Talk:House of Nguyễn Phúc

Chinese

IMO, Chinese should go in the footnotes rather than interrupt the running text. This example seems egregious "Emperor Bảo Đại became "citizen Vĩnh Thụy" (公民永瑞, công dân Vĩnh Thụy)." Who was using Chinese in 1945? Certainly not Bao Dai. Classical Chinese lost official status in 1919. Bao Dai's laws were issued in French together with an official Vietnamese translation. 99to99 (talk) 17:03, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

This 1946 photograph would argue differently.

@99to99:, in 1945 Phạm Khắc Hòe indexed the Nguyễn family treasures in Latin script for the first time, in the 1940's official Nguyễn Dynasty certificates of merit were still issued in Classical Chinese, Traditional Chinese characters were still used in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as late as 1952 on its banknotes. The only thing I can name of that happened in 1919 was the abolition of the imperial examination system (which was abolished in the Manchu Qing Dynasty earlier in 1904, and Taiwan kept using Classical Chinese until the mid-1970's). There isn't a clear date that Traditional Chinese characters stopped being used in Vietnam other than the early 1950's (certainly before the establishment of the Republic of Vietnam). I'm not arguing that laws were still issued in Classical Chinese, just that it was still used by the government this late. --Donald Trung (talk) 17:50, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Speaking of Chinese, I was planning on adding the Traditional Chinese names of all of its members to the list. --Donald Trung (talk) 17:52, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

To me, that sounds like a nightmare. Putting Chinese everywhere just makes the article more difficult to read. There is a separate Chinese-language section of Wikipedia, you know. If you look at any published English language history of Vietnam, they don't use Chinese characters at all. Vietnamese Wikipedia uses a whole lot less Chinese than we do.

Hong Kong and Taiwan still use traditional characters (chữ Hán/汉子). You studied Classical Chinese (Trung Quốc cổ điển/文言) to pass the Imperial Exams, both in China and in Vietnam. In China, Classical Chinese was replaced by Mandarin (baihua) at the time of May Fourth Movement in 1919. 99to99 (talk) 18:48, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Traditional Chinese characters add context, the same Chinese characters can be read in different ways (hence some members of the family call themselves "Nguyễn Phúc" while others call themselves "Nguyễn Phước"). For example "長" could be read as "tràng", "trường", "trưởng", "dài", "chường", "trành", and "trườn". In contrast "Xu" in Nôm is 枢, 趨, 趋, 搊, 趍, 諏, 鲰, 犓, 㗙, 鯫, 趍, 趋, 樞, 姝, and 趨. Of course Traditional Chinese characters shouldn't be anachronistically added to post-1954 Vietnamese topics so they probably shouldn't be added to the pretenders, but all earlier Nguyễn Emperors, Kings, and Lords used Chinese characters.

Regarding Taiwan:

"Most government documents in the Republic of China were written in Classical Chinese until reforms in the 1970s, in a reform movement spearheaded by President Yen Chia-kan to shift the written style to vernacular Chinese."

This situation isn't too different in Vietnam, while Vernacular Vietnamese became a popular language around the same time as the May Fourth Movement, but Classical Chinese remained being used by Nguyễn Dynasty mandarins. The 1939 Tonkinese government bulletin still used Traditional Chinese characters on its cover. When historians work with old texts they don't just rely on modern translations without the primary sources for context, the primary sources are necessary for verification and Chinese characters fulfill this in pre-1950's Vietnamese.

Of course, in French Cochinchina Traditional Chinese characters were never used as the French introduced Latin script there during the 1860's. --Donald Trung (talk) 20:41, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

State of Vietnam

I have no idea what to write about the titles of the Bảo Đại Emperor during the State of Vietnam period, I find conflicting accounts of the "Chief of State" title and what it meant. It was specifically created for Bảo Đại and was likewise reserved only for him, the implications of the State of Vietnam's government system were very vague (perhaps deliberately so) and I have heard many historians describe it as "Monarchist" but I wouldn't refer to it as such, likewise the State of Vietnam wasn't a clear Republic either.

Bảo Đại himself in his autobiography insists that his official title was "Emperor, Chief of State" and the French even had a re-crowning ceremony in Hanoi after they re-conquered it from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam where the French commissioner stated "The Nguyễn Dynasty is gone, now the Nguyễn Dynasty returns" or "Bảo Đại is gone, now Bảo Đại is back" (having read different accounts by different historians) indicating that the French saw it as the restauration of the Nguyễn Dynasty, but Vietnamese sources (both modern and contemporary) refer to Bảo Đại as "Former Emperor" throughout. Likewise places like Sip Song Chau Tai were "Crown domains of the Vietnamese Emperor", but the wording all seems very vague or not if the Nguyễn Dynasty was restored or not.

My guess is that the French kept it all deliberately vague in order to not upset both the Monarchists and Republicans, was the State of Vietnam a partial monarchy where the Domain of the Crown was ruled by an Emperor and the rest a Republic? Or was it a monarchy all but in name? --Donald Trung (talk) 11:42, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

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"Content fork"

@DrKay:, please explain that? The other article is about the historical state, this is about the family that ruled it. This was created in response to another user creating a POV fork. --Donald Trung (talk) 05:52, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

google search for "House of Nguyễn Phúc" = 0 reliable sources. DrKay (talk) 05:55, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

@DrKay:, there's been a user that has been adding actual hoaxes to articles for a year now and administrators do nothing, but this which has been edited extensively by multiple users get redirected??? Then rename it "House of Nguyễn" it is about the imperial family which is "Nguyễn Phuc toc" in Vietnamese which translates to "House of Nguyen phuc", many users that edited this page have been Vietnamese and didn't see anything wrong with the title. The other article is about the state ruled by this family and they ruled another state for two centuries. --Donald Trung (talk) 05:58, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

The merger wouldn't make much sense, this article discusses a period from 1600 until present while the Nguyễn dynasty article discusses a period from 1802 to 1945. There is also arguably more here about the Nguyễn lords than the Dynasty. Which in Vietnamese historiography cover different periods. Furthermore, "House of Habsburg" and "Habsburg Monarchy" are also different articles. --Donald Trung (talk) 06:07, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

google search for "House of Habsburg" = 720,000 hits. DrKay (talk) 06:12, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Wow, English, a European language, discusses a European ruling family more, colour me surprised. The issue with dealing with concepts in other languages is that if no good English-language name exists these sometimes have to be used and as "House of" is the rule it was used here, note that the original creator of this page wasn't even Kauffner but another user. Many other Vietnamese dynasties have "House of" in their leads, but this family ruled over multiple Vietnamese States throughout Vietnamese history. --Donald Trung (talk) 06:22, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

The use of 'house' is itself racist. It's imposing a Western name on an Eastern dynasty. All the sources call this family the Nguyen dynasty. Hence, that is what it should be called. No source calls it the house of Nguyen Phuc, hence we should not invent a non-existent and inapplicable term for a topic that is already well-covered in English-language literature under a standard common name. DrKay (talk) 06:38, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

@DrKay:, "The use of 'house' is itself racist. It's imposing a Western name on an Eastern dynasty. All the sources call this family the Nguyen dynasty. Hence, that is what it should be called. " is a very bold claim, namely that the naming itself is racist as it concerns a "royal house" (imperial house, actually) and the naming convention is based on the Vietnamese word "Nhà" which literally means "house" (including a residential facility). But then again, this article both is and isn't about the "Nhà" but the "Hoàng tộc" (which I personally would rather translate as "Imperial clan"), the article "List of Vietnamese dynasties" reads "In the Vietnamese language, the word for "dynasty" may be written as either nhà (茹) or triều (朝) depending on the context. The former is generally used to denote the ruling family whereas the latter refers to the dynastic regime. For instance, the Mạc dynasty can be rendered as "Nhà Mạc" (茹莫) or "Mạc triều" (莫朝)." this is somewhat the same as in Chinese historiography to use the term "Dynasty" in European languages but Vietnamese do differentiate between ruling houses and dynastic states. Currently Trần Dynasty, Trịnh Lords, Lý Dynasty, Early Lê Dynasty, and Đinh Dynasty all contain "House of XXX" in the lead. To be fair, this was done by POV-pushing hoaxster that has an admitted agenda of wanting to remove the Chinese concept of a "Dynasty" from Vietnamese articles. But the idea still stands, this article could have a better title but it is clear that a ruling family of a state is different from the state itself, the hoax-spreader attempted to re-write all articles about Vietnamese dynasties to be "less Chinese" and started inventing new definitions that made no sense by deliberately misinterpreting reliable sources. This article was created to be about the imperial clan and could be renamed "Nguyễn Phúc clan" but the definitions of "Dynasty" in Vietnamese history.

"Encyclopedia Britannica" uses the term to refer to the period and uses the terms "Tran rulers" and "Tran kings". Plenty of discussion has been had about the Nguyễn Phúc tộc and I have no issue with renaming this issue to its Vietnamese title if that is deemed "less racist" but I genuinely don't see any issues with the current naming schemes, plus it is inefficient to have only a single article for both the Dynastic regime and the ruling house of the regime. --Donald Trung (talk) 11:48, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

• Rename. Articles should be at a recognisable common name. Celia Homeford (talk) 12:31, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

I agree that articles should be recognisable, per "For lesser known geographical objects or structures with few reliable English sources, follow the translation convention, if any, used for well known objects or structures of the same type e.g. because Rheintal and Moseltal are translated Rhine Valley and Moselle Valley, it makes sense to translate lesser known valley names in the same way." (WP:TRANSLITERATE) this is a topic almost exclusively discussed in Vietnamese, alternative names like the "Imperial family of the Nguyễn Dynasty" would ignore the Nguyễn Lords period, plus "Nguyễn Phúc clan" would be an equal neologism. If a more suitable name existed it would have already been renamed into this, the Nguyễn Dynasty article itself is mostly about the state and period in Vietnamese history with some information about the family between the years 1802 and 1945. The current name follows the larger trend of naming ruling houses "House of" and is an accurate translation of what this article represents. --Donald Trung (talk) 13:46, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Why can't it be at Nguyễn Phúc? Celia Homeford (talk) 09:40, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

It could, though then "Nguyễn Phúc tộc" would be a better title, though it is sometimes written as "Nguyễn Phước tộc" by some branches. I am not against renaming, I am only against the notion that the article "Nguyễn Dynasty" is somehow about the family, though in Chinese and Vietnamese historiography the word "dynasty" doesn't have the same meaning as in European and other historiographies. --Donald Trung (talk) 11:53, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 17 November 2021

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 section.

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House of Nguyễn Phúc → Nguyễn Phúc – Unnecessary disambiguation. google search for "House of Nguyễn Phúc" = 0 reliable sources. DrKay (talk) 11:49, 17 November 2021 (UTC)— Relisting. —usernamekiran • sign the guestbook • (talk) 14:27, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:RECOGNIZABLE. To anyone not familiar with the subject, the bare Nguyễn Phúc looks like a personal name. It is also inconveniently ambiguous with the village of Nguyên Phúc, differing only by a tone. Last but not the least, why do we have a separate article Nguyễn lords which states that The Nguyễn lords, also known as the Nguyễn clan or House of Nguyễn Phúc, i.e. they purport to be about the same subject as this article? No such user (talk) 13:27, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

• These are good points, but the confusion with the Nguyễn clan confirms that this article is at an unrecognizable name. No sources use this term and so the scope and topic of the article is unclear. Indeed, the article title is unknown even to subject experts let alone a general audience. It should be at a recognizable name that defines the topic. DrKay (talk) 14:15, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

• If you insist on moving it it should probably be something along the lines of "Nguyễn Phúc (house)" or something. The "House of XXX" was added to almost all Vietnamese dynastic articles by a user who hates how "Chinese" general Vietnamese historiography is and tries to make it seem more like that of Champa or "South-East Asian", that user also attempted to re-write all Vietnamese XXX Dynasty articles into being about the families but in Vietnamese historiography these are about the periods and not the imperial families. Despite having alerted admins to their hoaxes nobody seems willing to actually address them. This article is ambigious, it is about the family that ruled the Nguyễn territories both in "Inner Vietnam" (which ironically only refers to newly acquired lands) and all of Vietnam from circa 1600 until 1945 / 1954. --Donald Trung (talk) 16:02, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

• I'd be happy to consider Nguyễn Phúc dynasty, which is at least used in sources such as Đình Hoà Nguyễn's From the City Inside the Red River and is more consistent with the parent article and category. Also Nguyễn Phúc family, which is used by the Library of Congress. DrKay (talk) 20:22, 18 November 2021 (UTC)
• For the record, I don't have strong objections to Nguyễn Phúc family, although "family" is synonymous with "House of", and overall it is more common to have noble houses at "House of" and append "family" otherwise (cf. Kennedy family). No such user (talk) 08:21, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

• Huh? No sources use this term and so the scope and topic of the article is unclear. To this non-expert, "House of Nguyễn Phúc" clearly indicates that it's about a noble family of Vietnam (since I can recognize "Nguyen" and the diacritics as uniquely Vietnamese). This is just a descriptive title that brings clarity to readers, I don't see why you insist of googling that exact phrase. For example, WP:NCPEER gets much more artificial than that, inventing names such as "John Smith, 44th Viscount Bombomwickshire" that no one has ever uttered, let alone used as a common name. No such user (talk) 17:30, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

• That topic isn't unrecognizable. This one is. You said yourself that it is indistinguishable from another article with a similar name. DrKay (talk) 20:07, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

• I fail to see how the proposed title would constitute an improvement. Upon reading the articles, I realize that the era of Nguyễn lords rule was 1558–1802; Nguyễn dynasty between 1802 and 1945; and this article is supposed to be overarching. Provided that the other two articles are at their common-name titles, I don't see how the titles could be significantly improved. No such user (talk) 08:21, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

• Support per nom.--Ortizesp (talk) 15:52, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
• Support. Also support either of Nguyễn Phúc dynasty or Nguyễn Phúc family, as 'House' isn't used for Eastern dynasties, and Nguyen Phuc, as it is the primary topic and as suggested by GoodDay below. See Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Primary topic with only one other topic, with only two articles with a title like 'Nguyen Phuc' we can use hatnotes to disambiguate 'different spelling variants'. Celia Homeford (talk) 14:34, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
• Support move to Nguyen Phuc, removing the diacritics. GoodDay (talk) 14:23, 25 November 2021 (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.