Talk:Akita Inu

From Academic Kids

photos

Need photos. There are some on this foreign language site (http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%90%D7%A7%D7%99%D7%98%D7%94) but I have no idea whether license is any good. Elf | Talk 20:25, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

We are trying to have each dog breed article conform to the following standards: each has a table and each will have the sections appearance, temperament, health, history and trivia in that order. For more on this please seeWikipedia:WikiProject Dog breeds and Wikipedia:WikiProject Dog breeds/General

Misnomer

I am not involved in the dog world, but I do know Japanese. Referring to this breed as "Akita Inu" is strange. The word "inu" does mean "dog" in Japanese, but that's not what this breed is called in Japanese--it's called "Akita-ken" ("ken" also means "dog" in this context--in fact, it's written with the same Chinese character). "Akita Inu" comes across as if it is trying to sound Japanese and failing.

I just checked the AKC's website, and they just call it "Akita", which frankly strikes me as better for English audiences. If "Akita Inu" really is accepted usage among dog breeders, then pardon the interruption. adamrice 14:07, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ack, you just HAD to mention this, didn't you! :-) Yes, "Akita Inu" is commonly used although it's not the official breed name anywhere that I know of. After poking around a bit, I discovered not only that Akita is the name specified in our master list, and I'll move this article appropriately (it'll have to be Akita (dog) because the main name is a major DAB), but also that there are TWO breeds of Akita (although not all kennel clubs recognize them as separate... I think... more research coming...): The Japanese Akita or just Akita, and the American Akita or Great Japanese Dog. So now this needs rewriting, reorganizing, blah blah and i just wanted to check copyedits. :-) To inifinity...and beyond... Elf | Talk 22:42, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Oh, Adam, wer really appreciate your bringing this up (cough, cough, splutter). No, seriously, we do.

AFAIK, "Akita Inu" was the old term, the 'Inu' has been dropped on the basis that that's like saying Akita Dog Dog. (Course, that doesn't explain the Shiba Inu, now does it?) Another candidate for that section we need to write on "inconsitent and capricious nomenclature", Elf.

I just looked at the English and Japanese writeups for the Akita and Shiba breeds. Although I've never heard a breed referred to in spoken Japanese as X-inu, only X-ken, the Japanese entries for both those breeds show both X-ken and X-inu as readings for the breed names, to my own surprise. Akita is a place name (I think Shiba is too), btw, same as, oh, Dalmatia. The dogs are named after the places.

I'm going to check out if the JKC has any suggestions, when I have a mo....

Quill 23:08, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Links I had to JKC site in English no longer work. Quill 23:29, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Renaming akita articles

Here's what I propose to do:

• Move Akita Inu to Akita (dog) because the Inu form is not the official name in any registry. (Then of course fix all the redirects...)

yeah, good luck with that...Quill

• Move the current content to Japanese Akita, since that's mostly what it seems to describe...
• Change the Akita (dog) article to be basically a disambiguation page pointing to Japanese Akita whose breed name is mostly commonly either just Akita or Japanese Akita and to Great Japanese Dog, AKA American Akita.
• Create at least a stub called Great Japanese Dog (per FCI naming & our master List of dog breeds) as a place holder because this is all so confusing. What's worse is that what AKC calls Akita is apparently = GJD, not Japanese Akita, which is what others mean when they refer to Akita.

Clear as mud? Yea/nay? Elf | Talk 22:54, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Works for me. The only problem I see is that last point, where the AKC calls the GJD the Akita? Bears looking into (and no, I'm not volunteering!)

Quill 23:12, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)