![]() | 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. |
This discussion was moved here from Wikipedia talk: naming conventions (Japanese) and elsewhere
For the page, I added that the Kunrei and Nippon-shiki of a word should be in parenthenses after the Hepburn word in the opening paragraph. WhisperToMe 05:13, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
If you look at articles on Chinese names, E.G. Beijing, multiple romanizations exist, so they are all listed.
Although alternate Japanese romanizations are not as common, they are still there. Therefore, I changed the policy regarding Japanese naming conventions. WhisperToMe 23:26, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I don't see what the problem is by including alternate romanizations in Japanese articles. WhisperToMe 23:56, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Just a reminder - its common practice to include alternate spellings of names, e.g. Kabul. Even if they are seldom used, they still should be used. It is not about figuring out the kana - It is about informing people on other ways names can be spelled. I would never have known that Huzi in Nippon-shiki is also Fuji in Hepburn.
Even then, Wikipedia would still sticking to Hepburn, as Hepburn names are ALWAYS used as title names, and throughout the body. However, the articles should still have information on what the names are under different romanization systems when they are different from the Hepburn. WhisperToMe 00:50, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I concur with everyone else on this issue. Stop cramming articles with useless information. Anyone who calls Mount Fuji "Huzisan" is smoking some very potent ganja. Hepburn is more or less standard nowadays: we don't need to be including alternate romanizations unless they're very common. ("Oosaka" might be such a case. "Tookyoo" is definitely not.) -- Sekicho 01:36, Apr 1, 2004 (UTC)
Jpatokal, Nipponshiki was invented in the late 1800's, after Hepburn did. Instead of it being "outdated", it just didn't catch on.
For some reason, "Hukuoka" is used commonly on the internet. Hukuoka is JSL, Nippon-shiki, and Kunrei, as is "Huzi".
Fukuoka - 1,480,000 Hukuoka - 15,000
But as they aren't common, they should not be in the lead paragraph, and shouldn't be in every single article.
WhisperToMe 08:12, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Who is the readership and how is are multiple romanizations useful to them? The readership of en.wikipedia.org is primarily English speakers who neither know nor care about the different systems of Japanese romanization. The point of giving rōmaji is to indicate the Japanese pronunciation when it isn't obvious from the English spelling. — Gdr 09:17 2004-04-01
I supposedly know Japanese, having a degree in it (don't ask me to translate anything, I'm out of practice), and I would agree that we don't need every single possible transliteration. Only the most common ones should be included. Fujisan, yes. Huzisan, no. I have never, ever seen this, not in any textbook I used, nor ever spoken in class. I don't even see why "Tookyoo" should be included; yes, it is an accurate transliteration, but it's simply not used much. However, I CAN see a better case for Tookyoo than for Huzisan. Same deal for "Hirosima" - Unnecessary. Yes, I know some romanizations use "si" instead of "shi" and I hate them. ;) Interesting, most of the google results I see for Hirosima are foreign language, and thus, not relevant for the English language wikipedia. -- Golbez 08:21, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Golbez, Kunrei is used in Japanese textbooks. But since you never saw it in a textbook, you must not be from Japan. WhisperToMe 08:31, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
So... what happened? WhisperToMe 05:10, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
No, I'm not. Are you? And is that relevant? Now, I don't mind you wasting your time making countless redirects, apart from it cluttering up "recent changes", or even wasting your time adding alternate romanizations to every single Japanese page. Your time, not mine. I'm just offering my two cents in saying that I think a good portion of these changes are, in fact, a waste of time. But, again, your time, and it's not like the namespace will ever be needed for "Tyuuoo-ku, Tookyoo" will be used for anything but this redirect. However, I must challenge the wisdom of one minor page needing... eleven redirects, most of them not major spellings. -- Golbez 08:36, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I'm an American. Believe me, Golbez, I redirect uncommon/various spellings all the time. Just look at Umm al-Qaiwain and Qin Shi Huangdi. WhisperToMe 08:39, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I'm American too. That's a lot of redirects. Your time, not mine, and perhaps the redirects are necessary. But, when you start putting the stuff into the actual articles, then it gets a little iffy. Why don't you list all the possible transliterations of Umm al-Qaiwain on its page, like you do for Osaka? -- Golbez 08:44, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I might get to that sometime. It was done for Muammar al-Qaddafi. WhisperToMe 08:47, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I think putting multiple romanizations on articles is needless. And I don't see why WhisperToMe do. As a native Japanese speaker, I don't know what kind of info English speakers want. I care a bit the fact that romanized forms don't distinguish おお from おう so that one cannot technically reconstruct original Japanese spellings from them. But apparently, WhisperToMe doesn't care about it.
Kunreishiki and Nihonshiki are rarely used. And I think they are the systems to romanize Japanese as Japanese whereas Hepburn romanizes Japanese words as part of English. They are needless for English Wikipedia, and I think putting Hiragana or Katakana would be better than putting them although I don't support eigher. -- Nanshu 04:05, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I've seen both used occasionally on Wikipedia. See:
Sin-Itiro_Tomonaga,
Shin Takahashi and
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Chiba_prefecture&diff=766352&oldid=766351 - There is "kisaradu" (Kisarazu in Hepburn) in there, which may have been a mistake. - As for the previous two, if you want proof that I did not originally add the Kunrei, check the edit histories.
There was even a guest who wanted Hepburn completely thrown out (
Talk:Romaji) - But I don't agree with that. :)
WhisperToMe 05:07, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Sin-Itiro's a weird case, but that's how he spells his own name so we can't really argue with that. Shin Takahashi, on the other hand, looks like Hepburn to me? At any rate, your redirects are pointless, but they at least they don't get in the way of the content. Messes like this, on the other hand, do:
This is ridiculous! Two words of content ("Japanese politician") and twenty-five about naming! I've reverted this back to:
And, since WhisperToMe is obviously unwilling to listen to the majority opinion, I encourage all others to follow me in reverting leading paragraphs back into readability. Jpatokal 06:31, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I've thought about this for awhile, and I've decided that perhaps I should only have the Hepburn and Kunrei listed.
But the whole "If you list them all in the title, it gets in the way of the content" concept is ridiculous. Look at the Chinese articles... Examples: Taipei, Hu Jintao, Mao Zedong WhisperToMe 12:31, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Another weird thing is that the Pinyin way to say Taipei (Taibei) is only used by the Communist party of China - Almost everyone everyone else uses the Wade-Giles way to say it. As for why I placed the alternates in a separate sentence instead of, say, in the 1st sentence, many here felt it was cluttering that way too.
Shin Takahashi. Or perhaps like this http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Shin_Takahashi&oldid=3117435. WhisperToMe 13:43, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)
WhisperToMe 16:32, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Oh, and btw, most people don't bother typing circumflexes or macrons, so its a bit more fair to search for "Syozyo", which returns 115 google hits. This romanization is probably incorrect, but "Syouzyo" returns 262 hits. WhisperToMe 17:02, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Another egregious example:
The only Google hits for "Zyun-itiro Koizumi" or "Zyunichiro Koizumi" were copies of this page. Gdr 09:13, 2004 Apr 13 (UTC)
-- Taku 15:17, Apr 13, 2004 (UTC)
Sometimes, people can get confused by alternate spellings. Some of my classmates didn't know that "Akhilleus" was an alt. spelling of Achilles. Therefore, they got confused when they read the Robert Fitzgerald version of "The Odyssey".
Anyways, yes, Junichiro Koizumi seems to be almost exclusively spelled in his Hepburn form on the net. Yet Kunrei is used somewhat for other stuff:
WhisperToMe - too lazy to sign in... 19:21, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Yeah, so this is why I said there are some exceptions. But obviously this doesn't mean every article needs to mention different romanized names. There is actually no issue. If people use different spellings, then it is necessary to list them all. Also, I think Fukuoka and Hukuoka are the same thing as -zation and -sation, not need to list both two. Can we agree now? -- Taku 19:53, Apr 13, 2004 (UTC)
Yes, I agree with you. WhisperToMe 22:17, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Maybe I should have clarified my opinion. I think that tons of redirects are enough and that tiresome info on each article is needless. And I think that romanization variants mainly come from Japanese ignorance on romanization. For Japanese, romanized names are "ad hoc" ones. They are not "right" names because the Latin alphabet is not the official writting system for Japanese. -- Nanshu 02:49, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
By the way, look at the Esperanto article of Junichiro Koizumi. WhisperToMe 04:09, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
And this is relevant to the English Wikipedia how? Also, "I know my edits make articles butt-ugly and confusing, but lookie lookie, this paragraph written by somebody else is butt-ugly and confusing too" really isn't the best tactic to convince us why you need to stick Kunrei in every single article. Especially when in this case the para in question is a word-for-word translation of your own edits! Jpatokal 05:52, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Again, sometimes Kunrei-shiki is used in the English language. And sometimes, those alternate spellings can confuse the hell out of people. However low sometimes is, sometimes can be enough. Can't we go by what Taku said above? WhisperToMe 23:21, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
-- Taku 00:19, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)
Is it really necessary to have a link to Hepburn from every page that uses this style of romanization? It is necessary to have a link to Japanese next to every word written in Japanese? For example, is this:
really better than this?
The former seems to have a lot of unnecessary duplication. It would be nice if we could agree a consensus here. Gdr 15:35, 2004 Apr 3 (UTC)
Yosh. Exploding Boy 11:14, May 11, 2004 (UTC)
(see also above) This user is going around modifiying all sorts of Japan(ese) pages with a bunch of frankly useless information and horrid looking links. S/He's also created a mass of redirect pages using every possible romanization and misspelling for even things that have long-agreed-upon spellings in English. What's the deal and how can we stop it? Exploding Boy 02:52, May 19, 2004 (UTC)
See above. There has already been some dicussion about it. And frankly, the redirects are okay. WhisperToMe 03:08, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
(I am very tired today so if my English is broken or my thoughs don't make sense or whatever, I'm sorry.)
-- Taku 09:09, May 19, 2004 (UTC)
If you don't see one you like, just add it
Regarding the content of the parenthesis
Regarding links to Japanese language
Regarding romanization information
I'm fine with adding the meaning, if it's warranted (doubtful when it comes to most city names, however), but what I have a problem with is adding every possible romanization and several misspellings both in the articles and in the form of redirect pages, particularly in cases (such as, for example, Tokyo) where the Japanese word has a standard English spelling. I also don't see any reasonable point in adding a link to Japanese language (as in "Osaka ( Japanese: 大阪 Osaka"). Exploding Boy 14:41, May 19, 2004 (UTC)
I think that the Kunrei-shiki can be left in, but the Nippon-shiki and JSL should be left out. - Kunrei-shiki is used more often than the other two, and some names are rendered more often in Kunrei-shiki than in Hepburn.
Even style is not an excuse to leave out the "Japanese language" link. Here's how this can be accomplished.
The Japanese here links to the "Japanese language" article. I learned this trick after seeing some Korean-related articles. WhisperToMe 22:34, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
Look at Rome, Hu Jintao, Mexico City, and several other articles. This is common practice, like it or not. WhisperToMe 00:26, 20 May 2004 (UTC)
And regarding 大阪市, this is what I am really doing: [[Japanese language|大阪市]]. The actual Kanji cannot turn out into an article.
This is a trick I learned from the Korean articles. WhisperToMe 01:00, 20 May 2004 (UTC)
Also, what do you guys think of this...
" Mount Fuji ( 富士山, Fuji-san, Huzi-san)"
'''Mount Fuji''' ([[Japanese language|富士山]], '''[[Hepburn|Fuji-san]]''', '''[[Kunrei-shiki|Huzi-san]]''')
I like how compact it is. WhisperToMe 01:15, 20 May 2004 (UTC)
On top of which it's cluttered, confusing and misleading, and linking the kanji for "fuji-san" to the English article "Japanese language" is counterintuitive. Exploding Boy 15:01, May 20, 2004 (UTC)
"Mt. Fuji has never been called "Mt. Huzi."" Untrue. Mt. Huzi (no parenthanses) gets 197 google hits. If you want me to change my position, don't say untrue things. To win with me, you have to be precise (I.E. you probably meant that it isn't often called "Mt. Huzi") - Also, from experience, One should list even rare alternate spellings because they can confuse people. (E.G. Some people do not know that Akhilleus is Achilles!) - Even though "Akhilleus" isn't too common, it was used for Robert Fitzgerald's version of "the Odyssey", and it confused kids in my class.
Sekicho, I already got a hint, if you had looked upwards to previous discussions. I will firmly stand here unless I find evidence that convinces me that my position is not a good idea. After looking at Exploding boy's "quote", I am only reaffirmed. WhisperToMe 20:22, 20 May 2004 (UTC)
2: "Spelling Fuji as Huzi is inappropriate because at best it's an academic exercise, that is, what you're really saying is it's also possible to romanize it as Huzi. " Untrue. Kunrei-shiki did not become ISO 3602 for nothing! Kunrei-shiki is hardly used outside of Japan, but the International Organisation for Standardisation made it a standardized romanization for Japanese anyways.
3: There is no excuse not to make a redirect from uncommon spellings, ever!
Want proof? I made an article on matrushka dolls, but Stan Shebs already made one on it under the spellings "matryoshka doll" - I didn't know this, and that article only linked to one article. So he redirected my article to his, and I proceeded to link all known spellings of "matryoshka doll" to the said article.
There is a reason why I do this. I do this so that double articles cannot be made.
Another case in point: Laayoune and El Aaiun were once separate articles, although they both are the same city.
You are saying untrue things. WhisperToMe 01:57, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
Exploding Boy 05:31, May 21, 2004 (UTC)
Recently in the Korean articles, the "Revised Romanization" for some South Koreans and North Koreans were placed in the articles, despite that they are seldom used (the names often used, e.g. Kim Jong-il, usually do not correspond to any system)
Another question - Can't there be a way to include the Kunrei-shiki in the article, but at the same time, keep a nice, clean format? Perhaps experimenting with the "formats" could do that. Also, borrowing tricks from the Korean and Chinese articles regarding "links" can do. Also, we would have to address articles like Sin-Itiro Tomonaga and Nissin, which have the Kunrei-shiki as more well known than the Hepburn. WhisperToMe 05:42, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
As for your post, Exploding Boy...
1. "Huzi" is correct under the Kunrei-shiki romanization system, but not the Hepburn system. This a matter of different romanization systems being used. The Japanese government and ISO prefer the Kunrei-shiki system, but many government organs in Japan continue to use the Hepburn.
"Ohosaka" would be like "Kim Jong-Il" except it is sparsely used, ever. 102 Google hits (though at least two are wikipedia hits, making at most 100 non-wikipedia hits) suggest that a small few do make this mistake. But I'm going to delete it anyway.
Do double articles ALWAYS get discovered immediately? No. This is why "Laayoune" and "El Aaiun" hung around as separate articles for awhile. (Remember that many statements with always, never, etc in them are false)
WhisperToMe 05:42, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
Whisper to me, please stop adding this ridiculous misinformation to articles. 芸者 is geisha, not geisya. 忍者 is ninja, not ninzya. 新宿 is Shinjuku, not Sinzyuku. 富士山 is Mt. Fuji, not Mt. Huzi. You have no support for your position. Add all the info you want to the relevant romanization pages, start a discussion on the appropriate pages, and in the meantime, stop reverting the other articles. Exploding Boy 12:20, May 22, 2004 (UTC)
WhisperToMe 16:18, 22 May 2004 (UTC)
I have seen his posts; they seem to be in disagreement with you. Exploding Boy 00:25, May 23, 2004 (UTC)
What he is saying that Kunrei-shiki can be noted in the articles if they are "very different" from the Hepburn. WhisperToMe 00:59, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
...and especially not if just a random mishmash of romanization systems. Exploding Boy 02:04, May 23, 2004 (UTC)
Look at the edit history for Junichiro Koizumi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Junichiro_Koizumi&action=history
"TakuyaMurata (cleanup the first sentence; I don't think they are significantly different to be considered as being alternative spellings)"
WhisperToMe 02:36, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
Fukuoka vs. Hukuoka - you were disingenuous in listing this 'alternate' romanization as as having 15,000 google hits, WhisperToMe. Sure, ti has 15,000 hits for 'hukuoka' - but virtually every single one of them is on a Japanese language page. Search for English-language pages, and you only get around 1,500 hits, and still most of those are Japanese. Of those that aren't in Japanese, most (from a cursory inspection) seem to me to be on sites where the authors spoke English as a second language. I live in Fukuoka, but have never seen it written Hukuoka. -- Tlotoxl 03:58, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
They do post on Wikipedia. They just didn't know this debate was happening.
Also, Kunrei-shiki is mostly used within Japan, and is used by the ISO. The Japanese government only started using Kunrei-shiki in 1994, and many organs of that government still use Hepburn. I did find a list of names related to a pollution report using mostly Kunrei that was made by the Japanese government. That one uses "Hukuoka", and was found with an English-language "Hukuoka" search. WhisperToMe 04:30, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
The Japanese government had declared that Kunrei-shiki was its official romanization system, as did the ISO. But road signs and passports still use Hepburn. The Kunrei tends to show up in the Japanese school systems.
Also, some anon wanted WP to switch completely to Kunrei-shiki. See: Talk:Romaji - That I do not agree with. WhisperToMe 05:09, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
Um, kunreishiki is not the "official" romanization system in Japan. In fact, in all the time I've been in Japan I have never once seen a romanized Japanese word given in any other system than Hepburn or modified Hepburn. Kids do -- or did; this is becoming rather rare these days -- learn Nippon-shiki in elementary school, but when they officially begin learning English, in junior high, they learn Hepburn. All official signs (street signs, warnings, notices, etc) are romanized in Hepburn or, increasingly, modified Hepburn. JR, and all the other transportation systems (buses, subways, other train systems, aeroplanes, etc) use Hepburn or modified Hepburn. Signs and notices in city offices and police stations use Hepburn or modified Hepburn. Signs at shrines, temples and attractions use Hepburn or modified Hepburn. Newspapers and TV use Hepburn or modified Hepburn. Cities and prefectures use Hepburn or modified Hepburn. Official tourism information put out by the government uses Hepburn or modified Hepburn, as do all guidebooks, local and foreign, on Japan. Students of Japanese as a foreign language invariably learn Hepburn or modified Hepburn; most students do not learn kunreishiki or Nipponshiki at all, unlike students of Chinese who must learn both Wade-Giles and Pin-yin. The vast, overwhelming majority of Japanese people use Hepburn or modified Hepburn in romanizing their personal names. Are you noticing a pattern here? Exploding Boy 14:13, May 23, 2004 (UTC)
"Um, kunreishiki is not the "official" romanization system in Japan."
It says so in the Romaji article. "Kunrei-shiki is a modified Nihon-shiki with a touch of Hepburn; it is the official romanization system of the Japanese government (although many government agencies use Hepburn) and is taught in Japanese schools." Again, many government organs use Hepburn (e.g. passports, road signs), so the Kunrei-shiki ends up in the educational system. WhisperToMe 15:27, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
What constitutes as a "place"? Countries? Cities? Regions? Prefectures? Institutions? Japan is the only country where Kunrei-shiki is in extensive use. Kunrei-shiki is used within schools in Japan. Within Japan, according to Tlotoxl, the Kansai region has heavy use of Kunrei-shiki. This constitutes the cities of Osaka, Kobe, and Kyoto. So, that's five places, but many are within one another. As Tlotoxl pointed out, Kunrei is used within Japan for Japanese, but Hepburn is used when foreigners are involved.
If you are meaning on Wikipedia, there is another article which uses Kunrei-shiki: ISO 3166-2:JP - It does so as Kunrei is the ISO's system, and that is an ISO related article. WhisperToMe 17:35, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
The claim that kunreishiki is in "extensive use" in Japan appears, from my personal experience, to be completely untrue. Some older people here still use Nipponshiki/kunreishiki romanizations for some things (notably not usually for names of places, but rather for everyday things like tea (tya instead of cha)), but I have never, ever seen any word on any official document, sign, etc, romanized in any system other than Hepburn or modified Hepburn in Japan (I'll ask some Japanese friends about their passports). Children here learn Hepburn in school. Much older people still occasionally use kunrei/nipponshiki for their personal names, but younger people do not. And I just came back from a 5-day trip to Kansai (Hiroshima, Kyoto and Osaka), and everything there, including street signs, tourist information, transit signs, is all in Hepburn. Sorry, but none of your claims is backed up at least by my experience studying, living, working and traveling within Japan. Exploding Boy 22:14, May 23, 2004 (UTC)
Also, this link shows how the two systems (Hepburn and Kunrei) seem to conflict: http://www.cic.sfu.ca/tqj/JapaneseStudy/romaji.html
That site says that most documents written for foriegners are required to be in Hepburn. WhisperToMe 23:22, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
1. Wait a second. Isn't the ministry of Education the "Monbusho", and isn't Kunrei-shiki the system it is pushing? The Wikipedia articles say that Kunrei-shiki is the Ministry of Education's system.
2. You fail to recognize the difference between de jure and de facto. De Jure, Kunrei-shiki is the government's system, but it ends up that Hepburn is used so commonly that it tends to be de facto.
I would like to show me the things that it contradicts, specifically.
WhisperToMe 00:20, 24 May 2004 (UTC)
I have pointed out several contradictions and several examples of why what you're posting is nonsense. Several other users have done so as well. You should be more than able to figure it out. You are the only user who supports your point of view, and yet you persist in creating dozens of new pages and edits each day that go against what the rest of us are saying. It's time to stop this absurdity. Exploding Boy 03:38, May 24, 2004 (UTC)
I see why people are opposing it, per se, but I am not seeing any alleged contradictions other than this one.
"Within Japan, according to Tlotoxl, the Kansai region has heavy use of Kunrei-shiki." (notice the bold)
So, it is a contradiction of Tlotoxl's account and yours. I frankly don't know who is right.
You probably don't quite get what I mean. I mean that Kunrei-shiki is used somewhat often - quite often (don't know the exact range), but does this mean that Hepburn cannot be used often on the same token? Hardly.
Also, just because Hepburn is used a lot in Japanese society doesn't mean that the government has to have that as their official "romaji" - Besides, I am not pulling this out of my ass. I am repeating what has been said on articles on Wikipedia.
No, I am not the only person with this view. I am the only person with the said view that seems to be posting here, however.
Again, I will not stop fighting for this as this is my view and I am doing what I think is right. If you have looked at my edit summary, after Geisha, I have not added any more Kunrei to any articles.
Granted, I do not want to put the Kunrei in every single article known on man! I only want to put it in a few articles.
Also, you are, as far as I know, alone in your view about the redirects as a whole (Others who disagree with me in putting the Kunrei in the actual article do see it okay to make redirects from Kunrei to Hepburn). WhisperToMe 03:51, 24 May 2004 (UTC)
The problem with using Wikipedia articles, and articles online, as a source is that, frankly, the information contained in them is not always correct. Sometimes it's just a question of interpreting them properly, and sometimes it's a result of people promoting a point of view based on imprecise or non-existent knowledge, which is exactly what is going on here. I object less to the redirects than to the extra romanizations in the articles, but many of the redirects are also pointless, misleading or plain misromanized. Wikipedia is not paper, but that still doesn't mean we should waste space with redirects no-one will ever use. Exploding Boy 15:19, May 24, 2004 (UTC)
Mdchachi, if you think redirecting is a waste of time... well... see Samurai and "Search" for "Ninzya". Just because it ain't common doesn't mean it's not used at all. WhisperToMe 00:30, 25 May 2004 (UTC)
What's our policy on putting a link to Japanese language in the first paragraph of any Japan-related article {eg: Geisha ([[Japanese language|芸者]] geisha)}?
Whisper to me seems to think it's essential, and he cites various city names and articles on things whose names are in foreign languages as precedent. I'm suspicious on two counts, firstly that he himself has apparently gone on an editing spree on such pages (type any Japanese topic or major European capital into the search box and Whisper to me's name comes up in the edit history), and secondly because many of the pages he cites are China-related, and there you're dealing with Wade-Giles and Pin-Yin.
My other objection is that it's counterintuitive to have, for example, 芸者 redirect to an English article on Japanese language -- one would expect it to link to the Japanese Wikipedia article on geisha. Exploding Boy 23:31, May 25, 2004 (UTC)
I can see where you are coming from on the "link" thing - but the link would appear green if linking to the Japanese wikipedia, as it is another server.
Also, to verify what I am saying, one should look at all of my edits and see what I added. (This applies to European cities) - Or one could look at the article right before my first edit.
E.G.
WhisperToMe, 23:48, 25 May 2004 (UTC)
Agree. Exploding Boy 01:06, Jun 18, 2004 (UTC)
I've been spotting a couple of instances where users are renaming articles to include macrons ( jōyō kanji, rōmaji). While the current Manual of Style states no macrons, that was probably written before Wikipedia switched to UTF8 with MediaWiki 1.5β, before doing such a thing was even possible. However, I still think the reasoning behind sticking with hepburn and no diacritics hold. — Tokek 03:09, 24 July 2005 (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. |
This discussion was moved here from Wikipedia talk: naming conventions (Japanese) and elsewhere
For the page, I added that the Kunrei and Nippon-shiki of a word should be in parenthenses after the Hepburn word in the opening paragraph. WhisperToMe 05:13, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
If you look at articles on Chinese names, E.G. Beijing, multiple romanizations exist, so they are all listed.
Although alternate Japanese romanizations are not as common, they are still there. Therefore, I changed the policy regarding Japanese naming conventions. WhisperToMe 23:26, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I don't see what the problem is by including alternate romanizations in Japanese articles. WhisperToMe 23:56, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Just a reminder - its common practice to include alternate spellings of names, e.g. Kabul. Even if they are seldom used, they still should be used. It is not about figuring out the kana - It is about informing people on other ways names can be spelled. I would never have known that Huzi in Nippon-shiki is also Fuji in Hepburn.
Even then, Wikipedia would still sticking to Hepburn, as Hepburn names are ALWAYS used as title names, and throughout the body. However, the articles should still have information on what the names are under different romanization systems when they are different from the Hepburn. WhisperToMe 00:50, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I concur with everyone else on this issue. Stop cramming articles with useless information. Anyone who calls Mount Fuji "Huzisan" is smoking some very potent ganja. Hepburn is more or less standard nowadays: we don't need to be including alternate romanizations unless they're very common. ("Oosaka" might be such a case. "Tookyoo" is definitely not.) -- Sekicho 01:36, Apr 1, 2004 (UTC)
Jpatokal, Nipponshiki was invented in the late 1800's, after Hepburn did. Instead of it being "outdated", it just didn't catch on.
For some reason, "Hukuoka" is used commonly on the internet. Hukuoka is JSL, Nippon-shiki, and Kunrei, as is "Huzi".
Fukuoka - 1,480,000 Hukuoka - 15,000
But as they aren't common, they should not be in the lead paragraph, and shouldn't be in every single article.
WhisperToMe 08:12, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Who is the readership and how is are multiple romanizations useful to them? The readership of en.wikipedia.org is primarily English speakers who neither know nor care about the different systems of Japanese romanization. The point of giving rōmaji is to indicate the Japanese pronunciation when it isn't obvious from the English spelling. — Gdr 09:17 2004-04-01
I supposedly know Japanese, having a degree in it (don't ask me to translate anything, I'm out of practice), and I would agree that we don't need every single possible transliteration. Only the most common ones should be included. Fujisan, yes. Huzisan, no. I have never, ever seen this, not in any textbook I used, nor ever spoken in class. I don't even see why "Tookyoo" should be included; yes, it is an accurate transliteration, but it's simply not used much. However, I CAN see a better case for Tookyoo than for Huzisan. Same deal for "Hirosima" - Unnecessary. Yes, I know some romanizations use "si" instead of "shi" and I hate them. ;) Interesting, most of the google results I see for Hirosima are foreign language, and thus, not relevant for the English language wikipedia. -- Golbez 08:21, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Golbez, Kunrei is used in Japanese textbooks. But since you never saw it in a textbook, you must not be from Japan. WhisperToMe 08:31, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
So... what happened? WhisperToMe 05:10, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
No, I'm not. Are you? And is that relevant? Now, I don't mind you wasting your time making countless redirects, apart from it cluttering up "recent changes", or even wasting your time adding alternate romanizations to every single Japanese page. Your time, not mine. I'm just offering my two cents in saying that I think a good portion of these changes are, in fact, a waste of time. But, again, your time, and it's not like the namespace will ever be needed for "Tyuuoo-ku, Tookyoo" will be used for anything but this redirect. However, I must challenge the wisdom of one minor page needing... eleven redirects, most of them not major spellings. -- Golbez 08:36, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I'm an American. Believe me, Golbez, I redirect uncommon/various spellings all the time. Just look at Umm al-Qaiwain and Qin Shi Huangdi. WhisperToMe 08:39, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I'm American too. That's a lot of redirects. Your time, not mine, and perhaps the redirects are necessary. But, when you start putting the stuff into the actual articles, then it gets a little iffy. Why don't you list all the possible transliterations of Umm al-Qaiwain on its page, like you do for Osaka? -- Golbez 08:44, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I might get to that sometime. It was done for Muammar al-Qaddafi. WhisperToMe 08:47, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I think putting multiple romanizations on articles is needless. And I don't see why WhisperToMe do. As a native Japanese speaker, I don't know what kind of info English speakers want. I care a bit the fact that romanized forms don't distinguish おお from おう so that one cannot technically reconstruct original Japanese spellings from them. But apparently, WhisperToMe doesn't care about it.
Kunreishiki and Nihonshiki are rarely used. And I think they are the systems to romanize Japanese as Japanese whereas Hepburn romanizes Japanese words as part of English. They are needless for English Wikipedia, and I think putting Hiragana or Katakana would be better than putting them although I don't support eigher. -- Nanshu 04:05, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I've seen both used occasionally on Wikipedia. See:
Sin-Itiro_Tomonaga,
Shin Takahashi and
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Chiba_prefecture&diff=766352&oldid=766351 - There is "kisaradu" (Kisarazu in Hepburn) in there, which may have been a mistake. - As for the previous two, if you want proof that I did not originally add the Kunrei, check the edit histories.
There was even a guest who wanted Hepburn completely thrown out (
Talk:Romaji) - But I don't agree with that. :)
WhisperToMe 05:07, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Sin-Itiro's a weird case, but that's how he spells his own name so we can't really argue with that. Shin Takahashi, on the other hand, looks like Hepburn to me? At any rate, your redirects are pointless, but they at least they don't get in the way of the content. Messes like this, on the other hand, do:
This is ridiculous! Two words of content ("Japanese politician") and twenty-five about naming! I've reverted this back to:
And, since WhisperToMe is obviously unwilling to listen to the majority opinion, I encourage all others to follow me in reverting leading paragraphs back into readability. Jpatokal 06:31, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I've thought about this for awhile, and I've decided that perhaps I should only have the Hepburn and Kunrei listed.
But the whole "If you list them all in the title, it gets in the way of the content" concept is ridiculous. Look at the Chinese articles... Examples: Taipei, Hu Jintao, Mao Zedong WhisperToMe 12:31, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Another weird thing is that the Pinyin way to say Taipei (Taibei) is only used by the Communist party of China - Almost everyone everyone else uses the Wade-Giles way to say it. As for why I placed the alternates in a separate sentence instead of, say, in the 1st sentence, many here felt it was cluttering that way too.
Shin Takahashi. Or perhaps like this http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Shin_Takahashi&oldid=3117435. WhisperToMe 13:43, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)
WhisperToMe 16:32, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Oh, and btw, most people don't bother typing circumflexes or macrons, so its a bit more fair to search for "Syozyo", which returns 115 google hits. This romanization is probably incorrect, but "Syouzyo" returns 262 hits. WhisperToMe 17:02, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Another egregious example:
The only Google hits for "Zyun-itiro Koizumi" or "Zyunichiro Koizumi" were copies of this page. Gdr 09:13, 2004 Apr 13 (UTC)
-- Taku 15:17, Apr 13, 2004 (UTC)
Sometimes, people can get confused by alternate spellings. Some of my classmates didn't know that "Akhilleus" was an alt. spelling of Achilles. Therefore, they got confused when they read the Robert Fitzgerald version of "The Odyssey".
Anyways, yes, Junichiro Koizumi seems to be almost exclusively spelled in his Hepburn form on the net. Yet Kunrei is used somewhat for other stuff:
WhisperToMe - too lazy to sign in... 19:21, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Yeah, so this is why I said there are some exceptions. But obviously this doesn't mean every article needs to mention different romanized names. There is actually no issue. If people use different spellings, then it is necessary to list them all. Also, I think Fukuoka and Hukuoka are the same thing as -zation and -sation, not need to list both two. Can we agree now? -- Taku 19:53, Apr 13, 2004 (UTC)
Yes, I agree with you. WhisperToMe 22:17, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Maybe I should have clarified my opinion. I think that tons of redirects are enough and that tiresome info on each article is needless. And I think that romanization variants mainly come from Japanese ignorance on romanization. For Japanese, romanized names are "ad hoc" ones. They are not "right" names because the Latin alphabet is not the official writting system for Japanese. -- Nanshu 02:49, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
By the way, look at the Esperanto article of Junichiro Koizumi. WhisperToMe 04:09, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
And this is relevant to the English Wikipedia how? Also, "I know my edits make articles butt-ugly and confusing, but lookie lookie, this paragraph written by somebody else is butt-ugly and confusing too" really isn't the best tactic to convince us why you need to stick Kunrei in every single article. Especially when in this case the para in question is a word-for-word translation of your own edits! Jpatokal 05:52, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Again, sometimes Kunrei-shiki is used in the English language. And sometimes, those alternate spellings can confuse the hell out of people. However low sometimes is, sometimes can be enough. Can't we go by what Taku said above? WhisperToMe 23:21, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
-- Taku 00:19, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)
Is it really necessary to have a link to Hepburn from every page that uses this style of romanization? It is necessary to have a link to Japanese next to every word written in Japanese? For example, is this:
really better than this?
The former seems to have a lot of unnecessary duplication. It would be nice if we could agree a consensus here. Gdr 15:35, 2004 Apr 3 (UTC)
Yosh. Exploding Boy 11:14, May 11, 2004 (UTC)
(see also above) This user is going around modifiying all sorts of Japan(ese) pages with a bunch of frankly useless information and horrid looking links. S/He's also created a mass of redirect pages using every possible romanization and misspelling for even things that have long-agreed-upon spellings in English. What's the deal and how can we stop it? Exploding Boy 02:52, May 19, 2004 (UTC)
See above. There has already been some dicussion about it. And frankly, the redirects are okay. WhisperToMe 03:08, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
(I am very tired today so if my English is broken or my thoughs don't make sense or whatever, I'm sorry.)
-- Taku 09:09, May 19, 2004 (UTC)
If you don't see one you like, just add it
Regarding the content of the parenthesis
Regarding links to Japanese language
Regarding romanization information
I'm fine with adding the meaning, if it's warranted (doubtful when it comes to most city names, however), but what I have a problem with is adding every possible romanization and several misspellings both in the articles and in the form of redirect pages, particularly in cases (such as, for example, Tokyo) where the Japanese word has a standard English spelling. I also don't see any reasonable point in adding a link to Japanese language (as in "Osaka ( Japanese: 大阪 Osaka"). Exploding Boy 14:41, May 19, 2004 (UTC)
I think that the Kunrei-shiki can be left in, but the Nippon-shiki and JSL should be left out. - Kunrei-shiki is used more often than the other two, and some names are rendered more often in Kunrei-shiki than in Hepburn.
Even style is not an excuse to leave out the "Japanese language" link. Here's how this can be accomplished.
The Japanese here links to the "Japanese language" article. I learned this trick after seeing some Korean-related articles. WhisperToMe 22:34, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
Look at Rome, Hu Jintao, Mexico City, and several other articles. This is common practice, like it or not. WhisperToMe 00:26, 20 May 2004 (UTC)
And regarding 大阪市, this is what I am really doing: [[Japanese language|大阪市]]. The actual Kanji cannot turn out into an article.
This is a trick I learned from the Korean articles. WhisperToMe 01:00, 20 May 2004 (UTC)
Also, what do you guys think of this...
" Mount Fuji ( 富士山, Fuji-san, Huzi-san)"
'''Mount Fuji''' ([[Japanese language|富士山]], '''[[Hepburn|Fuji-san]]''', '''[[Kunrei-shiki|Huzi-san]]''')
I like how compact it is. WhisperToMe 01:15, 20 May 2004 (UTC)
On top of which it's cluttered, confusing and misleading, and linking the kanji for "fuji-san" to the English article "Japanese language" is counterintuitive. Exploding Boy 15:01, May 20, 2004 (UTC)
"Mt. Fuji has never been called "Mt. Huzi."" Untrue. Mt. Huzi (no parenthanses) gets 197 google hits. If you want me to change my position, don't say untrue things. To win with me, you have to be precise (I.E. you probably meant that it isn't often called "Mt. Huzi") - Also, from experience, One should list even rare alternate spellings because they can confuse people. (E.G. Some people do not know that Akhilleus is Achilles!) - Even though "Akhilleus" isn't too common, it was used for Robert Fitzgerald's version of "the Odyssey", and it confused kids in my class.
Sekicho, I already got a hint, if you had looked upwards to previous discussions. I will firmly stand here unless I find evidence that convinces me that my position is not a good idea. After looking at Exploding boy's "quote", I am only reaffirmed. WhisperToMe 20:22, 20 May 2004 (UTC)
2: "Spelling Fuji as Huzi is inappropriate because at best it's an academic exercise, that is, what you're really saying is it's also possible to romanize it as Huzi. " Untrue. Kunrei-shiki did not become ISO 3602 for nothing! Kunrei-shiki is hardly used outside of Japan, but the International Organisation for Standardisation made it a standardized romanization for Japanese anyways.
3: There is no excuse not to make a redirect from uncommon spellings, ever!
Want proof? I made an article on matrushka dolls, but Stan Shebs already made one on it under the spellings "matryoshka doll" - I didn't know this, and that article only linked to one article. So he redirected my article to his, and I proceeded to link all known spellings of "matryoshka doll" to the said article.
There is a reason why I do this. I do this so that double articles cannot be made.
Another case in point: Laayoune and El Aaiun were once separate articles, although they both are the same city.
You are saying untrue things. WhisperToMe 01:57, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
Exploding Boy 05:31, May 21, 2004 (UTC)
Recently in the Korean articles, the "Revised Romanization" for some South Koreans and North Koreans were placed in the articles, despite that they are seldom used (the names often used, e.g. Kim Jong-il, usually do not correspond to any system)
Another question - Can't there be a way to include the Kunrei-shiki in the article, but at the same time, keep a nice, clean format? Perhaps experimenting with the "formats" could do that. Also, borrowing tricks from the Korean and Chinese articles regarding "links" can do. Also, we would have to address articles like Sin-Itiro Tomonaga and Nissin, which have the Kunrei-shiki as more well known than the Hepburn. WhisperToMe 05:42, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
As for your post, Exploding Boy...
1. "Huzi" is correct under the Kunrei-shiki romanization system, but not the Hepburn system. This a matter of different romanization systems being used. The Japanese government and ISO prefer the Kunrei-shiki system, but many government organs in Japan continue to use the Hepburn.
"Ohosaka" would be like "Kim Jong-Il" except it is sparsely used, ever. 102 Google hits (though at least two are wikipedia hits, making at most 100 non-wikipedia hits) suggest that a small few do make this mistake. But I'm going to delete it anyway.
Do double articles ALWAYS get discovered immediately? No. This is why "Laayoune" and "El Aaiun" hung around as separate articles for awhile. (Remember that many statements with always, never, etc in them are false)
WhisperToMe 05:42, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
Whisper to me, please stop adding this ridiculous misinformation to articles. 芸者 is geisha, not geisya. 忍者 is ninja, not ninzya. 新宿 is Shinjuku, not Sinzyuku. 富士山 is Mt. Fuji, not Mt. Huzi. You have no support for your position. Add all the info you want to the relevant romanization pages, start a discussion on the appropriate pages, and in the meantime, stop reverting the other articles. Exploding Boy 12:20, May 22, 2004 (UTC)
WhisperToMe 16:18, 22 May 2004 (UTC)
I have seen his posts; they seem to be in disagreement with you. Exploding Boy 00:25, May 23, 2004 (UTC)
What he is saying that Kunrei-shiki can be noted in the articles if they are "very different" from the Hepburn. WhisperToMe 00:59, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
...and especially not if just a random mishmash of romanization systems. Exploding Boy 02:04, May 23, 2004 (UTC)
Look at the edit history for Junichiro Koizumi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Junichiro_Koizumi&action=history
"TakuyaMurata (cleanup the first sentence; I don't think they are significantly different to be considered as being alternative spellings)"
WhisperToMe 02:36, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
Fukuoka vs. Hukuoka - you were disingenuous in listing this 'alternate' romanization as as having 15,000 google hits, WhisperToMe. Sure, ti has 15,000 hits for 'hukuoka' - but virtually every single one of them is on a Japanese language page. Search for English-language pages, and you only get around 1,500 hits, and still most of those are Japanese. Of those that aren't in Japanese, most (from a cursory inspection) seem to me to be on sites where the authors spoke English as a second language. I live in Fukuoka, but have never seen it written Hukuoka. -- Tlotoxl 03:58, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
They do post on Wikipedia. They just didn't know this debate was happening.
Also, Kunrei-shiki is mostly used within Japan, and is used by the ISO. The Japanese government only started using Kunrei-shiki in 1994, and many organs of that government still use Hepburn. I did find a list of names related to a pollution report using mostly Kunrei that was made by the Japanese government. That one uses "Hukuoka", and was found with an English-language "Hukuoka" search. WhisperToMe 04:30, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
The Japanese government had declared that Kunrei-shiki was its official romanization system, as did the ISO. But road signs and passports still use Hepburn. The Kunrei tends to show up in the Japanese school systems.
Also, some anon wanted WP to switch completely to Kunrei-shiki. See: Talk:Romaji - That I do not agree with. WhisperToMe 05:09, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
Um, kunreishiki is not the "official" romanization system in Japan. In fact, in all the time I've been in Japan I have never once seen a romanized Japanese word given in any other system than Hepburn or modified Hepburn. Kids do -- or did; this is becoming rather rare these days -- learn Nippon-shiki in elementary school, but when they officially begin learning English, in junior high, they learn Hepburn. All official signs (street signs, warnings, notices, etc) are romanized in Hepburn or, increasingly, modified Hepburn. JR, and all the other transportation systems (buses, subways, other train systems, aeroplanes, etc) use Hepburn or modified Hepburn. Signs and notices in city offices and police stations use Hepburn or modified Hepburn. Signs at shrines, temples and attractions use Hepburn or modified Hepburn. Newspapers and TV use Hepburn or modified Hepburn. Cities and prefectures use Hepburn or modified Hepburn. Official tourism information put out by the government uses Hepburn or modified Hepburn, as do all guidebooks, local and foreign, on Japan. Students of Japanese as a foreign language invariably learn Hepburn or modified Hepburn; most students do not learn kunreishiki or Nipponshiki at all, unlike students of Chinese who must learn both Wade-Giles and Pin-yin. The vast, overwhelming majority of Japanese people use Hepburn or modified Hepburn in romanizing their personal names. Are you noticing a pattern here? Exploding Boy 14:13, May 23, 2004 (UTC)
"Um, kunreishiki is not the "official" romanization system in Japan."
It says so in the Romaji article. "Kunrei-shiki is a modified Nihon-shiki with a touch of Hepburn; it is the official romanization system of the Japanese government (although many government agencies use Hepburn) and is taught in Japanese schools." Again, many government organs use Hepburn (e.g. passports, road signs), so the Kunrei-shiki ends up in the educational system. WhisperToMe 15:27, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
What constitutes as a "place"? Countries? Cities? Regions? Prefectures? Institutions? Japan is the only country where Kunrei-shiki is in extensive use. Kunrei-shiki is used within schools in Japan. Within Japan, according to Tlotoxl, the Kansai region has heavy use of Kunrei-shiki. This constitutes the cities of Osaka, Kobe, and Kyoto. So, that's five places, but many are within one another. As Tlotoxl pointed out, Kunrei is used within Japan for Japanese, but Hepburn is used when foreigners are involved.
If you are meaning on Wikipedia, there is another article which uses Kunrei-shiki: ISO 3166-2:JP - It does so as Kunrei is the ISO's system, and that is an ISO related article. WhisperToMe 17:35, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
The claim that kunreishiki is in "extensive use" in Japan appears, from my personal experience, to be completely untrue. Some older people here still use Nipponshiki/kunreishiki romanizations for some things (notably not usually for names of places, but rather for everyday things like tea (tya instead of cha)), but I have never, ever seen any word on any official document, sign, etc, romanized in any system other than Hepburn or modified Hepburn in Japan (I'll ask some Japanese friends about their passports). Children here learn Hepburn in school. Much older people still occasionally use kunrei/nipponshiki for their personal names, but younger people do not. And I just came back from a 5-day trip to Kansai (Hiroshima, Kyoto and Osaka), and everything there, including street signs, tourist information, transit signs, is all in Hepburn. Sorry, but none of your claims is backed up at least by my experience studying, living, working and traveling within Japan. Exploding Boy 22:14, May 23, 2004 (UTC)
Also, this link shows how the two systems (Hepburn and Kunrei) seem to conflict: http://www.cic.sfu.ca/tqj/JapaneseStudy/romaji.html
That site says that most documents written for foriegners are required to be in Hepburn. WhisperToMe 23:22, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
1. Wait a second. Isn't the ministry of Education the "Monbusho", and isn't Kunrei-shiki the system it is pushing? The Wikipedia articles say that Kunrei-shiki is the Ministry of Education's system.
2. You fail to recognize the difference between de jure and de facto. De Jure, Kunrei-shiki is the government's system, but it ends up that Hepburn is used so commonly that it tends to be de facto.
I would like to show me the things that it contradicts, specifically.
WhisperToMe 00:20, 24 May 2004 (UTC)
I have pointed out several contradictions and several examples of why what you're posting is nonsense. Several other users have done so as well. You should be more than able to figure it out. You are the only user who supports your point of view, and yet you persist in creating dozens of new pages and edits each day that go against what the rest of us are saying. It's time to stop this absurdity. Exploding Boy 03:38, May 24, 2004 (UTC)
I see why people are opposing it, per se, but I am not seeing any alleged contradictions other than this one.
"Within Japan, according to Tlotoxl, the Kansai region has heavy use of Kunrei-shiki." (notice the bold)
So, it is a contradiction of Tlotoxl's account and yours. I frankly don't know who is right.
You probably don't quite get what I mean. I mean that Kunrei-shiki is used somewhat often - quite often (don't know the exact range), but does this mean that Hepburn cannot be used often on the same token? Hardly.
Also, just because Hepburn is used a lot in Japanese society doesn't mean that the government has to have that as their official "romaji" - Besides, I am not pulling this out of my ass. I am repeating what has been said on articles on Wikipedia.
No, I am not the only person with this view. I am the only person with the said view that seems to be posting here, however.
Again, I will not stop fighting for this as this is my view and I am doing what I think is right. If you have looked at my edit summary, after Geisha, I have not added any more Kunrei to any articles.
Granted, I do not want to put the Kunrei in every single article known on man! I only want to put it in a few articles.
Also, you are, as far as I know, alone in your view about the redirects as a whole (Others who disagree with me in putting the Kunrei in the actual article do see it okay to make redirects from Kunrei to Hepburn). WhisperToMe 03:51, 24 May 2004 (UTC)
The problem with using Wikipedia articles, and articles online, as a source is that, frankly, the information contained in them is not always correct. Sometimes it's just a question of interpreting them properly, and sometimes it's a result of people promoting a point of view based on imprecise or non-existent knowledge, which is exactly what is going on here. I object less to the redirects than to the extra romanizations in the articles, but many of the redirects are also pointless, misleading or plain misromanized. Wikipedia is not paper, but that still doesn't mean we should waste space with redirects no-one will ever use. Exploding Boy 15:19, May 24, 2004 (UTC)
Mdchachi, if you think redirecting is a waste of time... well... see Samurai and "Search" for "Ninzya". Just because it ain't common doesn't mean it's not used at all. WhisperToMe 00:30, 25 May 2004 (UTC)
What's our policy on putting a link to Japanese language in the first paragraph of any Japan-related article {eg: Geisha ([[Japanese language|芸者]] geisha)}?
Whisper to me seems to think it's essential, and he cites various city names and articles on things whose names are in foreign languages as precedent. I'm suspicious on two counts, firstly that he himself has apparently gone on an editing spree on such pages (type any Japanese topic or major European capital into the search box and Whisper to me's name comes up in the edit history), and secondly because many of the pages he cites are China-related, and there you're dealing with Wade-Giles and Pin-Yin.
My other objection is that it's counterintuitive to have, for example, 芸者 redirect to an English article on Japanese language -- one would expect it to link to the Japanese Wikipedia article on geisha. Exploding Boy 23:31, May 25, 2004 (UTC)
I can see where you are coming from on the "link" thing - but the link would appear green if linking to the Japanese wikipedia, as it is another server.
Also, to verify what I am saying, one should look at all of my edits and see what I added. (This applies to European cities) - Or one could look at the article right before my first edit.
E.G.
WhisperToMe, 23:48, 25 May 2004 (UTC)
Agree. Exploding Boy 01:06, Jun 18, 2004 (UTC)
I've been spotting a couple of instances where users are renaming articles to include macrons ( jōyō kanji, rōmaji). While the current Manual of Style states no macrons, that was probably written before Wikipedia switched to UTF8 with MediaWiki 1.5β, before doing such a thing was even possible. However, I still think the reasoning behind sticking with hepburn and no diacritics hold. — Tokek 03:09, 24 July 2005 (UTC)