Talk:tanka

RFV discussion: October 2017

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tanka

Rfv-sense: Is this sense verified? One must find quotations. --123.136.106.247 08:30, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

cited, along with the ethnic group after which the boats are called. Kiwima (talk) 05:14, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

RFV-passed Kiwima (talk) 11:08, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

RFV discussion: November–December 2021

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tanka

English, specifically etym 2 in the entry as currently structured on 2021-11-19.

I can't confirm this used in English. The etym includes two senses:

1. a strong, forceful expression
2. a Tibetan painting of the Buddha on fabric.

Both are off as translations of the etymon, Japanese 啖呵 (tanka, “rapid-fire, forceful, sharply-worded speech as during a fight or argument; sales patter, such as that used by a showman selling wares”). The second sense about a Tibetan painting appears to be a flat-out mistake, as a strange spelling (misspelling?) of Tibetan-derived thangka, wholly unrelated to the purported Japanese etymon.

This is hard for me to search for in English; I tried google:"used a tanka" -poem -poetry to try to find English uses unrelated to the attested poem-related sense, but no dice. I can't tell if this is because etym 2 is bogus, or just that my google-fu is failing me.

Can anyone else find any evidence for this as an English term, with either of the given senses? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:12, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

The second sense is cited as an alternative form of thangka. I moved it to its own etymology. This, that and the other (talk) 08:38, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

@Bendono added the "strong, forceful expression" sense in 2009; I wonder if they can shed any light on this. This, that and the other (talk) 12:43, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

I can find the "strong, forceful expression", but only italicized:

• 1980, The Tsuda Review - Issues 25-30, page 60:

  In order to give thrust to a tanka there has to be some striking logical or at least more or less convincing psychological development or escalation in the enumeration of epithets.

• 1990, Heinz Morioka, Miyoko Sasaki, Rakugo, the Popular Narrative Art of Japan, page 45:

  Cutting a tanka is most difficult. If you don't get a firm grip on yourself you won't succeed, ” says the hanashika, when he sometimes inserts an admonition of his own into the story.

• 2008, Lorie Brau ·, Rakugo, page 72:

  For example, while the scholar wages a reasoned argument, the artisan uses invective (“cuts a tanka”).

• 2011, Rakefet Sela-Sheffy, Miriam Shlesinger, Identity and Status in the Translational Professions, page 197:

  It was only after the meeting, when others were saying how Kono's remarks in Japanese were, in effect, tanka wo kitta that he realized the Minister had meant his statement to be angry: Torikai: So you did not see it as a tanka.

Kiwima (talk) 10:17, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you @Kiwima. Those look to me like cases of consciously using a Japanese term as Japanese, within an English-laguage context. The publication titles are also all related to Japanese culture or to professional translation, further suggesting that this might be code switching.

What do others think? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 01:08, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree it looks like code-switching, which is why I pointed out the italics. It seems most often to appear in an attempt to translate tanka wo kitta (cut a tanka), because there is no easy way to translate the tanka part). OTOH, they all seem to assume the reader/listener understands what tanka means. Kiwima (talk) 21:11, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Re: "they all seem to assume the reader/listener understands what tanka means", I suspect that that's where the cultural context of the publications comes into play. It's also possible that the authors might explain tanka somewhere earlier in the texts, but without reading them through, that's harder to identify. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:09, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

RFV-resolved. The forceful expression fails as code-switching. Kiwima (talk) 20:30, 19 December 2021 (UTC)