Talk:Haiku/Archive 2

kigo a 'rarity' in haiku in English?

Twice in the last day or so an IP has edited the article to either remove reference to kigo or describe as a 'rarity' its use as one of the 'more common practices' in the section "Contemporary English-language haiku". I reverted on both occasions, then thought I'd better check. I went through all the ku in the 'Haiku and Senryu' sections of Frogpond 32:2 (2009) and Blithe Spirit 19:1 (2009), and found (FP) 104 with kigo, 61 without; and (BS) 14 with kigo and 10 without. Even ignoring the fact that in both cases the section includes senryu (which do not include kigo) as well as haiku, it is clearly accurate to describe use of kigo as a common practice. --Yumegusa (talk) 20:47, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Repeated edits to "Contemporary English-language haiku" section

During the last several days an anonymous editor using several IP addresses has repeatedly removed a 'citation needed' maintenance tag from this section of the article, and added a list of journals published in Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Romania (which is not relevant to the section), despite calls in edit summaries to take to Talk before re-inserting. I will now move the list of Balkan journals to the "Worldwide" section, and reinstate the maintenance tag yet again, but it appears the IP is not clued in enough to read the edit summaries in edit history, nor to read this Talk page, nor to read their own Talk page. Suggestions on a way forward if the behaviour continues? --Yumegusa (talk) 16:29, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Translation of old pond

I believe the translation of the "Old Pond" Haiku is slightly off.

According to an online translator, "ya" can mean "melting". Also, someone said something about there being a season in every Haiku. Melting would suggest the season we know as Spring, and make it more by the rules, according to what some people have suggested.

Also, Mizu no Oto shouldn't translate to "water's sound". "No" is a possessive word, I agree with that, but "sound of water" is more fitting.

So:

Old pond melting / Frog leaps in / The sound of water

I am unsure of this, though, so I wanted to mention it here on the discussion page instead of editing. What do you others think about this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loki314 (talk • contribs) 18:19, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Loki. The translation of the haiku in the article is fine - it was done by a respected translator, as you can see in the footnote. 'Ya' in this context does not mean 'melting', but is a cutting word - see Kireji for more detail. 'Frog' traditionally indicates spring. --Yumegusa (talk) 00:41, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Haiku structure

Reviewing the three haiku examples given would suggest that each has the following structure:

line 1 - Noun. 
line 2 - Verb. 
line 3 - Noun. 

Is this a common pattern? Is it worth mentioning? 24.85.232.118 (talk) 17:28, 12 February 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.85.232.118 (talk) 17:24, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Not especially. No. --Yumegusa (talk) 18:26, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Ungrammatic text

The section Kireji and kigo contains many mispellings and grammatical errors. I attempted a re-edit, but did not feel confident enough in the subject matter to complete the task. Mingthemad (talk) 06:07, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, that's been dealt with. --Yumegusa (talk) 16:28, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

illustration

I think the kireji and kigo of Basho's examples should be pointed out. kwami (talk) 19:50, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I have added this. Hope it's OK as I couldn't find good quality sources Tesspub (talk) 14:34, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Morae vs Kana

It is stated that " In Japanese, the on corresponds very closely to the kana character count (closely enough that moji (or "character symbol") is also sometimes used[6] as the count unit)."

This implies that there are subtle differences between morae and kana counts. I am not aware of any differences and if they do exist, it would be helpful to have details and references.

The referenced document does not support the idea that there are differences, in fact it strongly implies they are identical.

I do not feel sufficiently confident of my facts to edit this article without waiting for some comments here first.

Tesspub (talk) 12:43, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I believe your inference that mora and kana are effectively identical in value is correct, as evidenced by the referenced article. Please feel free to edit accordingly. --Yumegusa (talk) 14:27, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Done. Thank you for your advice. Tesspub (talk) 14:40, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Imagism

I notice that there is no mention anywhere in the article of the semantic content of haiku. The earliest versions of this article contained the sentence "The haiku poet usually takes up the changes of nature which have impressed him or her in order to express the intangible world of the spirit."

I am wondering whether, at some point, there was a conscious decision to eliminate discussion of content in order to avoid too narrow a definition.

Similarly, the straightforward language and avoidance of metaphor, so beloved of the imagists, is not mentioned and I wonder if this is deliberate.

(Trying to avoid taking the article round in circles here)

Tesspub (talk) 11:51, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I think all of that is probably deliberate. Bear in mind that when the article was started it was largely meant to describe English-language haiku, but there is now a separate article haiku in English, so this one's primary focus is (or should be) the Japanese haiku (which constitute about 99% of haiku written). I believe it would be very difficult to support any assertions about the content of J. haiku beyond the kireji and kigo. --Yumegusa (talk) 13:31, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

To contradict myself... the Kireji and kigo section contains a passing reference to imagism "to divide a haiku into two grammatical and imagistic parts" but this is specifically pertaining to English-language haiku so perhaps it is fair enough. It does risk being a bit circular since part of the definition of "imagism" is "inspired by haiku"! But of course imagism, post-Exra Pound, stands on its own. (Sorry to be conducting an argument with myself here!) Tesspub (talk) 11:18, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

No apology needed: that's quite useful. In the absence of reflection, I took 'imagistic' to be an adjective relating to 'imagery', but of course you are right, it is directly associated with Imagism. I'll request a citation for the use of the word, and if nothing's found it can be dropped. --Yumegusa (talk) 12:49, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Contradicting myself again, the Contemporary English section says "While traditional Japanese haiku has (sic) focused on nature and the place of humans in it, some modern haiku poets, both in Japan and the West, consider a broader range of subject matter suitable..." This rings true to me (grammar aside). Do others think this deserves a more prominent position in the article? Tesspub (talk) 11:23, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Masaoka Shiki's revisionism

There is nothing here or in the main Masaoka Shiki article to support the claim he was a revisionist. Nor is it clear in which sense "revisionist" is meant. Tesspub (talk) 16:07, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Until I saw the Revisionism disambiguation page I was only aware of the strongly negative sense Historical_revisionism_(negationism). I assume that is not what is meant. But I suspect that non-judgmental Historical revisionism is also not what is meant; that in fact the word has been misused. Tesspub (talk) 16:12, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Ah... I see... I've just noticed the heading. A definite misuse of the word! Tesspub (talk) (talking to myself again) —Preceding undated comment added 16:15, 12 May 2010 (UTC).

Verbal reading of Haiku (possible oversight)

Hello,

I recently had the chance to see some haiku readings in Japanese. I was struck by the relatively high speed with which the poem is read aloud. The ideas must seem to cascade on top of one another forming a fuller picture. This is very different from the how I read Western European poetry which tends to be much slower. It would be good if someone could find references and add recommendations on how Haiku are traditionally read to the article. Hrimpurstala (talk) 21:36, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

That's interesting. It aids my understanding of the traditional description of a haiku as a "poem in one breath". English-language haiku are very often read in three breaths, one for each line. Tesspub (talk) 07:14, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Nomenclature and fringe theory

At Haiku#From renga to renku to haiku we read that the term 'haiku'

• is now generally applied retrospectively to all hokku appearing independently of renku or renga, irrespective of when they were written, and the use of the term hokku to describe a standalone poem is considered obsolete,<ref>van den Heuvel, 1986, p.357</ref> although this approach has been challenged.<ref>Coomler, David. Hokku: Writing Traditional Haiku in English: The Gift to be Simple. Springfield, Ill.: Octavo Press, 2001. ISBN 0-87243-255-6</ref>

My position is that airing Coomler's fringe theories gives them undue weight; see WP:UNDUE where we read:

• Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all. For example, the article on the Earth does not mention modern support for the Flat Earth concept, the view of a distinct minority; to do so would give "undue weight" to the Flat Earth belief.

Coomler's views have been thoroughly debunked (see for example, Higginson's review of Coomler's book cited above, in Modern Haiku) and find no non-fringe support in the haiku community. In order to comply with Wikipedia guidelines at Wikipedia:Fringe theories and WP:UNDUE, I propose to remove the following text from the article:

• although this approach has been challenged.<ref>Coomler, David. Hokku: Writing Traditional Haiku in English: The Gift to be Simple. Springfield, Ill.: Octavo Press, 2001. ISBN 0-87243-255-6</ref>

If there are any counter-arguments, please make them here. Thanks. --candyworm (talk) 12:18, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I'll take that as assent. --candyworm (talk) 14:14, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Tokyo confusion

The article appears to contradict itself on moras vs syllables in the word "Tokyo". It states that a long vowel is two moras, whereas "kyo" is a single mora. Surely, then, "Tokyo" is both three syllables (to-ky-o) and three moras (to-o-kyo), not four (to-o-kyo-o)? I guess the point is that "kyo" counts as two moras not because it's two syllables in English but because "kyo" is one mora and the long vowel counts for a second; there are presumably words in which "kyo" has a short vowel so is only one mora (but still two syllables). If that is the point, it should be made more clear in the article. Is there a better example than the rather confusing "Tokyo"? Alternatively, if "kyo" is always a long vowel then, surely, it's always two moras. In that case, it seems to be pure pedantry to point out that it's two moras and two syllables, just for a different reason. Dricherby (talk) 01:34, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

207.171.180.101 (talk) 00:06, 11 November 2010 (UTC) Tokyo is correctly understood as two syllables and four moras: To-o-kyo-o. Note that "kyo" is not pronounced as "key-o" but as one syllable as "kyo" and *also* has a long vowel, adding an extra mora ("o") at the end. The common Western pronunciation of Tokyo as "toe-kee-oh" is a mispronounciation, albeit understandable from the appearance of the word. "Kyo" is indeed a single mora. Likewise, Kyoto is not pronounced as "Key-oh-toe" (a common Western mispronounciation) but "Kyo-toe," which is two syllables, but four moras (kyo-o-toe-o).

OK but my point stands. Is there any case in which "kyo" has a short vowel that we can use as an example instead? If there not, then "kyo" is always two moras (kyo-o) and two syllables (ky-o). Dricherby (talk) 10:31, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

kyo/きょ is yoon and yoon is a mora in Japanese. Tokyo in ja is とうきょう/と-う-きょ-う/to-u-kyo-u. The pronunciation of the o-u is ō, so it is described as Tōkyō and the macrons are almost always omitted because it is a well-known name. If you forget about syllables and just count the number of letters/kana, you'll know how many moras in a ja word. Maybe it's difficult to know the number of moras in a ja word from the Romanization. BTW Kyōto is three moras, not four. きょうと/きょ-う-と/Kyo-u-to. Oda Mari (talk) 15:22, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the point stands. You say "Surely, then, "Tokyo" is both three syllables (to-ky-o) and three moras (to-o-kyo)," but neither is true. It's two syllables (toe-kyo -- and don't mispronounce "kyo" as "key-oh") and four moras (toe-oh-kyo-oh). So when the article states that "a long vowel is two moras," remember that the first of those long vowels goes with the consonant the precedes it, as it "toe-oh" that starts the word Tokyo (to be correct, each "o" in Tokyo should have a macron (straight line) over the vowel, just as the "o" in Basho should). I don't see any error in the article on this point, and don't see what point you're trying to make that "still stands." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.171.180.101 (talk) 02:38, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

My point is that, to a non-speaker of Japanese, it's very confusing to be told "kyo is one mora" and then be given an example where it is two moras! Why not use an example that actually shows a case where "kyo" is one mora, thus directly supporting the article's claim? (By the way, I should clarify that, where I've referred to syllables in my comments above, I mean syllables in the conventional western pronunciation of the word. I appreciate that Tokyo is two syllables in the Japanese pronunciation but it's three as usually pronounced in the west.) Dricherby (talk) 11:02, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I understand that kyo/きょ (one mora) and kyō/きょう (two moras, kyo/きょ and u/う) are easily mixed up. Listen to the sound of kyo/きょ at here. See Y-vowel sounds, find きょ in blue and click it. And listen to the sound of kyō/きょう at here. Click "kyou". If you think the content of the article is confusing, it's a matter of revised Hepburn romanization or Wikipedia:MOS-JA#Romanization. Maybe it's impossible to transcribe Japanese sounds in Latin alphabet correctly and easy to understand to those who do not know Japanese at all. I added "とうきょう" in the article for better understanding that Tokyo is not "とうきょ" in Japanese. Oda Mari (talk) 09:20, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I am pretty sure I added the two sentences about "kyo" and "Tokyo". The intention was to help create clarity. It seems to have failed in that attempt pretty spectacularly. Please feel free to delete these two sentences. Tesspub (talk) 00:22, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

kanji at wikilinked text

Hi, I've removed kanji from beside wikilinked terms such as kigo in the article, based on Wikipedia:MOS-JP#Using_Japanese_in_the_article_body where we read:
Generally, Japanese script for a word can be added to the text the first time it is introduced, provided that the word is not linked to another article on the English Wikipedia. In that case, the linked article should be edited to show the Japanese script in the opening line, if the text is not already there. Japanese script should only be added once per word in an article, and not added when it already exists in a separate linked article, with exceptions noted below. --candyworm (talk) 20:38, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Crikey! Whoda thunk there'd be a policy on that! Well spotted. Tesspub (talk) 20:45, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Length of English Haiku

I know there has been a lot of debate in the history of this page over statements about the length of English-language haiku, but the current compromise "Most writers of literary haiku in English use seventeen or fewer syllables" just seems wrong to me; it puts an emphasis on 17 which is simply no longer true. Tesspub (talk) 12:27, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

It's all down to what you can reliably source, TP. --Yumegusa (talk) 21:34, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Length of Japanese Haiku

I've been trying (again!) to research onji - kana - morae to confirm that all three concepts are, in fact, the same. My particular focus today has been doubled consonants because it seems to me that tree analysis of sylables does not always yield two morae in these circumstances. The articles I've found seem to vary the definition of mora, applying rules in Japanese that fit them to kana and different rules in other languages. So... no wiser (except my scepticism about the scientific nature of linguistics has been heightened).

But while searching, I found this Japanese educational worksheet that contains haiku by Issa transliterated into hiragana. It includes this one

すずめのこ　そこのけそこのけ　おんまがとおる

which is clearly 5-8-7, not 5-7-5. Can anyone throw any light on this? Is the transliteration incorrect? Was Issa being radical? Is it not actually a haiku? Tesspub (talk) 16:26, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

http://haikuguy.com/issa/welch.html says that this is among Issa's most famous haiku. He gives this Romaji transliteration and English translation (by Lewis Mackenzie)

suzume no ko soko noke soko noke o uma ga tôru

baby sparrows

move aside!

Sir Horse passes

Tesspub (talk) 11:25, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Kireji as caesura

It doesn't seem right to me to say that a kireji is a "verbal caesura". Rather, a kireji fills a role analogous to that of the caesura in Western classical poetry. I propose explaining this in the Kireji section and replacing the note in the intro with... what? "Cutting word" is also unhelpful! Comments requested. Tesspub (talk) 16:49, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I have now updated this. I used "cutting word" in the intro in the absence of any better idea.

Tesspub (talk) 08:50, 28 April 2010 (UTC)