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== Standardised Cantonese/Hakka romanisation ==
== Apostrophe-link characters in titles ==


The article heavily focuses on the use of Mandarin to romanise Chinese characters and phrases, but there is no real guideline (aside from "follow what the sources say") as to the romanisation of other Sinitic languages. While there has been ample and lively discussion on this talk page and others about the ''scope'' of names that should be romanised with each language (which is still a constantly ongoing tug of war because of the inherent hyperpoliticisation), I don't see any real discussion about the standards of such, the way Mandarin transliteration is elaborated on. Even aside from the raw pronounciation, there are some differences in transliteration conventions in Cantonese and Mandarin (which is the example I'll stick to on basis of personal knowledge), e.g.:
Just a note that the character used in ] romanization seems to have changed. I haven't tried to distinguish which article titles use Pinyin, but some titles may need to be changed to use either a straight apostrophe or the character used by {{tl|wg-apos}}, assuming that's correct. There are some articles that use that template where the character used by the template is now out of sync with the article title. If someone wants a list of all articles with a particular character in the title, feel free to ping me. -- ] (]) 22:11, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
* Cantonese names tend to use a hyphen (]) vs Mandarin names that tend to concatenate given name (])
* Cantonese transliterations lean towards spacing by character (Sai Yeung Choi South Street) vs Mandarin spacing by phrase/word (Zhongshan Road)
Therefore, I feel like an alternative description of Cantonese or Hakka transliteration scheme also deserves a place in the guide. And if someone knows sufficient Taishanese, Shanghaiese, etc to make a separate transliteration guide for that, that would be very welcome too.
Alternatively, I feel like a better option might be to split this article into a disambig that redirects to three or four different transliteration guides for the various Sinitic languages commonly needed to be transliterated. ] (]) 11:11, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
:Are there any standards out there to recommend? Otherwise we should continue to follow the sources, as in the above examples. ] 07:37, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
::There are definitely standards out there, although none have an overwhelming majority usage and one of the bigger problems is that the majority of speakers don’t know it. But it’s not exactly like the majority of English speakers follow MOS either, so I feel like that could be worked around. At the very least we could add something on identifying whether a source is in Cantonese, as opposed to an archaic name that might need to be changed to a pinyin transliteration. ] (]) 15:25, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
:::Re Cantonese, as much as I don’t like it personally, the tendency is to move towards Jyutping, judging from its usage in dictionaries and language teaching materials. ] (]) 22:04, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
::::The problem with moving to Jyutping is that it would match virtually none of the already commonly used names. To take the above example: Kwok Fu-shing becomes Gwok Fu-sing, which is still recognisable to an HKer who knows who he is; Sai Yeung Choi South Street would become Sai Joeng Coi South Street, which honestly sounds more Korean than Cantonese. Given even pronunciations of certain words within the language aren't really standardised, I think the follow the sources approach for the actual pronunciations themselves is the best we can do; this discussion would more be about things like formatting as mentioned above, or of when to translate instead of transliterate, etc (e.g. in HK "University Road" vs in the Mainland "Daxue Road"; I haven't checked the latter exists but you get my point.) Moreover, it would be good to acknowledge that the Sinitic languages are not just Mandarin even in written form, in principle. ] (]) 06:45, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
:I strongly support this suggestion. Even if there isn't a single majority usage atm, for the sake of readability Misplaced Pages should pick a standard and stick to it.
⚫ :I'm not very familiar with non-Mandarin romanizations and would really appreciate a guide. ] (]) 12:12, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
::I'm fairly surprised there haven't been more RfCs over this and related topics, given the ire it usually attracts. As I said above, I don't think a full standard like there is for Mandarin is achievable or within our scope, but for one the claim in the project page that all written Chinese is Mandarin Chinese is patently false. Admittedly, I do not have any examples of it causing problems, so I could possibly be guilty of having a solution that needs a problem here. I would appreciate it if anyone had any examples to make a case however. ] (]) 06:49, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
:::I think "Chinese names should be written in Hanyu Pinyin unless there is a more common romanization used in English" covers pretty well what we do and what we should do. ] is the standard placename in English for 油麻地 although it is not any of the commonly used romanizations of Cantonese nowadays. There seems to be even less of a standard for non-Mandarin than for Mandarin (where Taiwan and Singapore commonly use other systems than Hanyu Pinyin, with different systems used for different people: our coverage of Taiwan and people connected to it uses at least (simplified) Wade-Giles, Gwoyeu Romatzyh, Hanyu pinyin and Tongyong pinyin). Misplaced Pages should not invent standards that are not used by the majority of sources. Better to stick to the sources than to surprise people by "standardized" article titles that are different from everywhere else. —] (]) 09:50, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
::::I agree largely with what you said. As noted above, however, this is not really about the standard of romanticisation, which as you say is close to nonexistent. Other aspects covered in this MOS, such as word ordering and grouping, hyphenation, when to translate and when to transliterate etc can often be different; I'm not sure how many situations there are where these differences could not be supported with sources, but the differences certainly exist (e.g. according to the guide "Tuen Ma Line" should be written "Tuen Mun- Ma On Shan Line" if no sources proving common usage otherwise existed). These formatting rules are currently largely centered around Mandarin Chinese and it would perhaps be prudent to at least note different standards exist for sources in different Sinitic languages and, where possible, also list any such formatting standards in other languages. (As a hopefully uncontroversial example, I have added the name hyphenation rule to the relevant section.) ] (]) 10:09, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
:::::Right. Spaces need to be addressed properly, and what you wrote makes sense. Hong Kong placenames usually have single syllable words (]), Singapore has everything (], ]). Macao placenames are a wonderful mess (using various degrees of Portuguese-ness). Basically I would not bother trying to write a convention covering all of Greater China; Hanyu pinyin can be standardized, but anything else has local rules that aren't easily generalized. —] (]) 10:59, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
::::Sources might not agree on which romanization system to use, but almost all are ''internally'' consistent. Why shouldn't Misplaced Pages be the same? Not choosing a romanization system is itself a choice, and it's a bad one. It's really hard to read and understand a work that mixes different systems willy-nilly.
::::Again, I suggest we pick one system and stick to it. The only exception would be if a clear majority (i.e., not just a plurality) of sources differ from whatever standard we pick. ] (]) 15:18, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
:::::Isn't that what we do? We prefer Hanyu pinyin (our "one system") unless sources do something else, which is a fairly common occurrence when talking about people or places not in Mainland China. Sources about Taiwanese politics do not use consistent romanization systems, but they typically all use the same romanization for the same person. Standard for ] is Gwoyeu Romatzyh, ] is Wade-Giles, ] isn't in any system I know. Others like ] or ] are generally known by adopted English names. Recognizable names (people won't recognize the names Ma Yingjiu, Li Denghui, Cai Yingwen, Song Chuyu, or Tang Feng) are generally better than internal consistency that won't be visible to the casual reader anyway. —] (]) 15:51, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
::::::Pinyin is our standard for Mandarin, but I think what ] is suggesting is to decide on a standard for each of the other Chinese languages (Cantonese, Hakka, etc.). These languages don't follow the same rules of pronunciation, so it doesn't make sense to use Hanyu pinyin for them. ] (]) 16:39, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
:::::::I am not convinced that a single standard for Cantonese makes sense. The "obvious" choice of Jyutping doesn't work for Hong Kong place names (a rather large set of examples) as demonstrated above. —] (]) 17:12, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
::::::::That's a good point. Do other Sinitic languages have similar large bodies of exceptions, or just Cantonese?
::::::::I still think it would be a good idea to define a default system for each Chinese language, even if there are major exceptions. Maybe we should focus on in-article standards rather than titles? Perhaps we should move this discussion to ]? ] (]) 19:43, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
:::::::::That's a good point. In retrospect this thread would perhaps be better suited over there. If one of you want to do a move/copy to the talk over there, feel free to do so. ] (]) 03:52, 8 September 2023 (UTC)


== Language nomenclature ==
==Historical names of Chinese places==
{{U|SilverStar54}} () has been changing historic place names to the modern version. The naming convention does not seem to cover this. However, an important tenet on Misplaced Pages is that'' we do not rewrite history''. This means that we should use the historically correct place names appropriate to the period. Thus in 1922, Niuzhuang was known as Newchwang, and should be referred to as such when writing about events in 1922. Can we please add something to NCZH stating that modern names should not replace historic names when it is appropriate to use the historic name? ] (]) 06:52, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
:Respectfully, how are the linked contributions not in benefit to the reader? I reviewed several, and don't see User:SilverStar54 changing "Chang'an" to "Xi'an" or anything like that. Altering transliterations does not – to me – rise to the level of "rewriting history". The place mentioned redirects to ] in both cases. Just one opinion, of course 🙏🏽 ] (]) 08:27, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
::{{re|Folly Mox}} OK, let's take the most well known of these - ]. Until the late C20th, nobody would have heard of "Beijing". Peking would have been universally known as having been the then Capital of China. We shouldn't be using Beijing in an article depicting events in the C18th, for example. ] (]) 09:35, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
:::I certainly hope my edits do not constitute rewriting history, but if there's consensus that they do then I will undo them. I've been making changes based on my understanding of the policies on this page and the general ones for historical placenames at ]. Both policies place a clear emphasis on following common English usage, and modern English scholarship in particular. Modern scholars of Chinese history have more-or-less reached a consensus on how to romanize Chinese. Even when writing about time periods when Wade-Giles (or another system) was standard, pinyin is used for almost all placenames and names of individuals. Exceptions include names that are romanizations of non-Mandarin languages (e.g., "Amoy", "Mukden," "Sun Yat-sen") or names that were exceptionally famous in English using their old-style romanization (e.g., "Chiang Kai-shek", "Treaty of Nanking", "Kuomintang"). The number of terms included on that latter list, though, seems to be ever-shrinking as pinyin becomes more widely accepted. Obviously, where genuine name changes have occurred (e.g., "Niuzhuang" -> "Yingkou"), the historically accurate name is used. Some examples that use this approach (for 1860s China, as an example): , , , , , ,
:::I think that the justification for this approach is pretty straightforward. Standardized romanizations of Chinese are a relatively new thing, historically speaking: even Wade-Giles wasn't finalized until the 1890s. Before the mid-1800s, the only sensible choice is to use pinyin. So it would be rather odd to say "Fuzhou" all the way up until the mid-1800s when we start having primary sources in European languages, and then use "Foochow" until European-language sources begin calling it "Fuzhou" in the 1970s and 80s. This would be especially odd given the fact that the name of the city never actually changed at all for the people living there. At least in theory, even the European name didn't really change. Correctly pronounced, "Foochow" "Fuchow", and "Fuzhou" should all sound the same. After all, they're just different romanizations, just ways of conveying to non-Chinese readers how to say the name. Shakespeare never signed any of his works with that spelling of his name, but we wouldn't be rewriting history to say Romeo and Juliet was by Shakespeare rather than "Shakspere" or "Shaksper". Shakespeare is just the way we've collectively agreed to render that name in modern writing. Is it rewriting history, then, to say that the ] was crowned in Beijing rather than Peking?
:::As I said, if this is a misinterpretation of Misplaced Pages's policies or if the consensus is against me, I'm happy to undo my edits. I should mention that I had a ] with a few other editors a couple months ago and we came to agree on this, with the caveat that articles should clarify the different spellings where necessary for verifiability. ] (]) 09:45, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
::::IMvHO, we should go with the source being used. ] (]) 11:25, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
:::That does seem to be the convention in modern historical writing, e.g. ''China: A New History'' (Fairbank & Goldman):
:::{{blockquote|Since the ''pinyin'' system of romanization introduced some years ago by Beijing seems to have a lock on the future, it is used throughout this book for the transcription of Chinese names and terms. Where an older romanization is likely to be better known to the reader (for example, Chiang Kaishek instead of Jiang Jieshi, or Canton instead of Guangzhou), the familiar form is indicated in parentheses at first use.}}
:::Similar conventions are used in the 6-volume Harvard ''History of Imperial China'', the monumental '']'' and others. '']'', begun in the late 60's, is standardized on Wade-Giles, but the more recent extension, ''The Cambridge History of Ancient China'' (1999) has switched to pinyin. ] 11:39, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
:I fully agree with ]'s comment above. "Foochow"/"Fuzhou" is not a case of a city changing its name – those are two different transliterations of the same name. Like most modern English-language reliable sources about Chinese history, we should use hanyu pinyin regardless of the time period we're talking about. (There are exceptions for the unusual cases where a different transliteration is significantly more common in modern sources, like Sun Yat-sen or Hong Kong.) It would be very odd for ] to start out with the transliteration "Fuzhou", switch to "Foochow" in the 1800s, and then switch back to "Fuzhou".
:In cases where the city has actually changed names like Xi'an/Chang'an, it may be appropriate to use the pinyin transliteration of the name that was applicable at the time (e.g. "Chang'an", but not "Ch'ang-an"). And in some cases it may be appropriate to give an alternative transliteration in parentheses, to help readers who might recognize the older transliteration or read older sources. But like modern RSs, we should use pinyin as our default regardless of what time period we're talking about. —] (] '''·''' ]) 14:48, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
::{{re|Mx. Granger}} - Many people would not realize that "Foochow" and "Fuzhou" are pronounced the same. I certainly didn't until a couple of days ago, being zh-0. My issue was the changing of spellings away from what the source in question used to a more modern spelling. Hence my comment at 11:25 yesterday. ] (]) 06:20, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
:::{{re|Mjroots}} I understand your concern about verifiability/readers' confusion when an article relies mainly/exclusively on older sources. Do you think that such cases would be sufficiently addressed by including the sources' spelling in parentheses at the first instance of a pinyin name? For example, as is done ]? ] (]) 07:48, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
::::{{re|SilverStar54}} I'm talking about edits such as , where the source gave Newchwang, and you altered it to Niuzhuang. The wikilink Newchwang actualy goes to the article ]. Whether that is correct, or not, I can't comment. We should stick with what the source says, and let the wikilinks take readers to the correct article if they want further information. ] (]) 16:25, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
:::::@] My bad, I should probably have changed that to be "Niuzhuang (Newchwang, now Yingkou)". Niuzhuang's a tricky one because it actually did change its name. My excuse is that 1) I didn't have access to The Times casualty reports, and 2) I reasoned that brevity was the chief concern in the context of a list. If you think it necessary, I will go back and add those clarifying remarks (although I would appreciate some help, there are a ''lot'' of shipwreck pages).
:::::But I strongly oppose defaulting to the RS from the ''specific source'' for a piece of information rather than using what is the ''general consensus'' among sources. The whole point of naming conventions is to spare Misplaced Pages's readers from having to wade through half a dozen ]. As you discovered, each system has wildly different pronunciation rules that the casual reader has no way of knowing about, but they're all trying to say the same thing. Keeping things simple with a single RS is clearer and easer to use. ] (]) 18:34, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
::::::A parenthetical along the lines of "Niuzhuang (Newchwang, now Yingkou)" looks fine to me. —] (] '''·''' ]) 19:29, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
:::{{ping|Mjroots}} Is your view that we should always use the same spelling the cited source does? I don't think this makes much sense. The transliteration system used by a source is usually a function of when and where the source was written (not what time period it's talking about or any other factor relevant to our readers). If we cite three sources, all in the same paragraph about the same historical event, that use the spellings "Fuzhou", "Fu-chou", and "Foochow", would we switch spellings repeatedly within that paragraph? I think that would look sloppy and would confuse any readers who don't know that these are all transliterations of the same place name. It would also be a major departure from standard practice in reliable sources – I don't know of any reliable source that mixes transliteration systems so chaotically. —] (] '''·''' ]) 18:41, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
::::{{re|Mx. Granger}} where there are various spellings, one should be picked and stuck to in the article, with the variants either being covered in the lede, or by some other method, such as that employed at the {{ship||Hadlow|1814 ship}} article. In the example you gave at 19:29 yesterday, I'd stick with the source's spelling in the article, so it would be "] (Niuzhuang, now Yingkou)", it that was how this would be done. ] (]) 06:39, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
:::::{{tquote|where there are various spellings, one should be picked and stuck to in the article, with the variants either being covered in the lede, or by some other method}} – I broadly agree with this. In my view, that spelling should generally be pinyin (with exceptions such as Sun Yat-sen and Hong Kong), because pinyin is the standard system used in modern sources, including when they're talking about historical events. —] (] '''·''' ]) 16:32, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
:::::We should not mention alternate transliterations every time a name occurs for the first time. If you cite a source from the 1940s, it won't spell Chairman Mao as ], but that doesn't mean we have to burden the reader with the history of transliterations of Chinese when they want to read about the Chinese Civil War. Alternate transliterations belong in the article (and are usually there in a Chinese names box) but are generally a distraction elsewhere, especially as the consensus of modern scholarly sources is to use exclusively Hanyu pinyin transliterations when talking about Mainland China (in any period of its history). This does not apply to the rest of Greater China: people still commonly write Hong Kong (instead of Xianggang), Kaohsiung (Gaoxiong) and Taipei (Taibei), or use other established names like Macao (Aomen). —] (]) 06:50, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
::::::I agree that 9/10 times they're cumbersome and unnecessary. That said, I also understand the argument for ] when the article is mostly or entirely based on sources that use something other than pinyin. Parentheticals can also be helpful if the article includes quotes from primary sources. I would oppose a hard requirement to use them (even on articles that have zero pinyin sources), but I support leaving the option open for editors to decide on an article-by-article basis. ] (]) 07:18, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
::Not to disagree with the reasoning above, just to note that some Chinese terms have an established base of English-speakers using them, e.g. {{lang-zh|s=太極拳|p=Tàijíquán|w=T'ai chi ch'uan}}, the latter (Wade-Giles) being far the more popular spelling in both book titles and organization names. At this point ] ''in English-speaking countries'' would seem to apply. &ndash;&nbsp;]&nbsp;<sup>]</sup> 23:11, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
⚫ :::For sure. I don't think there's any disagreement there. ] (]) 01:22, 29 March 2023 (UTC)


mirroring my post on ]:
== New section - Historical names ==
----
his applies to various related articles in ], in clarifying the often-conflated categories. Here's how I see it:


* Chinese ''characters'' are the logographs originally used to constitute the morphemes in the Old Chinese ''writing system'', which is, perhaps unhelpfully, also called 'Chinese characters'.
Since it seems like there is some consensus (excepting ]) about what the policy here is/should be, but that perhaps it isn't entirely clear based on what's written now, I '''propose''' adding a new section. Here's a draft:
* A writing system includes orthographic rules and conventions, in this case relating to semantics and phonology in various spoken languages. a set of characters with expected meanings and pronunciations is an array of conventions as such.
:"Articles should use the pinyin version of historical names unless the clear majority of modern sources do otherwise. This applies even when contemporary English sources on a topic used a different romanization system. For example, older sources romanized "Fuzhou" in a variety of ways, such as "Foochow", "Fuchow", and "Foo-Chow". But because the consensus of modern sources is to use Fuzhou, so does Misplaced Pages. Using pinyin does ''not'' necessarily mean to always use the ]. Use the pinyin version of the period-accurate placename: "Chang'an", not "Xi'an" when talking about the capital of the Tang Dynasty. The same goes for cities that changed their names at a time when a different romanization system was popular among Western sources. For example, Beijing ] "Beiping" between 1928-1949, at which time the name was romanized as "Peiping". References to the city during these years should be to "Beiping" or "Beijing", but not to Peiping.
* However, I don't think Traditional and Simplified characters constitute separate writing systems per se, even though there are mergers in character variants from the former to the latter.
* Kanji, for example, is a set of characters within the greater Japanese writing system, using Chinese characters.
* I wish we could call these character sets 'scripts', but that word is largely claimed by the systematic graphical (ish) styles such as ] and ].
] (]) 04:54, 2 October 2023 (UTC)


:The native word used to differentiate Traditional and Simplified character forms is usually 字體 (character form), although typically encountered in the opposite order, as in 繁體字. The word differentiating clerical script and regular script, in contrast, is 書. I'm not sure if any of this is helpful, or really what the question here is supposed to be, but I'd be glad to type more Chinese if the question can be clarified. ] (]) 07:07, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
:The same rules apply to the naming of historical individuals as for living persons. That said, note that non-pinyin versions of a name should only be used if that spelling has been adopted by the majority of secondary sources. For example, ] was known as "Wang Ching-wei" during his lifetime, but because the majority of modern secondary sources refer to him using the pinyin spelling, so does Misplaced Pages. On the other hand, "Chiang Kai-shek" is used over "Jiang Jieshi" because the former is far more widespread.
::Actually maybe 字形 (character form) is more common than 字體 (character form). I'm probably a little mixed up in my modern technical vocabulary. ] (]) 07:11, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
:::Oh my gosh I thought this was ]; this doesn't have to take the form of a question at all. My goodness it might be bedtime. ] (]) 07:13, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
::very helpful! i guess the default term for 'simplified' and 'traditional' might be 'character form', as opposed to 'writing system' or 'script' or 'character set'? ] (]) 18:05, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
:::"Character set" makes sense when you're talking about computing, and maybe statistical analysis. "Character form" ("Simplified form", "Japanese form", etc) is probably the closest term for general linguistic description. ] (]) 20:08, 2 October 2023 (UTC)


==Taiwan, Republic of China, or something else?==
:Common exceptions include where a name is especially famous in English using a different romanization (e.g., "Tongmenghui"), or where the romanization is of a language other than Mandarin (e.g., "Alfred Sao-ke Sze"). Moreover, even if historians use the pinyin version of a place name (e.g., "Nanjing"), a different spelling might be prevalent for a certain derived name (e.g., "Treaty of Nanking"). When in doubt, go with the name used by the majority of modern historians."
{{user|Ef5zak}} made an to ], changing "the Republic of China" to "Taiwan". What is the appropriate word or phrase in this situation? If it matters, it's about a government action to adopt a modified Gregorian calendar, not primarily about the geographic location. ] (]) 01:28, 21 September 2024 (UTC)


Thoughts? I've also linked to the above thread on a couple other discussion boards to attract more input. ] (]) 01:26, 29 March 2023 (UTC) :Given it refers to the current country, that seems a normal use for Taiwan. ] (]) 02:58, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
::I agree. In this context, "Taiwan" is clearer, more natural, and more widely understandable than "the Republic of China". Similarly, the same sentence refers to "North Korea" rather than "the Democratic People's Republic of Korea". —]&nbsp;(] '''·''' ]) 03:24, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
:It is out of place on this page, which contains guidelines for choosing titles of articles. The above deals with use of names within articles, a topic already covered by ], which already says pretty much what you want. At the most, all that is needed is a few more words in WP:PINYIN saying that it applies even for historical articles. ] 09:08, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
::Thanks for the link! I will move this suggestion there. ] (]) 19:15, 29 March 2023 (UTC) :::I likewise agree with this position. I also believe that Taiwan better understood to those who may not have an understanding of the geopolitical situation of Taiwan. ] (]) 12:57, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

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Standardised Cantonese/Hakka romanisation

The article heavily focuses on the use of Mandarin to romanise Chinese characters and phrases, but there is no real guideline (aside from "follow what the sources say") as to the romanisation of other Sinitic languages. While there has been ample and lively discussion on this talk page and others about the scope of names that should be romanised with each language (which is still a constantly ongoing tug of war because of the inherent hyperpoliticisation), I don't see any real discussion about the standards of such, the way Mandarin transliteration is elaborated on. Even aside from the raw pronounciation, there are some differences in transliteration conventions in Cantonese and Mandarin (which is the example I'll stick to on basis of personal knowledge), e.g.:

  • Cantonese names tend to use a hyphen (Kwok Fu-shing) vs Mandarin names that tend to concatenate given name (Xi Jinping)
  • Cantonese transliterations lean towards spacing by character (Sai Yeung Choi South Street) vs Mandarin spacing by phrase/word (Zhongshan Road)

Therefore, I feel like an alternative description of Cantonese or Hakka transliteration scheme also deserves a place in the guide. And if someone knows sufficient Taishanese, Shanghaiese, etc to make a separate transliteration guide for that, that would be very welcome too. Alternatively, I feel like a better option might be to split this article into a disambig that redirects to three or four different transliteration guides for the various Sinitic languages commonly needed to be transliterated. Fermiboson (talk) 11:11, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Are there any standards out there to recommend? Otherwise we should continue to follow the sources, as in the above examples. Kanguole 07:37, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
There are definitely standards out there, although none have an overwhelming majority usage and one of the bigger problems is that the majority of speakers don’t know it. But it’s not exactly like the majority of English speakers follow MOS either, so I feel like that could be worked around. At the very least we could add something on identifying whether a source is in Cantonese, as opposed to an archaic name that might need to be changed to a pinyin transliteration. Fermiboson (talk) 15:25, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
Re Cantonese, as much as I don’t like it personally, the tendency is to move towards Jyutping, judging from its usage in dictionaries and language teaching materials. Pentaxem (talk) 22:04, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
The problem with moving to Jyutping is that it would match virtually none of the already commonly used names. To take the above example: Kwok Fu-shing becomes Gwok Fu-sing, which is still recognisable to an HKer who knows who he is; Sai Yeung Choi South Street would become Sai Joeng Coi South Street, which honestly sounds more Korean than Cantonese. Given even pronunciations of certain words within the language aren't really standardised, I think the follow the sources approach for the actual pronunciations themselves is the best we can do; this discussion would more be about things like formatting as mentioned above, or of when to translate instead of transliterate, etc (e.g. in HK "University Road" vs in the Mainland "Daxue Road"; I haven't checked the latter exists but you get my point.) Moreover, it would be good to acknowledge that the Sinitic languages are not just Mandarin even in written form, in principle. Fermiboson (talk) 06:45, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
I strongly support this suggestion. Even if there isn't a single majority usage atm, for the sake of readability Misplaced Pages should pick a standard and stick to it.
I'm not very familiar with non-Mandarin romanizations and would really appreciate a guide. SilverStar54 (talk) 12:12, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
I'm fairly surprised there haven't been more RfCs over this and related topics, given the ire it usually attracts. As I said above, I don't think a full standard like there is for Mandarin is achievable or within our scope, but for one the claim in the project page that all written Chinese is Mandarin Chinese is patently false. Admittedly, I do not have any examples of it causing problems, so I could possibly be guilty of having a solution that needs a problem here. I would appreciate it if anyone had any examples to make a case however. Fermiboson (talk) 06:49, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
I think "Chinese names should be written in Hanyu Pinyin unless there is a more common romanization used in English" covers pretty well what we do and what we should do. Yau Ma Tei is the standard placename in English for 油麻地 although it is not any of the commonly used romanizations of Cantonese nowadays. There seems to be even less of a standard for non-Mandarin than for Mandarin (where Taiwan and Singapore commonly use other systems than Hanyu Pinyin, with different systems used for different people: our coverage of Taiwan and people connected to it uses at least (simplified) Wade-Giles, Gwoyeu Romatzyh, Hanyu pinyin and Tongyong pinyin). Misplaced Pages should not invent standards that are not used by the majority of sources. Better to stick to the sources than to surprise people by "standardized" article titles that are different from everywhere else. —Kusma (talk) 09:50, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
I agree largely with what you said. As noted above, however, this is not really about the standard of romanticisation, which as you say is close to nonexistent. Other aspects covered in this MOS, such as word ordering and grouping, hyphenation, when to translate and when to transliterate etc can often be different; I'm not sure how many situations there are where these differences could not be supported with sources, but the differences certainly exist (e.g. according to the guide "Tuen Ma Line" should be written "Tuen Mun- Ma On Shan Line" if no sources proving common usage otherwise existed). These formatting rules are currently largely centered around Mandarin Chinese and it would perhaps be prudent to at least note different standards exist for sources in different Sinitic languages and, where possible, also list any such formatting standards in other languages. (As a hopefully uncontroversial example, I have added the name hyphenation rule to the relevant section.) Fermiboson (talk) 10:09, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
Right. Spaces need to be addressed properly, and what you wrote makes sense. Hong Kong placenames usually have single syllable words (Chek Lap Kok), Singapore has everything (Ang Mo Kio, Yishun). Macao placenames are a wonderful mess (using various degrees of Portuguese-ness). Basically I would not bother trying to write a convention covering all of Greater China; Hanyu pinyin can be standardized, but anything else has local rules that aren't easily generalized. —Kusma (talk) 10:59, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
Sources might not agree on which romanization system to use, but almost all are internally consistent. Why shouldn't Misplaced Pages be the same? Not choosing a romanization system is itself a choice, and it's a bad one. It's really hard to read and understand a work that mixes different systems willy-nilly.
Again, I suggest we pick one system and stick to it. The only exception would be if a clear majority (i.e., not just a plurality) of sources differ from whatever standard we pick. SilverStar54 (talk) 15:18, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
Isn't that what we do? We prefer Hanyu pinyin (our "one system") unless sources do something else, which is a fairly common occurrence when talking about people or places not in Mainland China. Sources about Taiwanese politics do not use consistent romanization systems, but they typically all use the same romanization for the same person. Standard for Ma Ying-jeou is Gwoyeu Romatzyh, Lee Teng-hui is Wade-Giles, Tsai Ing-wen isn't in any system I know. Others like James Soong or Audrey Tang are generally known by adopted English names. Recognizable names (people won't recognize the names Ma Yingjiu, Li Denghui, Cai Yingwen, Song Chuyu, or Tang Feng) are generally better than internal consistency that won't be visible to the casual reader anyway. —Kusma (talk) 15:51, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
Pinyin is our standard for Mandarin, but I think what Fermiboson is suggesting is to decide on a standard for each of the other Chinese languages (Cantonese, Hakka, etc.). These languages don't follow the same rules of pronunciation, so it doesn't make sense to use Hanyu pinyin for them. SilverStar54 (talk) 16:39, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
I am not convinced that a single standard for Cantonese makes sense. The "obvious" choice of Jyutping doesn't work for Hong Kong place names (a rather large set of examples) as demonstrated above. —Kusma (talk) 17:12, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
That's a good point. Do other Sinitic languages have similar large bodies of exceptions, or just Cantonese?
I still think it would be a good idea to define a default system for each Chinese language, even if there are major exceptions. Maybe we should focus on in-article standards rather than titles? Perhaps we should move this discussion to WP:MOSCHINA? SilverStar54 (talk) 19:43, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
That's a good point. In retrospect this thread would perhaps be better suited over there. If one of you want to do a move/copy to the talk over there, feel free to do so. Fermiboson (talk) 03:52, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Language nomenclature

mirroring my post on Talk: Chinese characters:

his applies to various related articles in Category: Chinese characters, in clarifying the often-conflated categories. Here's how I see it:

  • Chinese characters are the logographs originally used to constitute the morphemes in the Old Chinese writing system, which is, perhaps unhelpfully, also called 'Chinese characters'.
  • A writing system includes orthographic rules and conventions, in this case relating to semantics and phonology in various spoken languages. a set of characters with expected meanings and pronunciations is an array of conventions as such.
  • However, I don't think Traditional and Simplified characters constitute separate writing systems per se, even though there are mergers in character variants from the former to the latter.
  • Kanji, for example, is a set of characters within the greater Japanese writing system, using Chinese characters.
  • I wish we could call these character sets 'scripts', but that word is largely claimed by the systematic graphical (ish) styles such as clerical script and regular script.

Remsense (talk) 04:54, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

The native word used to differentiate Traditional and Simplified character forms is usually 字體 (character form), although typically encountered in the opposite order, as in 繁體字. The word differentiating clerical script and regular script, in contrast, is 書. I'm not sure if any of this is helpful, or really what the question here is supposed to be, but I'd be glad to type more Chinese if the question can be clarified. Folly Mox (talk) 07:07, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
Actually maybe 字形 (character form) is more common than 字體 (character form). I'm probably a little mixed up in my modern technical vocabulary. Folly Mox (talk) 07:11, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
Oh my gosh I thought this was WP:RD/L; this doesn't have to take the form of a question at all. My goodness it might be bedtime. Folly Mox (talk) 07:13, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
very helpful! i guess the default term for 'simplified' and 'traditional' might be 'character form', as opposed to 'writing system' or 'script' or 'character set'? Remsense (talk) 18:05, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
"Character set" makes sense when you're talking about computing, and maybe statistical analysis. "Character form" ("Simplified form", "Japanese form", etc) is probably the closest term for general linguistic description. Folly Mox (talk) 20:08, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Taiwan, Republic of China, or something else?

Ef5zak (talk · contribs) made an edit to Adoption of the Gregorian calendar, changing "the Republic of China" to "Taiwan". What is the appropriate word or phrase in this situation? If it matters, it's about a government action to adopt a modified Gregorian calendar, not primarily about the geographic location. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:28, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Given it refers to the current country, that seems a normal use for Taiwan. CMD (talk) 02:58, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
I agree. In this context, "Taiwan" is clearer, more natural, and more widely understandable than "the Republic of China". Similarly, the same sentence refers to "North Korea" rather than "the Democratic People's Republic of Korea". —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 03:24, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
I likewise agree with this position. I also believe that Taiwan better understood to those who may not have an understanding of the geopolitical situation of Taiwan. Ef5zak (talk) 12:57, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
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