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The word Ryukyu should be specifically unmacronned, and WP:MOS-JP should specifically mention this. That's because the word "Ryukyu" has been naturarized into the English language without macrons.
Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary has a specific entry for the word "Ryukyuan". The word Ryukyuan (with the suffix an) does NOT exist in the Japanese language, and adding macrons to such words goes against the spirit of WP:MOS-JP. (ie: The suffix "an" is NOT Japanese). And the existence of the specific word "Ryukyuan" in the English language proves that the word "Ryukyu" has been naturalized into the English language as well.
Also, be sure to vote in Talk:Ryūkyū Islands for a poll that's going on there. We are trying to move the article back to Ryukyu Islands. Thank you.-- Endroit 17:50, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
I have moved Ryukyuan languages and Ryukyuans back to their original titles per this discussion. However, I don't have AWB and the macrons within the article are still there. Dekimasu 05:44, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I moved the discussion on the poll further down, in a new section, Ryukyu vs. Ryūkyū : Planning for a poll.-- Endroit 15:03, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Before continuing the debate, I would like to clarify that we are discussing "Ryūkyū vs. Ryukyu", as the subject implies. "Ryukyuan" and "Ryūkyū Islands" are certainly related to the word Ryūkyū / Ryukyu though. I would like to emphasis this because I interpret "Ryūkyū Islands" / "Ryukyu Islands" as two words: (1) Ryūkyū / Ryukyu and (2) Islands. In other words, "the islands of Ryūkyū".
The word "Ryukyu" alone does not appear in several English dictionaries that I searched. Endroit found it in Websters (subscription needed) and is defined as: "the language of the Ryukyuan people that is related to Japanese". Thus, as per the English definition, Ryukyu should redirect to Ryukyuan languages. Unless anyone suggests that "Ryūkyū" is English (in which case there is no need for this debate), then in Japanese it is an old word for Okinawa and thus Ryūkyū should redirect to Okinawa. Ref: Daijirin: 琉球. Bendono 04:37, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
This continues to be a fascinating argument and most of the participants have been most civil. I'm chomping at the bit to comment on what's written close above, but I shan't rush to subject you to these comments because of my stronger conviction that all of this is getting out of hand. Arguments over macrons (and closely related issues) are more or less simultaneously proceeding on various fronts with a considerable degree of overlap (yes, the Ryūkyū/Ryukyu dilemma differs in one or two arguably significant ways from from, say, Ryū/Ryu, but it shares a lot), and I think there's a danger that they'll be won not by whichever side has the stronger arguments or is more persuasive but rather by whichever is most dogged (has the most stamina or is the most fanatically driven). That seems a great pity. Can we agree not to do any more name changes (or changes back) until people with more time on their hands than I do can integrate all these skirmishes into a single discussion forum? -- Hoary 05:01, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Oh great, more discussion on the same topic being made at several different talk pages. One thing I would like to quickly clarify about my support for "Ryukyu Islands" over "Ryūkyū Islands" at Talk:Ryūkyū Islands: I am avoiding having an opinion on the more generalized debate of Ryukyu vs. Ryūkyū, Ryukyuan vs. Ryūkyūan, etc. My current position only prefers "Ryukyu Islands" over "Ryūkyū Islands" as I believe there is less of a grey area in that debate (explanation given at Talk:Ryukyu Islands). I am not preferring a change in WP:MOS-JP policy, except maybe a little clarification here and there. Clarification can always help. — Tokek 05:23, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
In a debate about the title of a Japanese island group, it was brought to attention what WP:MOS-JP mentions (in the "Body text" section): "10. Island names should always include macrons." Maybe this came from the Hokkaido vs. Hokkaidō debate, i don't know. However, this line seems to asume that hepburn romanization (with macrons) should ALWAYS be used, which conflicts with the opener paragraph to this article that recommends English names over Japanese names where appropriate: "An English loan word or place name with a Japanese origin should be used in its most commonly used English form in the body of an article..."
If it really was the case that all Japanese island article titles should use hepburn romanization of Japanese place names, then the following moves would have to be made:
I am not for these moves and I don't think these moves are what Wikipedia editors want, so I think rule 10 could be clarified and reworded to avoid self contradiction within WP:MOS-JA. At least rule 10 was used in the Talk:Ryukyu Islands proposed move debate. — Tokek 09:15, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
The statement "Island names should always include macrons" has the same difficulty as the statement I noted in the topic "A (hopefully noncontroversial) proposal not connected with the "what the hell" debate" below. Namely, "always" requires more macrons than we've agreed to in body text. As an example, the statement requires that we refer to the island of Niijima as Nījima. There are probably examples with an "o" in one kanji followed by a "u" in a different kanji that we likewise don't write with macrons (although none comes to mind). Again, I don't believe we intended to require that, so I propose changing the sentence to "Island names should always include the macrons that are required for other text." Fg2 21:13, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
In Ogasawara Islands, similar to Ryukyu vs. Ryūkyū, we have a rule conflict. The article is at Ogasawara Islands, based on the Japanese name. But according to the English words of Japanese origin rule of WP:MOS-JP, it should rather be at Bonin Islands, because the dictionaries prefer Bonin Islands. If the article is voted to stay at Ogasawara Islands, we need to list it as an exception somewhere in WP:MOS-JP.
There will be 2 choices as follows:
Highest percentage wins. The poll shall be for a period of 2 weeks, coinciding with the Ryukyu vs. Ryūkyū poll below.-- Endroit 16:31, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
The poll at Talk:Ryūkyū Islands resulted in no consensus, with a tally of 9 vs. 7 AGAINST macrons. So I think another poll is in order, for all instances of the words Ryūkyū & Ryukyuan in general. There will be 3 choices as follows:
Highest percentage wins, even if below 50%. The poll shall be for a period of 2 weeks, starting 1 week from today. Comments?-- Endroit 20:23, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
The Internet is great. However, very few books are digitally available. So I went to the library. Below is an excerpt of some of the English books that I found using the spelling "Ryūkyū" in the titles. To be fair, I specifically filtered out books regarding linguistics.
A few things to note:
I noticed one interesting thing while I was there. The US occupation was known as "United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands", or USCAR for short. This is called 琉球列島米国民政府 in Japanese. Notice the expression 琉球列島. Perhaps the previous conversation about Ryukyu Islands vs. 琉球諸島 vs. 南西諸島 was meaningless. Bendono 07:02, 25 November 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. |
The word Ryukyu should be specifically unmacronned, and WP:MOS-JP should specifically mention this. That's because the word "Ryukyu" has been naturarized into the English language without macrons.
Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary has a specific entry for the word "Ryukyuan". The word Ryukyuan (with the suffix an) does NOT exist in the Japanese language, and adding macrons to such words goes against the spirit of WP:MOS-JP. (ie: The suffix "an" is NOT Japanese). And the existence of the specific word "Ryukyuan" in the English language proves that the word "Ryukyu" has been naturalized into the English language as well.
Also, be sure to vote in Talk:Ryūkyū Islands for a poll that's going on there. We are trying to move the article back to Ryukyu Islands. Thank you.-- Endroit 17:50, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
I have moved Ryukyuan languages and Ryukyuans back to their original titles per this discussion. However, I don't have AWB and the macrons within the article are still there. Dekimasu 05:44, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I moved the discussion on the poll further down, in a new section, Ryukyu vs. Ryūkyū : Planning for a poll.-- Endroit 15:03, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Before continuing the debate, I would like to clarify that we are discussing "Ryūkyū vs. Ryukyu", as the subject implies. "Ryukyuan" and "Ryūkyū Islands" are certainly related to the word Ryūkyū / Ryukyu though. I would like to emphasis this because I interpret "Ryūkyū Islands" / "Ryukyu Islands" as two words: (1) Ryūkyū / Ryukyu and (2) Islands. In other words, "the islands of Ryūkyū".
The word "Ryukyu" alone does not appear in several English dictionaries that I searched. Endroit found it in Websters (subscription needed) and is defined as: "the language of the Ryukyuan people that is related to Japanese". Thus, as per the English definition, Ryukyu should redirect to Ryukyuan languages. Unless anyone suggests that "Ryūkyū" is English (in which case there is no need for this debate), then in Japanese it is an old word for Okinawa and thus Ryūkyū should redirect to Okinawa. Ref: Daijirin: 琉球. Bendono 04:37, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
This continues to be a fascinating argument and most of the participants have been most civil. I'm chomping at the bit to comment on what's written close above, but I shan't rush to subject you to these comments because of my stronger conviction that all of this is getting out of hand. Arguments over macrons (and closely related issues) are more or less simultaneously proceeding on various fronts with a considerable degree of overlap (yes, the Ryūkyū/Ryukyu dilemma differs in one or two arguably significant ways from from, say, Ryū/Ryu, but it shares a lot), and I think there's a danger that they'll be won not by whichever side has the stronger arguments or is more persuasive but rather by whichever is most dogged (has the most stamina or is the most fanatically driven). That seems a great pity. Can we agree not to do any more name changes (or changes back) until people with more time on their hands than I do can integrate all these skirmishes into a single discussion forum? -- Hoary 05:01, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Oh great, more discussion on the same topic being made at several different talk pages. One thing I would like to quickly clarify about my support for "Ryukyu Islands" over "Ryūkyū Islands" at Talk:Ryūkyū Islands: I am avoiding having an opinion on the more generalized debate of Ryukyu vs. Ryūkyū, Ryukyuan vs. Ryūkyūan, etc. My current position only prefers "Ryukyu Islands" over "Ryūkyū Islands" as I believe there is less of a grey area in that debate (explanation given at Talk:Ryukyu Islands). I am not preferring a change in WP:MOS-JP policy, except maybe a little clarification here and there. Clarification can always help. — Tokek 05:23, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
In a debate about the title of a Japanese island group, it was brought to attention what WP:MOS-JP mentions (in the "Body text" section): "10. Island names should always include macrons." Maybe this came from the Hokkaido vs. Hokkaidō debate, i don't know. However, this line seems to asume that hepburn romanization (with macrons) should ALWAYS be used, which conflicts with the opener paragraph to this article that recommends English names over Japanese names where appropriate: "An English loan word or place name with a Japanese origin should be used in its most commonly used English form in the body of an article..."
If it really was the case that all Japanese island article titles should use hepburn romanization of Japanese place names, then the following moves would have to be made:
I am not for these moves and I don't think these moves are what Wikipedia editors want, so I think rule 10 could be clarified and reworded to avoid self contradiction within WP:MOS-JA. At least rule 10 was used in the Talk:Ryukyu Islands proposed move debate. — Tokek 09:15, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
The statement "Island names should always include macrons" has the same difficulty as the statement I noted in the topic "A (hopefully noncontroversial) proposal not connected with the "what the hell" debate" below. Namely, "always" requires more macrons than we've agreed to in body text. As an example, the statement requires that we refer to the island of Niijima as Nījima. There are probably examples with an "o" in one kanji followed by a "u" in a different kanji that we likewise don't write with macrons (although none comes to mind). Again, I don't believe we intended to require that, so I propose changing the sentence to "Island names should always include the macrons that are required for other text." Fg2 21:13, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
In Ogasawara Islands, similar to Ryukyu vs. Ryūkyū, we have a rule conflict. The article is at Ogasawara Islands, based on the Japanese name. But according to the English words of Japanese origin rule of WP:MOS-JP, it should rather be at Bonin Islands, because the dictionaries prefer Bonin Islands. If the article is voted to stay at Ogasawara Islands, we need to list it as an exception somewhere in WP:MOS-JP.
There will be 2 choices as follows:
Highest percentage wins. The poll shall be for a period of 2 weeks, coinciding with the Ryukyu vs. Ryūkyū poll below.-- Endroit 16:31, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
The poll at Talk:Ryūkyū Islands resulted in no consensus, with a tally of 9 vs. 7 AGAINST macrons. So I think another poll is in order, for all instances of the words Ryūkyū & Ryukyuan in general. There will be 3 choices as follows:
Highest percentage wins, even if below 50%. The poll shall be for a period of 2 weeks, starting 1 week from today. Comments?-- Endroit 20:23, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
The Internet is great. However, very few books are digitally available. So I went to the library. Below is an excerpt of some of the English books that I found using the spelling "Ryūkyū" in the titles. To be fair, I specifically filtered out books regarding linguistics.
A few things to note:
I noticed one interesting thing while I was there. The US occupation was known as "United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands", or USCAR for short. This is called 琉球列島米国民政府 in Japanese. Notice the expression 琉球列島. Perhaps the previous conversation about Ryukyu Islands vs. 琉球諸島 vs. 南西諸島 was meaningless. Bendono 07:02, 25 November 2006 (UTC)