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Talk:Marquis Xi of Jin

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Pronunciation

[edit]

has two pronunciations. Legge has "Le" (his version of "Li") and the page was created at Li. Zanhe moved the page here without sourcing and apparently under the mistaken belief that the character has only one pronunciation. If there're no actual sources supporting this pronunciation of this name, it should head back to "Li". — LlywelynII 00:27, 2 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@LlywelynII: When used as a posthumous name, 釐 is an alternate form of 僖, and always pronounced Xi. Just consult any major Chinese dictionary, or online at Zdic (third meaning). -Zanhe (talk) 03:15, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That's great. Now find a reliable source using it for this person's name, as I already have for "Li"... or we'll need to move the page to reflect the actual sources. Both pronunciations are used for names. We need to know which it is for this particular person. — LlywelynII 07:47, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@LlywelynII: It's not advisable to use Legge's antiquated romanization system for Chinese. Fortunately, the University of Virginia has updated Legge's translation of the Zuozhuan with modern Standard Mandarin pronunciation and spelling. See this page for discussion of Marquis Xi's name. -Zanhe (talk) 15:23, 8 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It's a fair point about Legge's system, though not this particular reading which is being recorded.
You probably haven't spent enough time with that "update" of the Chunqiu to be familiar with the very, very many errors in it—at least one improper character per page and quite a few typos—or with the fact it was just a grad student going through Legge's translation and laying pinyin over top of it without commentary or, apparently, supervision.
It's not an actual reliable source and, given that afaict there is no discussion of the name on the linked page, he almost certainly did what you did: look at a modern Mandarin pronunciation of the character and run with it. Now, that said, it is being hosted at the University of Virginia and I'm not going to fight your calling it a 'source' for the purpose of keeping the page planted here. I'm just pointing out that it's not authoritative at all and Legge ≫ Random UCLA grad student, even with the admitted failure of his romanization scheme. — LlywelynII 23:41, 21 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No, I didn't just look up the word in a dictionary. I actually read thousands of pages of Han Zhaoqi's commentary of the Shiji. Han, a well known historian and former president of the China Shiji Society, says that 釐 is the same as 僖, and always pronounced Xi. That's also what every authoritative Chinese dictionary says and there's no reason to question that. BTW, I think Andrew Miller's Zuozhuan update is actually pretty good, and apparently so does the Univ. of Virginia. Occasional errors are inevitable. I've found many mistakes in Endymion Wilkinson's acclaimed Chinese History: A New Manual, but it remains an invaluable source to me. -Zanhe (talk) 03:17, 26 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]