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. |
(Jpatokal's suggestion): "Place and personal names should of course be offset with a space, and as these are proper names all words are capitalized."
Insert a hyphen before bo, dera, do, in, ji, ; write the English word "shrine" in place of jinja and jingu but hyphenate and write gu, sha, taisha without "shrine."
Do not write "temple"; do not write English translations of names in article titles (where appropriate, they are welcome within the article, e.g. "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion"). Do not prefix "-san" names (e.g. do not write "Kinryu-zan Sensoji"; simply write "Sensoji"); however, do prefix "-san" names (山号) when — and only when — necessary to distinguish famous temples of the same name and provide a disambiguation page, for example, Kaiko-zan Hase-dera and Bu-zan Kagura-in Hase-dera. (See ja:長谷寺 and this link.)
Here are examples of the proposed style:
Gokuraku-bo; Kiyomizu-dera; Sanjusangen-do; Sanzen-in; Kinkaku-ji; Hikawa Shrine; Meiji Shrine; Kamakura-gu; Inari-sha (other than Inari-taisha); Inari-taisha
Early in the article, explain in English what the subject is, e.g. "Kinkaku-ji is a Buddhist temple ... ."
Fg2 10:53, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
(Actually, Kinkaku-ji is problematic, since the temple's actual name is Rokuon-ji... ) Fg2 10:53, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
What about macrons? I don't mind leaving macrons out of article titles, but I think their use should be encouraged elsewhere. - Jefu 12:50, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
So let's put the proposal above to a vote! Sign your name in the appropriate section below. Is one week starting now enough? Jpatokal 11:10, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
I had a quick look through the discussions before this, but excuse me if I missed it. According to the current conventions, it says we should write
Taro Cabbage (キャベツ太郎, Kyabetsu Taro).
Today there was a disagreement on the page Akihito. One user wrote the name in the form
Taro Cabbage ([[Japanese language|Japanese]]キャベツたろ, ''Kyabetsu Taro'').
and another user removed the [[Japanese language|Japanese]], then someone else put it back.
I have also seen abbreviations like "Ja" or "Jp" used in the link. It would be nice to have some standard way to do this; first, should the link be there? Second, if so, should it say "Japanese" or "Ja" or "Jp" or what? Rather than arbitrarily doing it how each person thinks is best, then someone else just changes it again, it would be nice to have a clear statement on the style page about whether or not to link etc. -- DannyWilde 08:57, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
We've had many, many disagreements about this. In essence, as far as I'm aware, at the end of the last round it was agreed that having a link to Japanese language or Japanese name or the relevant Japanese article in the form "[[Japanese]]," "[[JP]]," "[[jp]]," "[[Jp]]," "[[Ja]]," "[[ja]]" or similar was not the way to go, which is why I removed the link that led to this question in the first place.
Additionally, it's my view that having names written in non-Hepburn followed by brackets containing link, Japanese and Hepburn, such as this:
Junichiro Koizumi ([[Jp]] 小泉 純一郎 ''koizumi jun'ichirō'')
...is clumsy, takes up too much space, and besides being confusing, serves no useful purpose. I also find it particularly irksome when people choose to place names in italics and lowercase, since this just reduces them to sounds.
Links to the relevant Japanese article should be placed where they normally go. Links to "Japanese name" aren't especially relevant in most articles, and neither are links to "Japanese language." The possibility of placing a note or template on Japan-related articles stating that names are given in the Japanese order has also been discussed.
Exploding Boy 18:21, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
A variable, standing for a language. -- Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης) 22:33, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
To address Exploding Boy's ponts:
My point is that there should be a statement, in the style manual, about what to do about these links. On the Akihito talk page, it was mentioned that it is a Wikipedia convention to add these language links. If so they should be added, in the same way, for example, that the title word should be in bold - it's a convention. However, there was no reference given to where it says that one must add the links. Adding or removing the language links on the basis of personal preference is bound to lead to conflicts. I suggest we try to establish what the Wikipedia-wide convention is, write that up in the manual of style, and stick to it. I'm sure there are lots of good arguments for and against having the language links, but I expect we can all agree that there is no good argument for having language links on some pages in one format, other pages in other formats, and none at all on other pages. That is just messy. -- DannyWilde 23:50, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
I agree too. My point was just that I don't really care one way or the other about the language link. I've gone from being against it to being ambivalent. If agreement is reached I will certainly follow the convention in the future. By the way, my preference for the rest of what goes in the parentheses is ([Kanji] [italicized hepburn]), with only a space rather than a comma separating the kanji and the romaji. And as mentioned above, the romaji after the kanji is unnecessary for things like names that are already written in romaji to begin with. - Jefu 02:19, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
To Exploding Boy's point, we agree that names shouldn't be in parentheses anyway, so the italicization problem is moot. - Jefu 12:21, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
I tend to agree with Shinobu ... italics do provide useful information, in particular vowel length. They're also helpful in cases where the Japanese name is not perfectly identical to the English "translation" (e.g. Beat Takeshi = Biito Takeshi) or in cases like Tokyo where the added 都 in places might confuse the reader. Or, when SN-GN and GN-SN have been flipped (in the case of many modern people). My question would be what to do when the article name and the romaji are redundant ... Miyabe Miyuki (宮部みゆき Miyabe Miyuki) seems a little redundant. You know me though, if we agreed on a convention that works I'd favor using it in 100% of the cases.
Unless a person/object's nationality is ambiguous, I don't think a link to Japanese name is necessary. I for one like the common (KANJI Name Name) format, I think it provides the most information in the smallest amount of space. And I think italics are a good idea, as this clues the reader that what is in italics is not English, even if they don't understand what Kanji is, and even though it's not exactly common convention as Exploding Boy points out. I do agree that having names in lower case is silly ... are there examples out there of people doing that? CES 12:19, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Yes, in some circumstances the (Kanji name) format might be necessary, as wasw pointed out with the example of Tokyo, above. But too often it's just redundant repetition, and it's not needed. Exploding Boy 15:18, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for explaining this much better than I have! What LordAmeth said. Exploding Boy 16:23, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
That's a very good idea. Do you know how to set it up? By the way, there is a "Japanese word" template on Manga, but it's not a very good one. -- DannyWilde 11:59, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
The problem with using Miyabe as an example is... her books are published in ENGLISH! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/4770029934/qid=1131406460/sr=8-2/ref=pd_bbs_2/103-9218618-3425418?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 - Therefore her naming order shall be reversed. I know that there really isn't an agreement right now on naming order specifics, but still... - On the other hand, a historical figure would be a great use of a "redundant italic" remark. In a case of someone like Miyamoto Musashi, I don't think italics are necessary. WhisperToMe 23:35, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
A good name would be Template:Nihongo.
It would need three parameters, like this:
{{nihongo|English|Kanji|Romaji}}
Since the last parameter can be absent, we would need to find a way to branch properly. This can be done using some clever tricks, but I'm still looking into it.
{{nihongo|Tokyo|東京都|Tōkyō-to}}
Would yield "Tokyo (東京都, Tōkyō-to ?)".
{{nihongo|Manga|漫画|}}
Would yield "Manga (漫画 ?)". However, the cursive romaji would still need to be there for those who have saved in their preferences (user css) that they want so see it anyway.
Note to self: don't forget to unbold the right part of the template, in case it's used in the article lead. Shinobu 06:11, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
I've set up an experimental thingy. See Template talk:Nihongo. Further comments can be posted there. If we get this template to obey our wishes, we need to add it to this MoS so that people know it's there. Shinobu 07:26, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
The template is finished, and looks okay. It's easy to use, does what it's supposed to do and it can be completely customized by the reader as well. When it gets inserted in real pages we will see if it's an improvement over the current situation. After these test runs we can add it to this Manual of Style. Shinobu 15:16, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
I think the template is great, but one question it hasn't solved is how to write people's names. Are we writing Junichiro Koizumi (小泉純一郎 (Koizumi Jun'ichirō)) or Koizumi Jun'ichirō (error: {{nihongo}}: Japanese or romaji text required ( help)) ? Exploding Boy 20:24, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps Junichiro Koizumi (小泉純一郎, Koizumi Jun'ichirō) was what you intended?
{{nihongo|Junichiro Koizumi|小泉純一郎|Koizumi Jun'ichirō}}
Wikipedia's template syntax is not that forgiving. Not much I can do 'bout that.
Note that if you don't want to see romaji (or want anything else customized) you can make that happen using your personal css; follow the help link to learn how. I think you can also search for classes using JavaScript, allowing for even more customization possibilities. Shinobu 21:33, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
One minor point ... I've noticed at least three formats of displaying (KANJI romaji) in Wikipedia:
Do we have a policy/concensus on which to use? A very minor style issue, but I thought I'd bring it up. Personally I think it's a little strange to see English language punctuation after kanji, so I prefer and use the first style. CES 12:00, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
If you're saying the same thing in two ways, you usually put in a comma. Example: "Mister Koizumi, the PM of Japan, (…)". I didn't use the "kanji comma" because as I see it this is a snippet of Japanese in an otherwise western text. If you want to you can hide it using your personal css; you might want to do this if you agree it's a good default but you just don't like it. Anyway, if consensus exists for another default, I'll implement that. Shinobu 16:21, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm sure I stated this previously, but, like CES and Jpatoka, I prefer no comma.- Jefu 08:34, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
.t_nihongo_comma{visibility:hidden;}
If you are in favor of including unnecessary punctuation, I think the burden should be on you to explain why it should be included.- Jefu 14:23, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't agree with the point about the Western punctuation and would oppose using "、" rather than the comma. However, yesterday I had a quick look at some examples in the Chicago Manual of Style (15th edition), and perhaps it's worth noting that they didn't use the comma. The comma might be useful if there is more than one kanji way to write something. For example, okama (お釜, おかま), etc. -- DannyWilde 02:33, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure which of the points about Western punctuation Danny Wilde opposes, but I agree fully with the points Jpatoka has made. And if the Chicago Manual of Style (a widely cited and authoritative reference) doesn't use a comma, that just reinforces the argument in favor of adopting a convention without a comma.- Jefu 10:29, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
I've already started this discussion on the Tokyo and Oume [sic] pages, just wanted to make a note of it here. The city in Tokyo, 青梅 (oume) while commonly (even officially) spelt Ome, should REALLY be spelled Oume in romaji. As it is a combination of the readings o and ume, and thus it is a not a 'long vowel' ō, as would normally be expected. To expand, Oume (for the city) is pronounced differently than ōme/oume or ōme/oome as the /u/ vowel is pronouced. Ōme is pronounced something like /oh-meh/ and oume is pronounced more like /oh-umeh/ but with a shorter /o/ sound.
NOW, of course this is not a pronounciation guide, this is hepburn. Oume is still correct in hepburn because it is the combination of two kunyomi, and thus each character has its own sound. For example 大/ou is only one character and thus there can be no argument about the hepburn spelling of it because it cannot be separated. 青梅/oume is two, and thus they each have their own sounds (though 青/o is not a very common reading) and when put together the pronounciation doesn't change so the hepburn of the two characters shouldn't be changed either to reflect that.
I babbled because I'm afraid of the arguments that some people will put up to defend the incorrect spelling of Oume, but I think I've argued my point. freshgavin TALK 06:01, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
The MoS has the sentence, "For wards in cities, use the form [[{ward-name}-ku, {prefecture-name}]]; for example, Fushimi-ku, Kyoto." Does anyone recall why we do this? It seems much more sensible to have wards in cities, not prefectures, since a ward is in fact part of a city, not directly administered by a prefecture. Furthermore, the example is ambiguous, since Kyoto is the name of both the city that Fushimi-ku is in, and the prefecture. Was this a mistake? Should we change it to wardname-ku, city-name?
Note that the above sentence does not apply to the special wards of Tokyo; they have the sentence that comes next: "For the 23 special wards in Tokyo, use the form [[{ward-name}, Tokyo]]; for example, Shibuya, Tokyo." I am not proposing changing the convention for special wards of Tokyo.
I am proposing changing the ordinary wards of cities.
Opinions?
Fg2 07:01, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm closing this discussion and changing the Manual of Style. If anyone has a serious objection, revert the change and reopen the discussion. Fg2 10:48, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Came across a difficult example while making the table for Tobu Tojo line. Basically, how do you think the station name should be written for stations of underground (地下鉄) lines? For example, 地下鉄成増駅 (chikatetsu narimasu eki) of the 有楽町線 (yuurakucho sen) which pairs up with the regular narimasu station on Tojo line. A few of the other pages (including yuurakucho line) just put Chikatetsu Narimasu Station which I think is totally clunky, but I'm leaving it at that temporarily. I was thinking Narimasu Underground Station? (not all 地下鉄 stations are Metro) but that's a little bit misleading because a lot of normal stations are underground. I say subway, but most British people don't ... so I'm a little bit lost here. freshgavin TALK 05:38, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
As a final note, as I was listening to the English announcements on Yamanote yesterday, and I realized that JR lists the names of underground lines as Yurakucho Subway Line and X Subway Station universally whether they are part of Tokyo Metro or not. This is just JR policy though and probably isn't the case for all lines, and doesn't necessarily mean it's the best system. In the meantime I would suggest that you stop vehemently opposeing things and try instead to reasonably justify for the good of everyone. You may want to take a look at Handling anger assertively if you need help with that. freshgavin TALK 01:03, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Freshgavin, what's with the sarcasm and sniping? I happen to disagree with your opinion, I don't see why you're taking this so personally or even assuming that I'm somehow particularly angry about anything, much less at you.
So, getting back to the topic at hand, I gather this whole thing was started by the question of what 東京メトロ地下鉄成増駅 should be rendered as in English. Tokyo Metro Narimasu Station is one option, which certainly has the advantage of being both accurate and, I think, uncontroversial. Now, if I distilled your commentary above accurately, you would be OK with "Narimasu Metro Station", but for a hypothetical 都営地下鉄丸々駅 would prefer "Marumaru Subway Station". How would you feel about Toei Marumaru Station or, for that matter, Osaka Subway Marumaru Station?
And if there is something in the above two paragraphs that offends you, then please count to ten, sprinkle sugar on top, add in 失礼ですが、‥ではないかと思っております around every sentence and accept my most humble apologies. Jpatokal 14:53, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
Just for the sake of argument, how about keeping it simple and having a default of "X Station", and disambiguating with parentheses only when necessary? That is, if there is only one Marumaru station, the article is at Marumaru Station but if there's a Naninani station in the Osaka Subway system and the Tokyo Metro we have an article at Naninani Station (Osaka Subway) and Naninani Station (Tokyo Metro). If there's a Nanigashi JR station and a Nanigashi station in the Yokohama Subway system, then only Nanigashi Station (Yokohama Subway) needs to be disambiguated. It would be nice if we could avoid a system that encourages four and five word article titles like "Osaka Subway Marumaru Station" that are long and a bit awkward to decipher. What goes in parentheses could be whatever the common usage and/or official name is (hopefully they're the same), avoiding the problems of extremely confusing names like Osaka Subway Marumaru Metro Station or Tokyo Metro Marumaru Subway Station that would arise if we used only "metro" or only "subway" and called all stations "X Metro Station" or "Y Subway Station". CES 04:04, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Ok. I found the list, and put them in Category:Lists of railway stations in Japan. The status of things is summarized at Wikipedia_talk:Japan-related_topics_notice_board#Station_List_Help_Request, but suffice to say that it needs some naming cleanup. There are a lot of names which don't need any work at all (just articles to fill the red-links), and I pretty much hit the wall with what I thought could be automated easily versus what needs to be edited by individuals. Since it's not directly related to this discussion, comments about these lists should probably be made at the notice-board linked above. Neier 15:22, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
You're right -- it's getting really long. (We don't need to worry about Wako, because it seems there's only one in Japan. whew). How about a quick summary based on what I think three or four of us are leaning towards (for people to have something concise to object to).
I only have strong feelings for the first rule, and that subway stations which don't require disambiguation shouldn't have anything after their name. Any other tweaks to the above list, I'm inclined to agree with. Neier 07:42, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
We seem to have reached a consensus on naming train and subway stations. Just to make sure there are no objections I wanted to have a formal vote before adding to the MoS. The naming system for the stations is fairly straight-forward:
If there's sufficient support (or no objection) to the naming system, I'll write it up and add it to the MoS Place Names section. CES 05:09, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
It's been a week with no opposition so I'll add it to the MoS. CES 01:37, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Hmm. Saga Eki-Mae certainly makes a point. If you go back to the beginning (or just look at the Tojo page) you'll see that I originally intended to just use Chikatetsu Narimasu Station for the exact reasons CEC stated, but I backed down when there was considerable opposition to that and I kind of warmed up to the idea of subway. I guess the reason why is that nobody would call the line itself Chikatetsu Yurakucho Line; they would transliterate it into Yurakucho Subway Line so I figured it would be consistant, clean and easy to do the same for stations with chikatetsu in the name. Anyways, using chikatetsu is consistant with other station names (like Saga Eki-Mae) so I'd support that. Comment: I must say that Saga Eki-mae Station is a bit amusing, even in Japanese. I suspect someone is creating names like that as a joke to make clean translation more difficult. There's probably someone planning a mini-line inside Shinjuku Station called 新宿駅中線 and all of the stations are named 新宿駅駅. freshgavin TALK 04:27, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
They're all the rage nowadays. I think there should be a MoS for dealing with the old/obsolete towns, and the new merged cities. Two that I've done in Tochigi are Sakura, Tochigi and Nasushiobara, Tochigi. There is probably a better way than my table for showing the size/population of the merged locales -- maybe a template? Also, I've left the old town pages alone (like Ujiie, Tochigi); because these towns probably need a common format even moreso than the new cities. A template like On date, NewCity was formed from This city and others ?? Neier 13:21, 11 November 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. |
(Jpatokal's suggestion): "Place and personal names should of course be offset with a space, and as these are proper names all words are capitalized."
Insert a hyphen before bo, dera, do, in, ji, ; write the English word "shrine" in place of jinja and jingu but hyphenate and write gu, sha, taisha without "shrine."
Do not write "temple"; do not write English translations of names in article titles (where appropriate, they are welcome within the article, e.g. "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion"). Do not prefix "-san" names (e.g. do not write "Kinryu-zan Sensoji"; simply write "Sensoji"); however, do prefix "-san" names (山号) when — and only when — necessary to distinguish famous temples of the same name and provide a disambiguation page, for example, Kaiko-zan Hase-dera and Bu-zan Kagura-in Hase-dera. (See ja:長谷寺 and this link.)
Here are examples of the proposed style:
Gokuraku-bo; Kiyomizu-dera; Sanjusangen-do; Sanzen-in; Kinkaku-ji; Hikawa Shrine; Meiji Shrine; Kamakura-gu; Inari-sha (other than Inari-taisha); Inari-taisha
Early in the article, explain in English what the subject is, e.g. "Kinkaku-ji is a Buddhist temple ... ."
Fg2 10:53, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
(Actually, Kinkaku-ji is problematic, since the temple's actual name is Rokuon-ji... ) Fg2 10:53, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
What about macrons? I don't mind leaving macrons out of article titles, but I think their use should be encouraged elsewhere. - Jefu 12:50, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
So let's put the proposal above to a vote! Sign your name in the appropriate section below. Is one week starting now enough? Jpatokal 11:10, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
I had a quick look through the discussions before this, but excuse me if I missed it. According to the current conventions, it says we should write
Taro Cabbage (キャベツ太郎, Kyabetsu Taro).
Today there was a disagreement on the page Akihito. One user wrote the name in the form
Taro Cabbage ([[Japanese language|Japanese]]キャベツたろ, ''Kyabetsu Taro'').
and another user removed the [[Japanese language|Japanese]], then someone else put it back.
I have also seen abbreviations like "Ja" or "Jp" used in the link. It would be nice to have some standard way to do this; first, should the link be there? Second, if so, should it say "Japanese" or "Ja" or "Jp" or what? Rather than arbitrarily doing it how each person thinks is best, then someone else just changes it again, it would be nice to have a clear statement on the style page about whether or not to link etc. -- DannyWilde 08:57, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
We've had many, many disagreements about this. In essence, as far as I'm aware, at the end of the last round it was agreed that having a link to Japanese language or Japanese name or the relevant Japanese article in the form "[[Japanese]]," "[[JP]]," "[[jp]]," "[[Jp]]," "[[Ja]]," "[[ja]]" or similar was not the way to go, which is why I removed the link that led to this question in the first place.
Additionally, it's my view that having names written in non-Hepburn followed by brackets containing link, Japanese and Hepburn, such as this:
Junichiro Koizumi ([[Jp]] 小泉 純一郎 ''koizumi jun'ichirō'')
...is clumsy, takes up too much space, and besides being confusing, serves no useful purpose. I also find it particularly irksome when people choose to place names in italics and lowercase, since this just reduces them to sounds.
Links to the relevant Japanese article should be placed where they normally go. Links to "Japanese name" aren't especially relevant in most articles, and neither are links to "Japanese language." The possibility of placing a note or template on Japan-related articles stating that names are given in the Japanese order has also been discussed.
Exploding Boy 18:21, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
A variable, standing for a language. -- Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης) 22:33, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
To address Exploding Boy's ponts:
My point is that there should be a statement, in the style manual, about what to do about these links. On the Akihito talk page, it was mentioned that it is a Wikipedia convention to add these language links. If so they should be added, in the same way, for example, that the title word should be in bold - it's a convention. However, there was no reference given to where it says that one must add the links. Adding or removing the language links on the basis of personal preference is bound to lead to conflicts. I suggest we try to establish what the Wikipedia-wide convention is, write that up in the manual of style, and stick to it. I'm sure there are lots of good arguments for and against having the language links, but I expect we can all agree that there is no good argument for having language links on some pages in one format, other pages in other formats, and none at all on other pages. That is just messy. -- DannyWilde 23:50, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
I agree too. My point was just that I don't really care one way or the other about the language link. I've gone from being against it to being ambivalent. If agreement is reached I will certainly follow the convention in the future. By the way, my preference for the rest of what goes in the parentheses is ([Kanji] [italicized hepburn]), with only a space rather than a comma separating the kanji and the romaji. And as mentioned above, the romaji after the kanji is unnecessary for things like names that are already written in romaji to begin with. - Jefu 02:19, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
To Exploding Boy's point, we agree that names shouldn't be in parentheses anyway, so the italicization problem is moot. - Jefu 12:21, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
I tend to agree with Shinobu ... italics do provide useful information, in particular vowel length. They're also helpful in cases where the Japanese name is not perfectly identical to the English "translation" (e.g. Beat Takeshi = Biito Takeshi) or in cases like Tokyo where the added 都 in places might confuse the reader. Or, when SN-GN and GN-SN have been flipped (in the case of many modern people). My question would be what to do when the article name and the romaji are redundant ... Miyabe Miyuki (宮部みゆき Miyabe Miyuki) seems a little redundant. You know me though, if we agreed on a convention that works I'd favor using it in 100% of the cases.
Unless a person/object's nationality is ambiguous, I don't think a link to Japanese name is necessary. I for one like the common (KANJI Name Name) format, I think it provides the most information in the smallest amount of space. And I think italics are a good idea, as this clues the reader that what is in italics is not English, even if they don't understand what Kanji is, and even though it's not exactly common convention as Exploding Boy points out. I do agree that having names in lower case is silly ... are there examples out there of people doing that? CES 12:19, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Yes, in some circumstances the (Kanji name) format might be necessary, as wasw pointed out with the example of Tokyo, above. But too often it's just redundant repetition, and it's not needed. Exploding Boy 15:18, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for explaining this much better than I have! What LordAmeth said. Exploding Boy 16:23, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
That's a very good idea. Do you know how to set it up? By the way, there is a "Japanese word" template on Manga, but it's not a very good one. -- DannyWilde 11:59, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
The problem with using Miyabe as an example is... her books are published in ENGLISH! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/4770029934/qid=1131406460/sr=8-2/ref=pd_bbs_2/103-9218618-3425418?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 - Therefore her naming order shall be reversed. I know that there really isn't an agreement right now on naming order specifics, but still... - On the other hand, a historical figure would be a great use of a "redundant italic" remark. In a case of someone like Miyamoto Musashi, I don't think italics are necessary. WhisperToMe 23:35, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
A good name would be Template:Nihongo.
It would need three parameters, like this:
{{nihongo|English|Kanji|Romaji}}
Since the last parameter can be absent, we would need to find a way to branch properly. This can be done using some clever tricks, but I'm still looking into it.
{{nihongo|Tokyo|東京都|Tōkyō-to}}
Would yield "Tokyo (東京都, Tōkyō-to ?)".
{{nihongo|Manga|漫画|}}
Would yield "Manga (漫画 ?)". However, the cursive romaji would still need to be there for those who have saved in their preferences (user css) that they want so see it anyway.
Note to self: don't forget to unbold the right part of the template, in case it's used in the article lead. Shinobu 06:11, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
I've set up an experimental thingy. See Template talk:Nihongo. Further comments can be posted there. If we get this template to obey our wishes, we need to add it to this MoS so that people know it's there. Shinobu 07:26, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
The template is finished, and looks okay. It's easy to use, does what it's supposed to do and it can be completely customized by the reader as well. When it gets inserted in real pages we will see if it's an improvement over the current situation. After these test runs we can add it to this Manual of Style. Shinobu 15:16, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
I think the template is great, but one question it hasn't solved is how to write people's names. Are we writing Junichiro Koizumi (小泉純一郎 (Koizumi Jun'ichirō)) or Koizumi Jun'ichirō (error: {{nihongo}}: Japanese or romaji text required ( help)) ? Exploding Boy 20:24, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps Junichiro Koizumi (小泉純一郎, Koizumi Jun'ichirō) was what you intended?
{{nihongo|Junichiro Koizumi|小泉純一郎|Koizumi Jun'ichirō}}
Wikipedia's template syntax is not that forgiving. Not much I can do 'bout that.
Note that if you don't want to see romaji (or want anything else customized) you can make that happen using your personal css; follow the help link to learn how. I think you can also search for classes using JavaScript, allowing for even more customization possibilities. Shinobu 21:33, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
One minor point ... I've noticed at least three formats of displaying (KANJI romaji) in Wikipedia:
Do we have a policy/concensus on which to use? A very minor style issue, but I thought I'd bring it up. Personally I think it's a little strange to see English language punctuation after kanji, so I prefer and use the first style. CES 12:00, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
If you're saying the same thing in two ways, you usually put in a comma. Example: "Mister Koizumi, the PM of Japan, (…)". I didn't use the "kanji comma" because as I see it this is a snippet of Japanese in an otherwise western text. If you want to you can hide it using your personal css; you might want to do this if you agree it's a good default but you just don't like it. Anyway, if consensus exists for another default, I'll implement that. Shinobu 16:21, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm sure I stated this previously, but, like CES and Jpatoka, I prefer no comma.- Jefu 08:34, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
.t_nihongo_comma{visibility:hidden;}
If you are in favor of including unnecessary punctuation, I think the burden should be on you to explain why it should be included.- Jefu 14:23, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't agree with the point about the Western punctuation and would oppose using "、" rather than the comma. However, yesterday I had a quick look at some examples in the Chicago Manual of Style (15th edition), and perhaps it's worth noting that they didn't use the comma. The comma might be useful if there is more than one kanji way to write something. For example, okama (お釜, おかま), etc. -- DannyWilde 02:33, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure which of the points about Western punctuation Danny Wilde opposes, but I agree fully with the points Jpatoka has made. And if the Chicago Manual of Style (a widely cited and authoritative reference) doesn't use a comma, that just reinforces the argument in favor of adopting a convention without a comma.- Jefu 10:29, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
I've already started this discussion on the Tokyo and Oume [sic] pages, just wanted to make a note of it here. The city in Tokyo, 青梅 (oume) while commonly (even officially) spelt Ome, should REALLY be spelled Oume in romaji. As it is a combination of the readings o and ume, and thus it is a not a 'long vowel' ō, as would normally be expected. To expand, Oume (for the city) is pronounced differently than ōme/oume or ōme/oome as the /u/ vowel is pronouced. Ōme is pronounced something like /oh-meh/ and oume is pronounced more like /oh-umeh/ but with a shorter /o/ sound.
NOW, of course this is not a pronounciation guide, this is hepburn. Oume is still correct in hepburn because it is the combination of two kunyomi, and thus each character has its own sound. For example 大/ou is only one character and thus there can be no argument about the hepburn spelling of it because it cannot be separated. 青梅/oume is two, and thus they each have their own sounds (though 青/o is not a very common reading) and when put together the pronounciation doesn't change so the hepburn of the two characters shouldn't be changed either to reflect that.
I babbled because I'm afraid of the arguments that some people will put up to defend the incorrect spelling of Oume, but I think I've argued my point. freshgavin TALK 06:01, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
The MoS has the sentence, "For wards in cities, use the form [[{ward-name}-ku, {prefecture-name}]]; for example, Fushimi-ku, Kyoto." Does anyone recall why we do this? It seems much more sensible to have wards in cities, not prefectures, since a ward is in fact part of a city, not directly administered by a prefecture. Furthermore, the example is ambiguous, since Kyoto is the name of both the city that Fushimi-ku is in, and the prefecture. Was this a mistake? Should we change it to wardname-ku, city-name?
Note that the above sentence does not apply to the special wards of Tokyo; they have the sentence that comes next: "For the 23 special wards in Tokyo, use the form [[{ward-name}, Tokyo]]; for example, Shibuya, Tokyo." I am not proposing changing the convention for special wards of Tokyo.
I am proposing changing the ordinary wards of cities.
Opinions?
Fg2 07:01, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm closing this discussion and changing the Manual of Style. If anyone has a serious objection, revert the change and reopen the discussion. Fg2 10:48, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Came across a difficult example while making the table for Tobu Tojo line. Basically, how do you think the station name should be written for stations of underground (地下鉄) lines? For example, 地下鉄成増駅 (chikatetsu narimasu eki) of the 有楽町線 (yuurakucho sen) which pairs up with the regular narimasu station on Tojo line. A few of the other pages (including yuurakucho line) just put Chikatetsu Narimasu Station which I think is totally clunky, but I'm leaving it at that temporarily. I was thinking Narimasu Underground Station? (not all 地下鉄 stations are Metro) but that's a little bit misleading because a lot of normal stations are underground. I say subway, but most British people don't ... so I'm a little bit lost here. freshgavin TALK 05:38, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
As a final note, as I was listening to the English announcements on Yamanote yesterday, and I realized that JR lists the names of underground lines as Yurakucho Subway Line and X Subway Station universally whether they are part of Tokyo Metro or not. This is just JR policy though and probably isn't the case for all lines, and doesn't necessarily mean it's the best system. In the meantime I would suggest that you stop vehemently opposeing things and try instead to reasonably justify for the good of everyone. You may want to take a look at Handling anger assertively if you need help with that. freshgavin TALK 01:03, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Freshgavin, what's with the sarcasm and sniping? I happen to disagree with your opinion, I don't see why you're taking this so personally or even assuming that I'm somehow particularly angry about anything, much less at you.
So, getting back to the topic at hand, I gather this whole thing was started by the question of what 東京メトロ地下鉄成増駅 should be rendered as in English. Tokyo Metro Narimasu Station is one option, which certainly has the advantage of being both accurate and, I think, uncontroversial. Now, if I distilled your commentary above accurately, you would be OK with "Narimasu Metro Station", but for a hypothetical 都営地下鉄丸々駅 would prefer "Marumaru Subway Station". How would you feel about Toei Marumaru Station or, for that matter, Osaka Subway Marumaru Station?
And if there is something in the above two paragraphs that offends you, then please count to ten, sprinkle sugar on top, add in 失礼ですが、‥ではないかと思っております around every sentence and accept my most humble apologies. Jpatokal 14:53, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
Just for the sake of argument, how about keeping it simple and having a default of "X Station", and disambiguating with parentheses only when necessary? That is, if there is only one Marumaru station, the article is at Marumaru Station but if there's a Naninani station in the Osaka Subway system and the Tokyo Metro we have an article at Naninani Station (Osaka Subway) and Naninani Station (Tokyo Metro). If there's a Nanigashi JR station and a Nanigashi station in the Yokohama Subway system, then only Nanigashi Station (Yokohama Subway) needs to be disambiguated. It would be nice if we could avoid a system that encourages four and five word article titles like "Osaka Subway Marumaru Station" that are long and a bit awkward to decipher. What goes in parentheses could be whatever the common usage and/or official name is (hopefully they're the same), avoiding the problems of extremely confusing names like Osaka Subway Marumaru Metro Station or Tokyo Metro Marumaru Subway Station that would arise if we used only "metro" or only "subway" and called all stations "X Metro Station" or "Y Subway Station". CES 04:04, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Ok. I found the list, and put them in Category:Lists of railway stations in Japan. The status of things is summarized at Wikipedia_talk:Japan-related_topics_notice_board#Station_List_Help_Request, but suffice to say that it needs some naming cleanup. There are a lot of names which don't need any work at all (just articles to fill the red-links), and I pretty much hit the wall with what I thought could be automated easily versus what needs to be edited by individuals. Since it's not directly related to this discussion, comments about these lists should probably be made at the notice-board linked above. Neier 15:22, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
You're right -- it's getting really long. (We don't need to worry about Wako, because it seems there's only one in Japan. whew). How about a quick summary based on what I think three or four of us are leaning towards (for people to have something concise to object to).
I only have strong feelings for the first rule, and that subway stations which don't require disambiguation shouldn't have anything after their name. Any other tweaks to the above list, I'm inclined to agree with. Neier 07:42, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
We seem to have reached a consensus on naming train and subway stations. Just to make sure there are no objections I wanted to have a formal vote before adding to the MoS. The naming system for the stations is fairly straight-forward:
If there's sufficient support (or no objection) to the naming system, I'll write it up and add it to the MoS Place Names section. CES 05:09, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
It's been a week with no opposition so I'll add it to the MoS. CES 01:37, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Hmm. Saga Eki-Mae certainly makes a point. If you go back to the beginning (or just look at the Tojo page) you'll see that I originally intended to just use Chikatetsu Narimasu Station for the exact reasons CEC stated, but I backed down when there was considerable opposition to that and I kind of warmed up to the idea of subway. I guess the reason why is that nobody would call the line itself Chikatetsu Yurakucho Line; they would transliterate it into Yurakucho Subway Line so I figured it would be consistant, clean and easy to do the same for stations with chikatetsu in the name. Anyways, using chikatetsu is consistant with other station names (like Saga Eki-Mae) so I'd support that. Comment: I must say that Saga Eki-mae Station is a bit amusing, even in Japanese. I suspect someone is creating names like that as a joke to make clean translation more difficult. There's probably someone planning a mini-line inside Shinjuku Station called 新宿駅中線 and all of the stations are named 新宿駅駅. freshgavin TALK 04:27, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
They're all the rage nowadays. I think there should be a MoS for dealing with the old/obsolete towns, and the new merged cities. Two that I've done in Tochigi are Sakura, Tochigi and Nasushiobara, Tochigi. There is probably a better way than my table for showing the size/population of the merged locales -- maybe a template? Also, I've left the old town pages alone (like Ujiie, Tochigi); because these towns probably need a common format even moreso than the new cities. A template like On date, NewCity was formed from This city and others ?? Neier 13:21, 11 November 2005 (UTC)