Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese)

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City article names

Seeing as all US city articles are named with the state, e.g. Stockton, California, shouldn't all cities in China (and Taiwan) also be named with their state? Maybe excepting the zhixiashi such as Chongqing. 218.102.221.163 17:21, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

For U.S. states, I prefer that well known cities such as Salt Lake City be listed without the state. But lately editors have been standardizing this to putting the state in the title of every article; I don't agree with this. For China, as in the U.S. there are multiple cities/towns/villages with the same name in different Chinese provinces (or even within the same province). When this is the case, maybe the province should also be included in the title, but for places like Shanghai, I think the province should not be part of the title. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Badagnani (talk • contribs) 19:24, 26 April 2006

(UTC).

Not that Shanghai is part of any province, haha. -- Миборовский 17:19, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Since when did China or Taiwan become federal countries anyway? Anyway this proposal seems a bit silly even if we start talk about provinces or whatever. There is simply no need unless there are two places with the same name. You're welcome to do what you want with US articles but no one else is likely to follow you... Nil Einne 22:50, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

"Hung-lu wine" question

We need Chinese language help at Chinese wine. There's a wine which isn't yet discussed that is sold as "hung-lu" wine. It is reddish in color, a sharp smell, and a chemically, diesel-like taste, and is sold by the Oriental Mascot brand (which also makes mijiu and formerly also made Shaoxing jiu). The largest photo of this wine is here, but the characters aren't easily readable. I think "hung-lu" isn't Hanyu pinyin. Can someone provide information about this wine, the characters, etc.? Thank you! http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B0000DJZ0F/ref=dp_primary-product-display_0/102-4042702-9901704?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=3370831&s=gourmet-food Badagnani 19:24, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

The pin-yin would be honglu or hong lu. Red dew. It is red when bottled but the color changes to more of a brown color as it ages. It is used for cooking wine. Google for hong lu wine and you'll find lots of (sales) information. P0M 03:54, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

• Great, thanks--the "hung" romanization threw me for a loop though I'd guessed it should have been written as "hong." There's a Korean distilled liquor that has the "dew" character in it: okloju (literally "jade dew wine"). A Chinese colleague once told me that "hung lu"/"hong lu" is a lower (cheaper) grade of Shaoxing and after tasting both of them, I believe it! Badagnani 03:58, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

• Are these the right hanzi? 红露酒 Badagnani 04:08, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Explaining surnames in Zhang Ziyi

A heated discussion has erupted at Zhang Ziyi talk page over explaining the meaning of the surname at people pages. User Lao Wai insisted it should be done, user Mandel says the proper place is at Zhang (surname). To demostrate how ridiculous it is, Mandel placed such surname definitions at Hu Jintao, Mao Zedong and Bruce Lee. Please discuss here or at talk page Zhang Ziyi whether you support or disapprove of such definitions. Mandel 16:07, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Proposed changes in language conventions

Regarding the language/dialect dispute, (and the NPOV handling thereof), it's commonly understand that the vast majority of Mainland Chinese consider all the different varieties to be merely dialects, while linguists and most others generally regard them as seperate languages. To keep the NPOV view, Wikipedia has defacto adopted the policy of generally neither calling them languages nor dialects, and in generally pointing out the views of both sides.

However, from what I see in Wikipedia, this policy is being taken to extremes, and being used to justify the removal of non-Mandarin varieties from lists of languages, removal or deprecation of non-Mandarin terms, and attempts to delete non-Mandarin categories and lists, and instead group them together with Mandarin. Examples of such can be seen on pages like Category:Films in Cantonese (where an editor refused to allow it be classified under Category:Films by language, the dispute in Regional language , and even the refusal of a great many editors to allow the existance of a Cantonese wikipedia, and in some cases, many users simply have an irresistable urge to list the Mandarin pinyin and pronunciation, seemingly promoting the Mandarin as the "correct" pronunciation even for dialect terms and dialect names of people. An example of the last can be seen in some of the pages in which English loanwords come from Cantonese or Min Nan etymologies, where no dialect word is ever seen without being paired with the equivalent Mandarin term, even when the Mandarin term differs in meaning (such as in the case of dim sum or kumquat).

Let's go over the facts. The different varieties of Chinese differ substantially. They're not all the same langauge pronounced in different ways. They're not mutually intelligible and differ in phonology, grammar, and vocabulary. Min Nan, Wu, Cantonese all have developed their own written vernaculars, either presently or historically, and two of them (Min Nan and Cantonese), even have their own Wikipedias. Cantonese (and probably Taiwanese) also have their own broadcast media, literature, and music, as well, and Cantonese is even the official langauge of administration of Hong Kong and Macau. The fact that they're more than just mere dialects is well-grounded in reality, and Chinese is literally the textbook example in all linguistics classes of the phrase "a language is a dialect with an army and a navy." For any non-speakers in doubt, here's a simply sentence rendered in three varieties.

• English: They are eating a baozi right now.
• Mandarin:現在他們在吃包子. Xianzai tamen zai chi baozi.
• Cantonese: 佢哋而家食緊包. Keui dei yi ga sik gan bao.
• Shanghainese: 伊拉啦海吃包子. Yila lahe chie bozi. (not sure of correct characters or romanization, and 'z' pronounced like English z)

I'm not advocating abandoning the NPOV treatment of the matter, however there needs to be a balance. I advocate changing the convention to de-facto treating the different varieties languages in regards to classification, listing, terminology, etc, while also presenting the mainland viewpoint, through linking to Identification of the varieties of Chineseif necessary. If it really feels so bad to some people, we can state to avoid explicitly calling them languages even if we de-facto treat them as one. In this case, it really wouldn't be so different from the current Wikipedia policy of treating Taiwan/ROC as a de-facto country despite the vast majority of mainland Chinese and the UN not recognizing them.--Yuje 19:22, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Yuje, thanks for thinking I might be interested but I speak Cantonese and Putonghau equally poorly. Well, my Cantonese is slightly better, and my girlfriends Mandarin is slightly better, so we survive. But because of that, I often don't think I'm qualified to get involved with these language issues.

Truly though, Cantonese is a different spoken language. Things like Films by language should obviously have a Cantonese section. Opposition to that is ridiculous, HK films on DVD have multiple soundtracks because duh, they are different languages.

My answer is also nuanced though. Cantonese is both under-represented and over-represented on Wikipedia. Things like the films example you gave are an example of under-representation. But there is over-representation too, when too many transliterations crowd out articles on Chinese topics when they aren't really specific to Cantonese or Cantonese speaking regions. SchmuckyTheCat 20:09, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Yuje, your proposal is entirely reasonable. I'm baffled (but not all that surprised) to find that there is disagreement over categories like the one for Cantonese films. There's a pretty clear tradition to construe categories inclusively, there shouldn't even be a debate about whether "Films in Cantonese" belongs in "Films by language": it does, because this makes it easier for readers to find Cantonese films. This is not an endorsement of any POV: the status of Cantonese as a "language" or "dialect" is obviously controversial, but this is the subject of articles, not of categories.

With this out of the way, I don't think you're calling for a change in conventions at all. It is clear to everyone, I hope, that Cantonese is a different entity from Mandarin. One can argue endlessly about what entities they are, but it doesn't change the fundamental fact that they are distinct and need to be treated separately, while trying to remain neutral about what we call the distinction. Almost everything you're saying follows straightforwardly from existing conventions and policies. Perhaps these issues are worth clarifying, but I would guess that we're all fundamentally in agreement already. Cantonese, Wu, Min-nan, and other local pronunciations should be encouraged where they are relevant and make sense. For example the intro to our article on Leslie Cheung makes sense to me; Chow Yun-Fat's intro less so. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 23:21, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

• Not a bad idea, for this proposal. I won't mind lending my support. Mr Tan 04:12, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

• Since I am from Hong Kong, my agreement would not be NPOV, but I would state it here nonetheless. There's slight correction for Yuji, that baozi line in Cantonese should be 佢哋而家食緊個包 Keui dei yi ga sik gan go bao —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Samuel Curtis (talk • contribs) 04:44, May 3, 2006 (UTC).

• I support the proposal. There are always subtle (maybe large) differences between Chinese and English terms. The translation of English term dialect into Chinese idomatic expression 方言 (lit. regional speech) causes much trouble. In English it is referred to a group of languages which are mutually intelligible while the Chinese term 方言 means a group of languages which have their own sets of reading for Chinese characters, whether they are mutually intelligible is of no importance. Another example, the translation of country into 國家 (lit. state and family, sometimes nation-state) is disastrous to this wikipedia. In English the concept of country is regardless to the sovereignty but in Chinese intepretation a 國家 must have sovereignty. Numerous edit wars are ignited by the difference of intrepretation. (Note: The difference between (1) 佢哋而家食緊包. Keui dei yi ga sik gan bao and (2) 佢哋而家食緊個包 Keui dei yi ga sik gan go bao is that the former is on a kind of food (bun) and the later on one bun (a bun). In daily life both are correct and can be used interchangely casually.) — HenryLi (Talk) 10:51, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

(response to user:Yuje's message at 19:22, May 2) Basically agree, but what exactly would have to be changed? — Instantnood 17:46, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

So now to solidify the proposal, here's what I would actually propose adding the following text to the naming conventions: --Yuje 19:32, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Language/dialect NPOV

The status of the various the various spoken varieties of Chinese is disputed. They are often regarded as dialects of each other, but they satisfy the criteria of being seperate languages by most standards, including the lingustic ones of mutual intelligibility, and differences in grammar, phonology, and vocabulary. Due to their differences, and the linguistic classifications, and for practical reasons, the seperate varieties should be de facto treated as seperate languages, for the purposes of classification, listing, categorization, and terminology.

• Thus, in lists or categories such as "Number of speakers by language" or "Films by language", it is appropriate to list these varieties seperately.
• Top level divisions of Chinese (Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese, Hakka, Min, etc) should be listed seperately as top-level languages in lists or categories by language.
• When describing loanwords, terms, placenames, or personal names, it can be appropriate to include the names, characters, and/or romanizations from the originating language or dialect. Including the Shanghainese term would be appropriate for a placename in Shanghai or a Shanghainese dish; including the Taiwanese names for the same would not.

Nonetheless, despite their status, linguistic classifications do not necessarilly correspond with traditional Chinese classification of these varieties, and viewing all these as part of a single language is an an important part of the linguistic and cultural self-identity of many Chinese. Therefore, for NPOV purposes, avoid explicitly naming them as either languages or dialects. Simply use the name itself if there is no ambiguity. If there is, then use "xxx (linguistics)" if there's dispute over whether to call it a language or dialect — this includes all the first-level divisions, the second-level divisions of Min, and Taiwanese. Use "xxx dialect" otherwise:

   * Mandarin (linguistics) (北方话)
   * Standard Mandarin (普通话/國語)
   * Cantonese (linguistics) (粤語)
   * Min Nan (閩南語)
   * Taiwanese (linguistics) (台語)

In such articles, mention should be made of the language/dialect controversy. The issues over identification of the varieties of Chinese should be mentioned in the first-level divisions. --Yuje 19:32, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Vote

So just to get an idea of the amount of support for adding the above text to the Chinese naming conventions, I'd like to conduct an informal vote to gauge the amount of concensus. Just state support, oppose, abstain, etc and please comment or suggest revisions

Support

• As per my position above. --Yuje 19:32, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
• Looks good to me. --Deiaemeth 03:36, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
• I am fine with this. --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 06:50, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Object

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Comment

• It would be nice to use the sandbox the compare the differences between the existing policy and the proposal. :-) — Instantnood 20:17, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

A company naming question

Several ROC-era companies in Guangdong (most notably Chinese medicine manafacturers) were split into two after 1949-- the families who owned the companies fled to Hong Kong and continued their business there, while in PRC the original business was nationalized.

I was instructed to write three articles in the case of that: one for the pre-1949 company and one for both progenies. It's the naming of the pre-1949 entity that posed a problem: We should use pinyin(currently the name of the PRC progeny) or Cantonese(the name of the Hong Kong progeny)?

To help with the question, the two companies engaged into massive trademark war overseas and generally the PRC progeny is limited to trade with that name within the PRC. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Samuel Curtis (talk • contribs) 04:52, May 3, 2006 (UTC).

In that case they're now two companies, the original business in mainland China was not continued to be operated by the family members, and the assets were taken over by the PRC government, am I right? IMHO, create an article for each of the two companies, mention about the shared pre-1949 history under the article for the one carried on by the family, with a link to that section on their shared history from the another article. — Instantnood 17:44, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

There's a special case where in the PRC the company was nationalized but is still ran by one of the branch of the family. In that case, what to do? Samuel Curtis 18:02, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Do the companies treat the other parts as just different parts of the same company, or do they demand that they are the only "true" company with that name? It's not uncommon to have companies with the same name in multiple places, related to each other or not. If they treat each other as just different branches, then figure out if there is a relationship and maybe you can write just one article, this is not that uncommon. You might find they have one holding company and each company is actually a legal subsidiary. If they are different, then just use standard Wikipedia:Disambiguation tactics. SchmuckyTheCat 18:50, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Samuel Curtis actually wants to know how the pre-1949 history can be dealt with, and which name (Pinyin or Cantonese) to use. If their pre-1949 history is included in the article of either one of them, but only linked from the other, it already implies which is the legitimate one, and is subject to different points of view. I've to say it's a difficult matter to deal with. — Instantnood 20:14, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Answering SchmuckyTheCat: The Hong Kong companies always claim they are the only legitimate company, but the PRC companies are usually quiet on this issue.Samuel Curtis 03:46, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm inclined to say that one should attempt to determine whether the business in question did its business before 1949 exclusively or almost exclusively in Cantonese. If so, use the Cantonese name. Otherwise, Standard Mandarin was already the national standard under the ROC, so use that. - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 04:17, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

You mean, use Wades-Glides? Samuel Curtis 15:20, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Now I have thought about it; the business law at that time in ROC (even now in PRC) does not require companies to have a name written in Roman characters, and, aaccording to my knowledge, companies are free to use any romanization, if not another Chinese language of their choice. It is still possible that before 1949 the Latin alphabet name of the entities would be in Cantonese in this case. Samuel Curtis 14:22, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, Wade-Giles would be an interesting possibility, but what I meant was just to use the guoyu name, which would, of course, be transliterated into Roman letters somehow, and I had presumed (without really thinking about it) that that would be pinyin. Now, if the company, in fact, had one registered or otherwise official or common roman-letters name, I think you should use that. - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 17:00, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

True. There're still Kweichow Moutai, Tsingtao Beer, Tsinghua University, Peking University.. even after some thirty years Pinyin was designated the official standard of transcription into roman letters by the PRC and by the UN. It really depends on under what name the company trades and traded as. — Instantnood 19:28, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

What if this name is also the name of one of the progenies? Samuel Curtis 15:49, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

(response to user:Samuel Curtis' message at 03:46, May 6) If it's true for the companies you're going to write on, use the names the Hong Kong companies are using. The PRC ones can perhaps be considered new but related companies. — Instantnood 09:51, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Now I have thought of, in most cases the PRC companies claimed themselves legitimate — based on ideological grounds — before around 1970s, then they no longer claim they are the "one and only" successor of the company, even by trademark laws they have the monopoly of that name in the PRC. There are always exceptions; one of these companies in the PRC got a license from the Hong Kong company to use the mark overseas. Samuel Curtis 15:20, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. There's no general rule of thumb. — Instantnood 19:28, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Historical articles

There is a related question. I was looking up the Xi'an Incident, which uses only Pinyin (except for Chiang Kai-shek). Since the article reads like it has been babel-fished, this may not represent anyone's decision.

Nevertheless, this is fairly inconvenient. There are several contemporary discussions of this; none of them (of course) use Pinyin. Most use Post-Office or Wade-Giles, and the English reader, whom we are trying to serve, will have trouble recognizing the names involved. Should there be a policy to change the Romanization in such cases, which would apply strictly to pre-1950 subjects? Septentrionalis 19:49, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I myself prefer using the old names for all pre-PRC matters. To those who're proficient in Chinese it might simply be a change of transcription, to most English speakers it is a name change, like Calcutta to Kolkata. We may say, for example, " the Republic of China government moved to [[Chongqing|Chungking]] (now Chongqing), after [[Nanjing|Nanking]] (now Nanjing) fell to Japanese control in 1937 ". But this may involve modifying the existing policy, and will need consensus to do so. — Instantnood 20:14, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I think a change in romanization should not be made to look like a name change. If both romanizations have to be used, it should be "[[Chongqing|Chungking]] ([[Pinyin]]: Chongqing)" or something similar, to distinguish it from the situation of "Beijing (then called Peip'ing)". Kusma (討論) 22:16, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

That seems reasonable. Do that at first mention, and then continue. Septentrionalis 23:26, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Pinyin without tone marks are not really Pinyin. Is " the Republic of China government moved to [[Chongqing|Chungking]] (Chongqing), after [[Nanjing|Nanking]] (Nanjing) fell to Japanese control in 1937. " more acceptable? — Instantnood 20:16, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Pinyin is now universally used. There's no need to confuse people with multiple names for different contexts. Historians now (not historians 30 years ago) almost always use pinyin, except for certain exceptions such as Chiang Kai-shek and Sun Yat-sen. I say we use pinyin except in the case of proper names where whichever system was official used by the entity should be used. Instantnood's suggestion is misleading because it makes it seem like there was a name change when there was none.--Jiang 01:16, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I find it weird to see the English names of these places in texts about history spelt in the modern way. We cannot rewrite history by replacing everything with modern names. Pinyin has only been used widely for around a decade or two, and not yet, until this moment, truly universally. — Instantnood 20:16, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

This is the convention used by journalists and historians, even when speaking of historical topics. Of course they're plenty of books using Wade-Giles, but none are published recently. How many history books written recently can you find that do not use pinyin? Wikipedia should follow established conventions, not create them. I can't think of a single publication that varies the romanization of places to suit contexts.--Jiang 00:42, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Why is this the convention? (assuming it is) Using the old names is different from varying romanisations to suit contexts. We have to use the names that were used in English by then. (Nevertheless the way the Mother Teresa of Calcutta article is written is unsatisfactory. She died in 1997, whereas the name change took place in 2001.) — Instantnood 19:57, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

• Frankly, I am more concerned about the names of people than places. It is probably still true that the warlord of Manchuria has been more often spelled Chang Tso-lin than Zhang Zuolin (because he's not written about much nowadays). It will be difficult for the English reader to follow up on this article if it's only in pinyin. Septentrionalis 23:56, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Redirects are cheap. SchmuckyTheCat 00:18, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't see how this is soluble by redirects; I'm not discussing the placement of Xi'an Incident, but its text. Septentrionalis 03:41, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the ambiguity comes with people names (e.g. Zhang Xueliang), not place names (e.g. Beijing). I don't know of a solution for this. --Jiang 00:42, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Another trouble are the names of historical events that involve the ROC, such as the Xinhai Revolution, which the ROC government calls it 1911 Revolution or Hsin-hai Revolution in English. — Instantnood 19:57, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Naming proposal

-is there anyone who wish to say "im not chinese" im "zhongguonese"? in general we follow conventions when writing different names. the word "China" itself is a perfect example of this, generally, in english once a name is accepted, it tend to stick forever. "Mr jaeger" "Ms Koenig" "the rhine" "the hague" "gypsies" "japan" etc.

personally, being a seperatist myself, i would prefer to not use pinyin when speaking about matters outside mainland china. as using pinying would signify a kind of submission to communist politics. of course, people from a different political point of view would object to this for obvious reasons, they would like nothing less than half of asia shouting in unison "we are all chinese". and when such goal is not realized, they revert to the old tradition stemming from the founding of the chin dynasty, burn all the books and burry all the scholars alive. (or delete wiki articles, and ban wikipedians in this case)

but politics aside, the group of people who would idtentify themselves as the "sons of dragons" or "sons of the emperor huang" (a politically neutral term imo) are notoriously over-inclusive when using the term "chinese", in "casual speech" when one isnt actively trying to demonstrate one's political standing by one's choice of words, the word chinese (people) often include people who's grandfather's grandfather moved to thailand 200 years ago, or citizens of singapore who cant write their own names in kanji. and in casual speech, the consensus is that all non-mandarin accents/language/dialects are considered "secondary". (of course, this "consensus" changes greatly when one start to talk about politics, for example, pro-indepent taiwanese politicians tend to speak of republic of taiwan with taiwanese as the official language, even though the word refering to "mandarin chinese" in taiwanese is literally translated as "national language"

so.. in light of the political situation, i suggest we have a hierachy of names: traditional english names comes first (if there is one) -> followed by whatever convention that the people immediately associated with the articles prefer (eg. if chao yum fat introduce himself in english as "im yum fat" we shouldnt use his mandarin "run fa" as primary name) (it's not too perposterous to suggest that ppl can decide what their own name is, is it?] this should be followed by the standard of whatever political body that is most closely associated with the article, followed by other variations.

This issue is similar to the debate on "US" vs. "British" spelling in wikipedia. There are more than one way to write these names, but there is only one article. You have to do it one way or the other. With help of redirects, all variations of the topic title can be easily handled. But the content should be consistent at least within the article if not across wikipedia. Like the edit wars between British and US spellers, you cannot please everyone either way. Instead of listing all possible spellings within the article, perhaps wikidictionary entries should be created to list the spelling variations. Which spelling system should be picked for the article content? A set of strict and comprehensive guidelines should be developed independent of any political agenda. We should not shy away from pinyin because Taiwanese people hate PRC. Once a spelling system has been decided, it should be noted in the article, so that edit war can be cut down to minimium. Many terminologies have entered the English language and have become English words, they should not be replaced with new spelling, e.g. China, tofu, bokchoy etc. Official spellings such as Tung Chee Hua should not be altered either. Spellings native to the topic should be used, e.g. Dimsum was introduced to the English language via Cantonese, which is not equivalent to the generic Chinese "dianxin", so it would be a mistake to spell it in pinyin. Another example is wok which is already a English word via Cantonese pronunciation, how it is called in pinyin is irrelavent. For other terminologies (including new or historical topics) that are not already in the English language (look up a English dictionary as a litmus test), I would vote for pinyin because it is more widely used and English speakers can pronounced the spellings closer to the Mandarin originals than Wade-Giles can with or without the tone marks. To assist cross reference to older publications, the Wade-Giles spellings can be put in parenthesis or link to a wikidictionary entry. Kowloonese 18:19, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

i agree to kowloon to certain extend, however, you must also understand that the concept of hierachy is much stricter in the chinese culture than in western culture. for example, a political analyst can often tell the subtle change in political climate in china simply by looking at who's name comes first in a list of names in a newspaper. because of that, and because most editors of china-related articles are perhaps chinese speakers (that's my guess i could be wrong) a simple naming convention must also be a political debate.

Perhaps that is true for zh.wikipedia.com, but we are talking about the conventions used in en.wikipedia.com and I don't think the same rules need to apply. Let them fight in the zh version and leave the political agenda off the en version, this version is supposed to be NPOV. Kowloonese 18:04, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Excessive name pinyinification

One recent trend that's been bothering me is the zealous pinyinification of personal names all over Wikipedia. While I understand and agree with pinyinification of general Chinese placenames and terms, (as pinyin is accepted as the de-facto standard through much of the world), doing so with personal names is a completely different can of worms. Obviously, many individuals made the personal choice to choose a different method of romanizing their names, and pinyinification seems to violate NPOV by not respecting that individual's own choice of romanization. Most people from Mainland China and some from Singapore romanize their personal names in pinyin by default, so pinyinification of mainland personal names is not likely to be a controversial issue, but many outside of the mainland choose not to, for many reasons.

Some may prefer other systems, such as Wade-Giles, and others, such as those from Taiwan, may see pinyin as part of the communist system they wish to disassociate themselves from. Others still, such as thouse overseas, in Hong Kong, Macau, or Singapore, may romanize their names based on their native dialects. It seems like whenever Chinese characters are given, editors will inevitably pinyinize it, despite the fact that the person's political or personal views may disagree with such a choice, or perhaps not even be fluent in Mandarin.

As a result of pinyinification, we have very striking incongruencies like the following:

• Shing-Tung Yau (丘成桐; Pinyin: Qīu Chéngtóng)
• Yung Wing (Chinese: 容闳; Pinyin: Róng Hóng)
• Kim Ng (Chinese: 伍佩琴; Pinyin: Wǔ Pèiqín
• Tak Wah Mak (麥德華; pinyin: Mài Déhuá)

I certainly don't see how Wikipedia should give a preferred pronunciation that differs from how the individual might have wanted it. Why should we be telling readers that the "proper" way to pronounce Mak Tak Wah is Mài Déhuá?

I believe given pinyin names may be appropriate for:

1. Personal names of people from Mainland China: Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Hu Jintao
2. Historical figures in China (unless an established English term ie Confucius already exists), since pinyin is now almost standard for Chinese studies
3. Personal names of those who have romanized their own names in pinyin, or are not likely to object to their name presented in pinyin: Lee Kwan Yew (a promoter of pinyinification in Singapore)

However, it may not be appropriate for the following categories of people (unless they fall into category 3 above):

1. People from Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Macau
2. Overseas Chinese

I don't know about Hong Kong or Taiwanese people, but I think for many overseas individuals at least, only the characters for their name should be given, along with their own personal name. A good example of how this was done migth be Michelle Kwan, where both her English and Chinese name are given, but no preferential romanization is suggested. If someone really wanted to know the Mandarin pronunciation in pinyin, they could always look it up in Wiktionary. --Yuje 10:08, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

The solution to this problem is not to remove the pinyin; it is to give the guide in Cantonese as well. It's not as if people are moving the articles to pinyinified titles (that would indeed a problem); they're just giving a pronunciation guide in pinyin. Why is that a problem? -- ran (talk) 23:51, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I think the problem with that solution is that then you would be giving preference to Mandarin and Cantonese to all the other varieties as well. If that's the case, why not Shanghainese, or Taiwanese too? It would get unwieldy. I think I like the suggestion that no romanization be given at all unless it's actually relevant to the article. For instance, if it's an article such as Mak Tak Wah, then the Cantonese romanization should be given since it's relevant to how the name is pronounced. The same should go to characters in general — don't show characters unless they're actually relevant as well.

For instance, let's look at Traditional Chinese character#Controversy_over_Chinese_name. There really is no need to put the pinyin next to every one of these terms (though I admit I am guilty of putting some of them in, but am starting to change my mind about it after seeing this thread). It makes the text very cluttered. The characters should stay though because they are relevant to the what is being discussed (though having both the traditional and simplified terms is rather cluttering too, but that's another discussion). —Umofomia 03:46, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I tend to disagree. I think pinyin should be added to all Chinese names because it stands for the standard variety of Chinese, the national language both for Mainland China and for Taiwan. Because of that, I don't think it can be put on the same footing as, say, Shanghaiese or Hunanese. I can speak Mandarin (badly) and no Cantonese, and when I come across a Wikipedia article about somebody from Hong Kong, I like to see the pinyin alongside the characters. Even if I try to put aside my personal interests, I still feel that the two character versions and the pinyin transcription should be a must for all Chinese names. --AngelRiesgo 18:38, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the above. All names of Chinese people, it doesn’t matter what region they’re from or what language(s)/dialect(s) they speak should have pinyin. Non-pinyin romanisations should only be used when the the name of the person is derived from; languages/dialects other than putonghua, or Wade-Giles. Except for articles specifically about Hong Kong, I think there is overuse of Cantonese in wiki in general, eg Zhang Ziyi used to have her name in Cantonese listed along with "Zhang Ziyi" and "Ziyi Zhang". I think sometimes non-putonghua speaking Cantonese speakers don’t seem to realise that for 95% of all Chinese speakers (whether in China, PRC, worldwide etc) Cantonese is completely irrelevant. If you are not from a certain region, nobody would expect you to be able to speak or understand that region’s local language/dialect. LDHan 19:53, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

"for 95% of all Chinese speakers ... Cantonese is completely irrelevant"

Perhaps; but for a large percentage of English speakers, Cantonese is by far the most-spoken Chinese dialect in their country (USA, GB, Canada etc). Thus Cantonese romanisation is appropriate in 普洱茶 because, out of all English speakers that ever come across it, a large percentage will hear it called "Boulei" (in Chinese restaurants etc). 80.68.82.115 06:07, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Taiwan vs. ROC (again)

Previous discussions: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese)/archive4#..of Taiwan → ..of the Republic of China, Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese)/Archive5

I'm reopening this discussion in light of the recent moves of several pages by User:RevolverOcelotX. These moves included:

• Rail transport in Taiwan -> Rail transport in the Republic of China
• Highway System in Taiwan -> Highway System in the Republic of China

Now I'm not opposed in principle to the existance of "... in the Republic of China" articles, however these moves strike me as being inappropriate, for the reasons:

1. The articles in question deal solely with rail or highway systems on the main island of Taiwan itself (in fact, the only rail systems under ROC jurisdiction are in Taiwan).
2. By moving these articles we are implicitly implying that Taiwan = ROC, which per prior discussion was considered to be POV.

Seeing as there are plenty of examples of articles describing issues pertaining to a geographic region (e.g. Transportation in Hong Kong, Transportation in Ireland), I see no reason why having a regional article for Taiwan (the island) is inappropriate. If someone wanted to create an ROC article with the Taiwan article branching off as a subsection I wouldn't have a problem either, though note again that this was not what was done. I hate to reopen old debates but with all the ROC/Taiwan debates going on already, plus these undiscussed moves I figured a discussion to be nessecary. Comments please. -Loren 04:51, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

The Republic of China administered the many island groups including Taiwan, the Pescadores, Kinmen, Matsu, ect. The current official government name is the Republic of China, so using "Taiwan" would be misleading and inaccurate. These rail or highway systems could be on any one of those island groups admistered by the ROC, therfore its more accurate to use the the Republic of China instead of limiting it to "Taiwan". These rail systems under ROC jurisdiction could be connecting with or on many of the other islands under ROC jurisdiction. It would be best to create a ROC article with separate subsections for Taiwan and other islands for consistency with other ROC articles such as X of the Republic of China. --RevolverOcelotX

In which case the appropriate thing to do would be to create a seperate "... in the Republic of China" article encompassing content from all the regions, linking to articles in the various regions under ROC jurisdiction, not by just renaming the articles on Taiwan. Again, the articles in question aren't referring to the state (the ROC as a whole), they refer to geographic area (namely the main island Taiwan proper), much as many other articles on similar subjects do as I mentioned earlier. You are more then welcome to create a seperate ROC article with summaries and redirects to Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu and/or articles pertaining to the other islands, though I think if you tried to write a "Rail transport in Kinmen" article... it would be a rather short one. -Loren 05:23, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Do all the articles in question take place solely on the island of "Taiwan" or the ROC as a whole? Does any other islands admistered by the ROC have Rail transport and Highway Systems as well? It would be more appropriate to have an ROC articles for all the islands under ROC administration since an articles on each separate ROC island would be very short. Since most of these these articles are political as well as geographical, using the name "... in the Republic of China" would be more logical. The term "Taiwan" should only be used on only geographical articles and not in political articles because "Taiwan" does not have a separate government from the ROC. The similar subjects you mentioned earlier such Transportation in Hong Kong is different because Hong Kong has a autonomous government governing its transportation but the island of "Taiwan" is administered and governed by the ROC government and the transportation of Taiwan is under the jurisdiction of the ROC. It would be more consistent with other ROC articles such as Military of the Republic of China. --RevolverOcelotX

Yes, the articles in question refer to the situation on Taiwan proper. The difference between these and the military article is that the ROC military refers solely to a body of the state adminstered by the central government. Transportation is significantly more complicated in terms of ownership making it less political then the military. Take highways for example, on Taiwan proper you have:

* National highways: nominally administred by the central government (National Freeway Bureau).

* Provincial highways: nominally administred by the provincial government (now under MOTC).

* County and township routes: Local government.

Highways and roads in Kinmen and Matsu are IIRC, named not numbered.

Railways are even more complex in terms of ownership:

* Taiwan Railway Administration: MOTC

* Alishan Railway: Agricultural Council

* Taipei MRT: Publicly owned corporation under contract to city.

* Taiwan Sugar Corporation: private corporation.

* Misc. industrial railways (Coal, salt, lumber): private corporations.

* Kaohsiung MRT; Similar situation to Taipei.

* THSR: Private corporation contracted by MOTC.

If the content of the articles is all about a single region, then that's hat it should be named lest people think that there are railways on Kinmen. And the categorization of the articles makes it clear that it's a geographical region being referred to, with all the articles sorted somewhere under Category:Transportation in the Republic of China -Loren 06:19, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Taiwan is oftentimes used as a term to mean the entirety of the ROC. Unilaterally moving articles from one name to the other without A LOT of conversation generally results in flame wars. Please don't do that. SchmuckyTheCat 06:25, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

We should use the official name, the Republic of China, when referring to the whole state for the purpose of disambiguation. Taiwan should only refer to the geographical island of Taiwan and not the entire state known as the Republic of China. For political topics, the Republic of China should be used for consistency with other ROC articles like History of the Republic of China, Military of the Republic of China, ect. --RevolverOcelotX

There are six archives worth of discussion for this page, and many of them discuss exactly that. The statement "Taiwan should only refer to the geographical island" isn't a true statement by our policies (it was removed from this guideline, specifically), Wikipedia concensus, or common usage. Please don't unilaterally decide to change these things, you will find yourself in edit wars involving dozens of people very quickly. SchmuckyTheCat 15:57, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

The rail transport article discusses the railways and their administration on the island of Taiwan, under Japanese rule and post-1945/1949 ROC (and apparently there is no railway on the islands of Quemoy, Wuchiu, Matsu, Jyuguang, etc., and Taiping and Pratas). If it is renamed, do we have to mention the history of rail transport on the Chinese mainland before 1949?

As for the highway article, are there any county and township routes in the Kinmen and Lienchiang counties? — Instantnood 10:07, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Apostrophes

The current section on the use of apostrophes in pinyin handles the question as if it were just a matter of personal preference without any clear rules, with sentences like "some people apply the apostrophe in these cases nevertheless, for the sake of clarity" and "the second rule is not a strict rule, so you might want to do a google test to determine which usage is more popular". Are there really no hard-and-fast rules about this? I have found that the site pinyin.info has an article on the use of apostrophes where the rules are set out in a very clear fashion. The rules in that website seem to come from the book Chinese Romanization. Pronunciation and Orthography (汉语拼音和正词法), by Yin Binyong and Mary Felley, and published by Sinolingua (Beijing) in 1990. This book is also the main reference in the Wikipedia article about the pinyin system, so I suppose it can be regarded as a valid authority on the matter, certainly more so than the recommendations of The US Library of Congress. The rules according to pinyin.info are extremely concise and simple: "Put an apostrophe before any syllable that begins with a, e, or o, unless that syllable comes at the beginning of a word or immediately follows a hyphen or other dash". Following this, Tian'anmen would indeed be spelled with an apostrophe even if it could be argued that no ambiguity exists (there is no tia syllable in pinyin). On the other hand, cases like Zhàngāng or Fǎngǎn, currently cited in the apostrophes section as Zhàn'gāng or Fǎn'gǎn would have no apostrophe, which seems correct if we think about place names like Henan or Jinan, which are never spelled as He'nan or Ji'nan. Unless there were any good reasons not to trust the description of the rules given at pinyin.info, I think we should rewrite the apostrophes section so that it cites that simple rule, followed by some better examples. --AngelRiesgo 19:33, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I have a copy of that book, though not on me at the moment so I can't tell you what it says about the apostrophe in pinyin. That rule doesn't seem to completely accurate, as shown by your example. I suspect Henan or Tiananmen are written like that just because they are well known words although Tiananmen written as Tian'anmen seems to be fairly common. LDHan 20:20, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, my impression is that Tian'anmen, like Xi'an, is fairly common because it is the correct spelling, as sanctioned by the PRC. And that's why I think the pinyin.info rules make sense, because they help to explain clearly and without ambiguity the common cases in which apostrophes are regularly used. The article at pinyin.info is also critical of the Library of Congress recommendations, which seem to be wrong. --AngelRiesgo 20:42, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Excessive use of Cantonese

I was just reading the Jiaozi article, I noticed that all the names for the various types of non-dim sum jiaozi are given in Hanzi and pinyin, which is correct, but Cantonese romanisations are also given. Cantonese romanisations for foods from the Cantonese speaking areas can be justified as they are the local names, but as far as I'm aware Jiaozi (the food) is not from Cantonese speaking areas, if Jiaozi is from a particular part of China it would be Northern China.

I think this a just one example of the excessive and inappropiate use of Cantonese in wiki in general, however I do support the use of local romanisations if they are relevant to the subject. If some people are against only using pinyin in Chinese topic articles because they object to the implication that only using pinyin is saying that putonghua is the only correct Chinese, then shouldn’t Wu, Minnan, Gan, Hakka, Chengdu, Xi'an etc be also given, after all Wu, Minnan, Gan, Hakka, Chengdu, Xi'an etc *and* Cantonese are all regional/local languages/dialects, use only by speakers from those areas, whereas putonghua is understood by all Chinese speakers wherever they are from. LDHan 02:45, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Use Cantonese is appropriate if it is related to the life of Cantonese. Please do not assume that all Chinese speakers known Putonghua and its Pinyin scheme well. Putonghua is only one of languages spoken by Chinese. Some languages like Cantonese, Minnan, Hakka and Teochew are spoken outside the realm of mainland China. Many terms of these languages became part of English and other languages many years ago.

A Chinese character itself does not nominate the proper pronunciation. When it is related to Japanese, it pronuounces in Japanese way; when it is related to Korean, it pronuounces in Korean way; when it is related to Cantonese, it pronuonces in Cantonese way; when it is related to Teochew, it pronunces in Teochew way.

As far as I observed, only Cantonese related topic includes Cantonese name. The title Jiaozi (餃子) maybe the results of merging of various related articles. In English, it usually refers to Dumpling. In the article it mentions not only dumplings found in northern China but also Cantonese, Japanese and Korean dumplings. The topic is related to Cantonese dumplings (餃, Kao or Gao) which are dim sum in Cantonese restaurant. It is alright you make a distinction and a split between northern Jiaozi and Cantonese Kao.

— HenryLi (Talk) 08:46, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Bear in mind that many of the early immigrants to the US and the UK were from the Canton. As a result many of the English loanwords for Chinese terms were based on Cantonese pronounciatons. While I agree that we shoud use standard Mandarin pronounciations whenever practical, I believe that the policy on neologisms dictates that existing loanwords (if in common usage, e.g. Kowloon rather than Jioulong, Dim sum rather then Dianshin) should be used when they exist. -Loren 09:01, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Romanize using the dialect an English speaker is most likely to come across

Wikipedia:Naming_conventions states that, "Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize", i.e. the name most used in the English-speaking world. A large percentage of English speakers live in countries where Cantonese is the dominant Chinese dialect (USA, GB, Canada etc). Therefore, Chinese entities such as food and drink, which an English speaker is most likely to encounter in his home country, should generally be romanized according to Cantonese pronounciation. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.68.82.115 (talk • contribs) 06:54, 16 September 2006 (UTC).

Page protection

I have temporarily protected this page due to a recurring edit war on this page over the last few days, and reverted it for the moment to the pre-edit war version. Normally I wouldn't be so quick to resort to such action, however in light of the importance of maintaining guidelines based on community consensus, I feel continued edit warring will be disruptive. I encourage the parties engaged in this dispute to discuss on the talk page before making further changes. I'd prefer to keep the lock down as brief as possible. -Loren 06:39, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

In light of the fact that none of those involved in the edit war seem interested in making use of the talk page, I am unprotecting the article again since the page protection doesn't seem to have worked in encouraging dialouge. -Loren 23:09, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

A user claimed my addition are pov pushing and removed my edits, which results in Loren's page protection. This is incorrect. The original addition of the phrase "One important subtle point: Wikipedia treats the Republic of China as a sovereign state with equal status with the People's Republic of China, yet does not address whether they are considered separate nations." is added by me on July 10.[[1]] It is in fact the official wikipedia policy of this issue and in no way POV. What I did was, I discovered this important sentence above was deleted by User:Jiang.

[[2]], who claimed there was no change in the policy in the removal of this sentence. The removal was without consensus, not to mention a strong suspicion of personal point of view by the above user. The sentence was present from originally by Shou on January 22, 2004 [[3]] and was there without dispute until Jiang's removal on May 20, 2005. I do not know why the edit warring user has a problem with the sentence and he refuse to communicate, simply labelling others edits as POV pushing with no thorough explanations. Despite Yuje's explanation [[4]], he continue to revert war. Eventually causing the page protection to occur. I'm not gonna revert back to the NPoV version, but if any of you think my explanation makes sense, please revert it. If you don't, contact me and I'll present a more thorogh explanation. Peace out--Bonafide.hustla 07:14, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Bonafide.hustla initially added the phrase without any discussion or consensus on the talk page. As stated by other users, there was no change in the policy with removing this phrase and it is pov pushing to add it there. RevolverOcelotX

Taihu Lake vs. Lake Taihu

Why not Taihu Lake, like the rest (river, mountain). --User:Jidanni 2006-07-31

Recent addition by User:Bonafide.hustla

User:Bonafide.hustla has repeated inserted the following sentence:

One important subtle point: Wikipedia treats the Republic of China as a sovereign state with equal status with the People's Republic of China, yet does not address whether they are considered separate nations.

Here are my reasons for reverting this change:

1. This is not the correct forum for this argument. This page is titled Naming conventions (Chinese). As such, it details the conventions of naming China-related matters on Wikipedia. Your contribution is a comment on this page and other related policies and conventions of Wikipedia. If you have a comment to make, please make it here, on a Talk page, rather than on the article page.

2. Inaccuracy. The comment above contains a number of inaccuracies which are not backed up by examples or sources. For example:

• Wikipedia treats... - Is this a reference to Wikipedia policies? or conventions? If the latter, then...
• sovereign state - Nowhere in the naming conventions, nor indeed in the relevant articles, is the sovereignty of the Republic of China, nor, indeed, the People's Republic of China, specified. In both articles, and in articles such as China and the political status of Taiwan, the sovereignty or lack thereof of either state, and whether sovereignty is internal, external, recognised, de jure, divided, or indivisible, is not specified and is indeed left to the reader to decide for his or herself. To state that "Wikipedia treats the ROC as a sovereign state" is therefore contrary to the reality of the practice on Wikipedia.
• equal status - Similarly to above, please show where the ROC is specified as being equal in status with the People's Republic of China. Given its rather unequal status in the United Nations and other world bodies, it would be rather outrageous indeed if Wikipedia did treat them as being "equal in status".

Due to these two reasons I have removed the sentence concerned from this article.

If you believe that my reasoning is erroneous, please reply below. If you would like to address the perceived inadequacies of the Naming conventions, please discuss below. Thanks. --Sumple (Talk) 06:27, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I copied my previous thread from this discussion page under the heading "Page Protection". The sentence have always been there but has been intentionally removed by admin User:Jiang a few years back, who claims on the edit summary that the removal of the sentence is strictly paraphrasing and has no effect/change on the actual policy. Now Sumple thinks the sentence contains my POV issue. I'm actually not the one who added it initially.

Please refer to here: :A user claimed my addition are pov pushing and removed my edits, which results in Loren's page protection. This is incorrect. The original addition of the phrase "One important subtle point: Wikipedia treats the Republic of China as a sovereign state with equal status with the People's Republic of China, yet does not address whether they are considered separate nations." is added by me on July 10.[[5]] It is in fact the official wikipedia policy of this issue and in no way POV. What I did was, I discovered this important sentence above was deleted by User:Jiang.

[[6]], who claimed there was no change in the policy in the removal of this sentence. The removal was without consensus, not to mention a strong suspicion of personal point of view by the above user. The sentence was present from originally by Shou on January 22, 2004 [[7]] and was there without dispute until Jiang's removal on May 20, 2005. I do not know why the edit warring user has a problem with the sentence and he refuse to communicate, simply labelling others edits as POV pushing with no thorough explanations. Despite Yuje's explanation [[8]], he continue to revert war. Eventually causing the page protection to occur. I'm not gonna revert back to the NPoV version, but if any of you think my explanation makes sense, please revert it. If you don't, contact me and I'll present a more thorogh explanation. Peace out--Bonafide.hustla 07:14, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I was not aware of the history of that sentence. Nonetheless, my point regarding the NPOV issues of the sentence remains. We don't do sovereignty! --Sumple (Talk) 07:13, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Well that's your POV. I doubt you actually clicked in the links. Please do so before making any judgments.--Bonafide.hustla 07:18, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Do more research. Shou added the sentence in question in on 00:14, 22 January 2004 [9] There was a breif edit war in Feburary of 2005. Jiang revised and rewrote the section [10] and did indeed eliminate the exact wording of that sentence and the conflict ceased after that. It remained removed until you added it back 01:50, 10 July 2006. [11] So you see, you are actually restarting an edit war that should've ended by putting that sentence back. For one, the statement that anything is 'sovereign' is a sort of policy-like statement to a heated conflict. I encourage removal of it. Kevin_b_er 07:23, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[12] If you say ROC is not soverign then it is POV. And it is apparent that even though Jiang claimed there was no policy change, only tweaking of words, Sumple falsely assume that the official wikipedia policy is that ROC shouldn't be treated as soverign. Thus, the sentence is necessary to ensure NPOV and prevent future vandals pointing to the naming convention as a way to include Taiwan as part of China.--Bonafide.hustla 07:32, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Please show falsity in "Sumple falsely assume that the official wikipedia policy is... " --Sumple (Talk) 07:35, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Just scroll up, you said "we don't do soverignity".--Bonafide.hustla 07:35, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

No, its not that wikipedia shouldn't treat one or the other as soveriegn or not, its that this shouldn't be attempting to 'enforce' either position in thie guideline. Soveriegn? not soverign? It doesn't matter, don't try to state wether or not in the guideline. Specifying either is POV. Neither specification of soveriegnty or non-soveriegnty has any sort of policy, its a hotly disputed topic. This page shouldn't attempt to comment on a possible consensus about a political topic that is not yet resolved. --Kevin_b_er 08:08, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

What's the point of making the conventions anyway? Even the conventions is POV.--Bonafide.hustla 08:15, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Conventions are meant to prescribe, not describe. I don't see the point of keeping the removed statement. This is not an article.--Jiang 09:12, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Postal System Pinyin?

I have intiated a discussion on Talk:Postal System Pinyin whether this page should be moved to "Chinese postal spelling system" or any other more appropriate English name. I feel that "pinyin" is both inaccurate and anachronistic, but I want to discuss this before I make any changes.--Niohe 17:45, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Naming convention for streets?

Is there a Wikipedia convention, de facto or de jure, for Chinese street names? At Wikitravel, we're currently using this rule:

Write syllables words together and in lowercase.  Split up long strings into sensible chunks.
南大街 is Nándàjiē (South-Great-Street), not "Nan Da Jie" or "NanDaJie"
天河北路 is Tiānhé Běilù (Heaven-Lake North-Road)

But I was hoping there would be a clearer way of expressing this. Jpatokal 08:32, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

{{needhanzi}}

Could be useful, and articles lacking chinese characters could be found in Category:Lacking Chinese text. Yao Ziyuan 06:27, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Excellent! This will allow, now, editors with Chinese language skill to go through and add the hanzi for these articles. Thanks for your thoughtful improvements to Chinese articles. Badagnani 06:33, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

{{CJKV}}

could be used for most {{zh-xxx}} jobs in this single template. Yao Ziyuan 14:46, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, interesting idea. I never thought of having all the languages in a single template. Badagnani 19:40, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

The only thing is that the way I've seen you use it, the non-Chinese romanizations (i.e. Korean, Japanese) aren't given, and the pinyin is given before the template rather than within it. Badagnani 01:38, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

{{Chinese calendar}}

New templates for conversion of Julian day to Chinese calendar, now support from 4 AD upto 2044. {{JD}} could be used for conversion from Gregorian calendar to Julian day. For example, today is Template:Chinese calendar/year name年Template:Chinese calendar/month name月Template:Chinese calendar/day name日 in Chinese calendar. Yao Ziyuan 15:16, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Please join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject China#Naming conventions. --Ideogram 02:41, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Definition of "Taiwan"

Should the definition of Taiwan under the Political NPOV section be expanded to cover geographically affiliated small islands of the main island of Taiwan, e.g. Green Island, Orchid Island and the Pescadores? — Instantnood 17:02, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Taiwan has multiple meanings. It can mean the island, it can mean the ROC. SchmuckyTheCat 17:04, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

This is not a discussion about whether Taiwan should mean the island of Taiwan or the ROC. What we have to do is to figure out whether or not the meaning of Taiwan under that section covers Green Island, Orchid Island and the Pescadores. If yes the wordings have to be slightly modified accordingly to reflect this. — Instantnood 17:10, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia describes, not prescribes. We do not make up definitions. SchmuckyTheCat 17:18, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Alright. If it describes, how should it describe Taiwan? Is Green Island, Orchid Island and the Pescadores described as part of Taiwan? — Instantnood 17:26, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Politically, administratively, and culturally, yes. Even more so than Kinmen and Matsu. -Loren 19:12, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Agree, and that's the reason why I brought the matter here. Unlike Orchid Island, Green Island, the Pescadores, etc., the islands on the Fujian coast and those in the South China Sea are, for many purposes, not considered to be part of Taiwan. Should the relevant text under the Political NPOV section be amended to reflect that Taiwan also covers Orchid Island, etc., not just the main island itself? — Instantnood 19:44, 24 February 2007 (UTC) (amended 20:28, 24 February 2007 (UTC))

Stop reverting 'nood. You are restoring an argument from 2005 for X-sakes. Knock it off. SchmuckyTheCat 18:01, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Start a new thread to propose if you want to remove that sentence. This thread of discussion was not started to address your edit. If your edit was never discussed, it has to be reverted no matter when the edit was actually made. — Instantnood 19:44, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. Whatever the circumstances were in 2005 if the edit has remained that way since with nobody else changing it then that is where the consensus is. SchmuckyTheCat 20:24, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

To repeat, start a new thread to propose. This thread of discussion was not started to address the edit you have made. — Instantnood 20:28, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

A quick look at the archives shows it was discussed, you just refused to accept the answer, as usual. So, knock it off with the revert warring. SchmuckyTheCat 20:32, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

You did not propose at the talk page prior to your edit. If you want to know who's refusing to accept the answer - the fact was that the outcome did not justify your move (e.g. Jiang's remarks). To repeat, this thread of discussion was not started to address the edit you have made. Start a new thread if you want to discuss. — Instantnood 20:47, 24 February 2007 (UTC) (modified 23:06, 24 February 2007 (UTC))

Blah blah blah. How long do you hold grudges? It has stood for the years and nobody has "corrected" it as you seem to think needs doing. SchmuckyTheCat 01:58, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to read the whole thing above, but I think Taiwan has three meanings: Taiwan island, Taiwan Province, and the common name of the ROC. And out of the three, most people use Taiwan as the common name for ROC. In historical context, however, Taiwan is mostly referred to as Taiwan island.--Jerrypp772000 22:25, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The key issue is that whether or not Green Island, Orchid Island, the Pescadores, etc., should be considered to be part of Taiwan for the more specific (and more accurate and more neutral) usage.

I suppose the answer is pretty apparent. Yet to modify the NPOV guideline to reflect this, discussion is required. — Instantnood 23:28, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

They should.--Jerrypp772000 22:23, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I'll wait for two weeks and see if the proposal would be objected by the community. — Instantnood 23:36, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

What proposal? SchmuckyTheCat 23:44, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Pinyin article titles

I've seen an issue come up on a few articles where one editor wants the title of the article to use pinyin tone markers, and others do not. I'm referring to something like Běijīng vs. Beijing. The solution always seems to be to use the non-pinyin name, and redirect the pinyin name to that name. I agree with that, but I can't find anywhere that this policy is explicitly stated. Is there no consensus on this, or does it just need to be written down somewhere? --Danaman5 20:20, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

This is so obvious that we probably didn't even find it necessary to mention it here. In academic papers, books, print media, street signs, government publications, and everything else that is not a Chinese language textbook, pinyin is rendered without tones. Tones should only appear when the pinyin is set off in parenthesis next to characters to introduce a Chinese term. Otherwise, don't use tones.--Jiang 03:05, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Political names

I have been trying to start a discussion on this topic at WP:CHINA for over a month now. This section was never accepted by consensus and numerous attempts have been made to correct it but no one has been willing to discuss. Either discuss it or remove it. --Ideogram 06:13, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any discussion above. Following WP principles, consensus must first be sought if text is to be blanked. Badagnani 06:33, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Do you see the link? To WP:CHINA? Did you see me link to the discussion earlier on this page under "Discussion"? Did you see me tag the section disputed? --Ideogram 06:35, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any discussion on blanking a large portion of the text of this page, as you did four times within a single hour without building, or even seeking consensus. Badagnani 06:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

So you think it's better to leave it labeled NPOV without any attempts to resolve the issues for over a year? --Ideogram 06:54, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I suppose it's ok for you to ignore my attempts to start discussion and jump in and revert three times when I try to do something about it? --Ideogram 06:55, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

No editor is perfect, but at least we ("we" meaning conscientious editors) adhere to a minimum of discussing massive deletions, on talk page of the page in question, before they are done. Badagnani 07:10, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

It is completely pointless for us to argue about whether I tried to discuss this beforehand, unless you are only interested in proving that you are right about something. Right now you have the opportunity to discuss whether the disputed text should be a guideline, and yet for some reason you are not doing so. Do you have anything to say that is not a complete waste of time? --Ideogram 07:13, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Badagnani, let me suggest you read the entire discussion I linked to above before posting something meaningless here again. At the very least it would prove that you are capable of reading before talking. --Ideogram 07:18, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Please try to refrain from personal attacks and rude behavior (your earlier cursing in edit summaries was very bad enough). Of course I have read that discussion but I simply do not agree with the blanket proposals to massively change article titles. We have done well on a case-by-case basis, relying on consensus and reasonableness. If you have a case for why you wish to blank many paragraphs of text in this particular article, please first attempt to build consensus here. In the meantime, have a cup of tea, undo your blanking, agree to refrain from attacking other editors, and we will discuss. Badagnani 07:22, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Please try to think and have a useful discussion before hitting the revert button. That text was marked NPOV for over a year. Did you read that? Nobody was discussing. Were you? Do you think it's ok for text marked NPOV to sit in the text where people can read it for over a year? --Ideogram 07:28, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, the NPOV tag is a result of the SchmuckyTheCat vs. Instantnood edit war (see above, in the archives, in the page history, and a gazillion other pages)...something about the use of "mainland China". This is why there is no discussion. It has nothing to do with what has been more recently discussed at WP:CHINA.

I really don't see the justification here for a NPOV dispute, let alone justification for blanking the page (which is not sanctioned by official policy for resolving disputes like these). Can someone please elaborate on the specific points of dispute? (Proposals to have stuff changed is not justification for POV) --Jiang 08:47, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

A lot more than that is objectionable Jiang, and it's not just about me and IN, you were involved as well, way back then. SchmuckyTheCat 15:04, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I just read the entire blanked text straight through, again. It is all eminently sensible, and I also fail to see what the problem with it is. While you're at it, Jiang, why not restore the text (I've used my three up for the day), and I suppose then we'll simply wait to hear what the editor's objections are. Lord knows I've asked enough times. Badagnani 08:55, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

ROC/Taiwan Naming Conventions (Here we go again...)

Guys, I think it's time we really got around to nailing down an acceptable version of the Naming Conventions for the Political NPOV section, as the nebulous definitions are leading to yet another disruptive edit war strecthing across multiple articles where editors seem to take offense at either "ROC" or "Taiwan" and have done blanket replacements which have led to completely POV or nonsensical edits. In the past, the general consensus was to reference official organs using their official titles (Republic of China Navy), while providing appropriate disambigs in the article intros; non-political articles took into account the general interchangibility of ROC and Taiwan in common usage, e.g. Culture of Taiwan, and used the common term under the understanding that a geographic area was being referenced, rather than some statement on policial status. I see no reason to change this arrangement, though I suspect some newer (or not so new) editors may have issues with this. So can we please decide on something? To sum up my suggestions: "President of the Republic of China", "Chien-Ming Wang was born in Tainan City, Taiwan...", "Culture of Taiwan", "Taipei City is the capital of the Republic of China..." -Loren 07:02, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

As a starting point, consider the following usages taken from various articles (versions taken from most recent edit at time of posting), note the various usages of ROC vs. Taiwan. How would you write them?

Official organs and positions

• Republic of China Navy: "The Republic of China Navy is the maritime branch of the armed forces of the Republic of China, commonly referred to as Taiwan..."
• President of the Republic of China: "The President of the Republic of China is the head of state of the Republic of China (ROC).... Outside of Taiwan, the President of the Republic of China is usually informally referred to as the "President of Taiwan""

Comments

As these articles reference official bodies, the official titles should be used (ROC), along with relevant disambiguation on common usage (blah blah blah commonly referred to as...). Replacing ROC with Taiwan in the title is inappropriate here. -Loren 07:02, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

People/Things (nonpolitical)

• Jay Chou: (from infobox) Origin Taiwan (Republic of China). "Jay Chou grew up in the small town of Linkou, Taiwan. Apparently showing sensitivity to music even as an infant, his mother took him to piano lessons at the age of 4."
• Chien-Ming Wang: "Chien-Ming Wang, born March 31, 1980 in Tainan City, Republic of China, commonly known as Taiwan, is a starting pitcher for the New York Yankees in Major League Baseball."

Comments

In general, people reading articles of a nonpolitical nature could care less about the intricate details of Taiwan, the ROC, the PRC... etc. Things like "Tainan City, Republic of China" on an article of a baseball player are unnecessary, confusing, and not common usage. In this context, "Taiwan" references a geographic area. Users clicking on the link are directed to the Taiwan article which contains all the gory details there. -Loren 07:02, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Places

• Taipei City: "Taipei City is the capital of the Republic of China. It is Taiwan's center of politics, commerce, mass media, education, and pop culture, and is considered to be one of the "Gamma world cities"."
• Taipei 101: "Taipei 101 is a 101-floor landmark skyscraper located in Taipei City, Taiwan, Republic of China."

Comments

Again, since the Taipei City article concerns a governmental division, the ROC is referenced. For the latter, I fail to see the point of plastering "Republic of China" after the common name of the location (or, as some editors have done, replacing "Taiwan" everywhere with "Republic of China", which is not common usage. -Loren 07:02, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Options for infoboxes or lists

1. Republic of China (Taiwan): pre-edit war consensus.
2. Taiwan (Republic of China)
3. Republic of China on Taiwan.
4. Republic of China
5. Taiwan (direct to article on geographic area)
6. Taiwan Province
7. Free Area of the Republic of China

Comment

I suggest using #1 for political listings, #2 for nonpolitical subjects. -Loren 07:12, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I think No. 5 is more appropriate for non-political articles.--Jerrypp772000 21:46, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

(tongue firmly in cheek, but semi-seriously) Why not just agree that "ROC" and "Taiwan" are used interchangeably in the real world and just leave it and beat over the head anyone who goes out of their way to rename/move/find-replace and otherwise edit war about it? SchmuckyTheCat 21:51, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

That was what we were doing before, and while I preferred the flexibility that afforded, it apparently isn't enough to prevent massive edit wars from people who seem insistant on implementing their... ah... strongly held views on the nature of cross-Straits relations. It's kind of difficult for me to come down like a pile of bricks on edit warring parties without a concrete standard to point to. Accusing someone of being obtuse just doesn't seem to cut it. -Loren 22:35, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

My main reason for using Taiwan is that using ROC is confusing to most of the Wikipedians and readers. Also, under current conventions, when alphabetizing countries, Taiwan (ROC) or ROC (Taiwan) should be listed under the letter T, I think we should still follow that.--Jerrypp772000 23:09, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Stop trying to make your own judgements. Slow down, take a deep breath and think about it. There is no country called "Taiwan." The country governing Taiwan is still the Republic of China. Therefore, the official name prevails according to conventions. TingMing 23:48, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Hardly. The current conventions call for referring to the state by its formal name, but makes note of the fact that "Taiwan" is used interchangebly with ROC in common parlance. For nonpolitical articles linking to Taiwan as a geographic area has been accepted usage in the past as it makes no judgements on legitimacy/political status. Taiwan is an island located in East Asia east of Mainland China, south of Japan and north of the Philippines. All other political details are relegated to their respective articles. -Loren 23:54, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest number 4 most of the time. However, number 3 should work for other instances when Taiwan becomes necessary. Official divisions should follow Taiwan Province, the Republic of China. Number 7 can also be used in some instances as well. TingMing 23:51, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't really care about the usage of ROC in political context although it might confuse a lot of people. The point is, non-political articles should stay non-political, that is, we should use Taiwan. Taiwan is the only term that can be political and non-political at the same time. ROC is almost always political.--Jerrypp772000 23:58, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd support Loren's idea of using #1 for political subjects, and #2 for non-political. It strikes a good balance between the official name (as TingMing wants), and the colloquial name (like Jerry wants). People can see both, and can discern the difference between the ROC and the PRC. Whatever the decision, this nit-picking edit war needs to stop. (Sorry Jerry - accidentally overwrote your comments - Doh!) --Folic Acid 00:07, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't really see the point of putting the official name in a non-political article. Not to mention the fact that there are a lot of people who don't know the difference between ROC and PRC.--Jerrypp772000 00:11, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

For me it depends upon the usage. "So and so was born in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan" works fine for me since that's common usage. For infoboxes where place of origin is requested Taiwan ROC seems to be a better compromise. -Loren 00:18, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned, Taiwan can be used interchangeably with ROC, even in political articles. There are very few instances where this is the wrong thing to do, and in most cases it is the most understood thing. This POV won't gain much traction, and I don't currently apply it. (in fact, I try to stay away from Taiwan naming disputes). SchmuckyTheCat 00:30, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I try to avoid them as well, which is possibly one reason why the latest one spun out of hand. -Loren 00:59, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

The official name and the real name should still hold sway. I would suggest Republic of China on Taiwan when you need that clarification. Jerry, why are you so scared that people don't understand what the difference is between the PRC and ROC? That is why Wikipedia is here, because it is one of the few sources they can actually know the Republic of China and the differences about China. Having Republic of China (Taiwan) is wrong. Having Taiwan (Republic of China) is even more offensive and wrong than the first. They are not equal to each other at all. You can occasionally use Taiwan, but Republic of China still hold sway over Taiwan. Having paranthesis is equating ROC to Taiwan. That is completely wrong. Taiwan is merely one of the 35 provinces of the ROC. Now, one of two provinces. Bottom line, I would agree with Republic of China on Taiwan. Never Republic of China (Taiwan) or Taiwan (Republic of China). TingMing 00:38, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

If I had to, I would go with Loren's proposal.--Jerrypp772000 00:41, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

If we look at the pages for the Koreas (two states with a territorial dispute), we can see that the official name of the polity is rarely cited in favor of the common name. North Korea and South Korea are almost universally used in place of The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) and The Republic of Korea (ROK). Here, in Taiwan, we rarely use "The Republic of China" except for official documents and a some political speeches...and even then, Taiwan is more common in stump speeches. The KMT used several English names for its polity during martial law, including: Free China, The Republic of China on Taiwan, The R.O.C. (Taipei)...etc. Moreover, the term "Mainland" was purposely affixed before China as a matter of KMT propaganda (Rawnsley, 2000 & p.20-28). So I guess it all depends on how you want to politicize it ;)Maowang 01:09, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

• Rawnsley. Gary D.2000. Taiwan's Informal Diplomacy and Propaganda. London, UK. Macmillan Press Ltd.

The country's name is still the Republic of China. Why cant Jerry and others follow it? That is the correct way. I think Republic of China on Taiwan works perfectly if need be. Republic of China (Taiwan) equates ROC to Taiwan which is not true. What about Fujian province of the Republic of China? Republic of China (government/country) on (based) Taiwan (since 1949).That is how I decipher it. Republic of China (Taiwan) [Republic of China= Taiwan]. That is completely perposterous and wrong. TingMing 01:26, 8 May 2007 (UTC)