Some recent discussion at Talk:Shannan Prefecture and Talk:Qamdo (town) led me to revisit the issue of Tibetan naming conventions. I moved Babelfisch's suggestions to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Tibetan)/2006 proposal, which I think was basically inactive, and put up a new page at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Tibetan). I don't think the current proposal will seem very revolutionary. For the most part, it just goes on at length on "use common names" and comments on some practices that are already being followed. One significant change that is suggested by the new proposal is that we do away with situations where we have both Shigatse and Xigazê Prefecture, or Gyantse and Gyangzê County in favour of one spelling for the same name across different articles.
Please comment on these suggestions and, if you'd like, update them.— Nat Krause( Talk!· What have I done?) 23:22, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Strong Oppose I don't think it's a non-revolutionary proposal. The law concerning the English of Chinese placename says that every placename should be transcripted from a native name - using Hanyu Pinyin for those of Han sources and conresponding minority language transcription for those placename of minority origin, and as of Tibet, use official phonetic transcription of Tibetan. This inconsiderate proposal adopt the habits of some overseas Tibetans, but did not take habits and fellings of local Tibetans into consideration. What's more, by using non-native origin transcription or words, it's disrespect and misesteem to sovereignty and national feelings of a multi-ethnic country. So I think Nat Krause should rollback to the former proposal and not to apply a new proposal before consensus being reached. And since it's already too "bold" to make so great a change before discuss it, I think I will move the Nat Krause's proposal to a draft page and restore the original one. -- 虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ( talk) 09:45, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
The proposal is very much commonsense. Avoidance of Wylie in general agrees with use of the most familiar term, which is rarely Wylie. The addition of Wylie on first mention concedes that it is the most expedient for establishing which Tibetan term the name corresponds to. (Some of us may also depend on the Wylie to make the Chinese Pinyin more palatable, where that is used.) The proposal is spelt out simply and clearly. Moonsell ( talk) 09:41, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
Since the discussion on the new naming conventions proposal above has been predominantly positive, I started thinking about what the next step is. On the main Naming conventions talk page, I have raised the question of what the next step is to move this from proposal to a policy.— Nat Krause( Talk!· What have I done?) 01:24, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
I just became aware of this proposal. I have one concernt before I can support it. Since I haven't read this entire talk page I will just put it here instead of boldly editing the page:
WP:Naming conventions (Tibetan)#Avoid strict transliterations: "The Wylie spelling should always be given at the start of the article on a subject or, if it does not have its own, at its first mention in another article." I hope this sentence is not meant to say what it says. On a list of famous people, the current Dalai Lama will appear as "14th Dalai Lama" or "Tenzin Gyatso". He will not appear as anything like "Tenzin Gyatso (Wylie: bstan 'dzin rgya mtsho)". Similarly, a less notable person should not appear in this last, long form just because there is no article for them. However, this sentence seems to say that Tibetan names that don't have an article may not be used in another article without also giving the Wylie transcription. I don't think we have any rule like this for any other language, and it would not be a good idea. I guess that this sentence is aimed at articles that discuss the thing/person named in detail, as happens when a former article forms a section after a merge. The precise scope of this sentence must be made clear, or it should be said that if a Wylie spelling is given it should be at the first use (use, not mention, but that's a minor point). Or maybe it's better to leave this case completely without regulation for the moment. Hans Adler 16:30, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
–– 虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 03:40, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
I wanted to respond to comments made by 虞海 (Yú Hǎi) recently on the Article titles talk page. Yú Hǎi gives his general idea as "In Wikipedia, we should show respect to the natives" with an example being the Japanese word Shina, which has the same etymology as the English word "China", but is considered offensive in Japanese because it is associated with Japanese imperialism. I think that there could be some extreme cases where we refuse to use the most common name for something because it is offensive, but I don't think this is generally an issue. Shina is offensive in Japanese precisely because it is associated with certain discourses at certain times; if it were clearly the most common name for China, then it would be associated with the whole range of references to China.
Yú Hǎi's point #1 introduces a couple ideas that I don't really understand. He says, "we should always use the Tibetan name when the Chinese name is of Tibetan origin", but it's not clear to me why that should make a difference, or what that means exactly. The example he gives is that we should use Lhoka instead of Shannan. But Shannan is clearly not a approximation of the sound of Lhoka. It's true that Shannan means "south of the mountain(s)" and lho means "south", but it doesn't appear that Shannan is even quite a translation of Lhoka. I have always assumed that those two names were chosen independently. Yú Hǎi also appears to introduce a contrast between the "overseas Tibetans" and the "natives" who were born in and live in Tibet. I don't think we have any information at all, though, on different naming preferences between those two groups. Yú Hǎi may have misunderstood me as saying that Tournadre reports that the names Shannan and Kangding are more common among exile Tibetans than are the equivalent Tibetan names. However, I believe Tournadre was talking about the usage of Tibetans in Tibet.
It's correct that the Wylie romanisation system is a transliteration of written Tibetan while Tibetan Pinyin is a phonetic transcription of a dialect. I think it's an oversimplification and not really correct to say that THDL is also a transliteration. THDL is basically a simplified form of the Tournadre system, which is itself a phonetic transcription: it contains almost all the same information about pronunciation that Tibetan Pinyin does. Tournadre is also designed to give some information about the written form whenever that doesn't conflict with the transcription, and generally resembles Wylie as much as possible. Since THDL is simplified, it doesn't give as much info about how to pronounce the word. You can tell that Tournadre and THDL are not transliterations because they exclude all those silent letters that are so common in Tibetan spelling.
I don't see how using official transcriptions guarantees the rights of minorities, which Yú Hǎi says is the goal. Furthermore, as I've written above, I don't think that's really what we're concerned with here. The principal of using common names on Wikipedia is well accepted and it avoids a lot of problems such as trying to figure out which spelling a group of people in a foreign country would prefer us to use.— Nat Krause( Talk!· What have I done?) 02:57, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
the bottom line here is that wikipedia is an encyclopedia, we are not aiming to achieve perfection or instruction in Tibetan language, what we do on wikipedia is create articles about certain topics, the titles of those articles should be indicative of what most users will be familiar with. If Wylie or another system is more commonly used in academic journals, the press, etc, then that system should be chosen as a standard. Дунгане ( talk) 23:43, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
Are there any current objections, now that matter has been dealt with, to making this a {{ guideline}}? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:21, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
Re: Vmenkov, et al. I agree that place names of locations in the PRC should include the name in Tibetan script, Wylie, Chinese characters, Hanyu Pinyin, Tibetan Pinyin, and the pronunciation in IPA for Standard Tibetan. There is a concern that the intro to the article will be overstuffed with different spellings, but that's a stylistic question that we can figure out. I'm not sure that Tibetan areas outside of Ü-Tsang need Tibetan Pinyin or IPA, since those are based on a particular dialect that isn't spoken everywhere in the Tibetophone world. I'm also not sure how the same rules should apply to persons, i.e. which spellings for which persons. This proposal is a naming convention rather than a Manual of Style, so, technically, I don't think this topic would be included. However, since there is no Manual of Style for Tibetan currently, I don't have a problem with mentioning this proviso in the naming convention.— Nat Krause( Talk!· What have I done?) 03:37, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
Here's a variation on the issue of determining primary romanisations. The policy sets forth two examples on alternate spellings: Kagyu (a term) and Thinley (a personal name). The examples appear right after defining primary romanisation and stating a preference for consistently romanised terms. Minor variations, this proposal states, do not indicate there is no primary romanisation.
So how would this policy be implemented to find a primary romanisation in respect to these examples? I do think it would be relatively easy to change 16 instances of Kargyu to Kagyu on the basis that Kagyu seems to be the primary romanisation. However Thinley and Trinley seem equally likely to be primary romanisations. For a person named Thinley whose personal spelling preference cannot be readily discerned, what would be an appropriate default primary romanisation under this policy? If the answer is "case by case," as I suspect it might need be, this might mean no particular consistency or primary romanisation can be expected in a great many personal names. In short, I can't tell how the current proposal would handle the very example that it cites. Advice anyone? JFHJr ( ㊟) 19:24, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
I think we've got a consensus. So far, positive criticism has shaped this policy into something reasonable and workable. There have been almost no new or renewed suggestions in almost a week. JFHJr ( ㊟) 04:06, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
Hello, there's a name change discussion going on at talk:Xixabangma and what constitutes minor spelling variations appears to be relevant to the discussion. Are all four terms minor spelling variations of each other, or are Shishapangma and Shisha Pangma minor spelling variations of each other with Xixabangma and Xixiabangma constituting minor variations of a separate spelling? Or maybe there's a better grouping? Input on talk:Xixabangma would be appreciated.-- Wikimedes ( talk) 21:04, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
Note: this section does not attempt to discuss variations in the spelling of Tibetan names or article titles. Please refer to already existing conventions and guidelines for spelling and title issues.
This section attempt to discuss how Tibetan names should be included in the English WP when the common English name does derivate from a non-Tibetan language.
As examples, we can mention Gauri Sankar (aka Jomo Tseringma), Mount Kailash (aka Gang Rinpoche), Lake Manasarovar (aka Mapham Yutso), Mount Everest (aka Chomolungma) Shiquane/Ali (aka Senge Tsangpo).
There is currently no systematic way to include the Tibetan name in these five articles. Currently, two articles (Manasarovar and Ali) are mentioning the Tibetan name in the lead outside parenthesis, while the other three (Gauri Sankar, Kailash, Everest) only mention the Tibetan name in parenthesis under local languages. This makes an important difference, as in the latest three cases the Tibetan name is not considered as a possible English term, while it is in the former two. In the example I gave, notability of the Tibetan name in English does not seem to play a role, as Mapham Yutso for example is only marginally known in English, while Chomolungma has gained a certain recognition in English since at least 5-6 decades.
To try to sort things out, I have consulted the following guidelines and policies:
Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Tibetan)
Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(Chinese)#Place_names
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)
The following extracts seems to be relevant:
[…] other names, especially those used significantly often (say, 10% of the time or more) in the available English literature on a place, past or present, should be mentioned in the article, as encyclopedic information. Two or three alternate names can be mentioned in the first line of the article […]. If there are more names than this, or the first line is cluttered, a separate paragraph on the names of the place is often a good idea. Local official names are often listed first, but in other cases it serves neutrality to list the names in alphabetical order by language
The lead: […]Relevant foreign language names (one used by at least 10% of sources in the English language or is used by a group of people which used to inhabit this geographical place) are permitted.
In the five examples, certainly less than 10% of English speakers will use the Tibetan name, but according to the last sentence above, it should be OK to systematically include the Tibetan name. If we can agree on this point, it would also be good to have certain guidelines regarding the way how to present it:
I have noticed many recent edits by different editors, each using different ways of doing. A rather unified style would be appreciated.-- Pseudois ( talk) 12:13, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
There is a very useful on-line tool that will automatically convert Unicode Tibetan or Wylie to a simple phonemic rendering which can be easily read by English speakers: [2]. A description of the system by Dr. Nicolas Tournadre and Dr. David Germano may be found here: [3]. The converter is Free Software (written in Perl), and the source code is available for download from the THL site. I suggest we just encourage editors to use this tool when transcribing Tibetan names as it will produce standard, academically acceptable, yet easy to read results.
CFynn ( talk) 16:45, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Should this proposal address the matter of alphabetical sort order for Tibetan names? If so, what should that guideline be, and what mechanism should be used to accomplish it?
My understanding is that Tibetans generally do not use family surnames, and thus the common Western convention of reversing the name for alpha sorting (e.g., Albert Einstein sorts as "Einstein, Albert") seems inappropriate. Also, it appears that people commonly misconstrue such terminal titles/honorifics as Rinpoche and Lingpa as surnames, incorrectly sorting boatloads of high lamas under R in every category. That said, I have no idea if there is a standard convention on this among academics, so I'm not positive what to do about it, which is what I came to this page seeking. Meanwhile, I'll go boldly apply some default sorting.
-- KGF0 ( T | C ) 03:45, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
I feel there is no need to include both Wylie and Tibetan script in articles - Wylie was useful before the Unicode and Tibetan font support was common - but it is now almost universal in computer operating systems (except Android which includes no Tibetan font). Anyway I think anyone who can understand Wylie can also read Tibetan script - so including both is redundant and makes pages look messy. Using the Wylie or Tibetan script for a name or term more than once in an article - unless they form part of a quotation - should also be avoided.
For the average reader who cannot understand Wylie and Tibetan script, the primary phonetic transcription should be mostly used.
Alternative Chinese or Pinyin names are useful for place names, but IMO Tibetan in Pinyin is not useful for anything else on English Wikipedia - anyway "Tibetan Pinyin" is often not very consistent.
Chris Fynn ( talk) 14:55, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
In article is said "Nicolas Tournadre writes that the Chinese names for both Shannan Prefecture...". After many years of living in Lhoka, U-tsang, Amdo and Kham have to say, CHINESE people use Shannan! Maybe few mixed Tibetan in very North Amdo or very east Kham, who are actually Chinese, went to Chinese school and never been to U-tsang could say Shannan. Tibetan people say Lhoka (Lhokha), because that is their language, the name has meaning and it is part of Tibetan history. No idea with who Nicolas T. had conversation. If people will use Chinese sources and write Tibetan names, English wiki will be all wrong. Andelicek.andy ( talk) 09:31, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
Some recent discussion at Talk:Shannan Prefecture and Talk:Qamdo (town) led me to revisit the issue of Tibetan naming conventions. I moved Babelfisch's suggestions to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Tibetan)/2006 proposal, which I think was basically inactive, and put up a new page at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Tibetan). I don't think the current proposal will seem very revolutionary. For the most part, it just goes on at length on "use common names" and comments on some practices that are already being followed. One significant change that is suggested by the new proposal is that we do away with situations where we have both Shigatse and Xigazê Prefecture, or Gyantse and Gyangzê County in favour of one spelling for the same name across different articles.
Please comment on these suggestions and, if you'd like, update them.— Nat Krause( Talk!· What have I done?) 23:22, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Strong Oppose I don't think it's a non-revolutionary proposal. The law concerning the English of Chinese placename says that every placename should be transcripted from a native name - using Hanyu Pinyin for those of Han sources and conresponding minority language transcription for those placename of minority origin, and as of Tibet, use official phonetic transcription of Tibetan. This inconsiderate proposal adopt the habits of some overseas Tibetans, but did not take habits and fellings of local Tibetans into consideration. What's more, by using non-native origin transcription or words, it's disrespect and misesteem to sovereignty and national feelings of a multi-ethnic country. So I think Nat Krause should rollback to the former proposal and not to apply a new proposal before consensus being reached. And since it's already too "bold" to make so great a change before discuss it, I think I will move the Nat Krause's proposal to a draft page and restore the original one. -- 虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ( talk) 09:45, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
The proposal is very much commonsense. Avoidance of Wylie in general agrees with use of the most familiar term, which is rarely Wylie. The addition of Wylie on first mention concedes that it is the most expedient for establishing which Tibetan term the name corresponds to. (Some of us may also depend on the Wylie to make the Chinese Pinyin more palatable, where that is used.) The proposal is spelt out simply and clearly. Moonsell ( talk) 09:41, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
Since the discussion on the new naming conventions proposal above has been predominantly positive, I started thinking about what the next step is. On the main Naming conventions talk page, I have raised the question of what the next step is to move this from proposal to a policy.— Nat Krause( Talk!· What have I done?) 01:24, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
I just became aware of this proposal. I have one concernt before I can support it. Since I haven't read this entire talk page I will just put it here instead of boldly editing the page:
WP:Naming conventions (Tibetan)#Avoid strict transliterations: "The Wylie spelling should always be given at the start of the article on a subject or, if it does not have its own, at its first mention in another article." I hope this sentence is not meant to say what it says. On a list of famous people, the current Dalai Lama will appear as "14th Dalai Lama" or "Tenzin Gyatso". He will not appear as anything like "Tenzin Gyatso (Wylie: bstan 'dzin rgya mtsho)". Similarly, a less notable person should not appear in this last, long form just because there is no article for them. However, this sentence seems to say that Tibetan names that don't have an article may not be used in another article without also giving the Wylie transcription. I don't think we have any rule like this for any other language, and it would not be a good idea. I guess that this sentence is aimed at articles that discuss the thing/person named in detail, as happens when a former article forms a section after a merge. The precise scope of this sentence must be made clear, or it should be said that if a Wylie spelling is given it should be at the first use (use, not mention, but that's a minor point). Or maybe it's better to leave this case completely without regulation for the moment. Hans Adler 16:30, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
–– 虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 03:40, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
I wanted to respond to comments made by 虞海 (Yú Hǎi) recently on the Article titles talk page. Yú Hǎi gives his general idea as "In Wikipedia, we should show respect to the natives" with an example being the Japanese word Shina, which has the same etymology as the English word "China", but is considered offensive in Japanese because it is associated with Japanese imperialism. I think that there could be some extreme cases where we refuse to use the most common name for something because it is offensive, but I don't think this is generally an issue. Shina is offensive in Japanese precisely because it is associated with certain discourses at certain times; if it were clearly the most common name for China, then it would be associated with the whole range of references to China.
Yú Hǎi's point #1 introduces a couple ideas that I don't really understand. He says, "we should always use the Tibetan name when the Chinese name is of Tibetan origin", but it's not clear to me why that should make a difference, or what that means exactly. The example he gives is that we should use Lhoka instead of Shannan. But Shannan is clearly not a approximation of the sound of Lhoka. It's true that Shannan means "south of the mountain(s)" and lho means "south", but it doesn't appear that Shannan is even quite a translation of Lhoka. I have always assumed that those two names were chosen independently. Yú Hǎi also appears to introduce a contrast between the "overseas Tibetans" and the "natives" who were born in and live in Tibet. I don't think we have any information at all, though, on different naming preferences between those two groups. Yú Hǎi may have misunderstood me as saying that Tournadre reports that the names Shannan and Kangding are more common among exile Tibetans than are the equivalent Tibetan names. However, I believe Tournadre was talking about the usage of Tibetans in Tibet.
It's correct that the Wylie romanisation system is a transliteration of written Tibetan while Tibetan Pinyin is a phonetic transcription of a dialect. I think it's an oversimplification and not really correct to say that THDL is also a transliteration. THDL is basically a simplified form of the Tournadre system, which is itself a phonetic transcription: it contains almost all the same information about pronunciation that Tibetan Pinyin does. Tournadre is also designed to give some information about the written form whenever that doesn't conflict with the transcription, and generally resembles Wylie as much as possible. Since THDL is simplified, it doesn't give as much info about how to pronounce the word. You can tell that Tournadre and THDL are not transliterations because they exclude all those silent letters that are so common in Tibetan spelling.
I don't see how using official transcriptions guarantees the rights of minorities, which Yú Hǎi says is the goal. Furthermore, as I've written above, I don't think that's really what we're concerned with here. The principal of using common names on Wikipedia is well accepted and it avoids a lot of problems such as trying to figure out which spelling a group of people in a foreign country would prefer us to use.— Nat Krause( Talk!· What have I done?) 02:57, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
the bottom line here is that wikipedia is an encyclopedia, we are not aiming to achieve perfection or instruction in Tibetan language, what we do on wikipedia is create articles about certain topics, the titles of those articles should be indicative of what most users will be familiar with. If Wylie or another system is more commonly used in academic journals, the press, etc, then that system should be chosen as a standard. Дунгане ( talk) 23:43, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
Are there any current objections, now that matter has been dealt with, to making this a {{ guideline}}? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:21, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
Re: Vmenkov, et al. I agree that place names of locations in the PRC should include the name in Tibetan script, Wylie, Chinese characters, Hanyu Pinyin, Tibetan Pinyin, and the pronunciation in IPA for Standard Tibetan. There is a concern that the intro to the article will be overstuffed with different spellings, but that's a stylistic question that we can figure out. I'm not sure that Tibetan areas outside of Ü-Tsang need Tibetan Pinyin or IPA, since those are based on a particular dialect that isn't spoken everywhere in the Tibetophone world. I'm also not sure how the same rules should apply to persons, i.e. which spellings for which persons. This proposal is a naming convention rather than a Manual of Style, so, technically, I don't think this topic would be included. However, since there is no Manual of Style for Tibetan currently, I don't have a problem with mentioning this proviso in the naming convention.— Nat Krause( Talk!· What have I done?) 03:37, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
Here's a variation on the issue of determining primary romanisations. The policy sets forth two examples on alternate spellings: Kagyu (a term) and Thinley (a personal name). The examples appear right after defining primary romanisation and stating a preference for consistently romanised terms. Minor variations, this proposal states, do not indicate there is no primary romanisation.
So how would this policy be implemented to find a primary romanisation in respect to these examples? I do think it would be relatively easy to change 16 instances of Kargyu to Kagyu on the basis that Kagyu seems to be the primary romanisation. However Thinley and Trinley seem equally likely to be primary romanisations. For a person named Thinley whose personal spelling preference cannot be readily discerned, what would be an appropriate default primary romanisation under this policy? If the answer is "case by case," as I suspect it might need be, this might mean no particular consistency or primary romanisation can be expected in a great many personal names. In short, I can't tell how the current proposal would handle the very example that it cites. Advice anyone? JFHJr ( ㊟) 19:24, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
I think we've got a consensus. So far, positive criticism has shaped this policy into something reasonable and workable. There have been almost no new or renewed suggestions in almost a week. JFHJr ( ㊟) 04:06, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
Hello, there's a name change discussion going on at talk:Xixabangma and what constitutes minor spelling variations appears to be relevant to the discussion. Are all four terms minor spelling variations of each other, or are Shishapangma and Shisha Pangma minor spelling variations of each other with Xixabangma and Xixiabangma constituting minor variations of a separate spelling? Or maybe there's a better grouping? Input on talk:Xixabangma would be appreciated.-- Wikimedes ( talk) 21:04, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
Note: this section does not attempt to discuss variations in the spelling of Tibetan names or article titles. Please refer to already existing conventions and guidelines for spelling and title issues.
This section attempt to discuss how Tibetan names should be included in the English WP when the common English name does derivate from a non-Tibetan language.
As examples, we can mention Gauri Sankar (aka Jomo Tseringma), Mount Kailash (aka Gang Rinpoche), Lake Manasarovar (aka Mapham Yutso), Mount Everest (aka Chomolungma) Shiquane/Ali (aka Senge Tsangpo).
There is currently no systematic way to include the Tibetan name in these five articles. Currently, two articles (Manasarovar and Ali) are mentioning the Tibetan name in the lead outside parenthesis, while the other three (Gauri Sankar, Kailash, Everest) only mention the Tibetan name in parenthesis under local languages. This makes an important difference, as in the latest three cases the Tibetan name is not considered as a possible English term, while it is in the former two. In the example I gave, notability of the Tibetan name in English does not seem to play a role, as Mapham Yutso for example is only marginally known in English, while Chomolungma has gained a certain recognition in English since at least 5-6 decades.
To try to sort things out, I have consulted the following guidelines and policies:
Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Tibetan)
Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(Chinese)#Place_names
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)
The following extracts seems to be relevant:
[…] other names, especially those used significantly often (say, 10% of the time or more) in the available English literature on a place, past or present, should be mentioned in the article, as encyclopedic information. Two or three alternate names can be mentioned in the first line of the article […]. If there are more names than this, or the first line is cluttered, a separate paragraph on the names of the place is often a good idea. Local official names are often listed first, but in other cases it serves neutrality to list the names in alphabetical order by language
The lead: […]Relevant foreign language names (one used by at least 10% of sources in the English language or is used by a group of people which used to inhabit this geographical place) are permitted.
In the five examples, certainly less than 10% of English speakers will use the Tibetan name, but according to the last sentence above, it should be OK to systematically include the Tibetan name. If we can agree on this point, it would also be good to have certain guidelines regarding the way how to present it:
I have noticed many recent edits by different editors, each using different ways of doing. A rather unified style would be appreciated.-- Pseudois ( talk) 12:13, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
There is a very useful on-line tool that will automatically convert Unicode Tibetan or Wylie to a simple phonemic rendering which can be easily read by English speakers: [2]. A description of the system by Dr. Nicolas Tournadre and Dr. David Germano may be found here: [3]. The converter is Free Software (written in Perl), and the source code is available for download from the THL site. I suggest we just encourage editors to use this tool when transcribing Tibetan names as it will produce standard, academically acceptable, yet easy to read results.
CFynn ( talk) 16:45, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Should this proposal address the matter of alphabetical sort order for Tibetan names? If so, what should that guideline be, and what mechanism should be used to accomplish it?
My understanding is that Tibetans generally do not use family surnames, and thus the common Western convention of reversing the name for alpha sorting (e.g., Albert Einstein sorts as "Einstein, Albert") seems inappropriate. Also, it appears that people commonly misconstrue such terminal titles/honorifics as Rinpoche and Lingpa as surnames, incorrectly sorting boatloads of high lamas under R in every category. That said, I have no idea if there is a standard convention on this among academics, so I'm not positive what to do about it, which is what I came to this page seeking. Meanwhile, I'll go boldly apply some default sorting.
-- KGF0 ( T | C ) 03:45, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
I feel there is no need to include both Wylie and Tibetan script in articles - Wylie was useful before the Unicode and Tibetan font support was common - but it is now almost universal in computer operating systems (except Android which includes no Tibetan font). Anyway I think anyone who can understand Wylie can also read Tibetan script - so including both is redundant and makes pages look messy. Using the Wylie or Tibetan script for a name or term more than once in an article - unless they form part of a quotation - should also be avoided.
For the average reader who cannot understand Wylie and Tibetan script, the primary phonetic transcription should be mostly used.
Alternative Chinese or Pinyin names are useful for place names, but IMO Tibetan in Pinyin is not useful for anything else on English Wikipedia - anyway "Tibetan Pinyin" is often not very consistent.
Chris Fynn ( talk) 14:55, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
In article is said "Nicolas Tournadre writes that the Chinese names for both Shannan Prefecture...". After many years of living in Lhoka, U-tsang, Amdo and Kham have to say, CHINESE people use Shannan! Maybe few mixed Tibetan in very North Amdo or very east Kham, who are actually Chinese, went to Chinese school and never been to U-tsang could say Shannan. Tibetan people say Lhoka (Lhokha), because that is their language, the name has meaning and it is part of Tibetan history. No idea with who Nicolas T. had conversation. If people will use Chinese sources and write Tibetan names, English wiki will be all wrong. Andelicek.andy ( talk) 09:31, 27 April 2015 (UTC)