Talk:Ryukyu Islands

Proposed Major Reorganization: Separation of geography and ethnography

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.

No consensus to move. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:31, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

• Ryukyu Islands → Ryukyu (renaming)
• Ryukyu Islands → Nansei Shotō (splitting)
• Category:Ryukyu Islands → Category:Ryukyu (renaming)
• Category:Ryukyu Islands → Category:Nansei Shotō (splitting)

– Separation of geography and ethnography. Nanshu (talk) 12:02, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Proposal

I propose that the geographic part be separated from the current article.

• Name the new geographic article Nansei Shotō. The name itself is less important than the proposed separation.
• I would also like to move the current article to Ryukyu, Ryūkyū or whatever (I am not interested in the macron debate). What is important is to strip "Islands" to indicate that this article is not about a geographic entity.
• Ryukyu Islands should be redirected to Ryukyu. Optionally, we may keep this article and let it focus on some confusion about the concept.
• Ryūkyū Shotō should remain a geographic article if we really need an article separate from Nansei Shotō.

What is definitely unacceptable in the current article is that the Ōsumi Islands, which clearly constitute mainland Japan in an ethnographic sense, are treated as a part of the Ryukyu Islands. Geographically speaking, the Ōsumi Islands are inarguably part of the Nansei Shotō (The tiny Tokara Islands are borderland. They were not conquered by the Ryūkyū Kingdom but suffered from American military occupation for several years.). That's why Ryukyu Islands cannot be an alias of Nansei Shotō. It is a shame that no one here (maybe except 219.126.174.61) seems aware of the important fact.

The current article mostly describes Ryūkyū as a cultural entity, which has no fixed boundaries. It is inherently ill-defined (in a geographic sense). By contrast, large geographic entities are clearly defined by authorities (To be precise, there remain some minor disagreements over the names and extents of the subgroups of the islands[1][2]). The largest of all is the Nansei Shotō, which is much larger than Ryūkyū. The Ryūkyū Shotō (a geographic entity) do not contain the Amami Islands, which are considered to be part of cultural Ryūkyū (See Fig. 11 of [3]). So there is no way to keep geography and ethnography under a single article.

I checked English sources cited above and confirm that they are all inaccurate.

• Britannica[4] claims that the Ryukyu Islands are also called Nansei Islands, Ryūkyū-Shotō or Nansei-Shotō in Japanese, and Okinawa in Ryukyuan. We cannot accept such an inconsistent "definition." Britannica suggests that Ryukyu Islands do not contain the Ōsumi or Tokara Islands. If so, the English name "Ryukyu Islands" corresponds to no standard entity in geography.
• MSN Encarta[5] equates Ryukyu Islands with Nansei-Shoto but exclude the Ōsumi and Tokara Islands from Ryukyu Islands.
• The Collins English Dictionary[6] is too inaccurate to be a reference.

We cannot follow them. The only solution is to reorganize geographic articles as defined by the standardization bodies[7] and to put the rest under the vague title "Ryukyu." --Nanshu (talk) 03:03, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I suspect that the inaccuracy of English sources stems from systemic bias. Americans know much about the island of Okinawa, where they station even today. They know little about Amami to the north, where they gave up military occupation after facing fierce opposition from the people. They know nothing about Ōsumi Islands to the further north, which they did not occupy. They would naturally take an Okinawa-centric view in which Ōsumi Islands are seen as a "periphery" even if they happen to notice the islands. --Nanshu (talk) 06:16, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Survey

• Comment this doesn't make sense. You can't move an article to two locations, there's only one article. I think you're looking for {{split}}, not requested move. Further, categories are dealt with at WP:CFD with the {{cfr}} template. 65.94.77.11 (talk) 12:34, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
• Speedy procedural close -- not a move request, this is a split request, and categories are handled by CFD, not RM. 65.94.77.11 (talk) 12:34, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
  • I know there are some technical problems as I propose several things at the same time. I added cfr2 to Category:Ryukyu Islands. I appreciate if someone fixes bureaucratic details. --Nanshu (talk) 13:32, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
    • Your template at the category is the wrong one. Please use {{cfr}}. Then follow the instructions at WP:CFD to list it in the proper list (substing {{cfr2}} on the CFD listing). 65.94.77.11 (talk) 03:54, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
      • I added cfr. If Wikipedia's ever-changing policies make it difficult to discuss changes on the article and the corresponding category at the same place, it might better to postpone the category-related proposal. --Nanshu (talk) 06:16, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
        • These policies have been in place for atleast 5 years, so I can't say that these particular instructions are "ever-changing". CFR has been around for a long time, and has functioned that way for most of the time, and so as RM. 65.94.77.11 (talk) 08:01, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
      • It's OK to include split proposals along with a move proposal although it complicates things. Remember, the idea is to stimulate discussion and an RM request gets the word out. Having said that,...

• Oppose the proposed moves for two reasons. Although the nomination is impressive and I don't disagree with what is presented, English and historical usage (versus Japanese bureaucratic usage) favors a wide definition for Ryukyu/Ryukyu Islands. In addition, the amount of material is not that great so it's better that it be presented in its entirety in one place, including the various meanings of Ryukyu, for the reader to digest. It's fine that the meaning of "Ryukyu" is complicated. Just add the information researched for this nomination to the article. Having to bounce around to various articles with so little content is not that productive. —  AjaxSmack  01:13, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment. I pointed out a problem (Ōsumi and Tokara Islands are incorrectly treated as part of Ryukyu Islands) and proposed a solution (Creating (by splitting) a new article (i.e. Nansei Shotō) that covers Ōsumi and Tokara Islands). If you "don't disagree" with the fact that there is a problem to be fixed, please provide an alternative solution to rescue Ōsumi and Tokara Islands.
    • The "problem", insofar as there is one, is that there are multiple meanings of "Ryukyu Islands"/"Ryukyu" in English (and this is English Wikipedia. The three meanings of Ryukyu should not be an excuse to split or duplicate the already paltry material. Instead, deal with the issue of the multiple meanings in one article as we do with Lakshadweep/Laccadive Islands or Bonin Islands/Ogasawara Islands/Ogasawara Archipelago. —  AjaxSmack  00:19, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
  • As for the second point of your argument, I afraid you do not notice that currently the materials are NOT presented in one place. We already have Ryūkyū Shotō, which is in the middle of the geographical hierarchy. It might be nice to merge Ryūkyū Shotō into the proposed umbrella article Nansei Shotō. That's the fourth point of my proposal though I admit it was not stated clearly. --Nanshu (talk) 06:16, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
    • I agree that the current Ryūkyū Shotō article is a content fork and should be merged into the current Ryukyu Islands and/or Okinawa Prefecture articles. —  AjaxSmack  00:19, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
      • If we have multiple names for a single concept, the use-English policy can easily be applied. But as you see, we have multiple concepts to be explained, and the point of discussion is how to organize them. I agree with you that these concept should not scatter around many articles but should be placed in few articles. The only difference is that I believe we need two articles (Ryukyu and Nansei Shotō) while you try to merge everything into a single article.
      • The problem is that the current article "Ryukyu Islands" is NOT an umbrella term that covers all the concepts. Ōsumi and Tokara Islands are excluded. It is the concept "Nansei Shotō" that lies in the top of geographic hierarchy. Apparently "Nansei Shotō" has no English equivalent as English sources incorrectly equate Ryukyu Islands with Nansei Shotō. That's why the Japanese name is the sole candidate.
      • It's ironic that you use Ogasawara as an example. We do have Nanpō Islands, the top of geographic hierarchy. Due to the use-English policy, Ogasawara Islands are placed under the title of Bonin Islands, which I don't care about. Izu Islands are located to the north of Ogasawara Islands. Yes, they are parallel to our case. What you try to do is to kill Nanpō Islands (Nansei Shotō) and to make Bonin Islands (Ryukyu Islands) represent the whole island chain because Izu Islands (Ōsumi and Tokara Islands) are less known to English readers. --Nanshu (talk) 02:01, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
      • Also, I don't understand what are "three meanings of Ryukyu" in your argument? In particular, what is the largest one? Does it include Ōsumi and Tokara Islands? --Nanshu (talk) 02:55, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose all Would cause confusion with Ryūkyū Kingdom and various other articles. Besides, I can't remember ever having seen a plain "Ryūkyū" without any "Islands", "Shotō", "Kingdom" or "Ōkoku" at the end. Thus fails WP:COMMONNAME. The term "Shotō" fails WP:UE since it is usually written as "Islands" in English. --Stefan2 (talk) 01:30, 8 November 2011 (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.

Plan B

My proposal was not about choice of a name, but I admit it was complicated. I am even unsure if people here understand Ryūkyū Islands != Ryūkyū Shotō. There are at least three concepts involved.

• Japanese Nansei Shotō = (no English name? Nansei Islands?)

  = Satsunan Shotō (Ōsumi Guntō + Tokara Guntō + Amami Guntō) + Ryūkyū Shotō (Okinawa Guntō + Sakishima Guntō) + Daitō Shotō

  = Satsunan Shotō + Okinawa Prefecture

  ~= part of cultural mainland Japan + cultural Ryūkyū + frontier

• (no Japanese name) = English Ryukyu Islands

  = Amami Guntō + Okinawa Guntō + Sakishima Guntō

  = Amami Guntō + Ryūkyū Shotō

  = Nansei Shotō - Ōsumi Guntō - Tokara Guntō - Daitō Shotō

  ~= maximum extent of the Ryūkyū Kingdom ~= cultural Ryūkyū

• Japanese Ryūkyū Shotō = (no English name?)

  = Okinawa Guntō + Sakishima Guntō

  = Okinawa Prefecture - Daitō Shotō

  ~= cultural Ryūkyū - Amami

OK. I leave this article untouched for now. However, as I said repeatedly, non-Ryukyu part of the islands must be handled properly. Unless an alternative is offered, I will create Nansei Shotō as an umbrella article. --Nanshu (talk) 23:16, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

The common English name of Japanese Nansei Shotō is Ryukyu Islands, while Japanese concept Ryūkyū Shotō should be directly transcribe to Ryūkyū Shotō here. ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 13:44, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Plus, the overall native Ryukyuans have never accept nor deny the the Japanese concept "Nansei Shotō" and "Ryūkyū Shotō", that are based on Japanese language. So we should keep the common English usage, i.e., partially rollback to version "20:50, 17 November 2011‎ AnomieBOT", as I did in version "22:15, 25 December 2011‎". ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 13:51, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Isn't my argument above clear to you? I don't see why you still insist that Nansei Shotō = Ryukyu Islands. It would be nice if you provide some evidence to support that we can safely use "Ryukyu Islands" as an alias of "Nansei Shotō" by ignoring the cultural non-Ryūkyū. --Nanshu (talk) 15:56, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure if Tokara is a part of Ryukyus, but I insist that Amami must be included in Ryukyus. In a text (琉球入学见闻录) in Classical Chinese ([8],[9]) it wrote:

“ 東北八島（國人皆曰「烏父世麻」。過此，為土噶喇七島。土噶喇，亦作度加喇）：由論、永良部…… ”

So the status of Tokara is a bit unclear. ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 12:28, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

What is the point of your argument? --Nanshu (talk) 03:42, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't know why you put it there, but "Ryūkyū Shotō" is the Japanese name of the Ryukyu Islands. The fact that you have some sort of weird confusion between what constitutes the Ryukyus from the rest of the Nansei chain is a bit ridiculous. We have an article on the Nansei Islands which is suitably separate from this one. Ryūkyū Shotō should not exist, and I am taking care of that now.—Ryulong (竜龙) 11:36, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Ryukyu Islands and Ryūkyū Shotō

Nanshu, Yu Hai, you two have done an unnecessary act by performing a content fork off to Ryūkyū Shotō. This article should be about the subject known as 琉球諸島 in Japan. That includes all aspects. The Ryukyus are part of the Nansei chain, and is not synonymous with it (the Nansei Islands are comprised of the Ryukyus and the Satsunans). I have restored the redirect at Ryūkyū Shotō, moved whatever information was actually about the Ryukyus to this page, and removed any and all information that solely regarded Okinawa Island. Your fringe views and ownership of this page end now. This page should refer to the geographic entity that comprises the former Ryūkyū Kingdom as well as modern day Okinawa Prefecture.—Ryulong (竜龙) 12:20, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

You are too bold to edit Wikipedia. That Ryūkyū Shotō != Ryukyu Islands seems a consensus. You are encouraged to follow the discussions here, at Talk:Ryūkyū proper and at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ryūkyū proper before you make a mess of things. ... It looks too late. We need to recover the original state first. --Nanshu (talk) 12:25, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Nanshu, the AFD on Ryūkyū proper is from 2007. It is now 2012. Things have changed and it seems the community decided to have just a page on the English term, as the Japanese term is no different. And WP:BOLD is one of our central tenets, so I am in no way "too bold to edit Wikipedia".—Ryulong (竜龙) 19:49, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

In the presence of a clear conflict of opinions, WP:BOLD can never be an excuse for neglecting consensus building. I pointed to older discussion just not to repeat the same argument. That we have a discussion in 2007 does not mean that we have no discussion now. Obviously we resumed discussion in November, 2010! --Nanshu (talk) 11:59, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I think I agree that the Ryukyus are part of the Nansei chain and not synonymous. I could be convinced otherwise with English WP:RS on the web. Student7 (talk) 18:14, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Looks like everyone except 虞海 (talk · contribs) considers that the Nansei Islands != Ryukyu Islands. So the remaining problem involves the Ryukyu Islands and the Ryūkyū Shotō.

The nonnegligible factor is the Amami Islands. They are a real headache for those who try to treat Ryūkyū as a monolithic entity. The English Ryukyu Islands is self-contradictory,[10] but apparently they include the Amami Islands. The Japanese Ryūkyū Shotō are defined as a group of islands that excludes the Amami Islands. In my opinion, two separate concepts must be treated separately.

It is unfortunate that Ryulong (talk · contribs) is always uninterested in building consensus. It is not clear if he understands the underlying problem.

Another guy who seems to consider that the Ryukyu Islands are synonymous with the Ryūkyū Shotō is Tsuchiya Hikaru (talk · contribs).[11] But he never joins discussion (due to language barrier?). --Nanshu (talk) 14:39, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Nanshu. "Ryūkyū Shotō" literally translates as "Ryukyu Islands". You had no right to make a terrible fork of this page. If the issue are the Amami's, simply do not include on this page. Recreating Ryūkyū Shotō is a violation of WP:CFORK—Ryulong (竜龙) 19:45, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

And just because the English definition of "Ryukyu Islands" includes what Japan defines as the Satsunan Islands and is sometimes synonymous with "Nansei Islands" does not mean that there needs to be a WP:CFORK of this page to the strict Japanese language definition of what the Ryukyus constitute.—Ryulong (竜龙) 20:02, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Whether the current articles are content fork does not matter because both articles need drastic rewrite anyway.

As I noted above, we have two concepts to be explained

• Concept A: Ryukyu excluding Amami
• Concept B: broader and vaguer Ryukyu (sometimes including Amami)

My opinion is that these two distinct concepts should be treated clearly separately. As long as it is met, I do not really care which names these concepts are referred to by. You suggest that the Amami Islands be excluded on this page. This means that we name Concept A as "Ryukyu Islands." I am a bit surprised with your suggestion, as I thought it was not supported by English-speaking users. Actually I am happy this solution. This makes the island group consistent with other island groups, i.e., Nansei, Satsunan, Okinawa, Sakishima, Miyako, Yaeyama and Daitō. Are there any opinions from other Wikipedians?

The remaining problem is where to place Concept B. So many elements naively labeled Ryukyuan emerged only after Amami was politically separated, and some even turn out to be specific to (some portion of) Okinawa Island (e.g. Amami and Okinawan naming systems). Such elements can remain in the current article (Concept A). However, the older layers of Ryukyu including the Ryukyuan languages extend to the Amami Islands. Also, from the biogeographic point of view, Watase's Line separates southern tropical islands from mainland Japan. As the line roughly corresponds to the boundary between mainland Japan and broader Ryukyu, the southern area is conveniently called Ryukyu in some fields. They belong to Concept B. I would like to place Concept AB at Ryukyu, Ryūkyū or whatever (again, I am not interested in the macron debate), as I originally proposed in November. --Nanshu (talk) 11:59, 13 January 2012 (UTC) modified 07:42, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

There is no need to have two articles at all, just because one definition sometimes includes another chain of islands. There should only be one article on what are considered the 琉球諸島 and that should be at this page because of WP:ENGLISH. So I will be clear on this because apparently I am the only one here at the moment who has any sort of knowledge on Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.

• The Nansei Islands in their strictest definition are all of the islands that go southwest from Kyushu to Taiwan. Our article on this chain should discuss this aspect and nothing regarding the sometimes English synonym with the Ryukyus. If anything, there should be something on Nansei Islands that says "The term 'Nansei Islands' is sometimes used to refer to the Ryukyu Islands in English." but it should not determine the fact that we make another article on them.
• The Nanseis are divided into two groups: the Satsunan Islands and the Ryukyu Islands
• The Satsunans are the part of the Nanseis that are governed as part Kagoshima Prefecture. These include the Ōsumi Islands, the Tokara Islands, and the Amami Islands.
• The Ryukyus are the part of the Nanseis that are governed by Okinawa Prefecture. These include the Okinawa Islands, the Sakishima Islands, and the Daitō Islands. Our article should state something that says "the geographic definition of the Ryukyu Islands sometimes includes all of the Nansei Islands or just the Amami Islands due to the Amami chain having a Ryukyuan language and being part of the former Ryūkyū Kingdom."

There is no need to have any separate page for any alternate definition of "Ryukyu Islands/Ryūkyū-shōtō" just because of the flexibility of the term in English, because any other page is a content fork which is an entirely undesirable type of page on the English Wikipedia.—Ryulong (竜龙) 20:33, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

You are still entrapped by the false assumption that symbols have strong associations with meanings. The current topic is not the case. Just consult some monographs on this topic (e.g., Takahashi's Kyōkaisei no jinrui-gaku (2006) and Yoshinari's Ryūkyū-ko (2007)). They devote considerable space to naming because they know there is no consensus on the names of concepts they want to explain. Yes, we have language-independent concepts first and label them in each language. That a word is used confusingly and inconsistently does not justify mixing up distinct concepts. That is why your reference to WP:ENGLISH is pointless. The correct way to handle multiple concepts is word sense disambiguation. You may not know, but Wikipedia has developed ways to resolve ambiguity.

You understand that the Ōsumi and Tokara Islands are nonnegligible. Whether to include them makes the picture very different. This is a great progress from the dark ages. We have reached a point where past discussions failed to reach. The next step is to accept the plain fact that Amami is also nonnegligible. Whether to include it makes the picture very different.

It is now clear that your proposal is unacceptable. You mix up two distinct concepts. You mark Concept A as dominant and marginalize Concept B. Hey, check what kind of pages currently link to this article. Biological articles generally use Concept B. We cannot and should not make such a judgment. They are simply different. --Nanshu (talk) 07:42, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguation is not a solution. You are proposing that we have two articles on what are known in English as "Ryukyu Islands" and in Japanese as "琉球諸島" because of some misunderstanding that because there are slightly different definitions between the terms in each language. There are no "two distinct concepts" here. Just a wider enveloping definition in the English language and the fact that Uushima was part of the former Ruuchuukuku. Ryūkyū Shotō should not have existed on its own as it was a content fork that duplicated content from here and on Okinawa Prefecture. And I am not marginalizing anything. I am suggesting to simply not give the Amamis (and the Satsunan group as a whole) as much weight on this article, and make this article's main focus the Okinawas, the Sakishimas, and the Daitōs. I do not see why that is a problem.—Ryulong (竜龙) 08:12, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

You are just repeating defunct arguments (definitions, content fork). The only point new to us is that you believe that I attempt to give the Amamis too much weight. This is just out of ignorance. There is nonnegligible difference between two concepts that deserves a monograph (I pointed to the literature here and in some articles I expanded). You may want to remain naive. But once we become aware of color, we can no longer be colorless. We have to choose black or white. You have no right to obstruct Wikipedia's irreversible evolution.

Now that we become aware of the difference, the next thing to do is to iterate the following question. Does the statement hold true for Amami? Here is a quick survey.

• Linguistics: Yes.
• Administration: No.
• Geography: No. Geographic subgrouping generally follows the current administrative divisions.
• Anthropology: Probably no. A bunch of case studies. But anthropologists are puzzled by a great degree of internal diversity and fail to offer a nice overview.
• Ethnography: The same as anthropology in reality, but we can find naive narratives. No for narratives in which Okinawa is depicted as typical Ryukyuan. Yes for those who are aware of the Amami question. Takahashi Takayo's amazing monograph is the latter. Essentially we need two versions.
• Ethnology: Maybe yes. Ethnologists are generally interested in the older layers of Ryukyu. It was once widely believed that Ryukyu is a living relic of ancient Japan, but even the older layers are more like relatively new innovations with a flavor of Muromachi Japan.
• History: Yes and no. On one hand, an Okinawa-centric view of history has been created since 1970s. On the other hand, a line of research provides a drastically different view. The latter is boosted by archaeological findings in the Amami Islands from 1990s and still today. We cannot easily align two lines of research because we face a problem of framing. Keep them apart until someone outside Wikipedia manages to unify the two and makes it a mainstream view.
• Biology: Yes. Of course, the change is gradual, but Watase's Line is a relatively clear biogeographic boundary.
• Geology: Yes, but the larger Nansei Islands are the right place. Kikai Caldera, a landmark of the islands, is located outside of the Ryukyu Islands.

Even this quick survey makes it clear that what I am doing is clustering, not splitting. Each field largely independently devises concepts as need arises. Really violently trimming differences I cluster them into two, but I cannot go further because of nonnegligible difference. --Nanshu (talk) 14:10, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Wha is this "nonnegligible difference" you keep bringing up? And I cannot grasp any sort of information from your essays. Just keep things short and to the point, such as the following: Any information on any definition of the Ryukyu Islands as a whole should remain on this single page and not be moved off to any other page at any other title. Ryūkyū Shotō is not a valid article because it duplicated information (WP:CFORK) from here and other pages for no reason just because you want to make an article that excludes or includes the Amami Islands from the meaning of "琉球諸島". Even before I did any edits to the page, the Amami Islands were barely mentioned. The only time the Amamis were ever mentioned on this page was when Yu Hai came along and decided to change the internal definition. The article is back at its original form, with the Amami Islands excluded from the definition of 琉球諸島. So let's just move on.—Ryulong (竜龙) 20:40, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

The same old argument. But yet another misunderstanding comes to light. The past is not our main concern. I do not intend to criticize your past aggressive edits, and you do not need to justify them. Our primary interest is how the articles will be. In fact, my reorganization plan posted just above is based mostly on what has been publicized outside Wikipedia and awaits incorporation into Wikipedia (though as for natural science, I rely on Wikipedia's other articles). I have just started working on this topic. I would like to modernize articles by adding the findings of the last two decades. And I showed that they can be best presented if we have two separate articles, not one. --Nanshu (talk) 11:52, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

You must be kidding about having two separate articles (for the same topic). It is bad to make things black and white, or having two very different versions of the same thing; there is certainly some mid-point between the two extremes that is more natural, such as those found in more representative or authoritative works etc. We need to organize articles in a more general and less arbitrary-chosen way, such as just using the ones reflected in more representative sources etc (and without choosing the content according to their views by ourselves), instead of dividing between views of the "older" ones and the "findings" in more recent years by ourselves. It is certainly not really good for us to choose sources or works in this way for WP articles, which is in reality a black and white division. Thanks a lot. --Chinyin (talk) 04:56, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Chinyin, you misunderstand the analogy. With the analogy of color, I pointed to inherent asymmetry between those who are aware of a point/dimension/aspect of discussion (the colored) and those who are not (the colorless). The colorless cannot place the colored to a right position because the colored is based on color, which the colorless is unaware of. Only the colored can locate the colorless by assigning some colors to them (I love the analogy of color because although color is continuous, we make discrete choices anyway). The result is what the colored expect, but it is surprising to the colorless. They would probably resist the result, crying "We don't need it." That is what Ryulong does. The goal of the colorless can only be met if the colored are supressed. So we have no choice but to follow the colored.

Now color is the Amami question. Here I give a concrete example, the case of history (I might illustrate ethnography later). We have at least two distinct frameworks of historiography. One is Okinawa-centric (A) and the other is somewhat Amami-centric (B). We cannot easily align the two lines of research. We are in an unfortunate situation, which I call Amami-passing and Okinawa-passing. Framework A considers Okinawa Island as the permanent center of the region. It usually limits the scope of research to modern-day Okinawa Prefecture and ignores the Amami Islands (Amami-passing). Framework B considers that Amami (or Kikai-ga-shima as historians uses as a historiographic term) has been the center of the region before it was conquered by Ryukyu Kingdom on Okinawa. It combines Japanese historical sources and recent archaeological findings. An interesting fact is that Japanese sources rarely mention Okinawa Island even though the imperial court probably contacted the islanders of Ishigaki to the further south (That's one of the reasons why Framework A underestimates Japanese sources). As a result, Framework B basically remains silent on Okinawa (Okinawa-passing). In short, each framework ignores what the other considers as the center! We cannot mark either one primary or secondary. Of course, both A and B deal with some particular points of discussion. For example, to whom were shells of the Green Turban, important local products of the region, exported? Asato (Framework A) speculates that they were exported to both China and mainland Japan while Takanashi (Framework B) argues for mainland Japan only. So we can align them at, say, Turbo marmoratus. But we need separate overviews. There remain some critical mysteries. At this point, unifying two frameworks is original research. --Nanshu (talk) 10:52, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

I may have seen your point regarding the analogy of the term colored and colorless, including the fact the latter is "unaware" of something etc. But in generally, we do not really need to become aware of them in WP and of course it is better not to stare at particularly point/dimension/aspect of the discussion, especially making such thing somehow seeming "persisting" or "standing" in that way. After all, such behavior is generally considered to be "abnormal" and "bad" in WP and vast majority of Wikipedians won't do that, and the correct direction is always to tell anyone who seems to be with such behavior or "awareness" to be more wiki-like, instead of going the opposite way (i.e. becoming somehow "colored" yourself too). Yes I have found it may be considered a problem for myself too in the past. No one should do that, really.

As for the next question. I see you made an example of dividing above. I have looked at it (and there is no need to illustrate other aspect[s]). But it seemed that such a division did have been made in the past too. Such a sharp division of historiography is certainly not a good thing (and we should not base on any particular historiography in WP); indeed a unified one may or would be desirable. But no, we are not going to unify the two historiography manually by ourselves in WP of course (which is indeed original research). Instead, we use reliable academic sources as our references, but not the one(s) that are mainly based on particular historiography. In such cases (which is also the case for WP), two separate overviews (instead of one) should not be considered to be really necessary. --Chinyin (talk) 05:38, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

No. I used Ryulong as an example and I admit it was misleading. But my focus is on POVs that are presented by people outside Wikipedia. I do not discuss how to discuss nicely in Wikipedia's talk pages. I am only interested in how not to let a POV suppress another in presence of asymmetry.

And the same is true of the latter half. I do not intend to treat a POV as the absolute truth, of course. I just try to secure a place where a POV is presented as a POV. A sharp division of historiography is what really happens in academic circles. They frames problems differently. They have different scopes of interest. We should place each of them according to the scope one adopts. --Nanshu (talk) 13:28, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I did reread your previous message and got maybe more sense of it. But I also see you are also concerned with the POV stuff. Indeed we should not suppress POV by replacing with probably another POV. Instead, academic sources are usually desired. There are of course many kinds of academic sources, written by different authors, some may be more based on particular historiography while others would more represent (the authors') own personal opinions etc. In a general sense the scope of academic sources may been somehow considered a continuous thing: a few may be more towards the extremes (which represent the original [unmodified] historiography themselves), but many or most of them still more towards the middle. The more representative English-language sources (such as those published by university presses) are generally around the middle, thus may be considered unbiased and generally also very creditable. Of course it is usually better to follow such sources, but in practice of course we are not able to complete this in every case that for various reasons. But still, we may try to suppress POV in articles by replacing them with more creditable (and more unbiased too) narratives from such sources, instead of trying to (probably knowingly) replacing them with another POV, or maybe trying to place them in a scope that are adopted by ourselves. Indeed, for nobody the latter is the desirable way of writing articles, and the former i.e. replacing with more creditable [and also more unbiased] narratives etc) should always be considered as the more favored option. So a separate overview is still not necessary and such would also against normal article writing/editing in WP. Also I see your message began to contain some more personal-style information, which is not really desirable in an article talk page like this, and may even be considered as somewhat disturbing for other (and more useful) discussion regarding the editing of the article itself and should always tried to be avoided per WP guideline. You may try places such as user talk pages or so in case of other issues that may be more applied to other [in general or more specific] people instead of completely focusing on the editing of this article. Thanks again for understanding, and I would appreciate a better article. --Chinyin (talk) 04:29, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I hate to say this, since I think I voted the other way, above. But my tiny, but authoritative gazetteer shows "Ryukyu Islands" and, in parentheses underneath "(Nansei Shoto)". Ouch! Hammond Family Reference World Atlas, Doubleday & Company, Garden City, New York 1972, page 52, (inset). Student7 (talk) 01:25, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I've pointed this out above that English cartographers tend to use "Ryukyu Islands" to encompass everything between Kyushu and Taiwan, when the Japanese refer to the whole set as the Nansei Islands and the Ryukyus are just the southern half.—Ryulong (竜龙) 02:10, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

As I noted in November, authoritative Brittanica gives a cool definition of Ryukyu Islands: Ryukyu Islands == Nansei Islands == Ryūkyū Shotō (in Japanese) == Okinawa (in Ryukyuan).[12] Virtually Okinawa Island (and some tiny islands around it) is the sole concentration of English speakers in the region (due to U.S. military bases). I would not be surprised if they know nothing about islands other than Okinawa.

Actually we have two issues to resolve. (1) How many articles do we need to represent raw materials? (2) Which unique English label do we give to each article? For Point 1, I argue for two articles. I demonstrate it by clustering raw materials into two sets. I am confident on this because it is language-independent. For Point 2, I would like to seek help from fellow native English speakers. But I bet reliable sources contribute little. --Nanshu (talk) 11:52, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

No. You do not get it at all, and I will prevent that crap from happening. We only need one article to discuss the Ryukyu Islands. It is not our fault that some English language encyclopedias include the entirety of the Nansei Islands in their definition. We can say that on this article, but this article should not be Anglocentric in its discussion of the Ryukyu Islands. There are plenty of Japanese and other language sources out there that show that the Ryukyus are just the southern half of the Nansei chain.—Ryulong (竜龙) 21:33, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Not sure that Anglocentric is not what we are looking for. For example, the English call Oestereich, "Austria," and have done so for so long, that it won't be changed. And while we are at it, "Japan" not "Nippon" which is accurate. Terrifically Anglocentric. We are (rather) trying to avoid US-Centric and ethno-centric positions. Anglo-centric is not only allowable, it is desired. We are not trying to correct common English misnomers. Student7 (talk) 17:00, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Translating the names of places from German and Japanese into English does not in itself encapsulate being Anglocentric, because those match our policies of WP:USEENGLISH and WP:COMMONNAME. However, the only thing we should not be doing on this page is splitting off content to another page because of the conflicting geographic meanings of the phrase "Ryukyu Islands". We should merely point out these inaccuracies on the articles, rather than making a new page to just focus on the Japanese definition of the islands in order to include the Amamis on this article.—Ryulong (竜龙) 20:33, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Student7, we all agree that there are many-to-many mappings between surface words and senses. My solution is fairly simple: arrange raw materials by sense, not surface word. How many senses the set of words have is a difficult question, but here I determine it by extent of the corresponding physical entity. After arranging raw materials, we need to assign some unique label to each cluster. This is rather from Wikipedia's technical reasons. At this stage we can be Anglo-centric. In November I originally planned to give Ryūkyū Shotō to Concept A and "Ryukyu" to Concept B. After the poll, I changed as follows: Ryūkyū Shotō for Concept A and Ryukyu Islands for Concept B. But I always welcome your suggestions on better naming. --Nanshu (talk) 10:52, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Nanshu, you have to realize that you are in the minority here. It was pretty clear from the malformed requested move that there should not be more than one page on the topic of the Ryukyu Islands. Your opinion that there needs to be one page that discusses one version of the Ryukyu Islands that includes the Amami Islands (or all of the Nansei Islands) based on the English definition of the term and another page that discusses the Ryukyu Islands as just the islands within Okinawa Prefecture based on the Japanese definition of the term is not welcome on Wikipedia. Again, this article is on the geographic entity of the Ryukyu Islands. While the Amami Islands group may be contained within the Ryukyus history, ethnography, and language, it is not necessary to include them in the discussion of this geography article. If you want to, you can add all of the information concerning the history and ethnography of the Amami Islands to Amami Islands, because this article discusses the modern geographic entity of the islands and not any sort of historical prominence any one of the islands in the region had until the Ryukyu Kingdom came into prominence.—Ryulong (竜龙) 19:59, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Third article unwarranted; in fact, Nansei should probably merge here

I agree (re. the dispute above) that Nansei Islands currently covers the larger sense of the name, and that we hardly need a third article. However, the very map we use in this article uses the term "Ryukyu" for what we're calling Nansei. My DK World Atlas does the same: it calls the entire chain Nansei Shōtō (Ryukyu Islands), the first name being Japanese, the second its English translation. Other English-language atlases do the same. Given that, I think we might want to merge Nansei Islands into this article.

The Japanese article says 琉球諸島 is not well defined. Their main article is Nansei; 琉球諸島 is basically just a dictionary entry: it does not cover the islands themselves, but only discusses the various use of the name. In English, the common term is Ryukyu, whereas Nansei is practically unknown; I think the DK atlas is correct in giving English "Ryukyu" as the equivalent of Japanese Nansei.

For example, WP-ja reports that the 6th ed (2008) of 広辞苑 states that the 琉球弧 (Ryukyu Arc) stretche from the Osumi Islands to Taiwan, and that 地理用語集 (2007) says that 琉球列島 (Ryukyu Archipelago) and 南西諸島 (Nansei Islands) are synonymous. Biogeographically, the 琉球列島 (Ryukyu Archipelago) encompasses the entire chain. There is a biological division between the Osumi & Tokara Islands, with Osumi being part of the mainland biota zone, and Tokara and Amami part of the Ryukyu biota zone.

The use of "Ryukyu" as a bureaucratic term of convenience in Japanese for the islands of Okinawa Prefecture appears to have no parallel in English. Check Ngram for the relative frequency of 'Ryukyu Islands' and 'Nansei Islands'.[13]

In the mean time, I added a hat note to this article, explaining that the normal English sense of "Ryukyu" is covered at Nansei, and added "Ryukyu" as the common English name for Nansei. — kwami (talk) 06:12, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I think that merging Nansei Islands to this page is not going to do much to ameliorate this dispute as at this time Nanshu, the primary proponent of creating a whole new article to fix what he perceives as faults in what this article encapsulates, believes that the Amami Islands should be included amongst what we discuss here. While "Ryukyu Islands" is generally what the English cartographers use to define what the Japanese refer to as 南西諸島, and our page on the Nanseis is kinda shit, it is still what the Japanese refer to all of the islands, while the Ryukyus are only half of the archipelago in their language (or more than half of the islands because of the Amamis membership in the old kingdom and also having a child language).

And on the map issue, perhaps we should just use or make a map that just focuses on Okinawa Prefecture, as the region under the prefectural governance is what is strictly considered as the "Ryukyu Islands" so we can avoid the English mistake of referring to the Amami archipelago and the other Satsunan Islands that most cartographers seem to be doing.

Also, out of all of the projects, everyone but ja seems to have plenty of content at the "Ryukyu" variation, but the "Nansei" page still exists (and their Nansei page is just a list of every single island and islet).—Ryulong (竜龙) 07:04, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, I don't see how Nansu has a point, so whether this merge would placate him or not doesn't seem relevant. But it would include Amami in this page, which might make him happy.

We use English usage to define what to call our articles. If "English cartographers use [Ryukyu Islands] to define what the Japanese refer to as 南西諸島", then per WP:UCN we should use "Ryukyu Islands" for the article which iw's to the Japanese article 南西諸島. What the Japanese call it isn't relevant, any more than the Chinese not calling their country "China" is relevant.

You say, "the Ryukyus are only half of the archipelago in their language". But in general that's not true. It's only true in one sense: the chain is divided into two prefectures, and there are bureaucratic names for the two halves. But those are not common terms in English. Although on WP-ja the name 琉球諸島 in the Nansei article is linked to a dedicated article on 琉球諸島, in the 琉球諸島 article they give that usage in the lead and then use the entire body of the article to give examples of how the name is not used that way. So it's simply not true to say that it means Nansei-Islands-in-Okinawa-prefecture in Japanese: in Japanese the name is quite ambiguous. It can mean just the Okinawa Islands, or those plus the Sakishima Ils, or those plus the Amami Ils, or those plus the Tokara Ils, or those plus the Osumi Ils (the entire archipelago). Not that this matters for English usage, of course.

Here's another: NatGeo also defines the Ryukyus as the islands between Kyushu and Taiwan (the entire archipelago). — kwami (talk) 07:22, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I thought that ja.wiki at least defined the Ryukyus as definitely Okinawa and the Sakishimas, and maybe the Amamis and Daitos (but not the Tokaras). So do we subsume any sort of differentiation of the terms in the English language, and eliminate our "article" on the Nanseis as a whole to say that the English term "Ryukyus" emcompasses all of these islands? Or do we retain a world (Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean, etc.) view and limit this article to only focus on the monoprefectural organization (Okinawas, Daitos, Sakishimas) already in place? Or do we create a new definition that seems to match with the Japanese Wikipedia's standpoint that the Amami and Tokara groups are (ethnologically [per Nanshu] and biogeographically [per yourself]) part of the Ryukyu chain? And in the end, does this really change what the article currently contains other than adding other islands to the list in the article?

I still stand by the fact that merging seems unnecessary just because we have what appear to be two terms that are synonymous half of the time, considering that we would have to have two different interwiki links (one for ja:南西諸島 and the other for ja:琉球諸島) if we were to follow through with this radical change.—Ryulong (竜龙) 09:28, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

It's not biogeographic per me, but per WP-ja.

The COMMONNAME for the entire chain of islands in English is Ryukyu Islands. Therefore the article on that topic needs to be at Ryukyu Islands.

I don't see what world view there would be here, and the name is ambiguous in Japanese. We can certainly discuss how for political-bureaucratic purposes in Japanese, the name is restricted to the islands in Okinawa prefecture, but that would be little more than a note, and not enough IMO to justify a separate article. Even in Japanese the 琉球諸島 article is a stub, basically just a detailed dab. Just in case, I'm checking the other WPs: Chinese zh:琉球群岛 covers the entire archipelago; fr:Îles Ryūkyū covers the southern half, though clarifies this as the Ryukyus "in the strict sense"; Esperanto gives Nansei as a synonym; German covers the southern half; Dutch the whole (Satsunan is called the "Northern Ryukyu Islands"); Russian is a bit contradictory (they list the southern islands, but say the archipelago extends from Kyushu to Taiwan); Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese all list them all and say they are called Nansei-Shotō in Japanese; Indonesian, Malay, Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, and Shanghainese say they're AKA the Nanseis; etc.

We can certainly mention how the name has a specialized use in some topics in Japanese as half the archipelago, but that use is not consensus in Japanese and is not found in English.

Correct, apart from adding some islands to the list, there wouldn't be much change to this article. We'd want to correct the Japanese usage part, and maybe add some of the history of the northern islands to the history section, and change the iw to 南西諸島, but that's probably about it. As it is, the iw's do not match: some cover the entire archipelago, some just the southern half. (If we had an article for 琉球諸島, it would presumably be s.t. like "Ryukyu (word)" or "Ryukyu Islands (political)", but there wouldn't be enough for an article, and would repeat what we have here.) — kwami (talk) 10:47, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Kwamikagami, I suspect you never seriously consider expanding the articles. The set of words are used ambiguously as you know. If you try to determine an article title first and then search for appropriate descriptions for it, you are puzzled that way. We should collect a set of descriptions first and the give a unique name to it.

Suppose that we name the whole island chain "Ryukyu Islands" (hey, I don't think it is a big problem. As I said again and again, I am not really interested in naming). And suppose that we then assemble raw materials for the new article. I definitely oppose a plan to make it an article for Ryukyuan languages and culture. Instead we must put a rather artificial statement that can rarely be found outside Wikipedia: the Kagoshima dialect is spoken in the northern part and Ryukyuan languages are spoken in the central and southern parts. We must do that way for nearly all aspects of the physical entity (geology is an exception as I noted above). How can we ignore cultural non-Ryukyu?

A minor point for your informatoin: You mentioned Kōjien's 広辞苑 definition of Ryūkyū-ko 琉球弧. Ryūkyū-ko is a special term. It is occasionally used in humanities precisely because it does not carry many connotations since everyone is unfamiliar with this term. It is not synonymous with 琉球. 弧 is added to differentiate the term from 琉球. Kōjien defined 南西諸島, 琉球諸島 and others as defined by [14]. --Nanshu (talk) 13:28, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Most of those maps do not bother with "Ryukyu", calling the entire chain "Nansei", and then labeling the individual groups (Osumi, Tokara, Amami, Okinawa, Sakishima). Where "Ryukyu" does appear, it's a minor label.

The important subject per WEIGHT is the Ryukyu/Nansei archipelago. That's what's found in Englang sources. The division of the chain into Okinawa and Kagoshima prefecture is a detail of the political geography and IMO should be covered as such, but I do not see much reason for separate articles. The normal English names for Ja. Satsunan/Ryukyu is AFAICT "Northern/Southern Ryukyu Islands". I suppose we could have an article "Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa Prefecture)" or "Southern Ryukyu Islands" or some such name to balance Satsunan Islands, but both would be stubs. I think the bits of history on the latter article should be covered here.

As for stating that Kagoshima dialect is spoken in the north, why wouldn't we? Since when do languages follow geographic boundaries? — kwami (talk) 20:41, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Nanshu, again, there is no need to create a separate article the geographic of this archipelago (or whatever WP:OR-based subdivision of the archipelago you are going to discuss) just based on the fact that there is a shared language and culture between 4 out of the 6 named island groups between Kyushu and Taiwan. Again, anything you make that consists of a new page will result in some sort of content fork, like Ryūkyū Shotō became. Also, the way you don't edit one section at a time makes it really hard to see where you are commenting.

And Kwami, I'm mainly having issues that we would be using two different native names to refer to the same location, which is mostly because it seems no one in the west has ever called everything between Taiwan and Kyushu "Nansei" but always as "Ryukyu".

I would be fine with eliminating an article per your proposal, but I still believe any sort of proposal by Nanshu to make a new separate article based on his own criteria as to what should be defined by whatever term he's going to call it is out of the question.—Ryulong (竜龙) 00:06, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Okay, will merge Nansei Islands.

I agree about the third article. At least, I don't see any reason to have one. If this article because large enough, we might want to split off parts of it, but we're a long, long way from having that amount or quality of info.

Yes, we have two Japanese names for the archipelago, though AFAICT only Nansei is unambiguous. I found another atlas, and in the world-regions part, where the names are all in English, it's "Ryukyu Islands" (spanning the entire chain), whereas on the country page, where all the names are transliterated Japanese, it's "Nansei-shotō". The HRW World Atlas has only "Ryukyu Islands". — kwami (talk) 00:47, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

So do we say "The Ryukyu Islands (琉球諸島, Ryūkyū-shotō), known in Japan as the Nansei Islands (南西諸島, Nansei-shotō, literally "South-West Islands")"?—Ryulong (竜龙) 01:07, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

That would work. However, I just changed the Japanese equivalent to 琉球弧. Perhaps that's too obscure? Please revert if you think it would be misleading. (But then, 琉球諸島 may be a bit misleading too.) Also, I moved Duuchuu to a footnote. That's truly obscure, and in any case the stuff in the lead is supposed to recap the text, not introduce points which are never expanded on. — kwami (talk) 02:39, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Or maybe,

The Ryukyu Islands, known in Japanese as the Nansei Islands (南西諸島, Nansei-shotō, "Southwest Islands"), are ...

without giving a Japanese equivalent at all? The various Japanese forms of Ryukyu can then be left to the naming section.

Also, I'm rather uneasy with giving 琉球諸島 as the "native name". I think you've shown that it's not. Or should we list it anyway? (That was an edit of yours I removed; pls restore it if you think it belongs.) — kwami (talk) 02:42, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

The ko form is extremely rare. And the literal translation into Japanese is still "琉球諸島" even if we now acknowledge that the English phrase "Ryukyu Islands" is equivalent with the Japanese phrase 南西諸島, it is still not an English construction as 琉球 exists in some form in the Japanese language.

And eliminating 琉球諸島 as the native name is just going to convince Nanshu that a page on what is considered the Japanese definition of the islands (just the Okinawa group) is necessary.—Ryulong (竜龙) 03:02, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Okay, put in what you feel is best, then. Though maybe put it last under 'native name'? — kwami (talk) 03:06, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

It does not really make sense to include the direct translation as the last form just because we have now are discussing two Japanese terms with the same meaning. Also, {{nihongo3}} needs a blank first parameter to work.—Ryulong (竜龙) 03:13, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I was thinking the most common Japanese name should come first, not the one closest to English usage. That is, IMO native names should be judged on their own right. — kwami (talk) 04:07, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't really make sense. We are saying that the native name of the "Ryukyu Islands" is not primarily 琉球諸島 merely because we've decided that "Nansei Islands" and "Ryukyu Islands" are the same thing in English.—Ryulong (竜龙) 04:30, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

But 南西諸島 is the normal name of the archipelago in Japanese. It is equivalent to Ryukyu Islands in English. It is thus the native equivalent, assuming you take Japanese to be native. — kwami (talk) 06:56, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

This is why I wasn't so keen on the merge. It creates this confusion.—Ryulong (竜龙) 07:41, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Naming cannot alter substance. The Nansei Islands lack unity. They are not a good unit for discussing history and culture. In fact our sources limit its scope to smaller areas that exhibit some degree of cohesion. You can technically put everything in the single article, but you should realize that you are creating a chimera. You force us to make a unique presentation of sources that looks more like original research. I would like to clarify that it is a logical consequence of your decision and is not my fault.

As for naming

• Ryulong, now that the scope of the article is the entire island chain, the name 琉球 must be removed from the infobox, lede and others. It is not a name for the Nansei Islands.
• Kwamikagami, changing cited materials at your own choice is what we call original research. You must provide reliable sources for "Northern Ryukyu" and "Southern Ryukyu." As far as I know, they are based on an Okinawa-centric trichotomy, not a dichotomy.

--Nanshu (talk) 14:35, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Frankly, Nanshu, I do not trust your input on this and you certainly did not have any sort of consensus for going through with this edit. I've undone your massive changes to the article. "Ryukyu Islands" exists as a phrase in Japanese. Just because we now equate the English phrase with that of "南西諸島" certainly does not mean you have any sort of right to make these changes.—Ryulong (竜龙) 21:09, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

However, your changes to everything but the infobox, lede, and interwiki links was beneficial.—Ryulong (竜龙) 21:12, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I do not care if you trust me or not. Why am I required to make you trust me? If you really believe that you only need to shout "I HATE YOU" to make blind revert, I strongly recommend you to get out of Wikipedia.

You suddenly demand consensus building (Paraphrase: you cannot do anything unless I agree), simply because you cannot back up your claim with reliable sources. It is you who have to prove that 琉球諸島 = Ryukyu Islands.

Your version abuses a reference to the Grand Atlas Japan. I confirmed that the atlas used the official Japanese subgrouping. When it was originally added by Jajaklar82 (talk · contribs),[15] the citation was valid (with the assumption that "Ryukyu Islands" is a translation of Japanese Ryūkyū shotō). Kwamikagami (talk · contribs) kept the citation even though he gave a completely different meaning to Ryukyu Islands[16]. Kwamikagami is primarily responsible for the abuse but you endorsed him. Remove the invalid citation, and there is no source supporting your claim. The burden of proof is on you! --Nanshu (talk) 12:56, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with you that the Japanese and English terms "Ryukyu" do not mean the same thing, and I'd rather not have that listed as the Japanese name for the islands. However, you changed a lot more than that in your last edit, including things that have nothing to do with your objection. If you're going to make a reasoned changed, please don't blindly revert improvements to the article when you do so. — kwami (talk) 15:24, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

琉球諸島 is literally translated as Ryukyu Islands. Just because we have decided that the English term "Ryukyu Islands" is equivalent to the Japanese term "Nansei-shotou" does not mean we should be removing any sort of mention of 琉球諸島 from the page. Also, it most certainly does not enable you to change every single Interwiki link on this page from the "Ryukyu" version to the "Nansei" version, as you have no clue as to whether or not other projects share our definition of the term. I think this whole merge of the Nansei and Ryukyu pages has been entirely mishandled and we need to restore the Nansei page and leave this page as encompassing everything from Okinawa and south.—Ryulong (竜龙) 19:52, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it is so literally translated. So, do you want it listed as the Japanese name for the entire chain or not? I removed it because of your objection, and will restore it if I misunderstood you and you do not object.

I did not change any interwikis. — kwami (talk) 00:18, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

So it is merely your decision to give a completely new meaning to the Japanese 琉球諸島 by translating the English Ryukyu Islands. That is exactly what we call original research. Ryulong (talk · contribs) made groundless accusation against me over original research[17]. It is now clear who actually made original research.

You seem to be unaware about an important difference between the English Ryukyu Islands and the Japanese 琉球諸島. 諸島 has narrower semantics than "islands" as it is a techinical term from geography and not of everyday language. One expects X諸島 to be clearly defined in the field of geography. This makes even harder to accept your unsourced claim. --Nanshu (talk) 14:42, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Kwamikagami, look who's talking. I pointed out your abuse of citation and you did not object. Then why is the invalid ciation still there? You lack academic conscience.

I have incorporated your edits (Ryulong is hopeless in many respects, but anyway I respect him as a native speaker of English). It is you who made blind reverts. As you do not know much about the topic, it is reasonable to assume that my changes are improvements unless you explicitly contend. Here I explain some points, but it is you who should list areas of disagreement.

Re: interwiki. The score of the current article is the Nansei Islands. Kwamikagami only showed the eccentric English usage of "Ryukyu Islands." So it is reasonable to assume that the article of the Nansei Islands is a better counterpart than that of the Ryukyu Islands unless you prove that a foreign language in question follows the English usage. Re: "East China Sea" in the infobox. Do not ignore the Daitō Islands. Re: the second para. You present each statement too sloppily. Re: the third para. Unnecessary duplicate. --Nanshu (talk) 14:42, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

The book entitled "地理用語集" is only published by Yamakawa-Shuppan(山川出版社). But there is no such a description in 地理用語集(2002) and 地理用語集(2011). Moreover, in 地理用語集(2011), there is a quite different explanation of "南西諸島(Nansei Islands)" as "北の薩南諸島と南の琉球諸島に大別される。" i.e. "Nansei Islands(南西諸島)" is classified roughly into "Satsunan Islands(薩南諸島)" of north part and "Ryukyu Islands(琉球諸島)" of south part.(112.70.1.31 (talk) 14:31, 15 October 2012 (UTC))

The English language sources define the "Ryukyu Islands" as what the Japanese people call 南西諸島. When will you understand this, Masanori Asami?—Ryulong (琉竜) 17:14, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Un-merge

I have restored Nansei Islands, and moved information regarding the entirety of the chain to that page. I have made this page retain the original definition that the Ryukyu Islands are the islands made up of Okinawa, Miyako, Yaeyama, and Daito. Content referring to the northern half of the Nansei chain has been moved off to Satsunan Islands. Content referring to just the Amami Islands has been moved there. This page now concerns just the Japanese definition of 琉球諸島 and the strictest definition of the English term "Ryukyu Islands".—Ryulong (竜龙) 20:16, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

The more I go through the page, I believe Nanshu had been adding too much weight to the Amami Islands to this page once it no longer excluded them from its definition.—Ryulong (竜龙) 20:44, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Before we determine what should be done next, I do not think any further massive changes to the article should be made by any of us (I have effectively restored the article to its form prior to Kwami's merge). We need to discuss what this article should cover, and what terms we should use to refer to those subjects.—Ryulong (竜龙) 20:54, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

You need to demonstrate that your POV is common English usage. You have not done so; in fact, you have admitted that it is contrary to common English usage. We are English WP, and we follow English usage. I have found the following sources (first page of hits on GBooks) that refer to the islands in the north of the chain as the "northern Ryukyu Islands", and date from 1961 to 2010:

(1961) United States earthquakes [earthquake 29.8°N = Northern Ryukyu]

Unconformities and porosity in carbonate strata [Kikai = northern Ryukyu]

Voyages of discovery: the archaeology of islands [N,C,S Ryukyus = whole chain]

Island Environments in a Changing World [Tanegashima = northern Ryukyu]

(2010) Evolution of Island Mammals: Adaptation and Extinction of Placental Mammals on Islands [northern Ryukyu; Okinawa in the S&C Ryukyu]

There are competing uses for the phrase "southern Ryukyus". In a geological sense, there is a tripartite division, so the southern Ryukyus are the Sakishima Isls. However, in the administrative sense, there is a bipartites division, and the southern Ryukyus are Okinawa Prefecture. But even geologically, we have Geological Survey professional paper, Volume 399, Part 1 (1965), where stratigraphic samples from the "southern Ryukyu Islands" includes Ishigaki, Miyako, and Okinawa, and where they state that most scientific information on the southern Ryukyu Islands concerns Okinawa Island. Likewise, in Island Environments in a Changing World (2011), we find "In the southern Ryukyu Islands, Okinawa was colonized by humans from ...". The terms "northern" and "southern" (uncapitalized) are thus established in English for the islands of Kagoshima and Okinawa prefectures. (This was a minor point in an earlier discussion.) There might be an incipient contrast in capitalization, as many of the sources I've found (though by no means all) capitalize "Southern Ryukyu" in the tripartite division (e.g. in Voyages of discovery listed above), but no-one seems to capitalize it in the bipartite division. — kwami (talk) 00:58, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Found an interesting account in The return of the Amami Islands: the reversion movement and U.S.–Japan relations as to why the Japanese govt did not want to call the Amami Isl. the northern Ryukyus. We can cover this in the name section, but it does not affect the English name. — kwami (talk) 00:23, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

It's just that the disparity between the common English usage and the common Japanese usage is creating an unnecessary conflict here. As it stands in any way, Nanshu wishes to have an article that has unnecessary weight on the Amami group's inclusion in the term "Ryukyu Islands". And we still have the issue of why he seems that 琉球諸島 should be forbidden from the lead when it is the Japanese form of "Ryukyu Islands" (even though we now equate the term "Ryukyu Islands" with 南西諸島) and his unnecessary revamping of the entire Interwiki list to remove nearly every single link from the Ryukyu appelation to the Nansei form, merely because they are the only projects where "Nansei Islands" had an interwiki link. The fact that Nanshu is not going to respond to this until a week from now is also a problem.—Ryulong (竜龙) 02:52, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

WP policy is quite clear: if there's a conflict between English and Japanese usage, we follow English usage and make a note of the conflict. Sometimes these things do cause problems with interwikis, but that's a separate issue from how to write the article. Your placement of the Nansei iw's in the Nansei rd may be the best way to go: I've seen that used as a solution elsewhere. I could go either way on whether to include Japanese ryuukyuu in the lead, as long as the issues are clear in the naming section. (Sorry, I may have gotten confused in who held which opinion when I commented out ryuukyuu in the lead.) — kwami (talk) 08:13, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, we have two definitions of the Ryukyu Islands anyway. The English one that concerns the whole chain, and the Japanese one that concerns the islands of Okinawa Prefecture, even though the former is also sometimes used as a synonym to Nansei shoto. I believe we are going to be fine with this until Nanshu comes back next week and decides to do whatever the hell he wants to do.—Ryulong (竜龙) 18:47, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Location of Ryukyu Islands

Kwamikagami reverted my edit[18] saying "most refs just say "E.China". EB is not a RS anyway." I am not sure what "most ref" means. Moreover he says "Encyclopædia Britannica is not RS" without reason ignoring another book reference provided. Here are "most of references" that says Ryukyu Islands are on the boundary of East China Sea and Philippine Sea.

• Berggren, William A. (1997). Marine geology and palaeoceanography: proceedings of the 30th International Geological Congress, Beijing, China, 4-14 August 1996. VSP. p. 50. ISBN 9067642428. The Ryukyu Islands are distributed along the edges of the ECS between the Okinawa Trough and the Philippine Sea in form of an arc islands.
• Japan Volume 1. ProStar Publications. p. 121. ISBN 1577858190. The islands of Nansei Shoto are on an arc of a circle, with its convex side toward the Philippine Sea, between a position off the NE coast of Taiwan and the SE extremity of Kyushu , and thus forms the SE boundary of Tung Hai or the East China Sea
• Barnes, Harold (1990). Oceanography And Marine Biology, Volume 28. Routledge. p. 14. ISBN 0080379818. Northwest of the Philippine Sea borders the East China Sea through the Ryukyu Ridge, on which lie the Ryukyu Islands.
• Camoin, Gilbert F. (1998). Reefs and carbonate platforms in the Pacific and Indian oceans. John Wiley & Sons. p. 197. ISBN 063204778X. These islands are an active islands arc (Ryukyu Arc) generated by subduction of the Philippine Sea Plate beneath the Eurasian Plate and bounded by the East China Sea on the north-west and on the Pacific Ocean on the south-east.
• "S-23 Limits of Oceans and Seas". International Hydrographic Organization. 1953. 50:East China Sea 56:Philippine Sea

Lastly please answer a simple question; If the boundary of East China Sea and Philippine Sea is not Ryukyu Islands, where is the boundary?

―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 23:49, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I believe Kwamikagami meant that most references state that the Ryukyu Islands are located solely within the East China Sea, rather than being the border between the East China and Philippine Seas.—Ryulong (竜龙) 00:04, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

We don't need refs in the info box for where they are. It's more a matter of style. The E.China Sea is much smaller, and so more precise. Noting they're on the boundary would also be OK. But they're not in the Philippine Sea – that would put them further out in the Pacific. — kwami (talk) 01:09, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I corrected per this discussion. ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 10:39, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I cannot understand why, in presence of detailed stuff, you remain ignorant. According to the limits of seas defined by the IHO[19], the Daitō Islands are in the Philippine Sea. --Nanshu (talk) 14:42, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

English Ryukyu must be reviewed

Kwamikagami learned the existence of Eldridge's excellent work. But he cannot even cite a single footnote properly.

During the US occupation of Amami, the Japanese government objected to them being included under the name "Ryukyu" in English, because they worried that this might mean that the return of the Amami Islands to Japanese control would be delayed until the return of Okinawa. However, the US occupational government on Amami continued to called the "Provisional Government for the Northern Ryukyu Islands" in English, though it was translated as ''Rinji Hokubu Nanseinshotō Seichō'' (Provisional Government for the Northern Nansei Islands) in Japanese.<ref>Robert D. Eldridge, 2004. ''The return of the Amami Islands: the reversion movement and U.S.–Japan relations'', p. 25</ref>

The guy who expressed the idea above was the Governor of the U.S. occupied Amami. We can hardly say that he represented the government of Japan.

What is more important is Kwamikagami is unconscionably selective. Or he cannot do more than Google Book Search. Eldridge did not miss an important consequence of the name debate. The U.S. finally adopted the "techinically more accurate" term of Nansei. That is why the term appeared in the peace treaty.

Kwamikagami presented the English usages astonishingly badly. He introduced Northern, Central, and Southern Ryukyus in the second para. Immediately after that, he used a dichtomy without any notice. As you admit, there are competing uses in English. And you do not prove that either one is established. All we can say at the present situation is that English usages are confusing and so must be stated in the article. Besides your edits have the following problems.

• It is generally a bad idea to distort a quotation by injecting different sources.
• No source you presented at this page explicitly placed Ryukyu in the Japanese geographic hierarchy. Unless additional sources support your presentation, English usages must be treated separately.
• The Japanese names you added do not follow the original source.

--Nanshu (talk) 14:42, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Nanshu, your proposed changes do not have consensus. Your repeated reverts to your preferred version, despite the fact that Kwamikagami and myself have been working diligently to edit the article to meet your points, but you have no right to blindly revert to your last preferred version, particularly when it has been two weeks since you last collaborated in discussion.

• Stop removing 琉球諸島 from this page. It is the Japanese form of "Ryukyu Islands". Just because we now equate the English term "Ryukyu Islands" with the Japanese term "Nansei Shoto" does not mean that you have any feasible right to remove it from this page, again.
• This also holds for when you change every single Interwiki link to point to the "Nansei" names on other projects. The Interwikis for the Nansei variant are at the redirect at Nansei Islands. This page is still about the Ryukyu Islands, and it does not mean that other projects suddenly have to have orphaned pages.
• Your whole "lack of unity" paragraph is entirely unnecessary and there is no reason for you to remove the "Liuqiu/Ruuchuu" paragraph.
• None of the islands use "Gunto" in their Japanese names except for Amami. Everything else is "Shoto".
• There should be no reason to mention a random group in the Amami Islands calls themself something in particular before anything else.

Do not, as you said yourself, blindly revert to items that are your preferred form. Kwamikagami and I have been working hard on this article in the two weeks that you have decided to disappear, only to change things you think are incorrect, whereas we have come up with a version together.—Ryulong (竜龙) 19:50, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Although I mostly agree with you, Ryulong (since AFAIK we've worked out whatever differences we may have had), I think Nanshu does have one valid point: According to our IW guidelines (WP:IL), "Interlanguage links are links from any page (most notably articles) in one Wikipedia language to one or more nearly equivalent or exactly equivalent pages in another Wikipedia language". The equivalent article to this one in other WP's will generally be the one that covers the entire island chain, not the one which uses the name 'Ryukyu'. That is, it shouldn't matter whether we call this article 'Ryukyu Islands' or 'Nansei Islands'; the topic is the same either way, and we should link to the same IW articles either way. — kwami (talk) 04:25, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

But then we cross the issue that most of the other projects have better articles on the Ryukyu Islands than they do on the Nansei Islands. For example, ja:南西諸島 is nothing more than a list of every island in the chain, while ja:琉球諸島 at least discusses something. The same goes for fr:Îles Ryūkyū/fr:Archipel Nansei and de:Nansei-Inseln/de:Ryūkyū-Inseln. Why should we point to the lower quality articles just because our new definition of the title incorporates their topic as a whole?—Ryulong (竜龙) 08:52, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

"most of the other projects have better articles on the Ryukyu Islands than they do on the Nansei Islands". Not at all. Most other WPs have a single article, called "Ryukyu", which covers all of the islands. Only a few WPs have two articles, and in many of those, including Japanese WP, there's little to choose one over the other.

"Why should we point to the lower quality articles"? Because there would be no end to it if we chose IW's not based on the subject, but on the quality of the article. Should 'English language' IW to 'English literature', if the latter article is better developed in some WP? It's not "our new definition of the title" that decides the article, its the subject of the article. It always has been. The title is just a label, and irrelevant. — kwami (talk) 09:05, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

But we have two geography articles. Some of which are lists and others are more fleshed out articles. It'd frankly be easier to just have both pages instead of picking one over the other.—Ryulong (竜龙) 09:17, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree. I've asked on the WP:IL page. They do say 'article or articles'. — kwami (talk) 09:57, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

No response, but I've very very rarely seen more than one IW per language, so I think that's s.t. we don't do. I've redone the IW's. One person editing the Chinese articles has tagged zh:南西群島 for deletion, so we IW'd to zh:琉球群岛 (in all WPs). I've tagged the Russian articles for merger. If we are allowed to double-IW, we can add the other articles once we get confirmation. — kwami (talk) 03:48, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

So now we are left with Nanshu's issue that 琉球諸島 should not be included in the lede. It is the Japanese form of "Ryukyu Islands", even if we now have determined that "Ryukyu Islands" and "Nansei Islands" are synonymous in English.—Ryulong (竜龙) 03:53, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't particularly care one way or the other about that. But I don't think we should say "Native name: Ryūkyū-shotō" in the info box, since that isn't really the Japanese name. — kwami (talk) 06:51, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

It's not the Japanese name of the Nansei Islands. But it is the Japanese name of the Ryukyu Islands. And I think we've determined that 琉球諸島 has a nebulous meaning in all of the languages.—Ryulong (竜龙) 07:46, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

But this article is about the 南西群島. Yes, 琉球群岛 can be used as a synonym, but it's rare, and certainly not the primary name. Rare enough IMO that it should be restricted to the naming section. — kwami (talk) 08:05, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

But the subject is still, in part, 琉球諸島, even if this name in Japan does not encompass the whole set all the time. We can't give the name "Ryukyu" and put it forward as an entirely English term in the lead, particularly when it is pervasive throughout the project. And we have some evidence that the name is synonymous in Japan, even if it is not the officially recognized term by the ministries of the Japanese government.—Ryulong (竜龙) 08:24, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

What you did just now is fine. I only objected to presenting 琉球群岛 as the primary name of the entire island chain in Japanese. I don't think I have any other problems with it. — kwami (talk) 09:03, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

FYI, you keep copying and pasting the simplified Chinese name.—Ryulong (竜龙) 09:22, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Didn't even notice. — kwami (talk) 09:29, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

The Ryukyu Islands (琉球諸島) cannot be same to the Nansei Islands (南西諸島).

"Treaty of San Francisco" article 3 has a phrase that "Nansei Shoto south of 29 degrees north latitude (including the Ryukyu Islands and the Daito Islands)".

So, the Ryukyu Islands cannot be same to the Nansei Islands.

The origin of the word "Ryukyu Islands" comes from the notation of "36-Liuqiu-islands (琉球三十六島)" the report of Xu Baoguang (zh:徐葆光) who was the Chinese co-envoy to Ryūkyū Kingdom, in 18th centry. And French monk father Gaubil of the Society of Jesus introduced them to the West. "Mémoire sur les îles que les Chinois appellent îles de Lieou-kieou, par le père Gaubil, missionnaire de la Compagnie de Jésus à Pekin". "36-Liuqiu-islands (琉球三十六島)" belong to the histricaly largest territory of the Ryūkyū Kingdom, and consists from Amami Islands (奄美群島), Okinawa Islands (沖縄諸島), Miyako Islands (宮古列島), Yaeyama Islands (八重山列島).

By the way, Amami Islands (奄美群島) was already discovered by the Japanese official ship to China, and returnd back to Japan in 1609. According to international law, Amami Islands (奄美群島) belongs to Japan, so Japanese government does not classify Amami Islands into the Ryukyu Islands (琉球諸島).

(Masanori Asami (talk) 11:17, 30 September 2012 (UTC))

The English language definition of the "Ryukyu Islands" differs vastly from the Japanese government's official definition. The Ryukyu Islands consist of the entirety of the chain between Kyushu and Taiwan. We decided on this merger a while ago because "Nansei Islands" has absolutely no usage in the modern English parlance. If you're here just to pull some bullshit nationalism you can just go back home.—Ryulong (琉竜) 13:28, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Do not delete "Wikisource of Treaty of San Francisco" . Cann't you discuss it fairly?

(Masanori Asami (talk) 13:39, 3 October 2012 (UTC))

I wrote the definition of "Ryukyu Islands" different from Japanese definition of "琉球諸島". Japanese definition of "琉球諸島" does not incluide Amami islands, but I wrote the definition of "Ryukyu Islands" include Amami islands.

Moreover, according to your definition of "Ryukyu Islands", you cannot understand the phraze of "Nansei Shoto south of 29° north latitude (including the Ryukyu Islands and the Daito Islands)" in the article 3 of "Treaty of San Francisco".

For the word "Ryukyu Islands", most important aim is to understand the article 3 of "Treaty of San Francisco".Wikipedia must provide the definition that the interpretation of the treaty is possible.

But I do not want to have a sterile argument with an incomprehensible person, so I decide the traditional definition jointly particularly.(Masanori Asami (talk) 14:21, 3 October 2012 (UTC))

This is the English Wikipedia which uses the current and most common definition of the "Ryukyu Islands" in the English language. We decided several months ago that "Nansei Islands" is not a common name in the English language, and "Ryukyu Islands" is for everything in the chain. The 1951 Treaty of San Francisco may have treated the Amamis, etc., as separate because of Japan's insistence that they gain sovereignty of the Nansei Islands administered as part of Kagoshima Prefecture, but the Anglophone governments, academics, etc., translate Nansei Shotō as "Ryukyu Islands".—Ryulong (琉竜) 14:37, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Also "Ryukyu Arc" is synonymous, even if the Daito Islands are not part of the arc geologically, so stop turning Ryukyu Arc into a content fork.—Ryulong (琉竜) 14:50, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I imagine that the "importance" of the treaty is due to the current territorial dispute with China. However, most people looking up the Ryukyu Islands are simply interested in the Ryukyu Islands. We do explain the different conceptions of the name, so the treaty is covered regardless. — kwami (talk) 17:49, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

There are needs not only to understand Treaty of San Francisco, but also to know and imagine the "Ryukyu-kingdom(琉球王国 Ryūkyū Kingdom)" and "United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands(琉球列島米国民政府)" as follows.

For someone who lives English speaking area who is going to travel to the place where once belonged to "Ryukyu-kingdom (琉球王国 Ryūkyū Kingdom)", perhaps the one imagine and expect "the Ryukyu Islands" are the place where once belonged to Ryukyu-kingdom. But, Tanegashima(種子島) and Yaku-shima (屋久島) of Satsunan Islands (薩南諸島) (however seet islans they maybe) are nomore "the Ryukyu Islands" for the want be a traveler to visit the place where once belonged to Ryukyu-kingdom.

For grandchildren whose grandfather once was a soldier assigned to "United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands(琉球列島米国民政府)" who want to know and imagine the life of their grandfather in the Ryukyu Islands, the Ryukyu Islands must be the islands once have been governd by United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands.

For Ryukyu-American whose ancestor emigrated from Okinawa (Ryukyu) Japan to US who want to know and imagine the life of their ancestor, the Ryukyu Islands must be the islands once had been governd by "Ryukyu-kingdom.

(Masanori Asami (talk) 00:47, 4 October 2012 (UTC))

There's no "must" about it. — kwami (talk) 01:03, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Most of persons who want to know the definition of Ryukyu Island are the persons who want to understand Treaty of San Francisco or who want to know or imagine the "Ryukyu-kingdom(琉球王国 Ryūkyū Kingdom)" or "United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands(琉球列島米国民政府)" I showed above. So, there are "must". And There's no "must" restrict　only one definition which causes the difficulty to understand Treaty of San Francisco and to know or imagine the "Ryukyu-kingdom(琉球王国 Ryūkyū Kingdom)" or "United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands(琉球列島米国民政府)" .

(Masanori Asami (talk) 01:11, 4 October 2012 (UTC))

There are two definitions of the "Ryukyu Islands" in a certain online dictionary.

Please see the definition of Ryukyu Islands by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia. There are two definitions in it.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Ryukyu+Islands

>Ryu·kyu Islands

>An island group of southwest Japan extending about 1,046 km (650 mi) between Kyushu and Taiwan.

>The archipelago was incorporated into Japan in 1879 and returned to Japanese sovereignty in 1972 after occupation by U.S. forces following World War II.

(There is a contradiction in it, for Tanegashima(種子島) and Yaku-shima (屋久島) of Ōsumi Islands (大隅諸島) had never been under the rule of "United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands(琉球列島米国民政府)" . )

And there is the another definition as follows.

>Ryukyu Islands

>(Placename) a chain of 55 islands in the W Pacific, extending almost 650 km (400 miles) from S Japan to N Taiwan:

>an ancient kingdom, under Chinese rule from the late 14th century, invaded by Japan in the early 17th century,

>under full Japanese sovereignty from 1879 to 1945, and US control from 1945 to 1972; now part of Japan again.

(Masanori Asami (talk) 01:51, 4 October 2012 (UTC))

These two definitions are identical. They cover everything between Kyushu and Taiwan. Also, stop putting up a content fork at Ryukyu Arc. There is nothing that you have put there that is not covered here.—Ryulong (琉竜) 06:39, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

How shameless you are! (Masanori Asami (talk) 14:49, 6 October 2012 (UTC))

Are "1,046 km (650 mi)" and "650 km (400 miles) " equal?(Masanori Asami (talk) 14:49, 6 October 2012 (UTC))

They both mention the islands between "South Japan" and "Taiwan". The numbers used are inconsequential (as neither seem to be correct). Lay down the stick and comment on the content and not the contributor.—Ryulong (琉竜) 15:00, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Island arc

I reverted your addition to the Ryukyu Islands article because it was incorrect. The island arc is one of five chains that form three systems of the Boso Triple Junction, there are more than two arcs and this one is geologically unique and important, it is the equivalent of deleting the article on the Morrison Formation. Eau(W)oo (talk) 03:47, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

I moved the above from my talk page. You are correct, but was a revert necessary? You could have just added "southern". Right now the article doesn't even link to island arc (or mention the concept). Tijfo098 (talk) 03:55, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the revert was necessary; my knowledge of the system is sufficient to know how wrong the addition was, but not sufficient to add the information in lay terms without a source. I consider it preferable to remove wrong information if one cannot immediately correct it. Just adding "southern" would have still left the sentence as an inaccurate description, as if you said a box is a volume with eight corners. Eau(W)oo (talk) 04:05, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it should link to island arc, they are volcanoes, there is a trench. It is a complex system, though, and I do not know where it divides, as the northern part is usually distinct, for some geological reason, also, the outer trench system is not as complicated, hense a more thorough article already, as this system is complicated by the outer arc and stresses across both plates and/or other reasons. Give me a few million years, and I will be glad to write up the stratigraphy, but it would he a lot of research to write more than I did. There is probably an Annual Review article on the Boso Triple Junction with an introduction that could be used for it. Eau(W)oo (talk) 04:16, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Mixing of two things in english article lead to errors in some other language wikis

There are two different article in japanese; Ryukyu islands (ja:琉球諸島) and Nansei islands (ja:南西諸島), several other languages (ko:, fr:, de:, ru:, pl: ...) made the difference too. The problem in english version made lot of problems in other wikis. some use sometime english as reference, and this make a non-sens situation. There is still interwiki link in articles, where wikidata, should be the only usage since one or two years now.Popolon (talk) 17:31, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

We've merged the two concepts into a single page because that's how it works in English.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 17:15, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

"Ryūkyū" in Okinawan

When I changed "ルーチュー" to "るーちゅー" For traditionality and got reverted, I started looking for what Ryūkyūans actually called this and found "うるま" and "宇流麻" in addition to various forms of "琉球". I know a city on Okinawa Island was named after "an old name" and for whatever reason was written in Hiragana instead of Kanji. User:Ryulong can't comment directly on this, but I'll gladly copy and paste if he says something on his talk page about this. But should this second name be added to the article somewhere? ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 03:47, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

The history section highlights Japan's history more than the history of the Ryûkyûs

In the current version there are multiple sections discussing the Shimazu Clan, Tanegashima, two other Islands that did not belong to the Ryûkyû cultural area and after that "the Okinawa Islands" as if it wasn't the major focus of the entire article. In contrast to this the history of the area is not discussed with the events on the island as a subject. Therefore I propose to delete the multiple Kyushu sections (and link them to articles on Kyushu etc) and to replace it with a narration of Ryûkyû's history with a focus on itself.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:C22:3A06:1B01:5AB0:35FF:FE84:735D (talk • contribs)

This is covered at History of Okinawa Prefecture/History of the Ryukyu Islands/wherever it is.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 07:18, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

The section goes into more detail about Tanegashima clan than it does the Ryūkyū Kingdom, and hardly mentions the influence of China (which was as important if not more important than Japan's ATT). The whole thing needs to be expanded or removed to balance out all the undue weight. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 07:29, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Currently in the process of adding ALL relevant history per Nanshu's precedent, starting with Chinese interaction and all of the major island groups. Someone reading the article before my additions would be led to believe that the islands have always had direct Japanese and no Chinese influence, that nothing happened on Okinawa before 1429 or even 1609, and that no people or significant events exist in the Sakishima Islands. This is blatant bias on Nanshu's part. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 21:58, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

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Ambiguous word 'beyond' needs replacement

In the second paragraph of the article, it says "The islands beyond the Tokara Strait are characterized by their coral reefs." "Beyond" requires a point of view for the perspective, but as an outsider, I have no idea which direction is "Beyond" in this context. Please restate with an absolute rather than referential direction/area, thanks. (e.g., The islands West/East/North/South of the Tokara Strait are characterized by their coral reefs.") 24.77.16.7 (talk) 01:23, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

I have to agree that the word 'beyond' is unclear and should be replaced. UnderEducatedGeezer (talk) 07:04, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Population

There’s a population section, but it’s really about the inhabitants, the peoples living on the islands. The actual population, in numbers, gets no mention. Boscaswell talk 06:08, 19 July 2021 (UTC)