Talk:Sima Qian

And His Real Name Is...?

Reading this name as "Sima Qian" appears to be profoundly odd to me, as I would have expected that his name be either "司马迁" (ie, "Si, MaQian", after the Chinese custom of spelling the surname first), or "迁司马" (ie, "Qian, SiMa", assuming that the English transscription correctly reflects the name, with the surname going last). I assume that he did not have a two-character surname and a one-character given name, especially not back in his day, right? It would be great if someone could share some light onto this. The Chinese language version of the page suggests that his name was "司 马迁". Also, please add PinYin tone marks if you can. It would make reading for those of us with no in-depth knowledge of the Chinese language much easier. Thank you! 79.228.152.44 (talk) 14:40, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

His daughter's name was Sima Ying (司馬英), so it appears that it is a two-character surname and one character given name. Yes, it is odd. 75.156.70.207 (talk) 22:47, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

It is one of the few two-character surnames that are still common today. Double sharp (talk) 07:40, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Sima Qian. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20041014190649/http://english.ccnt.com.cn/?catog=literature&file=040201&ads=service_001 to http://english.ccnt.com.cn/?catog=literature&file=040201&ads=service_001

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 05:35, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

chinese text

Thanks to User:White_whirlwind for pointing out the formatting. However, I noticed that there was a mixture of traditional and simplified chinese text and decided to include both. I'm fine with having only one orthography, but it should be consistent, and probably traditional. Alsosaid1987 (talk) 00:38, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

@Alsosaid1987: Yes, I agree. The usual style has been to use traditional for everything except Mainland people/places post-1949. I don't think that's ever been written down anywhere though, such as at MOS:ZH.  White Whirlwind  咨  02:19, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Sources

Although I don't intend to work on Sima Qian, I do intend to document sources on him. Would it be helpful if I post some of what I find?FourLights (talk) 22:03, 21 August 2024 (UTC)