Talk:Emperor Tenmu

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I associate him with an invasion of Korea during his reign. Is that incorrect? - Sparky

Perhaps incorrect because his goverment was in good terms to Silla. I presume you talked on his elder brother Tenji, who led the army allied with one of Korean kingdoms and fought against the alliance of Silla and Tang dynasty in 663. --Aphaea* 00:04, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

article copying versus moving

An edit erased the content of this article; a related change pasted the content onto the article Emperor Tenmu of Japan. Irrespective of which name spelling should be used, a copy-paste should not be done. If the new name is to be used, this article should be "move"d (by tab at top), not copied, so that the article's history and talk pages are associated with the new name. -R. S. Shaw 17:39, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, and thanks for pointing out the error. I'm still relatively new to Wikipedia and wasn't aware of the move feature. See response below regarding proper spelling and consistency. -User:Jefu 1:31, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

No problem. There are always new users here learning the ropes. -R. S. Shaw 02:05, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Tenmu versus Temmu

Apparently some think this Emperor should be known as "Tenmu" in the English Wikipedia, and others think the name should be "Temmu". I personally have no knowledge on this subject, but an attempt to reach a consensus should happen before a rename, I think. The most relevant policy pages seem to be Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names).

I note that Google shows Temmu having 9,560 hits and Tenmu having 10% of that, 794. -R. S. Shaw 17:51, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

What we need more than anything is consistency in romanization. The most relevant page regarding this is Wikipedia:Manual of Style for Japan-related articles, which suggests that it should be romanized as Tenmu. However, the more I think about this, the more I think English readers would probably mispronounce Tenmu as "Ten-moo" which is incorrect. Therefore, despite what is written in the manual of style, I'm actually in favor of Temmu after all. I did a few other similar copy and paste moves for other emperors as well (Kammu, Gemmu, Mommu), which I will undo (sorry for not doing this properly, I wasn't aware of the page move feature.) This also means that there are other pages (like Emperor Jinmu of Japan) that will have to be changed to the mm style as well. I'll work on these changes over the next few days. -User:Jefu 22:31, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

I can't say what's best, but you're right about the inclination to pronounce Tenmu as ten-moo. I take it that the "n" is (close to) silent, at least to an English-speaker's ear. -R. S. Shaw 02:05, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

That final n in Japanese is a tricky animal. It has nothing to do with the n found in the syllables na, ni, nu, ne or no (which are hard ns like we are used to.) In any event, when the final n comes before a syllable that begins with p, b, m or n, a fairly common romanization technique is to leave out the n and just double the next consonant. And that way of spelling it is actually very close to how it is pronounced. It's not that the n is silent so much as it causes the doubled consonant to be doubled in length. User:Jefu 04:49, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

WP:MOS-JP does not suggest it should be romanized as "Tenmu", and it has nothing to do with how it's pronounced. It's romanized according to the most common name, as WP:UCN and WP:MOS-JP suggest. moocowsrule^{talk to moo} 01:15, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Homorganic consonants

I might have something on-point to offer? A friend lent me a book about, among other things, the relationship between iki and Martin Heidegger; and, as so often happens, I read the translator's preface while waiting for a bus. I smiled when I encountered this passage:

The modified Hepburn romanization system is used throughout for Japanese words. Unlike the standard system, the "n" is maintained even when followed by "homorganic consonants" (e.g., shinbun, not shimbun).<:ref>Nara, Hiroshi. (2004). The Structure of Detachment: the Aesthetic Vision of Kuki Shūzō with a translation of "Iki no kōzō." Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-2735-X (cloth) ISBN 0-8248-2805-4 (paper) </ref>

If, like me, you're unfamiliar with this term, see Place of articulation for an overview explanation. In any case, the on-going debate remains a valid one.

Perhaps we can take a modest step forward with this new fancy label? I wonder if it may be worth mentioning that a similar discussion thread dangles unresolved at Talk:Tamba Province#Tamba versus Tanba. My guess is that this is one of those instances in which the official "modified" Hepburn system illustrates a kind of "fuzzy logic" in which both "Tenmu" and "Temmu" are to be considered explicitly correct and interchangeable?

Suggestion: Why can't we work towards consensus text for an explanatory note -- something inserted in the same way as an in-line citation? This brief note would plausibly metastasize across a number of articles like Jimmu, Mommu, Gemmei, Kammu, etc.

Proposed compromise text:

Spelling note: A modified Hepburn romanization system for Japanese words is used throughout Western publications in a range of languages including English. Unlike the standard system, the "n" is maintained even when followed by "homorganic consonants" (e.g., shinbun, not shimbun). In the same way that Wikipedia has not yet adopted a consensus policy to address spelling variations in English (e.g., humour, not humor), variant spellings based on place of articulation are unresolved, perhaps unresolvable -- as in Emperor Temmu vs. Emperor Tenmu, which are each construed as technically correct.

Also, I suppose this terse commentary note could be construed as helpful in articles like Tamba Province? Does this proposed compromise suggest a constructive path forward ...? --Tenmei (talk) 15:35, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps these spelling anomalies may be somewhat clarified by referring to this technical term -- Homorganic consonants. In any event, I hope the addition of this one technical term will help ameliorate some of the barriers which affect moving towards consensus.

In my view, the central feature of dispute arises from a conflation of the sound of gemination with the sound of homorganic consonants ... and the romanization which represents double consonants for both phonetically distinct sounds. Is this a fair way of summarizing the issues?

Could it be that the ear hears what the eye reads; or conversely, the more discriminating ear understands a disjunction between what is recognized aurally and what is represented in Western transliterations -- See Hepburn romanization#Variants of Hepburn romanization, n.b. sub-sections "Syllabic n" and "Double consonants"? --Tenmei (talk) 20:16, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

First to bear the title of Tennô?

I see in the article the sentence "He is the first monarch of Japan, to whom the title tenno was assigned contemporaneously, not only by later generations." But as far as I know, it's the empress Suiko who used this title first... -Ash_Crow 19:03, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Birthdate

Another thing: my Japanese civilisation dictionary gives 622 for Temmu's birthdate, not 631. Which is good ? -Ash_Crow 19:11, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

His birthdate has been unknown, but at least Emperor Temmu was younger than Emperor Tenji. Several Japanese references show that his birthdate is around 631. (In minor discussion, Emperor Temmu was the son of Empress Kogyoku and her first husband, and was the elder half-brother of Emperor Tenji.)--Pentiles (talk) 11:18, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Emperor Jimmu which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 07:58, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 19:16, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Emperor Temmu → Emperor Tenmu – Per recent result at Talk:Empress Genmei#Requested move. The exact same points apply here: there are a few more hits (349) for the "Temmu" spelling than for the "Tenmu" spelling (193), but while only 34 of the first 100 hits for "Temmu" are post-2000, this is 63 of the first 100 for "Tenmu". If we weigh this out for recent (last 14 years) print sources, we get 118.66 for "Temmu" and 121.59 for "Tenmu". It also seems a disproportionate number of works that use "Temmu" are general reference works, books on largely unrelated topics that barely mention Emperor Tenmu, or reprints of much older works. MOS says that, at least when there is not overwhelming majority for for the "m" spelling, we should use the "n" spelling. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 18:10, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Also, the Imperial Household Agency uses "Tenmu" and not "Temmu".[1][2] I suspect this move is uncontroversial, since there was effectively no opposition to the Genmei move, and even Jinmu would likely go through easily if it were re-RMed today. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 18:15, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

• Support - it does seem that more serious reference works now reflect the Japanese -n in these name, and therefore per WP:MOSJ. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:07, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.