu during The Three Kindoms Era. —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Red Guy (talk • contribs) 06:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sun Tzu Link Suggestion

Lost History-Sun Tzu & The Art of WarTokarski21 (talk) 15:36, 25 May 2008 (UTC)