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Recently, many "People from XYZ" have sprung up, where XYZ is a city name. Since city names can be common, I think we need to standardize that these should be "People from XYZ, ABC" just like the city articles are named. Commmon usage (where Tokyo, Osaka, and other registered cities are excepted) can also be excepted here. For a (possibly incomplete) list of current offenders, see Category:People by city in Japan. I also want to execute an educational campaign of sorts, to enforce the idea that people shouldn't be listed by both the prefecture and the city, if the city cat exists; but, that is not a Japan MoS issue. Comments (on the naming proposal)? Neier 12:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Please note that the Place names rule itself needs to be updated, as follows:
-- Endroit 19:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
In the Place names rule of WP:MOS-JA, I propose to add an item for designated cites. Basically, the "designated cities" rule should specify that "all designated cities drop the prefecture name except for the ones where disambiguation is necessary". Or we can list all the cities, because the list is short.-- Endroit 19:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I believe the most recent discussion indicated that designated cities with unique names do not need the prefecture name. No consensus has been reached for those with ambiguous names (Fukuoka, Chiba, Saitama, Shizuoka, Kawasaki) or those not so well-known internationally (Sakai). I think one unresolved issue is how to disambiguate -- keep the current comma style with the prefecture name, or add "(city)" after the name, or some other method. -- Polaron | Talk 23:40, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree completely with Dekimasu. The question is, should we leave the current dismabiguation method of attaching the prefecture name after a comma or should we use another method. My preference is to simply attach "(city)" to the name since we are disambiguating between something that is a city and something that is not. -- Polaron | Talk 01:03, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I believe that we unanimously agree on the following point already: "The designated cities Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, Yokohama, Nagoya, Kitakyushu, Sapporo, Sendai, and Hiroshima should be in the form <cityname> only, without the prefecture." That's a good starting point. So the question is, what do we do with the rest: Kawasaki, Sakai, Fukuoka, Chiba, Saitama, and Shizuoka?-- Endroit 01:49, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Dekimasu, on the 9 cities which need disambiguating (Kawasaki, Sakai, Fukuoka, Chiba, Saitama, Shizuoka, Osaka, Kyoto, and Hiroshima), can we first determine if the disambiguation occurs completely within the jurisdiction of Japan? 7 of these (Fukuoka, Chiba, Saitama, Shizuoka, Osaka, Kyoto, and Hiroshima) only need disambiguation within Japan, and 2 of these (Kawasaki and Sakai) need disambiguation internationally. If the disambiguation occurs only within the jurisdiction of Japan, can't we emphasize what the Japanese government is trying to say, that the designated cities are significant enough to be "designated"? This means addresses in Japan can read Ōsaka-shi, Kita-ku (大阪市北区) rather than Ōsaka-fu, Ōsaka-shi, Kita-ku (大阪府大阪市北区). It's Ōsaka-shi rather than Ōsaka, but the prefecture is completely dropped, showing the significance of the city of Osaka within Japan. Wikipedia-wise, WP:MOS-JA can take precedence over WP:DAB, if the majority of the disambiguation occurs entirely within Japan. So can't we go ahead and make a rule saying that the designated cities "Osaka", "Kyoto", and "Hiroshima" should be written that way, and not "Osaka, Osaka", "Kyoto, Kyoto", and "Hiroshima, Hiroshima"?-- Endroit 17:17, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I am still quite opposed to this. Although I usually agree with Endroit, and the reasoning (emphasis of separation from the prefecture) is logical, this proposal can only take precedence over WP:DAB at the expense of objectively hurting a large number of links in the service of a stylistic choice. Someone will have to go through and correct the links all the time. There won't be an easy method for figuring out which links shouldn't be there, as there is for dab pages - it will require visiting every page linked to Kyoto and checking to see whether the links should point to Kyoto Prefecture. I don't see anyone being willing to do that.
This could still be solved and preserve the reasoning if "City" was added to all of the titles. The only other input that I have is that there is no reason to ignore the disambiguation problem for some of the designated cities and still leave Chiba, Fukuoka, etc. the way they are. If you are set on doing it this way, the only page that should be a disambiguation page is Kawasaki. And I don't mean to be combative, but wouldn't it be helpful to have a second opinion on the feasibility of this from WP:DAB? I am inclined to leave a note. Dekimasu 05:04, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I just went through the first 100 in Kyoto's " What links here" list. And I think I see what Dekimasu is saying. It's really a BIG problem, because there are quite a few potentially wrong links. We need to agree on a convention on how to disambiguate these. How about this....
-- Endroit 13:53, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm sure this has been touched on before, but I was sometime ago reverted for changing an article of Empress Genmei to conform to the suggestion layed down here as regards romanization of ん as m - such people do not have "official romanizations", and Google searches are inherently flawed. Could this not be fixed to at least be more clear? elvenscout742 13:58, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Please vote above in the Ryukyu vs. Ryūkyū section, to resolve inconsistencies within WP:MOS-JA. The following 2 polls are now ongoing:
Polls end Dec. 13. There's only a few days left, so please hurry.-- Endroit 18:17, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I would vote for "Riukiu" if possible. It is the form produced by transliterating the Classical Kana script with the EHS (Extended Hepburn System). Kmns tsw 09:20, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
There is a lot of limited express services which have unique names such as Kodama (こだま). Can you decide the name of articles on these services? -- Izumi5 12:08, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't want to start again the question of whether to use Emperor Komei, or Emperor Kōmei, or Kōmei Emperor, or Kōmei Tennō, and so on... That is not my question, and I don't want it to interfere with what I want to ask.
My question is just what about this curious sentence : For Emperor Hirohito, although he too has been posthumously named Emperor Shōwa, it is also acceptable to refer to him as Emperor Hirohito, or just Hirohito, as that is the name by which he continues to be most widely known in the West. What does it mean? "It is acceptable to..." Does it mean there is a rule on Wikipedia that, despite the fact all the other deceased Japanese emperors are called by their Regnal name, this one and only this one MUST be called by his first name?... Or only MAY?
I think a may-answer has no place in a manual of style.
And a must-answer is out of the question. I can see absolutely no need to call his page Hirohito instead of Emperor Shōwa like the other. Either there is a rule (for example: Japanese emperors must be named by their Regnal name as soon as they get one (like the popes)) or there is no rule. Exceptions to the rules must be justified by good reasons. I see no good justification for this emperor. Every official Japanese site will use Shōwa instead of Hirohto, even in sites written in English (for example this one: [1]). Every time there is a discussion on Wikipedia about the correct form or spelling of a name, there is allways someone to tell me: " Look at his homepage to find the correct form!" In this case, the correct form is Shōwa, and not Hirohito.
Some peopole will think it's too complicated to change the article's title when the emperor dies. It's not technically difficult. When Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was elected pope, his article was renamed into Pope Benedict XVI immediately! Not become he became pope, but because he changed names by becoming pope. I think when Empereor Akihito dies, his article will have be renamed at once to Emperor Heisei, not because he dies, but because he'll change names by dying.
So what's wrong with Emperor Shōwa? Bad habits are hard to rid of. "He was called Hirohito when he was alive so that's enough. He may be refered as Shōwa in every official text, he may even want to be called Shōwa after his death... but my Grand'Ma allways called him Hirohito and it's all I want to know." It's the worse reason I've ever read in an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia is here to expose good knowledge, not to keep turning over received ideas. Emperor Shōwa died to early. If he had died today, I'm sure there would heve been a debate about the title of his page, but I'm sure too that the Emperor Shōwa title would have won. Now there are 18 years of bad habit in paper encyclopedias and newspapers to call him by the wrong name. I think it's still time to correct it. That's why I claim his article must be renamed Emperor Shōwa. With the use of automatic redirects (which paper encyclopedias don't have), every person looking for Hirohito will find the Emperor Shōwa article and will learn something new about his name without loosing one second. That's the role of an encyclopedia.
The wording of the project page is particullary ambiguous. On the one hand it states that Emperor Hirohito is a special case needing an exception to the rule (but it's not explained why) and on the other hand it makes a distinction between the emperors before Hirohito and ... the rest. The rule stops with him, and when the current emperor dies there will be no rule for him too. Not only there is a secret reason to make an exception for Hirohito, but this reason is enough to abolish totally the rule for his successors.
To conclude, I would like to put the text that way :
=== Names of emperors ===
For Japanese emperors, including emperors from both the northern and southern courts during the
Nanboku-chō Era, use the form [[Emperor {name}]], which is a partial translation of their
posthumous name. Note that the word Emperor is an integral part of the name and not merely a title, so it should be capitalized and the article the should not appear before it. It is also acceptable to refer to a Japanese emperor using only the {name} portion of their name, so long as the first appearance of the name uses the above format. Be sure to create appropriate redirects so that the version of the name without the title will bring the reader to the correct location.
Similarly the current emperor is referred by his personnal name as Emperor Akihito, as long as he lives. His article will be renamed with his posthumous Regnal name when he dies. Note that it is incorrect to refer to Emperor Akihito as Emperor Heisei, as he will not be renamed Emperor Heisei until after his death.
What do you think of it? Švitrigaila 01:26, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Dekimasu says : "As it stands, all of the emperors known as gods are referred to their posthumous names, while emperors not known as gods are referred to by their "real" names." That's not true. Firstly, both Emperor Fushimi and Hirohito are called by their posthumous name in Japanese sources : Fushimi Tennō and Shōwa Tennō. And outside Japan, I don't think Fushimi has ever been a god! He has never been a god for me, and I call him naturally Emperor Fushimi, and never by his first name. Secondly, Dekimasu writes Hirohito is his "real name". This name is not more "real" than another. George W. Bush's "real name" is not "George". Pope Benedict XVI's "real name" is not Joseph. George and Joseph are only their "christian name", or their "first name". Hirohito is only a "first name", which is not more "real" than the regnal names of Emperor Fushimi and Emperor Shōwa. Švitrigaila 11:29, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Excuse me if I have offended you, that wasn't my aim. I don't seek fight, I just want to be understood and sometimes I can lose temper. I suppose what you say about "heaven-king" is about the word "tennō", which in fact means roughly "heaven king". But as I put it in my first line, that's not the subject of my demend. Let's call him Shōwa Tennō, or Emperor Shōwa, or Shōwa (ruler of Japan), or let's just call him Shōwa, I don't mind. I know that Emperor Shōwa renounced to prentend he was of divine descent, but the term tennō is still the official title of the emperor, as it is written in the Japanese constitution [2]. And the custom to take a regnal name upon death is still living. It proves it has nothing to do with what Shōwa renounced at the end of the war. So I think using his first name instead of his regnal name, contrary to each of his predecessors, has nothing to do with his renunciation.
My demand was about the other part of this article's title. And I think it has definitively nothing to do with whether he was a god or not. It has only to do with the fact that he has an official name according to a certain official nomenclature. This nomenclature applies to every Japanese emperor. And it applies for everybody. There is no point saying: "Yes this nomenclature exists, a lot of people do use it, we too use it since a lot of Japanese emperors do have a name only thanks to it (for examples emperors Jimmu, Junnin and Reigen had their regnal name created centuries after their death), but it's not a reason to abide by this nomenclature for Hirohito because we're not Japanese and it doesn't apply to us."
As for the "nationalism" argument. You say people would want to see Hirohito instead of Shōwa because of his role in WWII, and would consider Shōwa as a proof of Japanese nationalism. I can't see why Shōwa would be more nationalist than Hirohito. It's as if someone said: "There are a lot of books written about or by Joseph Ratzinger, he is very famous under this name, and now you suddenly want us to call him Benedict XVI?! But we're not catholic! We don't have to abide by this catholic custom. Those who do must be catholic bigots."
Once again, the only reason for using Hirohito instead of Shōwa is the weight of habit. I say Hirohito because I heard someone saying Hirohito. And this one told me Hirohito because he heard someone else telling him Hirohito. There is no reflexion on whether it's the good term or not. When it was decided Pluto is no more a planet but a dwarf planet, its Wikipedian article was rewritten. There was no discussion on Wikipedia about it because it exists an official nomenclature for planets. The IAU is the only competent body to decide if Pluto is a planet or not. And the fact Pluto was considered a planet since 1930 doesn't matter! It won't change the habits of the general public at once, but it will on a longer course. For the Japanese emperors nomenclature the only competent bodies are the Imperial Household Agency and the Japanese government, not newspapers, nor historians, nor encyclopedias. And they use Shōwa. Never Hirohito.
Švitrigaila 23:32, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
To finish, you say "Giving interchangeability to "Hirohito" and "Emperor Shōwa" is no different in that regard from allowing "who" and "that" to be used interchangeably." So you wouldn't matter if I decided to rename the article myself? Well. But what about then about Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)#Names of emperors itself then? Must we erase this whole section?
Švitrigaila 23:32, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
We spend a lot of time talking about romanization, but I'm not sure an issue like this has come up before ... an anonymous user changed the kanji and kana of the titles of works of literature on several authors' articles to their "original" style (eg 雪国->雪國, 仮面の告白->假面の告白). I understand the reasoning behind this (these forms were their printed title when originally published), but I reverted them for now and thought I'd bring the issue up here. Japanese Wikipedia is fairly straight-forward about their rule for kana:
仮名遣いは現代仮名遣いを原則とする。 "As a rule, modern kana usage is preferred."
However, kanji usage is more complicated ... but there is a general rule of: 漢字の字体が複数ある場合には常用漢字表にある字体のものを使うのを原則とする(固有名詞、歴史的文書の引用などでは、原文にあわせて用いる)。"As a rule, when there are multiple ways a word can be written using kanji, use the Jōyō kanji form (use the original form for proper nouns, quotations from historical texts, etc.)"
This seems to suggest that works of fiction should be given in their modern forms (ie 雪国 instead of 雪國) but allows for writing Akutagawa's given name as 龍之介 instead of 竜之介. I vaguely remember a discussion about shinjitai vs. kyūjitai a while back, but I forget the context. If there is support for the rules used on Japanese Wikipedia, we should consider adopting them in this MoS as well. CES 14:48, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
It sounds like everyone is pretty much on the same page. I agree with Jefu that tracking down the original form of a title could be tedious or potentially impossible ... but at the same time I could see potential value in knowing that while the Man'yōshū is usually written 万葉集, older texts would refer to it as 萬葉集. Or that Sōseki's Kokoro is usually こころ but occasionally こゝろ and originally 心. Perhaps emphasis on notable "alternative" (rather than "original") forms can be made. How about adding something like the following rules under the "Using Japanese in the article body" section:
In general, use modern forms of kanji ( shinjitai) and modern usage patterns of kana. Exceptions may be made for proper nouns and quotations from historical texts. For example:
When multiple or alternative forms are possible, they may be acknowledged in the text (e.g. Sōseki's Kokoro is usually written こころ but occasionally こゝろ and originally 心)
CES 15:07, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
I thought we discussed this earlier, but, the current MoS doesn't mention it. Is there any rationale for lists of prefectures in the English Wikipedia to maintain the Hokkaidō->Okinawa ordering? Or, even when split up into regions, why don't we list them in abc order? In the Regions of Japan or Prefectures of Japan articles, it seems acceptable to list them in geographic order because of the added context, but, in other places like List of city nicknames in Japan it may cause some confusion to anyone not already familiar with Japanese geography. Any thoughts? Neier 01:04, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok. Here's my first pass. If there are no improvements/suggestions, I'll transfer it to the MoS in a few days. Neier 02:01, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
moved from project page to talk page
Are 'oo' and 'ou' words both supposed to be transcribed as 'ō'? This has been confusing me.
I think this needs clarification. On that note, are they actually pronouced any differently? -- SeizureDog 00:34, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I've actually been giving this a lot of thought, and I don't have any discussion stopping suggestions yet, but I think it would be helpful to classify where potential long vowels occur in Japanese when thinking about this question.
First, Japanese words can be classified into three basic groups. There are kango, which derive from Chinese, are virtually always written in kanji and take the on’yomi (Chinese derived) reading. Then there are wago or yamatokotoba, which are native Japanese words and, if written with kanji at all, take the kun’yomi reading. Finally, there are garaigo, which are foreign loan words written in katakana.
To the extent people accept the use of macrons, I don’t think that there is any controversy that the long o and long u in kango (which are written in hiragana by adding a u, I believe without exception) should be written with a macron. Therefore, the question raised in this thread really arises with respect to wago.
Taking the long o found in wago first, I can think of two kinds.
Note that there are also examples of an o mora plus u where the u is subject to declension, like the verb ou (to chase). However, I’m not sure I would even classify this as a long o, because the mora should remain independent and because there is a conscious attempt to pronounce the u independently of the o in such a word. Incidentally, rising and falling accents aside, the two true kinds of long o identified above are generally pronounced identically. I think the distinction mentioned above between lengthening the o and pronouncing it twice is an introspective distinction only, to the extent it exists at all.
Next there is the long u that can also be found in wago. Here I believe there is truly only one kind, which I think corresponds to type 2 of the long o above. The best example I can think of for this is the formal construction where an i adjective (keiyoushi) that has an i mora in front of the final i ending (like utsukushii) is changed so that an o prefix is added, the second to last mora becomes a u mora, a u is added at the end, and the resulting word is paired with gozaimasu (i.e. outsukushuu gozaimasu). Note that this is similar to the ohayou gozaimasu construction mentioned above, which is similarly derived from the word hayai. In addition, similar to the ou verbs noted above, there are also uu verbs, like kuu, furuu and sukuu. Here, although the pronunciation is the same as the true long u, I would still not classify it as a long u, since the final u should maintain its independence.
Note that there are also other double vowels in Japanese, which I don’t believe are ever written with macrons, for example, Niigata, Kii, torii, ee (affirmative response), aa, okaasan, etc.
Give all this, I think it is clear that kango should always be written with macrons. I also think it is clear that the u verbs that look like long vowels, but really aren’t, should be written without macrons (both the ou variet and the uu variety). As for the two true long os and the true long u that are found in wago, I think I would lean toward the use of macrons. I can’t think of any useful reason for making a distinction, other than knowing what you should type when entering these words into an IME, and anyone using an IME is probably already aware how these words are written in hiragana anyway. But I don't feel terribly strongly about it.- Jefu 09:21, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Recently, many "People from XYZ" have sprung up, where XYZ is a city name. Since city names can be common, I think we need to standardize that these should be "People from XYZ, ABC" just like the city articles are named. Commmon usage (where Tokyo, Osaka, and other registered cities are excepted) can also be excepted here. For a (possibly incomplete) list of current offenders, see Category:People by city in Japan. I also want to execute an educational campaign of sorts, to enforce the idea that people shouldn't be listed by both the prefecture and the city, if the city cat exists; but, that is not a Japan MoS issue. Comments (on the naming proposal)? Neier 12:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Please note that the Place names rule itself needs to be updated, as follows:
-- Endroit 19:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
In the Place names rule of WP:MOS-JA, I propose to add an item for designated cites. Basically, the "designated cities" rule should specify that "all designated cities drop the prefecture name except for the ones where disambiguation is necessary". Or we can list all the cities, because the list is short.-- Endroit 19:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I believe the most recent discussion indicated that designated cities with unique names do not need the prefecture name. No consensus has been reached for those with ambiguous names (Fukuoka, Chiba, Saitama, Shizuoka, Kawasaki) or those not so well-known internationally (Sakai). I think one unresolved issue is how to disambiguate -- keep the current comma style with the prefecture name, or add "(city)" after the name, or some other method. -- Polaron | Talk 23:40, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree completely with Dekimasu. The question is, should we leave the current dismabiguation method of attaching the prefecture name after a comma or should we use another method. My preference is to simply attach "(city)" to the name since we are disambiguating between something that is a city and something that is not. -- Polaron | Talk 01:03, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I believe that we unanimously agree on the following point already: "The designated cities Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, Yokohama, Nagoya, Kitakyushu, Sapporo, Sendai, and Hiroshima should be in the form <cityname> only, without the prefecture." That's a good starting point. So the question is, what do we do with the rest: Kawasaki, Sakai, Fukuoka, Chiba, Saitama, and Shizuoka?-- Endroit 01:49, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Dekimasu, on the 9 cities which need disambiguating (Kawasaki, Sakai, Fukuoka, Chiba, Saitama, Shizuoka, Osaka, Kyoto, and Hiroshima), can we first determine if the disambiguation occurs completely within the jurisdiction of Japan? 7 of these (Fukuoka, Chiba, Saitama, Shizuoka, Osaka, Kyoto, and Hiroshima) only need disambiguation within Japan, and 2 of these (Kawasaki and Sakai) need disambiguation internationally. If the disambiguation occurs only within the jurisdiction of Japan, can't we emphasize what the Japanese government is trying to say, that the designated cities are significant enough to be "designated"? This means addresses in Japan can read Ōsaka-shi, Kita-ku (大阪市北区) rather than Ōsaka-fu, Ōsaka-shi, Kita-ku (大阪府大阪市北区). It's Ōsaka-shi rather than Ōsaka, but the prefecture is completely dropped, showing the significance of the city of Osaka within Japan. Wikipedia-wise, WP:MOS-JA can take precedence over WP:DAB, if the majority of the disambiguation occurs entirely within Japan. So can't we go ahead and make a rule saying that the designated cities "Osaka", "Kyoto", and "Hiroshima" should be written that way, and not "Osaka, Osaka", "Kyoto, Kyoto", and "Hiroshima, Hiroshima"?-- Endroit 17:17, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I am still quite opposed to this. Although I usually agree with Endroit, and the reasoning (emphasis of separation from the prefecture) is logical, this proposal can only take precedence over WP:DAB at the expense of objectively hurting a large number of links in the service of a stylistic choice. Someone will have to go through and correct the links all the time. There won't be an easy method for figuring out which links shouldn't be there, as there is for dab pages - it will require visiting every page linked to Kyoto and checking to see whether the links should point to Kyoto Prefecture. I don't see anyone being willing to do that.
This could still be solved and preserve the reasoning if "City" was added to all of the titles. The only other input that I have is that there is no reason to ignore the disambiguation problem for some of the designated cities and still leave Chiba, Fukuoka, etc. the way they are. If you are set on doing it this way, the only page that should be a disambiguation page is Kawasaki. And I don't mean to be combative, but wouldn't it be helpful to have a second opinion on the feasibility of this from WP:DAB? I am inclined to leave a note. Dekimasu 05:04, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I just went through the first 100 in Kyoto's " What links here" list. And I think I see what Dekimasu is saying. It's really a BIG problem, because there are quite a few potentially wrong links. We need to agree on a convention on how to disambiguate these. How about this....
-- Endroit 13:53, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm sure this has been touched on before, but I was sometime ago reverted for changing an article of Empress Genmei to conform to the suggestion layed down here as regards romanization of ん as m - such people do not have "official romanizations", and Google searches are inherently flawed. Could this not be fixed to at least be more clear? elvenscout742 13:58, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Please vote above in the Ryukyu vs. Ryūkyū section, to resolve inconsistencies within WP:MOS-JA. The following 2 polls are now ongoing:
Polls end Dec. 13. There's only a few days left, so please hurry.-- Endroit 18:17, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I would vote for "Riukiu" if possible. It is the form produced by transliterating the Classical Kana script with the EHS (Extended Hepburn System). Kmns tsw 09:20, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
There is a lot of limited express services which have unique names such as Kodama (こだま). Can you decide the name of articles on these services? -- Izumi5 12:08, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't want to start again the question of whether to use Emperor Komei, or Emperor Kōmei, or Kōmei Emperor, or Kōmei Tennō, and so on... That is not my question, and I don't want it to interfere with what I want to ask.
My question is just what about this curious sentence : For Emperor Hirohito, although he too has been posthumously named Emperor Shōwa, it is also acceptable to refer to him as Emperor Hirohito, or just Hirohito, as that is the name by which he continues to be most widely known in the West. What does it mean? "It is acceptable to..." Does it mean there is a rule on Wikipedia that, despite the fact all the other deceased Japanese emperors are called by their Regnal name, this one and only this one MUST be called by his first name?... Or only MAY?
I think a may-answer has no place in a manual of style.
And a must-answer is out of the question. I can see absolutely no need to call his page Hirohito instead of Emperor Shōwa like the other. Either there is a rule (for example: Japanese emperors must be named by their Regnal name as soon as they get one (like the popes)) or there is no rule. Exceptions to the rules must be justified by good reasons. I see no good justification for this emperor. Every official Japanese site will use Shōwa instead of Hirohto, even in sites written in English (for example this one: [1]). Every time there is a discussion on Wikipedia about the correct form or spelling of a name, there is allways someone to tell me: " Look at his homepage to find the correct form!" In this case, the correct form is Shōwa, and not Hirohito.
Some peopole will think it's too complicated to change the article's title when the emperor dies. It's not technically difficult. When Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was elected pope, his article was renamed into Pope Benedict XVI immediately! Not become he became pope, but because he changed names by becoming pope. I think when Empereor Akihito dies, his article will have be renamed at once to Emperor Heisei, not because he dies, but because he'll change names by dying.
So what's wrong with Emperor Shōwa? Bad habits are hard to rid of. "He was called Hirohito when he was alive so that's enough. He may be refered as Shōwa in every official text, he may even want to be called Shōwa after his death... but my Grand'Ma allways called him Hirohito and it's all I want to know." It's the worse reason I've ever read in an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia is here to expose good knowledge, not to keep turning over received ideas. Emperor Shōwa died to early. If he had died today, I'm sure there would heve been a debate about the title of his page, but I'm sure too that the Emperor Shōwa title would have won. Now there are 18 years of bad habit in paper encyclopedias and newspapers to call him by the wrong name. I think it's still time to correct it. That's why I claim his article must be renamed Emperor Shōwa. With the use of automatic redirects (which paper encyclopedias don't have), every person looking for Hirohito will find the Emperor Shōwa article and will learn something new about his name without loosing one second. That's the role of an encyclopedia.
The wording of the project page is particullary ambiguous. On the one hand it states that Emperor Hirohito is a special case needing an exception to the rule (but it's not explained why) and on the other hand it makes a distinction between the emperors before Hirohito and ... the rest. The rule stops with him, and when the current emperor dies there will be no rule for him too. Not only there is a secret reason to make an exception for Hirohito, but this reason is enough to abolish totally the rule for his successors.
To conclude, I would like to put the text that way :
=== Names of emperors ===
For Japanese emperors, including emperors from both the northern and southern courts during the
Nanboku-chō Era, use the form [[Emperor {name}]], which is a partial translation of their
posthumous name. Note that the word Emperor is an integral part of the name and not merely a title, so it should be capitalized and the article the should not appear before it. It is also acceptable to refer to a Japanese emperor using only the {name} portion of their name, so long as the first appearance of the name uses the above format. Be sure to create appropriate redirects so that the version of the name without the title will bring the reader to the correct location.
Similarly the current emperor is referred by his personnal name as Emperor Akihito, as long as he lives. His article will be renamed with his posthumous Regnal name when he dies. Note that it is incorrect to refer to Emperor Akihito as Emperor Heisei, as he will not be renamed Emperor Heisei until after his death.
What do you think of it? Švitrigaila 01:26, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Dekimasu says : "As it stands, all of the emperors known as gods are referred to their posthumous names, while emperors not known as gods are referred to by their "real" names." That's not true. Firstly, both Emperor Fushimi and Hirohito are called by their posthumous name in Japanese sources : Fushimi Tennō and Shōwa Tennō. And outside Japan, I don't think Fushimi has ever been a god! He has never been a god for me, and I call him naturally Emperor Fushimi, and never by his first name. Secondly, Dekimasu writes Hirohito is his "real name". This name is not more "real" than another. George W. Bush's "real name" is not "George". Pope Benedict XVI's "real name" is not Joseph. George and Joseph are only their "christian name", or their "first name". Hirohito is only a "first name", which is not more "real" than the regnal names of Emperor Fushimi and Emperor Shōwa. Švitrigaila 11:29, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Excuse me if I have offended you, that wasn't my aim. I don't seek fight, I just want to be understood and sometimes I can lose temper. I suppose what you say about "heaven-king" is about the word "tennō", which in fact means roughly "heaven king". But as I put it in my first line, that's not the subject of my demend. Let's call him Shōwa Tennō, or Emperor Shōwa, or Shōwa (ruler of Japan), or let's just call him Shōwa, I don't mind. I know that Emperor Shōwa renounced to prentend he was of divine descent, but the term tennō is still the official title of the emperor, as it is written in the Japanese constitution [2]. And the custom to take a regnal name upon death is still living. It proves it has nothing to do with what Shōwa renounced at the end of the war. So I think using his first name instead of his regnal name, contrary to each of his predecessors, has nothing to do with his renunciation.
My demand was about the other part of this article's title. And I think it has definitively nothing to do with whether he was a god or not. It has only to do with the fact that he has an official name according to a certain official nomenclature. This nomenclature applies to every Japanese emperor. And it applies for everybody. There is no point saying: "Yes this nomenclature exists, a lot of people do use it, we too use it since a lot of Japanese emperors do have a name only thanks to it (for examples emperors Jimmu, Junnin and Reigen had their regnal name created centuries after their death), but it's not a reason to abide by this nomenclature for Hirohito because we're not Japanese and it doesn't apply to us."
As for the "nationalism" argument. You say people would want to see Hirohito instead of Shōwa because of his role in WWII, and would consider Shōwa as a proof of Japanese nationalism. I can't see why Shōwa would be more nationalist than Hirohito. It's as if someone said: "There are a lot of books written about or by Joseph Ratzinger, he is very famous under this name, and now you suddenly want us to call him Benedict XVI?! But we're not catholic! We don't have to abide by this catholic custom. Those who do must be catholic bigots."
Once again, the only reason for using Hirohito instead of Shōwa is the weight of habit. I say Hirohito because I heard someone saying Hirohito. And this one told me Hirohito because he heard someone else telling him Hirohito. There is no reflexion on whether it's the good term or not. When it was decided Pluto is no more a planet but a dwarf planet, its Wikipedian article was rewritten. There was no discussion on Wikipedia about it because it exists an official nomenclature for planets. The IAU is the only competent body to decide if Pluto is a planet or not. And the fact Pluto was considered a planet since 1930 doesn't matter! It won't change the habits of the general public at once, but it will on a longer course. For the Japanese emperors nomenclature the only competent bodies are the Imperial Household Agency and the Japanese government, not newspapers, nor historians, nor encyclopedias. And they use Shōwa. Never Hirohito.
Švitrigaila 23:32, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
To finish, you say "Giving interchangeability to "Hirohito" and "Emperor Shōwa" is no different in that regard from allowing "who" and "that" to be used interchangeably." So you wouldn't matter if I decided to rename the article myself? Well. But what about then about Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)#Names of emperors itself then? Must we erase this whole section?
Švitrigaila 23:32, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
We spend a lot of time talking about romanization, but I'm not sure an issue like this has come up before ... an anonymous user changed the kanji and kana of the titles of works of literature on several authors' articles to their "original" style (eg 雪国->雪國, 仮面の告白->假面の告白). I understand the reasoning behind this (these forms were their printed title when originally published), but I reverted them for now and thought I'd bring the issue up here. Japanese Wikipedia is fairly straight-forward about their rule for kana:
仮名遣いは現代仮名遣いを原則とする。 "As a rule, modern kana usage is preferred."
However, kanji usage is more complicated ... but there is a general rule of: 漢字の字体が複数ある場合には常用漢字表にある字体のものを使うのを原則とする(固有名詞、歴史的文書の引用などでは、原文にあわせて用いる)。"As a rule, when there are multiple ways a word can be written using kanji, use the Jōyō kanji form (use the original form for proper nouns, quotations from historical texts, etc.)"
This seems to suggest that works of fiction should be given in their modern forms (ie 雪国 instead of 雪國) but allows for writing Akutagawa's given name as 龍之介 instead of 竜之介. I vaguely remember a discussion about shinjitai vs. kyūjitai a while back, but I forget the context. If there is support for the rules used on Japanese Wikipedia, we should consider adopting them in this MoS as well. CES 14:48, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
It sounds like everyone is pretty much on the same page. I agree with Jefu that tracking down the original form of a title could be tedious or potentially impossible ... but at the same time I could see potential value in knowing that while the Man'yōshū is usually written 万葉集, older texts would refer to it as 萬葉集. Or that Sōseki's Kokoro is usually こころ but occasionally こゝろ and originally 心. Perhaps emphasis on notable "alternative" (rather than "original") forms can be made. How about adding something like the following rules under the "Using Japanese in the article body" section:
In general, use modern forms of kanji ( shinjitai) and modern usage patterns of kana. Exceptions may be made for proper nouns and quotations from historical texts. For example:
When multiple or alternative forms are possible, they may be acknowledged in the text (e.g. Sōseki's Kokoro is usually written こころ but occasionally こゝろ and originally 心)
CES 15:07, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
I thought we discussed this earlier, but, the current MoS doesn't mention it. Is there any rationale for lists of prefectures in the English Wikipedia to maintain the Hokkaidō->Okinawa ordering? Or, even when split up into regions, why don't we list them in abc order? In the Regions of Japan or Prefectures of Japan articles, it seems acceptable to list them in geographic order because of the added context, but, in other places like List of city nicknames in Japan it may cause some confusion to anyone not already familiar with Japanese geography. Any thoughts? Neier 01:04, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok. Here's my first pass. If there are no improvements/suggestions, I'll transfer it to the MoS in a few days. Neier 02:01, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
moved from project page to talk page
Are 'oo' and 'ou' words both supposed to be transcribed as 'ō'? This has been confusing me.
I think this needs clarification. On that note, are they actually pronouced any differently? -- SeizureDog 00:34, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I've actually been giving this a lot of thought, and I don't have any discussion stopping suggestions yet, but I think it would be helpful to classify where potential long vowels occur in Japanese when thinking about this question.
First, Japanese words can be classified into three basic groups. There are kango, which derive from Chinese, are virtually always written in kanji and take the on’yomi (Chinese derived) reading. Then there are wago or yamatokotoba, which are native Japanese words and, if written with kanji at all, take the kun’yomi reading. Finally, there are garaigo, which are foreign loan words written in katakana.
To the extent people accept the use of macrons, I don’t think that there is any controversy that the long o and long u in kango (which are written in hiragana by adding a u, I believe without exception) should be written with a macron. Therefore, the question raised in this thread really arises with respect to wago.
Taking the long o found in wago first, I can think of two kinds.
Note that there are also examples of an o mora plus u where the u is subject to declension, like the verb ou (to chase). However, I’m not sure I would even classify this as a long o, because the mora should remain independent and because there is a conscious attempt to pronounce the u independently of the o in such a word. Incidentally, rising and falling accents aside, the two true kinds of long o identified above are generally pronounced identically. I think the distinction mentioned above between lengthening the o and pronouncing it twice is an introspective distinction only, to the extent it exists at all.
Next there is the long u that can also be found in wago. Here I believe there is truly only one kind, which I think corresponds to type 2 of the long o above. The best example I can think of for this is the formal construction where an i adjective (keiyoushi) that has an i mora in front of the final i ending (like utsukushii) is changed so that an o prefix is added, the second to last mora becomes a u mora, a u is added at the end, and the resulting word is paired with gozaimasu (i.e. outsukushuu gozaimasu). Note that this is similar to the ohayou gozaimasu construction mentioned above, which is similarly derived from the word hayai. In addition, similar to the ou verbs noted above, there are also uu verbs, like kuu, furuu and sukuu. Here, although the pronunciation is the same as the true long u, I would still not classify it as a long u, since the final u should maintain its independence.
Note that there are also other double vowels in Japanese, which I don’t believe are ever written with macrons, for example, Niigata, Kii, torii, ee (affirmative response), aa, okaasan, etc.
Give all this, I think it is clear that kango should always be written with macrons. I also think it is clear that the u verbs that look like long vowels, but really aren’t, should be written without macrons (both the ou variet and the uu variety). As for the two true long os and the true long u that are found in wago, I think I would lean toward the use of macrons. I can’t think of any useful reason for making a distinction, other than knowing what you should type when entering these words into an IME, and anyone using an IME is probably already aware how these words are written in hiragana anyway. But I don't feel terribly strongly about it.- Jefu 09:21, 28 December 2006 (UTC)