Talk:Taklamakan Desert

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[edit] Etymology

"Gunnar Jarring provides a more scholarly, but less pithy, investigation into the origin of the toponym, see reference below."

Can someone indicate what conclusions Jarring reaches?

(We shouldn't have sentences like this in Wikipedia articles, in my opinion. If we can't at least sum up what a journal article says on a topic, we should just add the title to the references section at the end, it has the same informative value.) --Cam 18:23, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I removed the sentence. For a not-so-pithy justification, see comment above. --Cam 03:08, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Gunnar Jarring (1907-2002) had a PhD in Turkish languages, and wrote An Eastern Turki-English dialect dictionary (1964) and a book on Central Asian Turkic place-names (1997). I haven't read either, but am told he explains the name Takla Makan as "the home of ruins". I will consult these works and update this article if the explanation given is confirmed. Hexmaster (talk) 17:26, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Removed from article as unsourced and seemingly like OR

Some references fancifully state that Taklamakan means "if you go in, you won't come out"; others state that it means "Desert of Death" or "Place of No Return". "Makan" is a Turkic word meaning "place", of Arabic origin: the word may mean something different if treated as original pre-Islamic native Turkic. A more realistic derivation of the meaning should rather be as follows: "takla" has the meaning of "return" or "revolve" in Turkic; "ma" is a suffix of negation; and finally "kan" is a gerund suffix; altogether we obtain the expression that would be understood in Turkic languages as "unreturnable".

This may be returned to the article if it is properly sourced and written in an encyclopedic tone. Thanks! Sincerely, Mattisse 23:08, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removing unsourced material to talk page

  • I have looked unsuccessfully for sources for these:

The White Jade River flows into the Taklamakan, as do the Yarkand River originating in the Kunlun Mountains and the river from the Tien Shan range.[citation needed]

The population of the larger cities is predominantly Han Chinese.[citation needed] --Mattisse 11:50, 22 September 2007 (UTC)