Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tien-Lcheu

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Consensus is to delete (✉→BWilkins←✎) 22:39, 22 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Tien-Lcheu

Seems hoaxy. The only citation is to a college student's writing (which was not even indicated to be a dissertation, or even a term paper), and the spelling is un-Chinese. And, I'll say this, I've never heard of this alleged origin of ink. Delete. --Nlu (talk) 22:29, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. I could not find reliable sources to establish the topic for inclusion. Searches revealed little to nothing. --Cold Season (talk) 16:02, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It's been years since I wrote that article and I don't even remember why I wrote it in the first place. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:26, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of China-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:06, 14 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:06, 14 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:06, 14 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mediran ^{talk to me!} 09:39, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per the rationales above. I'm not sure why this was relisted, it seems pretty clear to me. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 09:58, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per above. —Ed!^(talk) 14:19, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Google Books provided several results and Google News archives also provided results (first link is dead) and they all focus with the same thing, he invented India ink. I'm open to recalling my vote if non-English or offline sources are found. SwisterTwister talk 19:18, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You wrote it, OhanaUnited, because the article by Vincent Fatica told you that this was the case. Vince simply got the name wrong. (Interestingly, it seems that he wrote some of the letters upside down.) And that's the reason that you couldn't find anything, Nlu and Cold Season. Now go and look up the name Tien-Tchen, thought to have lived between 2697 and 2597 BCE. (He didn't invent it when he was born.)
By the way: M. Fatica is not a "college student", Nlu. He is an assistant professor of Mathematics.
Uncle G (talk) 14:49, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- But not of history or archaeology. The name "Tien-Tchen" still makes no sense in any commonly used romanization scheme, and I remain skeptical of its accuracy. I would also think that "simply got it wrong" and "wrote some of the letters upside down" hardly vouches for the underlying substance of the assertions. --Nlu (talk) 04:30, 20 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Based on sources citing the name, it appeared that this was first asserted in English and French (which I don't read, but can get slightly the gist given that I do read some Latin) in the late 19th century, without any real citation to Chinese sources. Dickens, for example, indicated that "Tien-Tchen" lived during the time of "Honang-ti" (presumably Yellow Emperor). The thing is, nothing I can find in the Records of the Grand Historian (which, admittedly, only contained a brief mythical biography of the Yellow Emperor) supports this assertion either. Despite the fact that I now do believe that this assertion was/is frequently stated in English and French sources, one would expect a citable Chinese source to support it even for it to be viewed as verifiable Chinese legend. I am still unable to find one. --Nlu (talk) 04:43, 20 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- In fact, since Dickens (and similar sources) made a somewhat-more-recognizable reference to the Yellow Emperor, I looked further. It appears that only "reliably mythical" (if one can use that contradictory expression) about the ink being first used in the Yellow Emperor's time was a Han Dynasty assertion (by the official Li You (李尤)) that the Yellow Emperor himself invented ink. The more "reliably mythical" origins of ink point to the Zhou Dynasty official Xingyi (邢夷) as its inventor. I wonder if this assertion that "Tien-Tchen" was its inventor came from this sentence that Li You wrote:
  - 書契即造，墨硯乃陳
- Which, in modern pinyin (which, obviously, ancient Chinese didn't use) would be "shu-qi-ji-zao, mo-yan-nai-chen" -- but which clearly wasn't referring to a person at all; it clear means, "When writing was created, the inkstone and the ink were then created." I really find it so unfounded that this assertion should not be perpetrated here (notwithstanding, as I admit, English and French sources' assertion that this is the case). --Nlu (talk) 05:01, 20 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I also looked in the Book of Han, which contains a table of ancient (from the viewpoint of its author Ban Gu, who, obviously, was himself about 2,000 years to our past) personalities. (See [1].) The only person that Ban listed among the Yellow Emperor's contemporaries whose name might remotely be romanizable as "Tien-Tchen," as far as I can tell, would be Da Tian (大填), whom Ban merely described as "a teacher to the Yellow Emperor"). I will admit to hardly being an expert in ancient Chinese myths. (There is a reason why I haven't edited pre-Han articles much at all.) But this assertion still appears to be so out there that it can't be considered reliable notwithstanding the repetition of the claim in various English and French sources. It seems to be one of those things that a sinophile/sinophobe could very easily make up and make people believe at that time. --Nlu (talk) 05:10, 20 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.