Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 07:46, 9 January 2003

There are a number of special issues with regard to Chinese names....

Characters

All encyclopedia entries whose title is a Chinese names SHOULD include the Chinese characters and Pinyin representation for that name in the first sentence.

Chinese characters on the English Misplaced Pages should be encoded using HTML entities with Unicode numbers. Big5 and GB encoded characters are acceptable as a draft for people who have no other means of entering characters but be converted to Unicode in HTML character entities when it is possible. After a Chinese text has been converted to Unicode, the Big5 or GB versions should be removed.

Romanization

Romanization presents some difficult issues in that it is a highly political issue. The most often used romanization is pinyin. Though many outside of the People's Republic of China dislike it because of its association with that government, pinyin is the most correct known way of romanizing Mandarin Chinese words.

In general, Chinese entries should be in pinyin except when there is a more popularly used form in English (such as Taoism) or when the subject of the entry is likely to object to romanization in pinyin. When an entry is not in pinyin form, there should be a link to the article from the pinyin form.

Names

Chinese names, unlike Western names, presents family/clan name first. Unlike other instances were this occurs, it is standard practice in English to also present a Chinese name last name first (i.e. Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping). Chinese names should be in pinyin unless there is a more common name used in English (i.e. Chiang Kai-shek, Sun Yat-sen) or when the subject of the article is likely to prefer a non-pinyin phonetization as is likely the case with personages from Taiwan (i.e. Lee Teng-hui).

The encyclopedia should reference the name more familar to most English readers. For most historical figures the means that encyclopedia entry should reference the Chinese name rather than the English name (Soong Chu-yu rather than James Soong for example), with a redirect from the English name. However, there are exceptions for figures whose English name is more familar (Confucius) and for figures who were raised in non-Chinese societies and whose Chinese names are unfamilar (Vera Wang and Maya Lin).

Another special case is for a figure whose Chinese name is familar but used in English ordering (e.g. Wen Ho Lee). In this case, the primary entry should be under the English ordering with a redirect from the Chinese ordering.

When using pinyin for a Chinese name, pinyin spacing and capitalization conventions should be used. This includes keeping the last name separate and the given name capitalized with the different characters not indicated by spacing, hyphenization, or capitalization.

Names of Groups

The main entry for a Chinese group should be under the name most familar to English speakers. In some cases, this will be the translated name (e.g. Chinese Communist Party). In other cases, this will be the transliterated name (Kuomintang and Falun Gong). When the name is transliterated, the name should use the spelling conventionally used by English speakers (e.g. Kuomintang). Where this is not the pinyin transliteration there should be a link from the article from the pinyin name.

When a group uses a translated name, the Chinese characters should be included if the Chinese characters cannot be unambiguously derived from the English name or if providing the characters would provide any extra information. For example, the entry for President of the People's Republic of China should include Chinese characters because the name used for President (zhuxi) is not the standard term used for President, whereas including the Chinese characters for President of the Republic of China is redundant because it can be derived unambigiously derived from the English term.

Similarly Chinese characters should be included for the Democratic Progressive Party because the standard term used for the party (min-jin-dang) is a contraction of the full name (min-zhu jin-bu dang). Characters should also be included for National People's Congress because there are a number of different Chinese terms to translate Congress, and the entry should identify which one is used.

Names of Emperors

The general principle is to use the name which is most familar to Chinese readers. This violates the Misplaced Pages principle that the name most familiar to English readers should be used, because English readers are not usually familiar with any of the emperors.

1) Emperors before the Tang dynasty: use posthumous names. eg. Han Wu Di.
2) Emperors between Tang dynasty and Ming dynasty: use temple names eg. Tang tai zong.
3) Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasty: use era names (same as reign names) eg. Kangxi.
4) If there is a more common convention than using posthumous, temple or era names, then use it. eg. Cao Cao instead of Wei wu di. Or Sima Yi instead of Jin xuan di. This is often the case with founders of dynasties and the special case of Puyi.

Because these are reign names are not personal names, the correct phrasing for emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasty is the "Kangxi Emperor" rather than "Emperor Kangxi".

Political NPOV

Misplaced Pages entries should avoid taking sides on issues such as the status of Taiwan and Tibet. In particular the word China should not be used to be synonymously with areas under current administration by the People's Republic of China or with Mainland China. The term "Mainland China" is a non-political term to be can used when a comparison is to be made with Taiwan, and "China proper" is a non-political term which can be used when making a comparison with Tibet. Although the used of the term "Manchuria" is considered by some to be somewhat objectionable when used in Chinese, it is largely considered a non-political and non-objectionable term when used in English.

A decision was made after extended discussion on Talk:China to use China as the title of the article on mainland China (People's Republic). Fred Bauder 12:39 Nov 8, 2002 (UTC)

Taiwan should not be described either as an independent nation or as a part of China. When it is necessary to describe the political status of Taiwan, special note should be made of Taiwan's complex political status.

Also note that there are potential landmines when using the term Chinese. In particular, some find a distinction between "Chinese" and "Tibetans" or between "Chinese" and "Taiwanese" to be objectionable and the terms "Han Chinese"/"Tibetans" and "Mainland Chinese"/"Taiwanese" are more politically neutral.

The term "Mainlander" poses some issues. It is sometimes ambiguous whether this is refering to a resident of Mainland China or a member of the group that fled with the KMT to Taiwan in 1949. In refering to the latter group, the name is mildly objectionable when used in English and strongly objectionable when translated literally in Chinese. Preferred unambigous names for the two groups are "Mainland Chinese" and "wai sheng ren".

Hakka is the preferred name for that group even though the Mandarin word for that is something completely different phonetically.

In general, one should avoid using the term "Chinese" to be synonymous with the spoken Mandarin Chinese.

Excellent ideas on naming conventions! --maveric149

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All entries with Chinese names should have the Chinese characters for the name included in unicode.

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One must have a Chinese Communicator installed on a PC to do so. When the document was typed on computers of public domains which only offers IME (like Microsoft IME that doesn't convert Chinese characters in Unicode), presenting every single character in unicode is a tiresome work since typers have to search for them. I'm against this proposal. By the way while using Pinyin romanization, readers who don't know Chinese characters at all can search for the them if they have a Communicator or dictionary handy. -- Ktsquare

I don't think I was clear in my proposal. I've clarified it a bit.

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Chinese characters on wikipedia should be encoded using HTML entities with unicode numbers. Use of either 8-bit characters or non-unicode encodings such as big5 or gb should be discouraged. Unicode is preferably because it has the highest available and also avoids political issues.

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As I said earlier, typing every character in unicode is tiresome. Although I agree that big5 and gb encoding may invoke political issue simply because of Traditional and Simplified Chinse, readers who are proficienct in Chinese will feel more comfortable typing more. If one doesn't know Chinese characters at all, the typers can just list the Pinyin romanization without accompanied by any sort of Chinese encoding, saving time for both the typers and readers. Then anyone knowing the correct Chinese character should then do the encoding, avoiding any confusion. Ktsquare

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Names of Emperors

Emperors before the Ming dynasty should be refered to by the posthumous temple name rather than by reign name. Where there is any ambiguity, the temple name should be preceded by the name of the dynasty.

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Okay.... I partially agree on what you have said but let's make it more clear. Emperors before the Tang dynasty should be referred to by the posthumous name. Temple name should be used for emperors between Tang dynasty and Ming dynasty. There is a difference between temple names and posthumous names. See the guide on Chinese sovereign for the difference. But if you were saying emperors before Ming should be referred using posthumous AND temple name, that's plain wrong. An exmaple, give me the temple name of Han Wu Di. Nobody would use it except those wrote Hanshu like Ban gu and his disciples. Or give me the posthumous name (not the temple name) of Tang Gao Zu. Ktsquare

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Personal names for emperors should not be used except to refer to the founders of dynasties who used personal names before becoming emperor (e.g. Liu Bang) and except for the special case of the last emperor Puyi whose reign name and temple name are unfamiliar.

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The overall idea is going by the most common convetion which is pretty fimilar to those accustomed Chinese. The most common convention is use the name which is most familar to Chinese readers. This violates the Misplaced Pages principle that the name most familiar to English readers should be used, because English readers are not usually familiar with any of the emperors.

1) Emperors before the Tang dynasty: use posthumous names. eg. Han Wu Di 2) Emperors between Tang dynasty and Ming dynasty: use temple ames eg. Tang tai zong 3) Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasty: use era names (same as reign names) eg. kangxi 4) If there is a more common convention than using posthumous, temple or era names, then use it. eg. Cao Cao instead of Wei wu di. Or Sima Yi instead of Jin xuan di. Ktsquare

People who don't know Chinese "All encyclopedia entries whose title is a Chinese names SHOULD include the Chinese characters and Pinyin representation for that name in the first sentence."

Suggested rule: Those who do not know any Chinese MAY ignore this rule when starting a new article; however, they SHOULD ask for help in the Summary: field when submitting the text. --Damian Yerrick

Great idea. Those posters may type in somethng like (correct pinyin?) or (correct charaters?) etc. so someone who knows the word will notice and edit them Ktsquare

Would it be better copy other people's entries to the top than cut the whole paragraph out? I just read some of my entries some sentences of which looks wierd with those cuts. Ktsquare

See Talk:China for a discussion on whether to use simplified or traditional Chinese characters. Fred Bauder 12:39 Nov 8, 2002 (UTC)

Name of places. What should we do with old transliterations of the name of places? Keep them? Replace them by new one (Pinyin)? Replace by pinyin and leave the old one into brackets? olivier 16:18 Jan 7, 2003 (UTC)

I like the last option (Replace by pinyin and leave the old one into brackets?) Vera Cruz

Agree, we can also say what transliteration system the old names are using, ex. Wade-Giles -- kt2

however my browser isnt reading pinyin and it would be nice if someone told me what i could do to change that. Vera Cruz

What exactly is your problem? Are the Chinese characters invisible? My browser reads Pinyin as long as it is typed in alphabets. kt2

Name of Emperors. Referring to the guidelines above, should we separate transliterations of each Chinese characters or combining the posthumous and temple names only?

3 choices for Emperor Tang Tai Zong of China:

• Tang Tai Zong (separate each transliteration)
• Tang Taizong (no spacing of the temple names)
• Tangtaizong (combine everything)

Also, which of the following form should we use ?

• Emperor Tang Tai Zong of China,
• Tang Tai Zong, Emperor of China
• Tang Tai Zong of China

--kt2