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== doesLaozi and the link to Bogar belong?''Daodejing'' ==
does it make sense for Boyang in this article to be linked to [[Bogar]] without any comment as it is currently? the Bogar page claims Laozi was Tamil, summoned to China telepathically [[Special:Contributions/2603:8001:D300:A631:0:0:0:10D0|2603:8001:D300:A631:0:0:0:10D0]] ([[User talk:2603:8001:D300:A631:0:0:0:10D0|talk]]) 01:00, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
 
==Pronunciation==
'''A)''' We need to nix the "Mandarin" pronunciation from the lead. Pinyin ''is'' phonetic + no English speaker is going to manage [làu.tsɹ̩], which doesn't currently include the essential tones anyway. You can leave the characters and pinyin for the main name but really {{sc|[[wp:mos-zh]]}} says we're fine leaving all that in the infobox. The only reason to leave it in the lead here is to gloss that it's really a title instead of a personal name, but we have a #Names section for that.
 
'''B)''' We ''really'' need to nix the "Mandarin" pronunciation from the lead. Even ''if'' it had the tones, it's not actually the correct IPA for the Standard Mandarin pronunciation (cf. [[:wikt:老子]]). It's /aʊ/, not /au/. That 儿 on the end is possibly accurate in informal speech around Beijing but it's not actually Standard Mandarin. It's [[Beijing dialect|Pekinese]]. The IPA in the infobox doesn't match the lead{{mdash}}it has the right tones, adjusting for [[samdhi]], although it doesn't use the correct IPA format for them{{mdash}}but still has the nonexistant /ɹ/ noise.
 
'''C)''' We really ''do'' need the general ''English'' pronunciation in the lead ([[Talk:Laozi/Archive_3#some_mention_of_the_pronounciation?|if we don't just keep this ''all'' in the #Names section]]), which we inexplicably ''don't''. It's /laʊdzə/ in American English (e.g. Merriam-Webster) and presumably /laʊtzə/ in the UK, although neither the OED or Cambridge gloss it. Collins transcribes it incorrectly but then their audio file pronounces it the American way as /laʊdzə/.
 
'''D)''' The various transcriptions were always talking about the same Chinese word. [[Talk:Laozi/Archive_3#The_pronunciation_is_wrong|Like this guy already noted]], it's an active ''dis''service to our {{sc|[[wp:reader]]}}s to provide a series of historical ''mis''pronunciations based on sight-reading bad older systems of Romanization in the lead. It's fine to say people used to pronounce these things these ways in the #Names section, but it's just {{sc|[[wp:undue]]}} {{sc|[[wp:bias]]}}ed orientalizing nonsense to pretend that these historical mistakes in any way reflect how people ''today'' should generally approach the name. Even those older transcriptions always ''should'' have been the same noises as pinyin ''Laozi''; people just didn't know better.
&nbsp;—&nbsp;[[User talk:LlywelynII|<span style="text-shadow:#BBBBBB 0.1em 0.1em 0.1em; class=texhtml">Llywelyn<span style="color: Gold;">II</span></span>]] 02:04, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
 
==Add'l names==
We're currently missing [[Daode Tianzun|this entire article]] here, which includes information that should absolutely be in the lead. It's not just he's a historical figure coopted by the Taoists. He was always a legendary figure and he's generally revered as a primordial god or manifestation of the Tao itself in mainline Taoism. The form '''Laojun''' (老君) not only should be included but was the ''main'' form of the name in English for a few centuries, albeit in the form '''Lao-kiune''' owing to French primary sources.&nbsp;—&nbsp;[[User talk:LlywelynII|<span style="text-shadow:#BBBBBB 0.1em 0.1em 0.1em; class=texhtml">Llywelyn<span style="color: Gold;">II</span></span>]] 02:04, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
 
Especially w/r/t [[Talk:Laozi/Archive_3#Cite_for_spelling_Laozi?|this discussion]] & [[Talk:Laozi/Archive_1#Lao_Zi_or_Laozi|this one]], [http://pinyin.info/news/2011/laozi-or-lao-zi/ this] is also probably worth mentioning: the first versions of pinyin advised grouping it Lǎo zǐ{{mdash}}which as noted [[Talk:Laozi/Archive_1#"Lao_zi"_or_"Lao_Zi"|here]] becomes Lao Zi in English orthography{{mdash}}but subsequently they emended it to prefer Lǎozǐ.&nbsp;—&nbsp;[[User talk:LlywelynII|<span style="text-shadow:#BBBBBB 0.1em 0.1em 0.1em; class=texhtml">Llywelyn<span style="color: Gold;">II</span></span>]] 02:09, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
 
Something that's my understanding from everything I've read on this topic is that Laozi's basic identity is the author of the ''Daodejing''. I've seen Foucault's "author-function" thrown around a lot in literary critical studies of the ''Zhuangzi'' and other various early Masters Texts, but not specifically the ''Daodejing''. But it's clear, even without being able to use that terminology directly, that the relationship is closer to {{code|Daodejing.was_written_by(Laozi)}} than {{code|Laozi.authored(Daodejing)}}: the author is an attribute of the text.{{pb}}When the ''Daodejing'' was compiled, what its sources and purposes were, when and how it reached the version that [[Wang Bi]] annotated, and how many people were involved in that process are all important and relevant questions, but if we're going to attribute authorship to the ''Daodejing'' (and, empirically, it was written down), then the author is this idea of "Laozi", whatever that means.{{pb}}I think what I'm trying to say, while in between finding and reading sources on this, is that the idea of "Laozi" is '''not meaningfully seperable''' from authorship of the ''Daodejing''. If we want to say he was a single person who may have lived around a certain time period, ok, but we can't say that he didn't write the ''Daodejing''. Either a person we understand as being called "Laozi" wrote it, or a person or group of people adopted or invented the idea "Laozi" to be its author. If we're talking about someone who didn't write the ''Daodejing'', that's another person. [[User:Folly Mox|Folly Mox]] ([[User talk:Folly Mox|talk]]) 21:15, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
=="Old Master"==
[[Talk:Laozi/Archive_3#Old_Master_or_Old_One?|This discussion]] was also correct. 子 (lit. "son") can be treated as [[Chinese nobility#Male aristocracy|a title of nobility]] meaning [[viscount]], a honorific meaning "Master", and an enclitic basically equivalent to "One". It's true that the general English gloss has been "Old Master" but "The Old One" or "The Venerable One" are just as valid, even [https://taoism.net/ancient-child/ if the "Old Child" meme is nonsense]. It's probably worth specifically debunking: see [[Talk:Laozi/Archive_3#Name_Translation|this earlier discussion]] & [[Talk:Laozi/Archive_2#Meaning_of_Name|this one]].&nbsp;—&nbsp;[[User talk:LlywelynII|<span style="text-shadow:#BBBBBB 0.1em 0.1em 0.1em; class=texhtml">Llywelyn<span style="color: Gold;">II</span></span>]] 02:31, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
 
:This has been my understanding also, cf. Homer, Moses [[User:Remsense|<span style="border-radius:3px 0 0 3px;padding:4px 3px;background:#1E816F;color:#fff">'''Remsense'''</span>]][[User talk:Remsense|<span lang="zh" style="border:1px solid #1E816F;border-radius:0 2px 2px 0;padding:2px;color:#000">聊</span>]] 22:02, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
==[[WP:ERA]]==
Per [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Laozi&oldid=126470 this edit], the era format of this page was established as BC/AD and [[Talk:Laozi/Archive_1#AD_/_CE|the only discussion of changing it since then]] was very much inconclusive, if anything supporting retaining it. Things may have changed since then but, pending a new consensus to the contrary, we should maintain the original era consistently.&nbsp;—&nbsp;[[User talk:LlywelynII|<span style="text-shadow:#BBBBBB 0.1em 0.1em 0.1em; class=texhtml">Llywelyn<span style="color: Gold;">II</span></span>]] 04:28, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
 
:Agree completely. Actually, our articles on Zhuangzi and Confucius should eventually be treated this way: the figures serve as a figurehead of authorship for their attributed texts, as much as they do as a pseudo-historical figure—i.e. there's many simultaneously valid identities at play here. The wonderful [''SEP'' entry https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/confucius/] on Confucius begins to approach how we should be treating these figures. '''<span style="font-family:Lucida;">[[User:Aza24|<span style="color:darkred">Aza24</span>]][[User talk:Aza24|<span style="color:#848484"> (talk)</span>]]</span>''' 22:33, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
==[[Bogar]]==
:The New Testament of the Bible is a good analogy. Jesus didn't write it; his followers did. There was a founder of the ideology, and followers who wrote the book. It would be frankly absurd to suggest that there was no founder and they all simultaneously came up with a radical new ideology. Just doesn't make sense. [[User:Octaazacubane|Octaazacubane]] ([[User talk:Octaazacubane|talk]]) 11:59, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
I know it's easy to miss in the shuffle of all the other fights about this guy's romanization, pronunciation, actual beliefs, historicity, &c. but '''hopefully we can all come together and agree that Laozi was probably ''not'' [[Bogar|a misplaced Tamil merchant]]'''. If whoever created that {{sc|[[wp:undue}} {{sc|[[wp:fringe]]}} hilarity tries to restore links here or claims about an identity with Laozi on the Bogar page, kindly insist on bulletproof evidence or continue to remove it.&nbsp;—&nbsp;[[User talk:LlywelynII|<span style="text-shadow:#BBBBBB 0.1em 0.1em 0.1em; class=texhtml">Llywelyn<span style="color: Gold;">II</span></span>]] 06:54, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
::{{u|Octaazacubane}}, there's considerably more historical evidence for Jesus of Nazareth than anyone named Laozi, and Jesus isn't primarily known as the author of the Bible (maybe in some Christian sects; I'm not sure). Meanwhile the textual culture of early China was very into multiple authorship, and combining previous quotes / text without attribution or any indication the text is not original. Denecke 2011 (cited in the article) has a pretty interesting theory about the development of the ''Dao De Jing''. [[User:Folly Mox|Folly Mox]] ([[User talk:Folly Mox|talk]]) 18:00, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
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