Talk:Tai chi

Requested move 13 June 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. WP:COMMONNAME (non-admin closure) SilverLocust (talk) 02:43, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

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Tai chi → ? – Note to admins: please keep this discussion posted for at least few weeks even if there's consensus on a move; last time a number of editors missed the window to participate.

The current title of this page, "Tai chi" is a less common equally common version of Tai Chi, the English-language WP:COMMONNAME for this art. That's the simplest option for a move, but editors have pointed out two issues with that name. First, although "Tai Chi" is based on the Wade–Giles romanization of 太極, it doesn't use correct Wade-Giles conventions (should be "T'ai Chi"). Second, it's imprecise. I'm not an expert, but it seems that T'ai Chi refers to the philosophy that the martial art is based on (太極), not the martial art itself (太極拳).

The two alternative suggestions are T'ai Chi Ch'uan (the correct way of writing 太極拳 in Wade-Giles) and Taijiquan, the way 太極拳 is romanized in pinyin. These are more precise but less common. Taijiquan has the additional advantage of being in pinyin, which is the romanization system considered standard these days. The Google ngram comparing usage over time

I'd be happy with any of these alternatives (Tai Chi, T'ai Chi Ch'uan, or Taijiquan), so long as we keep all of the related pages consistent. My tentative vote is for Taijiquan, because even though it's less common than Tai Chi, it is more precise and uses the modern system of romanization used elsewhere on Wikipedia. SilverStar54 (talk) 16:53, 13 June 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. CLYDE ^{TALK TO ME}/_{STUFF DONE} (please mention me on reply) 07:28, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

I assume you read through the "Tai Chi without the fist" thread above; and I would like to assume you read through some of the referenced threads in the archive of this page. I still have an inkling that this page could use a better name, but the others convinced me that the project is too arduous. If a decade later, enthusiastic editors want to make a change I would stay abreast and involved. TommyKirchhoff (talk) 19:06, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm happy to help with standardizing references to whatever name editors agree upon. I obviously can't do all of it alone, but I've been working on fixing MOS:CHINA issues for a while now and would add this to my list of things to look for. SilverStar54 (talk) 20:33, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

I've no horse in this race (I just happened to the page randomly and noticed the inconsistencies), but if I had to cast a vote, it would be Tai Chi, just because it's common use. Still, I would like for the article to be added a paragraph summarizing SilverStar54's finds. If the article's title were one of the other terms, I wouldn't know at a glance what it would be talking about; but I would want to learn about those other terms while reading about it. Kumagoro-42 (talk) 21:03, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

• T'ai Chi Ch'uan would fit the full name used in most English-language book titles, and by every place I've seen that teaches it. Tai Chi, the most common "for short" name, as a redirect [→dab; see below], would continue to be a quick way to look the article up. Taijiquan would continue to be mentioned in the lede. – .Raven  .talk 05:07, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

  Links for examples:

• https://www.britannica.com/sports/tai-chi-chuan
• https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Tai_chi_chuan
• https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/tai-chi-chuan-0
• http://encyclopedia.uia.org/en/development/11802820
• https://mwc.en-academic.com/117087/t%27ai
• https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/t-ai-chi-ch-uan
• https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/tai-chi-chuan
• https://www.infoplease.com/dictionary/taichichuan   [Random House Dictionary]
• https://books.google.com/books?q=t'ai-chi-ch'uan   [books]
• https://www.google.com/search?q=%2BT'ai-Chi-Ch'uan+school   [schools]

See also the usage of other Wikipedias, like Simple English: Tai chi chuan

 

– .Raven  .talk 03:18, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

And I would amend my above suggestion to instead suggest that Tai Chi, and alternate capitalization Tai chi, should not be simple redirect pages, but rather disambiguation pages re Taijitu (the T'ai Chi or Yin-Yang disc) vs T'ai Chi Ch'uan. – .Raven  .talk 03:38, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

• Tai chi is my vote. I think WP:COMMONNAME clearly applies. The term has existed in English long enough that it's become an English word of its own with its own associated spelling, much like marijuana, Delhi, or Japan. Ambiguity isn't a problem because anyone who comes here looking for the philosophical concept will see the hatnote. As for capitalization, I just did an informal literature search, and it seems the lowercase form is the most common in books and scientific journals. That's consistent with how karate and capoeira are lowercase except at the beginnings of sentences. Justin Kunimune (talk) 14:14, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

  That's a good point that the un-capitalized version would appear as "tai chi" when it isn't at the start of a sentence. Google ngram shows that the sum of "Tai chi" + "tai chi" is equally as popular as "Tai Chi". SilverStar54 (talk) 16:26, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

  Thanks for that, SilverStar54. I see [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Tai+Chi%2CTai+chi%2Btai+chi&year_start=2018&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3 the same but for 2018-2019, "Tai chi" + "tai chi" is ahead of "Tai Chi". Unless it has a very close relationship with a person of that name, "tai chi" is it for me. Facts707 (talk) 18:29, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

• Tai chi (tai chi if not at the begining of a sentence or in a title of a book etc.) is my vote. Similar to how karate, kung fu, jujutsu, etc. have evolved to become simple English common terms. T'ai Chi Ch'uan is fine for a formal name but few English-speaking writers will remember those apostrophes correctly. Facts707 (talk) 18:37, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

  Redirects would ensure they don't have to remember the exact full name – but the title should use it. – .Raven  .talk 03:09, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

• Tai chi (no move) sentence case for the article title, lowercase in the body when not the beginning of a sentence per MOS:CONCISE, MOS:FIELD and MOS:SPORTCAPS. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:41, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

  Follow-up comment: My comment is primarily about using WP:SENTENCECASE, not about whether to include "ch'uan" or apostrophes, although at the moment I am leaning toward MOS:CONCISEness. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:09, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose per Justinkunimune - this is now an English word and the details of Chinese romanization are not determining. Walt Yoder (talk) 23:36, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Relisting comment: Per nomination request. CLYDE ^{TALK TO ME}/_{STUFF DONE} (please mention me on reply) 07:28, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose, principally per Justin Kunimune. "Tai chi" has come to be an WP:ESTABLISHED English term in its own right, so it's best to use the English WP:COMMONNAME even if it's not the romanization that would normally be preferred. See also WP:NC-CHINA#Romanization for further corroboration. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 18:53, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose: The common phrase is tai chi in English. I can see how technically that name is wrong, but it is the present reality and Wikipedia follows reality rather than rights wrongs. There's no need for capitalization as the names of martial arts are not proper nouns and this name is based on a philosophy which is not named based on proper nouns, and the phrase is not overwhelmingly capitalized in sources. After closing, the article should be cleaned up and this and other martial arts' capitalization should be cleaned up on Wikipedia. SchreiberBike | ⌨  22:00, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
• Strong oppose, possible WP:SNOW close. The common name in English is so obviously "tai chi" that there's not a snowball's chance in hell this page will be moved. O.N.R. ^(talk) 12:17, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose (keep at current name) arguments above and I was curious what newspapers.com would show for both total (approximate counts) and when they occurred (afaik it's case insensitive and I'm not going through the number of hits to use this to help determine that). And based on these numbers, I'd need to see a pretty strong argument that tai chi is "wrong" enough somehow to override WP:COMMONNAME: tai chi: 602,832 (this may catch some "t'ai" as well but not many based on a scan) begins rising in the mid-1970s, hitting peak at ~1998, with a small decline since but still substantial); T'ai Chi Ch'uan: 10,241 with large peak at 1974 (probably a book was published or otherwise popularized as that name) since then fairly low but consistent; T'ai Chi: 58,757, which will include all of the previous one and a few false positives from just "t'ai chi"; Taijiquan: 1,617 spiky with peaks at 2007 and 2019. Skynxnex (talk) 14:20, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

  > "I'd need to see a pretty strong argument that tai chi is "wrong" enough..." — That it's ambiguous, and refers also to the Yin-Yang or Tai Chi disc or symbol (tàijítú as distinct from tàijíquán), is a strong reason Tai chi should be a disambiguation page like Taiji (disambiguation). – .Raven  .talk 15:55, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

It's not really ambiguous, since neither taiji nor taijitu are called "tai chi" in English (they're both spelled with a "j" in English). Justin Kunimune (talk) 16:34, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

> "neither taiji nor taijitu are called 'tai chi' in English"

Not to wall-of-text you, here are three examples:

• https://www.lovetoknow.com/home/design-decor/tai-chi-symbol — e.g. "In addition to the male and female representation, the tai chi also embodies the Ten Thousand Things, which includes the four major compass directions and the four seasons."
• http://www.newcastletaichi.co.uk/yinyang.htm — e.g. "The Chinese symbol called 'tai chi' or the 'supreme ultimate' contains yin and yang. Yin is black and yang is white. Tai chi combines yin and yang to produce a process of dynamic balancing."
• http://defense-arts-center.com/tai-ji-quan-1 — e.g. "Many people interchange the use of Tai Chi and Tai Ji Quan or Tai Chi Ch’uan because it is popularly known as Tai Chi. This often causes confusion. Tai Chi is actually the Yin/Yang Diagram. This symbolizes the two opposing forces of the universe. It can be translated into 'the Grand Ultimate'. / When most Americans hear the words 'Tai Chi', they think of the slow movements of the discipline of Tai Ji Quan or Tai Chi Ch’uan. The 'quan' or ch’uan' means 'using the tai chi (yin/yang) as a martial art' or Tai Chi Boxing."

In light of the last clear distinction, rather than contribute to the (admittedly common) "confusion", shouldn't we also be clear in that same distinction? Not to 'right great wrongs', but rather, merely, not to add to a wrong. – .Raven  .talk 20:29, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Interesting, I stand corrected on that point. But as Skynxnex says, a hatnote rather than a disambiguation page is still the correct way to handle it as per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Justin Kunimune (talk) 17:58, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

My sense is that in English "tai chi" referring to this article is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and so depending on the number of potential other articles we have it can be handled by hatnotes on this article and/or a new disambiguation page at Tai chi (disambiguation). (Added: It looks like that disambiguation page is at Taiji (disambiguation) already and is mentioned in the hatnote, which seems okay to me?) Skynxnex (talk) 17:34, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

In that case, Tai Chi and Tai chi could redirect to Taiji (disambiguation) and let that help the reader find whichever article best fits what they're searching for... perhaps it might be Tai Chi (band), or Tai Chi (TVB). – .Raven  .talk 20:35, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

> "tai chi: 602,832" -and- "T'ai Chi: 58,757"
How many of those refer to the martial art (aka tàijíquán), and how many of those refer to the Yin-Yang symbol (aka tàijítú)?

References to the symbol don't logically support using that term "primarily" for the martial art.

Also, did your search for "tai chi" (etc.) exclude the sites where the next word was "ch'uan" or "chuan"?

Otherwise, we should propose that "United" is the "primary" and "common" name for "United States of America", because the single word occurs more commonly — even though we'd be counting hits on other topics and even on that nation's full name. – .Raven  .talk 02:00, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

I scanned through close to a hundred results for "tai chi" and then tried adding "yin" or "yang" or "symbol" and the closest I found were articles talking about tai chi (martial art) that also referred to "tai chi symbol" or "symbol for tai chi". So, out of the ~660,000... very few.

I had meant to search for and include all of the distinct spellings terms to try to adjust for the prefix problem (since newspapers.com, at least as far as I know, you can't exclude terms in results) "tai chi ch'uan": 14,493 and "tai chi chuan": 52,056 (with a moderate number of all three punctuation forms in all three results, so probably under 60,000 total including the 10,241 for "t'ai chi ch'uan" from above). Skynxnex (talk) 02:31, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Okay, I'll take that as good indication of WP:COMMONNAME, thus strong argument for WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. In other words, agreeing to:

• Oppose.

– .Raven  .talk 03:58, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article for Improvement

So, we got notification at WP:CHINA that this article is currently listed at Wikipedia:Articles for improvement, which I'd never heard of. And it uh needs a lot of improvement!

Is anyone active here who was involved in creating this article? I feel like there was some nonsense a few years back (not involving the {{wg-apos}} used in article titles against consensus), but I can't remember anything clearly. Why is there a huge family tree tagged as Original Research? Does anyone have any details on any of the books listed without isbns? Or page numbers from anything?

Also the layout could use some work. There are a lot of lists that could be prose, and a lot of stuff explained using only Chinese martial arts or Chinese medicine terms that don't really establish what they mean. And the health benefits section looks like someone did a search for tai chi related medical articles and gave them each a two sentence summary ordered by year.

I took care of a lot of trivial punctuation and formatting issues, and I don't have a clear way forwards to propose, but I'm hoping some people involved in content creation for this article are currently active to help out, because there's a lot of work to be done. Folly Mox (talk) 08:36, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

User:InferKNOX, do you have any sources for Template:Tai chi lineage tree? There's none on the template page and it's tagged as OR here. Folly Mox (talk) 00:01, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Taiji (philosophy) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 18:46, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

"Taichi" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Taichi has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 November 6 § Taichi until a consensus is reached. SilverStar54 (talk) 02:59, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Concerning the refusal to change "Tai Chi" to "Taiji Quan"

'Taiji Quan' (Pronounced: 'TAI GEE CHWENN') is the appropriate pronunciation and transcript of this martial art. Taiji Quan has always been the correct pronunciation of the name of this art in Mandarin Chinese - the language of its founders, which is spoken by hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Taiji Quan has been the official Chinese Government transcript for the name of this art since Pinyin was adopted by all of China, in the year 1958. Pinyin, and the term Taiji Quan, have also been adopted by Singapore (1980), the United Nations (1982) and Taiwan (2009). Accordingly, the Wikipedia page 'Tai Chi (philosophy)' was changed in 2023, by WP:RM vote, to Taiji (philosophy). The Daoist Philosophical concept of Taiji, is where the art Taiji Quan derives its name from. Hence, it is called 'Taiji Quan'. Many Westerners know it as "Tai Chi" by accident, really. An older and highly inaccurate version of Mandarin Chinese transcript method, called Wade-Giles, had it written as "Tai Chi". But as noted before, this is not how the art's name is truly pronounced.

This topic needs no vote, really, but simply an education. Has any of you ever been to mainland China? Or spoken with a Mandarin-Chinese speaker? Because if you had, then you would know that Taiji Quan is how the art's name sounds and is written. The 'Q' in 'Quan' is like a 'CH' sound in English, in this instance. This is a no-brainer. This transcript for the term is used in any book that mentions this martial arts, which had been officially translated from Mandarin Chinese over the past few decades. Moreover, that ALL universities and colleges worldwide that teach Chinese, use PinYin as the transcript standard. Therefore, in almost ANY Mandarin Chinese class in ANY American or European college or university, the art's name would be written as 'Taiji Quan' (or Taijiquan). No one uses "Tai Chi", because the Wade-Giles transcript is plain wrong, outdated, anachronistic, and has long ceased to be a part of the mainstream.

The claim that "Tai Chi" should be preserved as "the correct pronunciation", simply because "Westerners have grown accustomed to it and it is now a part of the English Language", is no less than cultural appropriation and cultural racism. Who are you, non-Chinese speakers, to tell the Chinese, who invented Taiji Quan, and still teach it far more commonly than Westerners, that they should call they art how you see fit? How exactly does that make any sense?

There are several other reasons which merit that change from "Tai Chi" to "Taiji Quan" as well.

In the anachronistic Wade-Giles transcript, Chi (Qi energy) is written the same as the "Chi" of "Tai Chi". But the Chinese characters are entirely different. The Chi 氣 of "energy" is NOT the same as the Chi 太 of Tai Chi, which is actually pronounced as 'Ji'. This is why in Pin-Yin, there are Qi and Ji, and not Chi and Chi. Pin-Yin is superior, hence its dominance and widespread acceptance. As you can see, the Pin-Yin version was also accepted in the Wiki page for Qi (Energy).

What else is that "Tai Chi" is devoid of the end of the term in Chinese: Quan (or "Chuan" in Wade-Giles). The word Quan 拳 means "Fist", and the art's name is therefore "The Fist of Taiji"; or - 'Taiji Boxing'. Without the suffix Quan 拳, it would not have been considered a martial art in Chinese.

I call upon you to undo your own cultural and linguistic ignorance! Test my claims and verify them for yourselves, in real life, outside of a computer screen.

2A0D:6FC2:5171:A400:DC07:7328:C69C:50A (talk) 21:34, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

On Wikipedia we go by the 'Common name' in English (see WP:COMMONNAME) which sometimes differs from the technically correct name or the one used in the originating language. So you could very well be correct, but on the English language Wikipedia, 'Tai chi' is still the name to be used according to the titling policy. MrOllie (talk) 22:35, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

And yet, although the common names for Taiji and Qi are still "Tai Chi" and "Chi", both those Wikipedia pages were converted from Wade-Giles transcript to Pin-Yin. Why? Because Wade-Giles is now considered dead internationally by the Academia, Governments and the United Nations. There has been a global decision that humanity is getting rid of Wade-Giles, as it is not representative of Mandarin Chinese. Accordingly, why should this page be any different?... Also, Taiji Quan is, in fact, in common usage in most of the newer literature and publications about the art. The trouble is that the majority of English sources mentioned on Wikipedia are older. Another issue is that many people that use the term 'Taiji Quan' in private and in their classes, advertise with the anachronism "Tai Chi" to broaden their sales. Should Wikipedia represent the truth of things, or be a contest of popularity? Because what is popular can be false, and also motivated by biased agendas. 2A0D:6FC2:5171:A400:DC07:7328:C69C:50A (talk) 23:11, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

the anachronism "Tai Chi" to broaden their sales. That's exactly the point. If 'Tai Chi' were not the common name they would not have to do that. Should Wikipedia represent the truth of things, or be a contest of popularity? Because what is popular can be false You've fallen into a common misconception of what Wikipedia is. See WP:NOTTRUTH for some explanation. Wikipedia does indeed follow the 'popular' view of the sources and not an editor's personal opinions of what is true. MrOllie (talk) 23:24, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

For comparison, searching PUBMED:

• "tai chi" yields 2,687 results[1]
• 'Taiji Quan' yields 6 results[2]

If the search is limited to 2024 only, the results are 207 and zero. Bon courage (talk) 02:21, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

If spelled correctly by the rules of Hanyu Pinyin, "taijiquan" gets 47 results, and 5 for 2024. But to your point, that's not enough and the WP:COMMONNAME decision still stands. Even "t'ai chi" has more results, at 147 and zero. Jōkepedia (talk) 02:42, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Re this I’m not sure I have got the capitalisation right. And do we need the quotation marks? Single or double? Anyone who knows please change it if needed. Thanks --Dustfreeworld (talk) 14:37, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

You've got the correct capitalization and spacing to reflect common usage. I could go on and on here about the rules of capitalization and spacing in Hanyu Pinyin and English, not to mention hyphens in Wade-Giles, but what you entered in your new article section correctly reflects common English usage. And although quotation marks would be necessary were I to use any of those terms in this reply, quotation marks are not necessary in your new article section. Jōkepedia (talk) 15:18, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

There is a sidebox with several transcriptions. Are these correct? Bon courage (talk) 15:25, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

The Hanyu Pinyin, Wade-Giles, and Jyutping romanizations are correct. I do not know the others. Jōkepedia (talk) 16:54, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

• And I've just remember a name change was discussed last year: see #Requested move 13 June 2023. Bon courage (talk) 02:50, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

@IP, let’s relax, that’s just a name ...

Just a name change won’t change the nature of something. If it’s good, it’s good. If it’s bad, it’s still bad, no matter what name we change it to.

Well, back to the issue, as this is the English Wikipedia, and it’s just about the name, I think we should follow the common practice of most native English speakers for this naming / language discrepancy.

I don’t think many (if any) Westerners will care about whether the Chinese call Istanbul “伊斯坦堡” or “伊斯坦布尔”. So why people who speak Chinese should care about whether the Westerners call something “Tai chi” or “Taijiquan”?

In linguistics we follow what’s established in popular usage (the unwritten rule that people generally accept and obey), there’s no right or wrong, correct or incorrect (and people likely won’t care what the martial art inventor thinks, they probably just happen to choose a name that is easier to pronounce or shorter).

That said, I don’t see any reason why we can’t be more inclusive, let our readers know more about the different names people may use, and follow closer to our style guidelines. I’ve edited the page to reflect that.

Aside, if we really want to discuss how logical the name is, there are some tai chi practices that use other weapons, such as swords or spears, so it’s not just “boxing”. BTW, Wikipedia editors AGF and I don’t think there’s any “biased agenda”… --Dustfreeworld (talk) 14:27, 30 September 2024 (UTC)