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Confucius was a Philosophy and religion good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Kǒng Fūzǐ is the modern Chinese name for Confucius, but during the master's lifetime a different language, Old Chinese, a very different language from modern Chinese, was spoken. While we do not have an exact idea of the pronunciation 2500 years ago, it would be worthwhile to offer the probable reconstruction of the original name. For example usign wiktionary it seems that the old name can be reconstructed as /*Kʰˤoŋʔ paʔ tsəʔ/. Does anyone know it or could provide a reference? Davius (talk) 18:02, 6 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Davius:Grammatica Serica Recensa (Karlgren, 1964) reconstructs 孔 as /*kʰuŋ/ (p 302) and 子 as /*tsjɛg/ (p 264), but I believe the modern standard for reconstruction of early Chinese phonology is still Baxter (1992), a work I no longer have access to.
However I believe your question may have some anachronism to it: I'm not sure when "Kong Fuzi" is first attested, but early texts tend to carry "Kongzi" (as is still the most common term in modern Chinese), or his style name "Zhenni" Zhongni. That is, "Kong Fuzi" may not be attributed in the language that was spoken during the subject's lifetime. Folly Mox (talk) 20:17, 6 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Davius: Baxter and Sagart have a recent (2014) word list representative of their Old Chinese reconstruction at here. They reconstruct Kongzi as /*[k]ʕhoŋʔ-[ts]əʔ/ (pp 62 and 159), with the square brackets denoting uncertainty about the identity of the enclosed phoneme. Personally still feeling uncertain what value this adds to the article. Folly Mox (talk) 02:09, 12 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Folly Mox: It may not add much, but it is a total anachronism that he is named in modern Mandarin, as if everyone knew Julius Caesar with his name in modern French or something like that. This is especially troubling when many Westerners are not clear that there is a big difference between ancient and modern Chinese. Davius (talk) 14:34, 12 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Referencing and citation: not checked
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Done