Talk:Kamuy

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Requested move

The following discussion is an archived 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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No consensus. In 2014 the article has been moved once in each direction (without discussion) so I'm leaving the page at Kamui. The Ngram supplied by the proponent doesn't settle the matter, since both Kamuy and Kamui are used for a variety of things that are not the topic of this article. But even carefully restricted Google Book searches appear to show 'kamui' as more common in English when referring to Ainu gods. The term 'Kamui' is used in Michael Ashkenazi's Handbook of Japanese Mythology. Those interested might consider a new move discussion after doing a bigger literature search that would concentrate on work published in English about Ainu culture. EdJohnston (talk) 16:18, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

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Kamuy → Kamui – revert undiscussed reversion to a spelling that's much less common in English (see Ngram.) It's true that using raw search results like this will pick up some discussions of Gackt, but the gap in usage is clear, and the title reversion was never explained. Relisted. BDD (talk) 18:26, 24 March 2014 (UTC) Miscellaneous user (talk) 21:37, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

• Retain Kamuy, as that is the Ainu term. "Kamui" cites are based upon romanized Japanese. Also, Kamui is a common last name (add: and a first name), so many of your hits are likely to be from other results; and the proportion is closer in more recent searches: Scholar Kamui-outliers but still with names Scholar Kamuy-outliers. Kamuy is the best unambiguous title. I suggest moving Kamui (disambiguation) to Kamui instead. Dekimasuよ! 23:36, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

The Ainu term is "カムイ", not "Kamuy" or "Kamui". But that doesn't matter; what matters is that the spelling "Kamui" is vastly more common in English, the language that the English Wikipedia is written in, which Ainu and Japanese are not. 172.9.22.150 (talk) 17:36, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

It isn't vastly more common in English, as my links showed. Again, at Google Books: kamuy AND hokkaido -misaki 21st century and kamui AND hokkaido -misaki 21st century shows a less than 2:1 ratio. As far as your other point goes, the Ainu term is not カムイ any more than the English term for Japan is ジャパン. Katakana is simply one form of transcription, and it is one that doesn't capture the complete phonetic structure of Ainu. Katakana transcription in Ainu requires at least 28 characters not used in modern Japanese. And per Ainu language, "there is also a Latin-based alphabet in use. The Ainu Times publishes in both. In the Latin orthography... /j/ is spelled y." Dekimasuよ! 19:04, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Still included in the "kamui" hits for "kamui AND Hokkaido -misaki" are a significant number of hits for things like Kamui-cho in Asahikawa, transcriptions of Japanese article/chapter titles, a craft beer called Kamui Coffee Stout, and hits related to Kamui Fujiwara, Kamui Gaiden, and Kamui Kobayashi. And the Ainu Museum uses kamuy in English. Dekimasuよ! 19:18, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Etymology of the word 'Kamuy'.

On the English page, it says, "the missionary John Batchelor assumed that the Japanese term was of Ainu origin", but on the Japanese page it says, "There is a theory about the etymology. The Washoku Shiori [or Wakun Shiori], a Japanese dictionary written by Shikiyo Tanigawa, a Japanese scholar in the middle of the Edo period, states that it seems to have been borrowed from the Japanese word "kami" in ancient times.". How come the Wakun Shiori is mentioned on the Japanese page but not the English one? ContourBench231 (talk) 01:50, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Are they interpreting the sources correctly? It's the explanatory note in Nikkoku Seisenban entry for カムイ at Kotobank that says it seems to be borrowed from Japanese. The referenced entry for かもい in Tanigawa Kotosuga's Wakun no Shiori can be seen at https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/991530/1/18, but I can't read cursive kana so idk. (For some reason the footnote on Japanese Wikipedia links to scans of 28 first volumes of the 前編 while said entry is in the 5th volume of the 後編.) – MwGamera (talk) 17:51, 9 November 2023 (UTC)