Talk:Sakoku Edict of 1635

Title

Thanks for your good work on this article - though much of the material duplicates that already at Sakoku and other pages. I'm a bit concerned, however, about the title of this article. I'm currently in the middle of doing research for my MA dissertation on sakoku-related topics, and I have never come across the term "Closed Country Edict". Every source I have seen has referred to this, along with the other shogunal edicts of the time, as sakoku-rei, Sakoku Edicts, kaikin, or "Seclusion Edicts". Personally, I'm no big fan of the terms "sakoku" and "Seclusion" as they do not accurately describe the foreign policy of the shogunate, and imply a far more closed and isolated situation than was actually in place. Nevertheless, I do not think that it is our place on Wikipedia to be inventing terms which are not widely used or recognized in academia. That would be original research, right? LordAmeth 08:25, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks so much for your feedback :) This is my first Wiki, so i'll take any help I can get. This was a project for school, so I used my textbook and other resources that were available to me. I listed the textbook at the bottom of the article, The Human Record, and I took the title "Closed Country Edict of 1635" from the textbook. It was basically a book of primary sources, and it didn't list any other name, but it did say that it was one of many exclusion edicts. What would you suggest? --Blurose1111 01:07, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, the most common terms I've seen to refer to this are sakoku-rei, Sakoku Edicts, kaikin, or "Seclusion Edicts", but on the other hand, all those terms refer to a grouping of edicts, a series of policies rather than a single one. If we can figure out the official Japanese name for the 1635 edict, we can translate that, or romanize it. Does your textbook happen to indicate the Japanese name for the edict? LordAmeth 10:03, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I checked my textbook, and they made no mention of a specific name for the edict, let alone any mention of Sakoku. I tried looking at other websites in hopes of finding something of any use, and I found that Sakoku does translate directly to "closed country". However, this doesn't really help at all, and serves to define all of the edicts involved in Japanese seclusion, not any specific one. After looking at a few sources, the only way the edicts seem to be distinguished are by their year, not by any specific name. Please let me know if you find a specific name for the edict, and in the mean time I'll take a look and see if I can find anything :) --Blurose1111 00:05, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Hm. I checked the Japanese wikipedia article on ja:鎖国 (sakoku), and it simply lists the 1635 edicts as "3rd Sakoku Edicts" (第3次鎖国令). I'll contunue to look around, see what I can find, but I think the best thing might simply be to rename the article "Sakoku Edict of 1635" - 'Closed Country' feels like overtranslation to me. LordAmeth 08:07, 9 May 2007 (UTC)