Talk:Chinese sword

Lack of citation

The entire "Chinese Sword Technology" section is not sourced, with only a single source at the end which I presume the original poster meant as the source for the entire section. The problem is, that one source doesn't contain all the information in the article. Worse, the source is an advertisement for a sword selling website, and is written by a "Philip Tom" without any other information. It appears that the information here could be riddled with falsities and at worse false (although I doubt it's totally false). My point being, can we get one of those "This article is not cited, please help by including citations!" banner for this page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.61.20.143 (talk) 09:35, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Completely agree - this article appears to be a large assortment of un-sourced claims.Wikibearwithme (talk) 02:16, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Chinese sword Technology

Just like everything! They learned and copied sword making technique from Japan and Korea. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.255.32.144 (talk) 00:26, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Before you can say that, just remember it is better to provide real hard core and true evidence. Otherwise it could just be that all the technologies of both Korea and Japan are from Ancient China. With out evidence, word are cheap and are pointless. As far as the Chinese beliefs, it is only the Korean and the Japanese are the real copycats. When it come down to history the modern Koreans independence possibly won't exist if the Sino-Japanese conflicts didn't happened or the Japs didn't lose during the second world war. It is needless to say that, it is well known that the Japs are extremely good at copying technology that are originated from other nations and made great improvements out of them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.106.31.158 (talk) 10:25, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Chinese sword

Shouldn't chinese sword redirect here? 132.205.44.5 (talk) 22:48, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Chromium plating

Shouldn't the mention of chromium plating at least make note of the fact that this is in dispute? There is scholarly disagreement as to whether the chromium found in surviving swords is the product of a plating process or reflects chromium that was in the metal mix and has migrated to the surface of the artifacts over time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.2.246.76 (talk) 04:51, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Who could carry swords?

In Chinese films, anyone appeared to be allowed to carry swords in historic China. Were there any laws back then to say who was and was not allowed to carry swords and what were the punishments if laws on sword carrying were broken? 86.178.224.14 (talk) 23:23, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Undiscussed rename

So a few months back this article was renamed from "Chinese swords" to include polearms. This combination of topics frankly makes no sense to me. It is not used anywhere else for sword or polearm related topics on Wikipedia, and obscures the fundamental differences between how swords and polearms are typically used. Yes, there is some overlap/similarity, but the case for combining them is weak, and no stronger than the case for a "Chinese swords and axes" or "Chinese swords and guns" article. I suspect it was done only because of the linguistic quirk that many Chinese polearms are referred to as dao. That is not a good argument to categorize them together for an encyclopedia article. @Yprpyqp: Can you give your rationale for the move? Otherwise I propose to move it back and remove the polearms material, which at any rate has not been adequately covered. —diff (talk) 02:17, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

I've put in some work on this article, so just talking about my personal experience. There simply isn't enough academic material on the subject of either Chinese swords or polearms to warrant a page for either subjects. Often what I find is that they're both mentioned in the same paragraph, sentence, or page. It then becomes a chore to separate what is "sword" stuff or what is "spear" stuff, not to mention the Chinese categories "dao" and "jian", especially when they're almost always from the same source anyways. I doubt we would have enough material to fill out a small article on Chinese cold weapons even if we used pop cultural publications or online articles. Frankly, if you really wanted to, you could summarize everything that has been published in the English language on Chinese cold weapons in a single paragraph. Qiushufang (talk) 07:08, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

I see where you're coming from, but I totally disagree that you could summarize all the English-language sources in a single paragraph. If you look at the article on dao, which contains some content I worked on, there's plenty to say just about that one category of swords, some of which could be summarized here. An encyclopedic article should give a broad but complete summary of the topic, so if you were to mention the history of wartime use, martial arts techniques, cultural significance, and changes in design and manufacture, as well as influence on, and from, weapons from other cultures, there's actually plenty to cover just on swords without having to bring polearms into it. Agreed that there aren't that many quality sources, but the material is definitely out there, it just hasn't been added to Wikipedia. There's an entire paper from the Met just on late period dao blade shapes and design features, which I've cited in the dao article, yet is unused here. And for more recent stuff, the history of the dadao alone, and its well-documented resurgence in the early 20th century, could fill several paragraphs. Adding any of the relevant but missing information on swords would be a better direction than trying to combine them with polearms, in my opinion. —diff (talk) 21:38, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• Songsold.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 02:57, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Dadao

It's aka Chinese great sword in USA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Setenzatsu.2 (talk • contribs) 21:44, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Decoration

Broadsword flags and tassels. Were they used historically? (I am aware that it also applies to spears and that non-Chinese spears and swords also have tassels but it seems it is prevalent with Chinese swords and spears). I know that obvious reason is that they were used as ornament. But it could also be unit insignia and/or rank insignia, wrist strap. Could be put in the article. Setenzatsu.2 (talk) 22:17, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

"Chinese swords and polearms" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Chinese swords and polearms and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 April 11#Chinese swords and polearms until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 18:54, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Sources for future article expansion

From page 244 on,

• Shih Hsiang-lin (2013), Jian'an Literature Revisited: Poetic Dialogues in the Last Three Decades of the Han Dynasty (PDF), Seattle: University of Washington.

mentions the name of Goujian and Fuchai's swords and some others that were proverbial by the time of Three Kingdoms poetry, where they were used to illustrate both manly power/violence and beauty. — LlywelynII 03:57, 23 December 2022 (UTC)