Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)

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Manual of Style (Japan-related articles) is part of WikiProject Japan, a project to improve all Japan-related articles. If you would like to help improve this and other Japan-related articles, please join the project. All interested editors are welcome.
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Japan To-do:


Archive
Archives
  1. Former Japanese translation note article
  2. Old name order in the article title discussion (November 2003—March 2004)
  3. The great "Should Kunrei-shiki be notated in articles along with the Hepburn" debate (March—June 2004, July 2005)
  4. The "Are circumflexes ever allowed instead of macrons" debate (July 2004)
  5. Should we use a name table? (December 2004—May 2005)
  6. Tessaiga or tetsusaiga? (October 2004—March 2005)
  7. Naming order (November 2004—August 2005)
  8. Issues related to UTF-8 article titles (including the ever-popular macron debate) (June 2005—March 2006)
  9. Should article names include the prefecture? (May—August 2005)
  10. How should the articles on Japanese emperors be titled? (August 2005)
  11. Discussions of how to list Japanese dates (August 2005)
  12. March 2004—Nov 2004
  13. December 2004—June 2005
  14. July—September 2005
  15. October—November 2005 (part)
  16. November 2005 (part)—February 2006
  17. March (part) 2006
  18. Results of the RfM for macron use
  19. March (part) - May (part) 2006
  20. Fictional characters discussion
  21. May (part) - June 2006
  22. July 2006
  23. August 2006
  24. City naming (Aug-Oct 2006)
  25. September 2006
  26. Prefectures and macrons (October 2006)
  27. More macrons discussion (October 2006)
  28. October 2006

Contents

[edit] Nihonji lacks spaces....

This is because it has markers like "ha" (pronounced wa), etc. So generally first and last names lack the anglicized space in them. I am NOT talking about romaji which would be for example, sakurada, but I mean nihonji: 桜田. Given this, when Japanese names are listed should they be Anglicized even though you're technically typing in Japanese? Example:星田　あゆみ v. 星田あゆみ. The latter would be how it would show up in Japanese books, Japanese media, Japanese magazines, etc. The former is more of an American way of trying to process the fact that another language has no spaces and is in anthropological terms ethnocentric (i.e. the idea that your culture must contain rules for all other cultures, or other cultures should conform to your culture--this is not negative or positive... it just is and exists). I would think that real representation of the words when written in script that is native to the language would make most sense... Again NOT romaji. nihonji (kanji and the various forms of kana) --Hitsuji Kinno 06:54, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Ethnocentric is a loaded word, but of course you are right. There should be a policy to have no spaces. Leaving spaces out of the names won't make it hard on the eyes for anyone - the only people who will process the kanji are the ones who already know (some) Japanese. Dekimasu 07:27, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
On the Japanese wikipedia, they tend to put a space in the hiragana of people's names (ja:小泉純一郎, ja:宮崎駿 for two random examples). I normally put a space in the kanji of a person's name inside the nihongo template, since it is a mapping between the romaji (which is separate) and the kanji. If the romaji is separated, the kanji should be. A good example is Naicho where the words are easily parsed, and those of us who would write out the whole word in Japanese would know not to put the spaces in. If the kanji is pushed together, then there is no justification why the title should not be written as Naikakujouhochousashitsu either (ignoring the ou -> ō problems). Neier 10:31, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
I disagree. Romaji is separated for ease of reading. There's nor formal standard (that I'm aware of), except it tends to be clumped in groups of 2-3 kanji worth of sylables. However, while it's true there isn't a formal standard on how to separate out the syllables, it *is* standard to separate Japanese out in such a fashion. On the other hand, there is no established standard for inserting spaces into strings on kanji, and a fairly decent one for not doing so with kanji (no native speaker does it, and that's their own writing system). Rhialto 11:19, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Huh? What's wrong? We do usually put a space between one's family and first name. Actually in ja.wp it's declared in MoS: ja:Wikipedia:スタイルマニュアル (人物伝)#例. It's also okay not to separate and this is rather formal, so the titles of the articles don't have spaces. In daily life, it mainly depends on the writers' preferences whether include a space or not (thus, you can even obserb there sometimes occur "space-removing vandalism"s in ja.wp). Especially if there won't be any confusion, you can rather safely omit the space. Say, no one would treat 星田あゆみ as 星田あ ゆみ or 星田あゆ み. Look, quoted from the MoS above:『名字と名前の境界には「半角スペース」を入れて下さい。名字と名前の境界が明らかな場合には、半角スペースは省略しても構いません』 in English "Please put a half-size (one-byte) space between one's family and first name. If the border is obvious, you may drop the space."
Note, however, this space insertion is felt natural just for names. 内調 as 内閣 情報 調査室 seems quite odd to me... --marsian 12:00, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for digging up the J-MoS. I think we should follow that here too. And, for longer titles and phrases I agree that it is odd to see the separation; it is just an assistive device for people to see where the breaks in romaji align with breaks in the kanji though. I don't know if that should be a focus for our articles or not, and cannot come up with any other better reason to keep them. And, I also notice that in a bazillion train station articles, I have gone against my own reasoning above and put ○○駅|MaruMaru Eki with no spaces in kanji in the opening sentence, so feel free to slap me with a fish until I regain my senses. Another thought—maybe it is possible for the CSS inside the nihongo template to hide spaces?? Neier 14:03, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
I think the reasoning behind putting a space in the rōmaji for station names is to allow tracking between the English and the rōmaji: Marumaru Station (○○駅 Marumaru Eki?). No space is ever put in the kanji for station names, however.···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:51, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
> it is just an assistive device for people to see where the breaks in romaji align with breaks in the kanji though
Oh, I see. I'm sorry, no offence though, you know. And... I must confess I laughed out loud at the Monty Python sketch! so funny... :) --marsian 14:37, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

The kanji/kana versions of names are supposed to be in Japanese, not pseudo-Japanese. That's because our intention is to describe the reality, not a coloured version of it. If you add spaces – even as an assistive device for westeners – where a Japanese person would hardly ever consider putting them, it renders the name pseudo-Japanese. On the other hand, if spaces are OK in personal names, even if not necessary for a native speaker, they should be added in my opinion. At least there should be a clear rule on this to avoid confusion.

So I propose this guideline: spaces between kanji/kana words for all personal names; no spaces for everything else, including place names. (Note however that I don't speak Japanese and my assertions may be faulty.) Rōmaji, of course, has spaces always. (Exactly where, is another question.) Japanese script and rōmaji aren't supposed to map perfectly to eachother – it's impossible. Wipe 07:29, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What the hell is with all those "macrons" in Japanese names?

It's so ridiculous to see so many Japanese names on Wikipedia have macrons in them when the Japanese people themselves rarely use macrons. The Japanese use either Japanese hiragana/katakana/kanji or English spelling. They just don't use romaji with macrons or whatever except on some rather rare occasions. Do the official documents of the Japanese government use macrons for Japanese names? No. They use either English or Japanese. They don't have a romaji version of text for begining Japanese learners. Do the Japanese person's names on Japanese passport use macrons? No. They are written in English spelling. Only non-Japanese students of Japanese language who learn romaji first thing in their lesson think romaji is all that and using romaji spelling over English spelling is somehow more genuine to Japanese language when it's not. (I'm a native Japanese speaker btw) So please get rid of this ridiculous rule for Christ's sake: "If none of the above is available, use the macronned form." Use it on some English otaku site, not on Wikipedia. --Saintjust 01:05, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good (but not really). Which of the dozen or so standards do you suggest we adopt instead of the standard we have adopted up to now? Rhialto 04:03, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
While I disagree with the delivery above, I have to say I too am against using macrons as the default. 1) The macron is rarely if ever used in English (we're not talking about the grave, acute or circumflex accents here, which do have some historical basis). 2) While in principle Choshu and Saigo Takamori might differ from Chōshū and Saigō Takamori, in a well structured article that employs the kanji or kana, I doubt macrons convey much extra information. 3) As a matter of taste, they're just plain ugly, especially when there are a bunch together. I would prefer that we either stick to single "o" or "u," or in a worst case, employ "ou," "oo," "uu" in strictly transliterating the kana renderings. Macrons should at most methinks be relegated to the first instances of words/names or in the nihongo template. I don't go around pronouncing Julius Caesar as "Yoolius Kaisar" (like classicists think the Romans did; nor do I write it Iulius); why bother with the macrons here? The consensus in favor of macrons seems fairly new, so I doubt it will be overturned. I simply wanted to register my thoughts.--Monocrat 04:45, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
The macrons are included as a pronunciation guide to non-Japanese speakers. Academic texts (which I think Wikipedia should strive to be) use macroned versions. Using them is professional, in my humble opinion. Bobo12345 08:59, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
In my opinion article titles are not the appropriate place to teach the pronunciation of a word. Also there is a Wikipedia guideline stating that the most commonly used English term takes precedence over other terms for a subject. Jecowa 09:49, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
It's not just about pronunciation of the word. It's about proper spelling. "Ningyo" (人魚, "mermaid") is not the same as "ningyō" (人形, "doll"), and "ryu" (りゅ) is not a word at all, while "ryū" (りゅう) is, with several possible meanings. The best and most compelling argument I've come up with relating this to the Anglicization of Western languages is the Spanish tilde. "Pinata" and "Cumpleanos" are not words, and, in being spelled wrong, strongly imply or encourage the wrong pronunciation. Meanwhile, "piñata" and "cumpleaños" are words, and reflect the proper pronunciation and spelling in their original language. Again, this isn't directly primarily about teaching others to pronounce it; it's about accurately reflecting the proper spelling, even if it is in a different writing system. Speaking for myself, as a student of Japanese studies, I find it extremely useful to look at a romanized word and be able to figure out or at least guess what its kanji, and thus its meaning or etymology, might be. Things that are spelled "chū" or "chuu" are fairly likely to involve the kanji 中, and to have some sort of meaning related to "middle", while those spelled "chu" are either mispelled or are guaranteed to not use the 中 kanji. As for macrons versus "ou", "uu", I really have no preference. But correct spelling, proper systematic romanization, is essential to any semi-scholarly work; we shouldn't be simplifying the spelling down to what looks simpler and more "English" just for the sake of the least common denominator. LordAmeth 13:45, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
Use of macrons or any standard in transliterating depends on the field, the editing staff, and the author. I'm coming from a purely jingoistic and superficial approach: what looks best to my Anglophone eye. Macrons, especially en masse, spectacularly fail that "test." (Moreover, I find them irritating as a student of both Latin and Japanese.) We have the ability to employ the kanji/kana or refer to articles where they are employed, obviating most if not all of the urgency behind exact transliteration in all instances of a word. I don't see why we can't lessen our burden and employ the forms that are most widely used in English-language press and popular literature: yes, I feel the least-common denominator should be given priority over unsightly and (in this instance) mostly uninformative standard forms. Again, should I render Julius as Iulius or Ivlivs or shift my pronunciation in everyday speech? Pinata vs. piñata: Context is useful in such instances, as I believe it would be in this instance. You've put in a lot of work, Ameth, and I respect that. I'm not suggesting it all be undone straight-away. I'm just saying I disagree strongly with you. :)--Monocrat 17:11, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
You seem to forget that the Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. If this was a huge group blog, doing without the macrons would be okay (although on some days that is exactly what the Wikipedia reads like). Every scholarly work I have refers to Matsuo Bashō. So the fact that a Google test will show that there are about 1,590,000 websites that refer to a macronless "Basho" (compared to the approx. 30,400 that do use the macron) should make absolutely no difference on how the Wikipedia names the article. BlankVerse 17:29, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
(Breaking indent.) An encyclopedia still strikes me as an inherently generalist publication that targets the literate generalist. Were this something called "The Encyclopedia Nipponica" or the "Oxford Dictionary of Japanese Culture and History," I might support the use of macrons. But it is not, so I do not. I'm not calling for the abolition of the macron, I would prefer simply relegating it to the Nihongo template or when absolutely necessary otherwise. Again, I don't see the difference in principle in the indiscriminate use of Bashō and Iulius Caesar.--Monocrat 20:16, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
The obvious difference between those two examples is that I might well read Iulius incorrectly as "Eee-uu-lee-uss", whereas even if I did not understand what a macron meant I would still read Bashō as "Basho". Removing macrons from words is information loss for those readers who can benefit from their inclusion. Bobo12345 22:52, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
This information does not have to be lost. It could be stored in the first line as pronunciation information. Using macrons could also cause pronunciation confusion for people unaware that macrons are used differently for Japanese words than they are for English words. This could result in readers thinking, for example, that "sābisu" is pronounced "Say-bee-Sue." I had never heard of macrons being used in the Japanese manner until I saw them on Wikipedia article. It was very confusing for me. Jecowa 23:21, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
I fail to see how the macron cannot be just as disruptive as the consonantal I. In either case a non-specialist will ignore the notation and attempt to approximate the pronunciation. At least a small annoyance. (As Jecowa noted above.) Apart perhaps from initial instances to ensure comprehensiveness, it conveys 1) no useful information to the generalist (the vast majority of our potential readership), 2) little extra information in isolation to the specialist, and 3) absolutely no extra information when coupled with kanji/kana. Why bother with the eyesore, the complication, or the hassle of converting all the articles?--Monocrat 23:24, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Essentially, the use of macrons is but one specific component of the romanization scheme that has previously been agreed on. Personally, I think it is an adequate system for describing the information (assuming appropriate page redirects to facilitate searches are in the wiki). It gives full information, and isn't really ambiguous. Yes, it is different from that long vowel marker some dictionaries used, as noted by Jecowa. But just as there are people who have seen that dictionary long vowel marker usage first and would be confused by the romanized Japanese usage, the reverse also applies. Many, many, many words, symbols, phrases, and terms have dual usage. That is no reason to stop using them within their relevant specialised contexts.

Basically, I'm open to change, but I'd like to see a convincing reason to use a specific other romanization scheme instead of the present one with its macrons. Despite a previous person's unfamiliarity with the usage in romanizaed Japanese text, it is a standard method, one of several. Changing the romanization method for the sake of change is bad. Give me a convincing reason first. Rhialto 02:22, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I am unsure I can satisfy your request for a convincing reason. All I can say is that I propose the change, I suppose it's come to that, for the sake not of change but that of style. I'm indifferent to the scheme chosen to give the rigorous phonetic rendering in English with the Nihongo template or at the outset of an article. A modicum of necessary macrons per article is reasonable. In regular prose, however, I'm really bothered by numerous macrons, and even by double vowels. Wherever possible, I'd much rather collapse to single vowels: Choshu instead of Choushuu/Chooshuu/Chōshū. It's purely a matter of preference--as I have always maintained--but the first is far more pleasing to my eye, and seems less likely to distract or trouble a general reader. We're not all linguists or Japanists. We will have discharged our duty to substance by providing kanji/kana and a rigorous romanization at the outset. Could we then nod to style and adopt the practice of fine anglophone news and literary publications?--Monocrat 03:25, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitrary division 1

First off, let's be civil. The original post in this thread contains a number of ad hominem attacks. (i.e. Only otaku use macrons, only people who don't know the language use them.) Those arguments are both untrue and invalid to this argument in general. I find entering macrons annoying. (I prefer using WAAPURO-shiki.) I hate having to look in the little box below to find the macron o and hope that I haven's inadvertantly clicked on the Hungarian double accented o or something. The wikiprogrammers could make out lives a bit easier by giving us a drop down box to choose which language's accent marks we want to use. They also make creating redirects more difficult--seiyū names with macrons require four redirects instead of one. However, I also belive in Stare decisis. This had been decided before. Changing the rules like we change our linnens creates a lot of confusion. I think that there is a firm and constant standard which stands on a solid historical and linguistic backgrounds. There's nothing inherently wrong with the current guideline, just a preference in style. We shouldn't make any hasty changes without a good reason. Without a compelling reason to change, it should stay put. --Kunzite 04:59, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Saying that it was decided before hides the fact that many of the macron decisions were made quite recently (and contentiously). There was a compelling reason given not to use the macron in all situations, and that was how it hides Wikipedia pages when people use search engines. The issue was never resolved to my satisfaction. I don't wonder where all these voices against the macron were then - it is that many people don't watch this page, but have noticed all of their Japan-related articles being changed over the past month. Dekimasu 05:13, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
That reason doesn't strike me as a powerful one. First, Google does pretty well at finding (for example) "choshu": a few seconds ago, Choshu (i.e. "Chōshū (Redirected from Choshu)") came fourth out of a list of an estimated 90,600 hits. Secondly, even if macron use did confuse search engines I wouldn't be so worried, as I think WP is so well known by now it doesn't need search engines so very much. Thirdly, I don't think that the title or content of an article should be altered to suit search engines unless there's good reason. Incidentally, my own main interest in Japan these days is its photography and the best single work in English I know of about the matter is The History of Japanese Photography (2003, ISBN 0-300-09925-8), which though published by a university press is not an academic work but yet provides macrons wherever appropriate and also puts people's names in the right order, rather than the WP practice of reversing the names of those born after 1868. -- Hoary 06:33, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Most major English-language news media don't use macrons (including the English editions of major Japanese newspapers). Most major English-language encyclopaedias and dictionaries don't use macrons. --61.198.211.5 09:03, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

It's certainly true that most of the former don't. But of course WP isn't a news medium. As for the latter, I really don't know. Perhaps you're right. Rather over a century ago, the compositors of that dodgy but justly popular reference work Things Japanese managed to set it up using the Hepburn romanization of the time, complete with macrons wherever needed (and with no exceptions, thus "Tōkyō" etc); I wonder why doing this is so distasteful a full century later. The only newish reference book with lots of romanized Japanese in it that I happen to have with me now is Bocking's A Popular Dictionary of Shinto (sic), which also consistently uses macrons (thus "Shintō", Tōkyō"). The English-language Japan-related book I've bought most recently is Shōmei Tōmatsu: Skin of the Nation: name inverted for some silly reason but macrons retained (other than on the cover of the book and in writing about it, perhaps in order not to alarm librarians and others). -- Hoary 09:24, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Ultimately, this is what I think it comes down to: I consider myself a proper scholar, and I think most of us here on Wikipedia ought to take that attitude. What we do here may be a very enjoyable hobby, but it's not a game. The goal here is to create an accurate, comprehensive, and useful encyclopedia. Mispelling things or misrepresenting them to make it more digestible to the lowest common denominator of Anglophone society is not the goal here. I don't see why there needs to be any difference between a "generalist" text and one that's accurate to the subject presented. While I certainly understand your point, "Julius Caesar" is a poor example, as he's so well known by that Anglicized name in English. Take a look at Æthelred of Mercia, Jan Milíč, Curaçao... editors working in other regional topics seem to have no qualms about spelling things correctly. "Choshu" is as much as word as "Jooleeus Seezar" is. You're simply misspelling it to make it easier to pronounce or easier on your eyes or whatever; it's still wrong. LordAmeth 09:35, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
I think Wikipedia should have a scholarly attitude in its approach to quality of research and sources, but there is and should be a sharp difference between scholarly and generalist works. Scholars rightly use a different language to communicate amongst themselves. But Wikipedia is here for the masses, scholars included. And no, Chōshū is not a proper spelling because it is not widely used in Japanese. To my knowledge, romaji is not a native or fully naturalized script, whereas diacrits are are fully part of the script in Central/Easter European languages. If the Japanese were to consistently adopt macrons, I would probably defer. But I doubt they have or will. Setting that aside: Julius Caesar, is an eminently viable comparison: I'm breaking conventional English to closer approximate both the sound and appearance of the original. If that doesn't fly for Romans, why does it fly for Japanese? And why should we not appeal to the lowest common denominator when we have discharged our duty to substance by providing a rigorous romanization at the outset? Your phobia of the LCD is perplexing. While maintaining its standards for quality of research, ought Wikipedia not be accessible, and indeed appealing, to the broadest literate audience? I doubt yielding on the macron issue will lead to our becoming the Springerpedia.--Monocrat 13:47, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Articles about Japanese topics are likely to also use other words in rōmaji apart from the page title. It's much better to consistently use macrons instead of cropping all words to short vowels and wrong pronunciations or overuse the nihongo template. Yet worse would be to use macrons for the first instace and then drop them – it would look unprofessional and confusing. Sometimes people don't read articles from the beginning.

Macrons actually do give extra information for the casual reader. They can prompt a curious person to learn more about the Japanese language and pronunciation. If a word has a widely known and used form in English, e.g. Tokyo or Julius Caesar, it is already preferred in the current Wikipedia style guidelines.

If you are really annoyed by how macrons look, you might alter your monobook.js to convert all letters with macrons to ones without them. (With "oo" "ou" this would be impossible.) In my opinion, essence is far more important than style, especially in an academic and well researched publication that Wikipedia should be. Any mirror is free to filter the articles into a more eye (or lowbrow?) friendly style. Have you noticed how ugly the reference indicators are? Yet they are essential. Wipe 09:49, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

The monobook suggestion is a good idea, and I'll look into it. However, I'm not opposed to macrons in all instances. It seems that the nihongo template pops or could up in most Japan articles, if only to provide the kanji/kana original, so inserting the macronned form there seems reasonable and sufficient from a scholarly perspective. That is what I mean by providing the macronned form at the outset. Reference indicators are annoying, and essential. Macrons are simply not necessary in every instance of a word. Having high standards doesn't mean we have to make things a chore for the uninitiated.--Monocrat 13:47, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
"Macrons are simply not necessary in every instance of a word." It may not be your intention, but I interpret this to mean that "it is not necessary in every instance to spell a word correctly". Two quick examples that I often see used incorrectly include "to / too / two" and "there / their / they're". If you do not distinguish them in every instance, it is simply wrong. Same with macrons. That does not mean that spelling mistakes do not happen on Wikipedia. If an editor finds correct spelling "a chore", they are always free to spell it however they wish. As with all spelling mistakes, others will correct it. Bendono 14:09, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
This argument has been played to death and I am still much more against the "macron it because it's right" argument than the "let's macron things" proposal/decision. As has been mentioned ad nauseum, the spelling argument only holds if you view English to have an infinite amount of possible letters. If you want to be consistent and say it has 26 letters, you don't use the macron. ワープロ romanization doesn't result in information loss. Dekimasu 04:13, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
English does not have 26 letters. English does not even have an alphabet. The most common script employed to write English is a heavily modified version of the Latin script. There are upper and lower case variations of letters. Those alone exceed 26 letters. Historically you will also find thorn, eth, yogh, ash and other letters. Macrons and other diacritics are heavily used in writing Old English. I gave this list before: English words with diacritics. I count a great deal more than 26 letters. The 26-letter English world simply does not exist. Bendono 06:34, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
The list is populated by words which haven't been fully integrated into the English language. When they are fully integrated they lose their diacritics. Many of the words on the list are just as common without diacritics as with them; when used with diacritics, many of the words on the list are italicized to highlight the fact that they aren't English. My dictionary has 26 sections. Uppercase and lowercase is a shell argument. If you want to call it 52 letters, so be it. A macron is not correct, it is a choice. Dekimasu 07:04, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
I must disagree with your opinion those words are not fully integrated into English. Words are used within a context. When that context is English, those words are just as much English as any other words. Spelling too is a choice. Try this sentence: "To day eye went two too stores and bought to packages of meet witch I will cook to knight." Do you approve of this spelling? Does "correcting" it help you interpret it? Professional, scholarly, academic or not, does this pass here on Wikipedia? And why? This is just as unacceptable for the same reasons as missing macrons. I do not mind people submitting such text. However, I would like the opportunity to fix it. Same with macrons. Bendono 07:44, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
As Rhialto mentioned, there are many different standards for romanizing Japanese words. Macrons are not required to correctly transliterate Japanese names, although they are required under the current guideline. Jecowa 16:12, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Language, including spelling, is governed by the conventional usage of its speakers and writers. So, you would be right if there were not numerous standards or if there were one of either: a definitive convention of usage among the Japanese themselves, or in lieu thereof an official ordinance from the Government of Japan for a definitive romanization. Please point to either of those to establish what is correct. In fact, from the links provided in Hepburn romanization, the Japanese Land and Foreign Ministries seemingly collapse long vowels to single O and U. Anyone know what the Education Ministry says?--Monocrat 16:35, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
If you really want an official government ordinance then it would be Kunrei-siki. Notice the differences especially in the t- and s- sounds. Long vowels are distinguished (with a circumflex). Bendono 21:30, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
There are a lot of different standards one could stick to, and I'd be happy with most of them. But we need to pick a standard and stick to it. I am soooo tired of arguing this. The point is not to push some kind of macronization agenda. The point is to push an agenda of standardization and consistency. Do you have a problem with standardization and consistency? LordAmeth 09:16, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
I hope that response is not targeted directly at me. I think you and I pretty much agree on romanization and macrons. And I fully agree with picking a standard and being consistent. Monocrat asked for "an official ordinance from the Government of Japan" and that would be Kunrei-siki. I am satisfied with Hepburn (which distinguishes between short and long vowels). Bendono 11:37, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
No, no. I'm sorry. That was not directed at you, that was directed at Jecowa (who I have nothing against personally, for the record). LordAmeth 18:15, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I just noticed that the article on Riki Choshu (長州力) is now at "Riki Chōshū." Chōshū! LOL. Tell me this is a bad joke.... --61.198.211.5 10:18, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd never heard of this person by any name or with any spelling. So why are you LOL? One possibility I can think of is the absurdity of (a) bothering with the precision and/or pedantry (if that's how you see it) of using macrons while (b) making the elementary gaffe of putting the name back to front (after all, he's not 力長州 but 長州力). Is this it? -- Hoary 10:29, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Choshu is a very famous pro-wrestler in Japan. What's funny is that every freaking Japanese person is given a strange macroned name just because some ignorant gaikokujn doesn't know about him/her. Romaji fundamentalism could be really funny sometimes..... Seriously, if you have no idea about something, just leave its name alone. --61.198.211.5 12:43, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
So what do you have against being funny, then? These things are always negotiable. Wipe 13:02, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't follow what you're saying at all. Not every freaking Japanese person whose name has 長音 is given a macronned name, strange or otherwise; e.g. I called 十文字美信 plain "Jumonji" as this is how he consistently romanizes his own name. Ignorant gaikokujin though I am, I had nothing to do with the renaming of Riki Chōshū; what makes you think that the person who did it was ignorant of either the man or the pronunciation of 長州? But if what you call "romaji fundamentalism" is "really funny" and has you "LOL", then that's all to the good, is it not? -- Hoary 14:05, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
I know who he is. I am not a fan, but he's on a lot of variety TV shows in Japan. Whether you like it or not, his (stage) name is Chōshū Riki. The macrons correctly reflect how the name is spelled in Japanese. For me, that is the end of the debate and I am satisfied. However, I did not change it. (You can find out who by looking at the history page.) As per the guidelines here, if you feel he is well known outside of Japan in English by another spelling, then you can make that argument and probably get the name changed. I suggest discussing it on the Talk:Riki_Chōshū page where others familiar with him can decide. Bendono 14:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
I thought that macrons couldn't indicate Japanese spelling in cases of "ō" which could represent「おう」or「おお」. Isn't that right? Jecowa 16:12, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
That, in fact, is the only drawback to using macrons, and as other have indicated, those who care about it will be able to figure it out pretty easily. And for the macrons themselves, they conveny the appropriate information to those who care about it, and those who don't will simply ignore them. It's a happy medium. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:14, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
I thought that "a happy medium" was why macrons were being used in the article text, but not in the article title, per the brokered agreement that you wrote this spring. Dekimasu 04:13, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Since then, discussion has determined that there is no logical reason to not use them in the titles of articles. As long as proper redirects are created (and in most cases they are), then finding them is not an issue. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:15, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
I apologize if you didn't like my changes to Riki Choshu articles, but I don't appreciate the intimation that I don't know what I'm talking about. I may not know much about wrestling, but I definitely know that 長州 is "ちょうしゅう" and not "ちょしゅ". Do whatever the hell you want with these wrestling articles; I'm tired of arguing with you people. Just please don't accuse me of not understanding the Japanese language, history, or culture. LordAmeth 09:16, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitrary division 2

There seems to me to be an eminently logical reason to avoid macrons: they're officially sanctioned for at most use in the Japanese rail system. Thank you, Bendono, for providing me the information about Kunrei-siki. I have thought on the matter, and it seems only just that if we defer to the French Academy (and other such institutes) to determine the spelling and rules of their languages, we must defer to the Cabinet of Japan. The Cabinet obviously prefer Kunrei-siki (and I ever so slightly prefer the circumflex to the macron), so that system leads the pack, and people truly worried about spelling should prefer it. (I note it's also the ISO standard.) The Cabinet, however, has presumably also approved Passport Hepburn (and possibly also Railway Hepburn). Deferring to the Cabinet leaves us with either the general way of romanizing Japnese or the the manner meant for foreign consumption and comprehension of Japanese. In lieu of a popular convention on the matter, deference to the Cabinet seems the best way to go. If we want to "spell" Japanese in the strictest sense possible, Kunrei-siki; if we want to "spell" it correctly but make it accessible to the whole world--as the Foreign Ministry does on its website[[1]]--Passport Hepburn is the way. In any case, in terms of article prose, macrons seem to me to belong at most in rail-related articles.--Monocrat 01:56, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Changing to the Kunreishiki system is such a bad idea it's not even worth contemplating. Just because it is officially sanctioned does not mean that it is worthy of use on Wikipedia. God knows why they the Japanese government insists on teaching it in schools. Any speaker of English attempting to pronounce a romanised Japanese word for the first time will pronounce "Tu" incorrectly as "Too" and "Si" as "See" every time. Hepburn romanisation is used widely in academic texts (not only on the railways) because it allows native English speakers to best approximate Japanese pronunciation. It's the best system and we should stick with it. Bobo12345 08:53, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
When "they" teach Kunreisiki in "their" schools, I don't suppose "they" are primarily thinking of its immediate benefit to "any speaker of English". But really, the pros and (considerable) cons of Kunreisiki and Hepburn are so well known and already so laboriously described on WP that all this surely doesn't have to be regurgitated here. -- Hoary 10:44, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, when I said "they" I meant the Japanese government and Mombusho, who I don't happen to hold in very high regard. And shouldn't Mombusho be primarily thinking of "speakers of English", since surely that's what they want the students to become? Anyway, I agree this argument is not productive to the project, so let's not bother going round in circles. Bobo12345 12:48, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I see no reason why Monbusho should pay any particular attention to the needs of native speakers of English when deciding which romanization scheme to employ when teacher English to native speakers of Japanese. Equally, I see no reason to pay any attention to a policy set by an organisation dedicated to the needs of native speakers of Japanese, when our audience are primarily native speakers of English. Rhialto 13:17, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Teaching English and teaching romanization are separate issues, but for what it's worth, English students are taught to write their names neither with macrons nor in kunreishiki... that is, in the standard English form. Dekimasu 14:05, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I repeat my question. How is anything created for a Japanese audience relevant to anything created for an Anglophone audience? There's no real causality involved here, just coincidence, and so no reason to use practices in one as justification for practices in the other. Rhialto 15:18, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
(Breaking indent) If we're truly interested in "spelling" Japanese correctly, as Ameth and I believe Bendono have stated, then Kunrei-siki is the way to go. As has been noted before, not employing the established diacrits—their intelligibility to anglophones notwithstanding—for Polish and Hungarian etc results in misspelling. We use the "gli" in Italian, the "ll" in Spanish, all of which are official sanction but foreign to anglophones. Thus, cries that Kunrei-siki is horrendous for anglophones amount to special pleading. To Rhialto, beyond that, I'm far less keen on Kunrei-siki than on Passport Hepburn, which is used by the Foreign Ministry for foreign—especially anglophone—consumption. Why is what's good enough for the Foreign Ministry of Japan not good enough for Wikipedia? My interest is making articles appealing and intelligible to anglophones: We can still use macrons. people, by treating them like IPA pronunciations and use them once in an article. But if we don't want intelligibility or accessibility but instead want "correct" spelling, then we should be consistent with other languages' and use Kunrei-siki.--Monocrat 16:10, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
fwiw, I just finished asking around 3 different schools I work at, and the consensus appears to be Hepburn is the best system to use for consonants, but to write out vowels word processor style.
Personally, regarding consonants, Hepburn is the only sensible option - Huzi is just incomprehensible. What Monbusho (education ministry) says is not relevant, as both their audience and their purpose is at odds with ours. Mofa is more relevant. They require Passport Hepburn (optionally including oh for おう). Hepburn is also the official standard for road signs and de facto standard in many other contexts. I don't know of any source which specifies which, if any, of the Hepburn standards is to be used in official documents.
For vowels, the situation is less clear-cut.dropping the macrons (and circumflexes) was a unanimous opinion in my albeit unscientific survey. The inconvenience of typing these is to me just an extra reason to drop them, and Hepburn does have an option for allowing them to be dropped (vowel doubling). In addition, many schools and offices in Japan, even today, do not have the necessary software installed to display macrons properly. The specific method my co-workers favour (kana spelling for vowels) is in fact recognised as a common variation for Hepburn. I think, if we were voting, Hepburn consonants with kana spelling vowels would be my choice. Rhialto 07:02, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Nothing personal, but I'm not interested in what is or isn't the consensus among your colleagues, my colleagues, or anybody else's colleagues, at least as long as they don't provide their arguments. What Monbusho (education ministry) says is not relevant: I agree with you there, if only because Monbushō (or however you care to spell it) hasn't existed for five years. (And I thought that I was out of date.....) The inconvenience of typing [letters with macrons] is to me just an extra reason to drop them. If you haven't already set up editor to do this in a more convenient way, copy the little string āĀēĒīĪōŌūŪ into any page you're working on, copy from that to taste. In addition, many schools and offices in Japan, even today, do not have the necessary software installed to display macrons properly. I find this extremely hard to believe. The huge majority of Japanese schools and offices are in thrall to (i) Micro$oft, and (ii) the notion that any old computer hardware is in deadly danger of exploding or being taken over by "viruses". 'Doze 2000 (and NT?) and above handle unicode, browsers for them handle UTF-8, OSes come with fonts that handle these characters. If they're really stuck with some atrocity such as Windows Me, you might suggest Kubuntu: it handles these fonts, and the price is right. -- Hoary 07:25, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, I didnt point out that it was an unscientific survey of my colleagues. I didn't provide their arguments to this forum, as I didn't think they were sufficiently notable to cite formally. But seeing as my colleagues are teachers, it seemed a reasonable start on a direct rebuttal of the claim that only kunrei-shiki is used to teach kids here. As for monbusho, of course I meant the current successor of that body. To insist I meant otherwise is to deliberately find straw men to attack instead of my real point. I hope that wasn't your intent.
The bit about schools and offices is quite true however. Between the schools I work at this year and the 20 or so I did last year, the overwhelming majority still use windows 98, and do not have any font installed that will correctly render a macronned vowel. Yeah, that's just personal observation, but I'd like to see you provide scientific evidence to the contrary if you really are going to insist Japan is fully modernised on this specific aspect. And you're right I could suggest various software upgrades. I doubt they'd listen though. My experience with Japan and technology is that it's a mix of high tech and low comedy.
Between several universities, companies and many individuals, I have not seen a single computer in the last six years using Windows 98 in Japan. As a programmer, I do a lot with computers. Windows 2000 was incredibly popular and since then most systems have moved to XP. I realize that does not mean it does not exist though. However, I must point out that Windows 98 (as well as ME) are dead. Microsoft support, including extended support, is officially over: [2]. Just for fun though I installed Windows 98 SE (English). It installs with IE5. I visited several webpages with macrons and other diacritics. The default install had no problems displaying them. It did have trouble displaying Japanese though. That was fixed by downloading the global IME: [3]. Of course IE6 is available for both Windows 98 and ME, too. Bendono 20:22, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Official support from product X and installed user base of product X are not the same thing. Maybe it's an issue that appears only for the Japanese version of windows 98? Istr the English version comes with extra support files for most latin-script languages (I know of 2 exceptions). I do know the 2 versions come supplied with different fonts. This macron support is a genuine issue for me; those words with macrons are essentially impossible to read from the computers at the schools I work at. I guess this amounts to a unicode vs ascii debate. There is of course a massive installed unicode user base nowadays, but on the other hand, using macrons is using a very strict version of a standard, which has many more user-friendly standards, mostly for a style issue. It's style vs. accessability. It's worth noting here that most pages that include unicode characters also include a template notice that such characters are include and the page may not display properly.
As more purely observational evidence, all street signs in my area, where romanized, use Hepburn except that vowel length is completely unmarked with either macrons, circumflexes, or doubled vowels. Rhialto 08:36, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Including long i (ie "ii")? Long i seems to be consistantly written "ii" for both people and place names in and out of Japan. It is only long u (ū) and long o (ō) that is debatable. Bendono 20:34, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
There weren't any examples locally that could test the long 'i' issue. However, Iidabashi is reasonably well known, and the 'ii' spelling is not in doubt there. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rhialto (talk • contribs) .
If I understand you correctly, you do recognize long vowels (ii in Iidabashi); it is only macrons that you dislike. Would you be satisfied if (not proposing) ū and ō were written "uu" and "oo"? Does it not seem strange or inconsistent to recogonize "ii" but not other long vowels? Bendono 01:34, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

(breaking indent) As I understand it, the ministry of transport signs show long vowels as "ii" for that vowel (doubling "i"), but show neither macron nor any form of doubled vowel for "o" or "u" (I hae no specific information for a or e). That isn't something I have personally advocated; it's what is used in practice by the Japanese government, or one branch of it anyway. Personally, I'd like to see all vowels written out as doubled as the standard transliteration system, with appropriate exceptions for those words that have an established English spelling already (major cities, official translations of company names, self-chosen names of famous people and so on). The macrons fall foul of teh accessibility issue to me.

It's nice that the latest browsers can handle unicode and macrons specifically, but there genuinely is an established user base in Japan which can't handle macrons, and that user base is of specific relevance to articles on Japan, which would be affected by major use of macrons. Rhialto 05:09, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

You don't need the latest browsers. IE5 was released in 1999. I can test the Japanese version of Win98 next week. I suspect there is something wrong with your setup. There are many free alternatives, both browers and OSs. Win95, 98, and ME are unsupported. Use at your own risk. In any case, how far back do you suggest we go? I used to read websites over telnet. Of course it could not display images or fancy formating. Have you used the text version of Links_(web_browser)? Should we remove all images from Wikipedia? Some people may still not have fonts for Japanese. Perhaps we should remove the {{nihongo}} template as well. I just created a tool to fetch raw data from URLs. While it has Unicode support and displays text just fine, unfortuately it can not render HTML. Should I expect Wikipedia to accommedate me? I couldn't access the Internet from Windows 3.0 (or was it 2.0?). For the sake of those unfortuate souls, perhaps we should take Wikipedia offline and take it to printing presses. Bendono 06:04, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
That is a strawman argument and you know it. Images have methods for degrading gracefully (alt tags to give textual descriptions of the image) when the page is read by older browsers, so even though older browsers can't read images, they do not render the information useless. The system used for macrons, as currently being inserted into pages, does NOT degrade gracefully in older browsers, so the issue is quite different. If some method were provided so they would degrade gracefully without any special effort on the part of the reader, my main gripe against macrons would go away. Rhialto 10:15, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, stepping aside from the issue of computer support: if we are not interested in what our colleagues use, then in what are we interested in? Exact spelling of Japanese in a roman script, as determined by the competent authority? Then per Polish and other Easter European practice, we should employ Kunrei-siki. Something intelligible to all anglophones (natives and learners, specialists and generalist) and which is used by the Japanese government itself for foreign consumption? Then Passport Hepburn. Again, with the possible exception of rail-related articles, I don't see that macrons have any reasonable basis for universal use in Wikipedia's Japan articles.--Monocrat 00:51, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I prefer and use Kunrei-siki. It is closer to the phonological (as opposed to phonetic) structure of Japanese. However, that is not the reality that we live in. Either with or without macrons, Hepburn is the de facto standard in published texts. I am interested in spelling Japanese as spelled in professional published texts.
Japanese is a language. It is independent of the Japanese government. Technically, Japan does not even have an offical languge. Likewise, English is language. It is independent of the many, many nations where it is spoken and written. As someone pointed out before, Wikipedia does not regulate between British and American spelling. Spelling is not for the Japanese government to dictate. Bendono 01:25, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Bendono, I personally agree that languages exist independent of their regulators. But go to France and use irregular forms en masse. People will understand you, as you pointed out earlier, but if you defy the Academy, you risk making yourself a fool. Regulators matter, not least since governments use regulated forms. If there were a popular convention among the Japanese in favor of macrons, I would gladly defer to them, since I feel convention matters more than regulation. While there might not be a law or cabinet order designating it as such, the very act of regulating a language establishes its defacto officiality (slight contradiction there, but...). Who needs to designate a tongue as official when all but a sliver of the population speak it? Now, to your other points. English is entirely unregulated, so there is only popular convention to defer to, and there is no universal convention among anglophones, so Wikipedia doesn't choose between them. Anyway, I can live with Kunrei-siki for the reasons you listed, but I would prefer Passport Hepburn: it's official and the defacto standard in generalist anglophone publications, and if Wikipedia is to counter systemic biases, that should be our criterion. Ideally in my estimation, an article would begin as such: "Hokkaido (北海道 Hokkaidō?) is the northernmost of the four main islands of Japan. Originally named Etorofu, Hokkaido was colonized late in the nineteenth century amid maneuvering between the Japanese and Russian governments..." We would also be following practice at the Arabic style manual, which requires a strict transliteration in the article's lead, and standard translations elsewhere.--Monocrat 15:50, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Whether it is Hepburn or Kunrei-siki, both systems specifically distinguish between short and long vowels. Whether it be a circumflex, a macron, or two vowels, the distinction needs to be made consistently. As Hepburn is the de facto standard in English texts, then macrons it is. That is the way it is and has been for many years in published English books. If there is ever a general consensus to change to another romanizaiton system, then we'll have something to discuss. By the way, would you please clarify your statement that Passport Hepburn is official? Bendono 16:43, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Bendono, there is no case for macrons 1) outside of the lead of articles generally, and 2) outside of rail-related articles. None. Yes, Hepburn is a loose defacto in English usage, and academics use macrons, but Wikipedia is not an academic publication. Neither The Economist, the Times of London nor the New York Times uses macrons. Show me an English-language newspaper or encyclopedia or non-academic publication that uses macrons as the universal default for Japan-related articles, and I can point to several that do not. Bendono, are we addressing academics or the general population? Should we tailor this for PhDs or high school graduates?
One more time: Passport Hepburn is official as it is used on official documents by the Foreign Ministry as a standard that is specifically meant for foreign, particularly anglophone, consumption. I find it interesting that there is nary a macron in sight at mofa.go.jp, not even for Messers Koizumi and Aso. (A Google-test turned up exactly zero instances of "ō" on that site.) Western academic practice, i.e. macrons, is simply and utterly irrelevant in the face of 1) the generalist audience of Wikipedia, 2) overwhelming conventional usage by anglophones, and 3) the practice of the Japanese state. The Government of Japan itself doesn't care to distinguish long from short vowels (except EI for えい and optionally OH for おう, and perhaps II for いい, I'm unsure) in addressing anglophones, so why should we?--Monocrat 18:04, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
For god's sake, why is it so hard to understand that this is about accurate spelling? There is no reason for us to stoop to the level of mispelling things to appeal to the general masses; we're an encyclopedia - a scholarly collection of knowledge - and we ought to start acting like one. Just as there is a difference between Grolier or World Book and Brittanica, so there is a difference between random sloppy websites and Wikipedia. Take a look at any scholarly journal focusing on Japan, any Japanese Encyclopedia (e.g. the one published by Kodansha), any work that focuses more on getting things right than on making it accessible to the lowest common denominator, and you'll see macrons or some other appropriate method of romanization.

[edit] Arbitrary division 3

I don't care what the NY Times uses, I don't care what 5000 random websites on Google use, and I honestly don't even care what the Japanese government uses. What you propose is deliberate mass mispelling, distorting and perverting words to make them look nicer to Anglophone eyes; you're proposing the elimination of valid and valuable linguistic information. Ningyo and Ningyō are different words, and Ono no Azumabito and Ōno no Azumabito are different people. Spellings like Choshu (ちょしゅ) or Hokkaido (ほっかいど)(instead of Chōshū 長州 and Hokkaidō 北海道) are just as wrong as the Western perversion Iappon, Tokio, Meaco... and yet you're alright with the former, but not the latter, which are seen as old-fashioned, colonial, and deprecated. Why? Why be alright with one form of destructive linguistic bastardization and not another? Again, I point out that any respectable scholarly source will reflect the kana spellings accurately, in one way or another. LordAmeth 20:35, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

We can spell accurately without macrons. This is not a misspelling. The people who understand macrons are knowledgeable enough to look after themselves. The macron form of a subject's name can be preserved in parenthesis as is done with Tōkyō in the Tokyo article. Common usage is a guideline on Wikipedia. A Google test is the primary method given for determining this. The guideline states, "When choosing a name for a page ask yourself: What word would the average user of the Wikipedia put into the search engine?" Jecowa 02:35, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Again, we disagree. It is inaccurate without the macrons. The {{nihongo}} template is exactly that: nihongo, not English. Also, that template only occurs once a page. Should I have to click on each and ever link just to figure out the correct spelling of other terms used on that page? Google is a great search engine. However, most published books are not available online. Go to a library and read some more books. A great many really do use macrons. It is not something that I am trying to force only on Wikipedia. And as an average user, I actually do search first with macrons. In the past I had very little success; that has slowly been improving lately. In any case, we do have and recommend appropriate redirects. Bendono 02:48, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
The nihongo template seems to contain a lot of English, such as the literal translation and the historical name of Tokyo. Perhaps the nihongo template needs to be modified so non-Japanese words can be included in the same parenthesis without being inside the nihongo template tag. People who don't know macrons also have to click the wiki link of an article to see the pronunciation. Why should the style used on Wikipedia ignore the common usage guideline just to provide a small convenience to the few who understand macrons? I believe "average" refers to the mode in this case. In any case, most average users will not perform searches with queries containing macrons. Most average users would not even know how to type a macron. Jecowa 03:15, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
The nihongo template does not help for terms that are not the main topic of the page. For those words, you would need to click on each and every link to find the nihongo template. A person who does not know macrons (or other diacritics for that matter) does not need to click on extra links to be able to read and understand words with macrons. When I encounter English words like café, crème brûlée, déjà vu, smörgåsbord, or voilà, I do not really know what the diacritics mean. However, I simply ignore them and continue to understand the word. I can not infer those diacritics from their absence. They must mean something to someone. My inability to understand them does not mean that I should try to remove them. Please do not try to speak for others. I can only speak for myself. However, Wikipedia does try to accommadate those who search without macrons with redirects. Bendono 03:32, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Cafe can be correctly spelled without diacritics. Also café is easier to type than Cafē. The acute accent can be typed with the default U.S. Roman keyboard layout. This is also true of the circumflex, the grave accent, and the umlaut. Typing a macron requires switching to the U.S. Extended Unicode keyboard layout. Don't you believe that most users use their default keyboard layout? Even if everyone did know how to type macrons, most would not know where to place the macrons. As you mentioned above, even you, Bendono, don't know where all the macrons go. The naming convention states, "Since 'Jimmy Carter' is the most common form of the name, it will be searched on more often, and having that exact string in our page title will often mean our page shows up higher in other search engines." The un-macronned form is a correct way to transliterate people's names. The convention says that we want to maximize the number of people brought to Wikipedia by choosing the form they are most likely to search for. Jecowa 04:25, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
I can not (or at least do not know how to) type acute accents, circumflex, grave accent, or umlaut with my default US keyboard. However, you do not need a special keyboard layout: Wikipedia provides them all (and many more) for simple inputting under all edit screens. The above words were taken from English words with diacritics. I did not choose them. I said that I do not know where the acute accent, circumflex, grave accent, or umlaut goes. I do know where macrons belong though. Again, you are trying to speak for others about what is most common. I read through my Kodansha encylopedia and note that without exception all personal names and places use macrons where appropriate. I want to search for more inforation, so I check the same spelling in Wikipedia. Without the macrons, I may not find it. And even if I do, it does not match my sources. There needs to be consistency. Bendono 04:43, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
The New York Times and many other publications have a non-diacritic policy. Kodansha's English encyclopedia consistently uses macrons without exception for places, people, and even so-called "English words". Encarta is generally consistent about using macrons. Here are but a few links:
Academic or not, Wikipedia needs to be professional and spell words correctly and consistently. I gave this sentence earlier for thought: "To day eye went two too stores and bought to packages of meet witch I will cook to knight." Understandable? Yes, with a little extra work. Do I want to read it? No. I do note that all of the words are in the dictionary. Our target should be inclusive of both the general population and academia. It is easy to ignore macrons. However, it is much more difficult to infer a missing macron.Bendono 01:00, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry about saying that you do not know where macrons belong, Bendono. I misunderstood and thought you meant that you couldn't infer macrons and the other diacritics. About the user reading the "Kodansha encyclopedia." Why would this user have trouble finding it without the macrons? Wouldn't the redirects point this user to the appropriate place? How is Wikipedia supposed to match everyone's sources? Jecowa 20:53, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
As we have been discussing, there are multiple forms that these words appear in: with and without macrons. The form appearing with macrons is more accurate. The form removing the macrons is less accurate. There is no resistance to long "ii" ([Niigata], Iidabashi). While it is unfortunate that macrons were decided upon for other vowels, that is the reality that we live in now. If you insist on not distinguishing between long vowels, then should we change Niigata to *Nigata? Or Iidabashi to Idabashi? I want consistency. When there are multiple forms of a word, then I want to use the most accurate form. Less accurate forms should be redirected to more accurate forms, not the other way around.
English words of Japanese origin are not the only words with macrons. A quick search came up with the following subset: Māori, Māori language, Ngā Mānawa, Tāne, Kākāriki, Kākā, Pāṇini, Devanāgarī, Brāhmī, Pāli, Apadāna. These words come from languages that require distinction between short and long vowels in the same way that Japanese does. I am sure that you can find alternative spellings as well. However, it is a matter of accuracy. Wikipedia as a reference. Accuracy and consistency are important. Bendono 00:21, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
You've previously said that you do not support macrons due to phonetic value, so I don't understand how you can employ the argument of distinguishing between long and short vowels here. Also, you successfully chose an article title (the one that starts with a p) that appears to contain a box on my IE on (Japanese) Windows XP. I think that shows exactly the kind of thing that we want to avoid. And separately, the macrons do not render correctly on my up-to-date Mac Firefox either. Dekimasu 04:13, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

(breaking indent) If you want more accurate to Japanese spelling, you should be dropping Hepburn entirely and going for some kind of waapuro romaji. If you want accuracy to official standards actually in use, Hepburn with no macrons, as per ministery of transport, is what you should be advocating, or perhaps Hepburn as used in passports, with that funky 'oh' for おう. If you want accuracy to Japanese pronunciation, you should be advocating IPA, not any kind of romanization scheme. English orthography's most notorious characteristic is an utter failure to bear more than the most superficial resemblance to pronunciation, and trying to force it to is silly and lame. Rhialto 01:36, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I use what is used in published books. It is not my place to decide to use waapuro rōmaji. Hepburn uses macrons; it does not remove them. Passports do not use macrons because many decades ago some countries could not handle them. Wikipedia is not a passport. I am all for spelling English in IPA. However, again that is not my call. Macrons are not about pronunciation. English spelling is not about pronunciation. Notice that we distinguish between "to, too, two", "night, knight", "which, witch", "be, bee", "wood, would", and many other such words. There is no need for it at present, and yet it is accurate and correct. It is not our place to change that now. The reality is that Japanese terms in English are written in Hepburn. It is fairly consistent, especially when compared to English spelling. Removing macrons introduces inconsistency and is less accurate. It is not our place to suggest spelling reforms. We must work within the present system. Bendono 02:24, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
It's all very well noting that various academic journals and encyclopediae use macrons. But equally, a fair number of atlases do not, and the vast majority of ordinary people, and all of the Japanese government publications and signs, do not. Outside of the ivory towers, no one really uses macrons for Japanese. You're only part-right in saying that Japanese terms are written in Hepburn. Specifically, Japanese, as used in all official literature, uses Hepburn without macrons (or apostrophes); a variant of standard Hepburn. You say removing macrons introduces inconsitency. I say it is inconsistent (and therefore less accurate and introduces confusion) with existing Japanese practice when they write Japanese words in this script of ours. Rhialto 04:33, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It is a reference. It is important to be accurate and precise. English translations of Japanese literature often do use macrons (Genji and Heike come to mind immediately). Of course it depends on what kind of literature you read, too. The scope of Wikipedia is Wikipedia itself. Whatever we decide here will not change Japanese street signs. Bendono 05:52, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
eta: Even if the vast majority of Anglophone-produced literature used macrons (not true; it's mostly used by academia), wikipedia policy states that self-identification trumps everything else in what name to use. And Japan's current self-identification for all place names is to use Hepburn while dropping macrons and apostrophes. [4] [5] [6] [7] Every government site I can find seems to avoid macrons. That's pretty conclusive as far as self-identification goes. Rhialto 04:54, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
And yet when you arrive at train stations at most of those places you will find macrons. One form is more accurate than the other. We have had this conversation many times now. I do not think there is anything new to debate here that has not already been said. Bendono 05:52, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Train stations may refer to themselves with the macrons, but as Rhialto mentioned, most (if not all) Japanese government sites don't use them [8]. Thenaming conflict guide says, "Where self-identifying names are in use, they should be used within articles." Also, as Nihonjoe mentioned, The Manual of Style (Japan-related articles) states in the first sentence of the first section, "The en:Wikipedia is an English language encyclopedia. An English loan word or place name with a Japanese origin should be used in its most commonly used English form in the body of an article, even if it is pronounced or spelled differently from the properly romanized Japanese." Where is the guideline that says that words unknown by most English speakers must be romanized using macrons for use in articles? The naming conventions says to "Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things." Most Google tests will show that macroned forms are less common than the un-macroned forms. It doesn't matter if editors prefer macrons or what scholarly texts use. Guidelines say to use the most common form. Jecowa 06:45, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Outside of the exceptions listed in the WP:MOS-JA, the MOS-JA guideline is to be used for all Japanese on Wikipedia. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 07:35, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
日本穣, does this mean that Wikipedia:Naming_conventions and Wikipedia:Naming_conflict may not be applied to the naming of the article titles of any subject whose name originated in Japan? Jecowa 08:09, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Did I write that? I don't see where I wrote that. Please re-read the WP:MOS-JA. It's very clear on this very subject. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 08:29, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I was just wondering if you meant that the WP:MOS-JA should be used exclusively or not. I thought your point was that I shouldn't be trying to apply those guides. I don't understand your point. Could you please go into more detail on your 08:09, 21 November 2006 (UTC) post listed three comments above this one? P.S. Thank you for arbitrary divisions. Jecowa 08:40, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
No guidelines on WP are used exclusively of other guidelines. As I said, outside of the exceptions clearly spelled out on the the page, WP:MOS-JA covers all Japanese usage on Wikipedia. That's the whole point of the guideline: to provide clarification on Japanese usage in articles. In this case, these guidelines are very clear about when macrons should be used, and when it's acceptable to not use them. I really don't understand why every few months someone goes ballistic over something when it's already covered by the MOS-JA. Please read it carefully. This discussion is already covered there. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 09:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
As a further clarification, the original complaint in this insanely long thread was that "the Japanese people themselves rarely use macrons." This is irrelevant. This WP is the English Wikipedia, and the style guidelines specified by MOS-JA only apply here, not on the Japanese Wikipedia. Therefore, whether the Japanese use them or not is irrelevent to most or all of this discussion. These guidelines are meant to help accurately reflect Japanese using a modified Hepburn romanization scheme. Those who understand the meaning of the macrons will find what they need, and those who don't will either click on the little question mark or ignore the macrons altogether.
This is a win-win situation. Sure, it may be a little (only a very little) more difficult to enter a macronned letter, but the end result is an encyclopedia that is useful to both the lay person and the person with a more in-depth understanding of Japan and Japanese. Wikipedia aims to be useful to as wide an audience as possible, and this accomplishes that purpose. If you read through the archives, you'll see that most (if not all) of the arguments being brought up here have been discussed to death multiple times. The current state of the MOS-JA was arrived at after intense discussion and debate, and it was determined that:
  1. There is no logical reason to avoid using macrons as the wiki software now supports them (for over a year now).
  2. Almost all browsers and operating systems in use for the last several years support the use of UTF-8 characters, and can display them with little or no adjustments by the end user.
  3. Using the macrons provides additional information for those interested, and the macrons can be (and will be) ignored by anyone else.
  4. Using macrons is not difficult as all of those used for Japanese transliteration are available underneath every edit box on the site.
Even with all that, exceptions have been built in to the MOS-JA to accomdate words which are commonly used in English without macrons. It's actually fairly well thought out. On top of that, all this bickering over personal preferences (some like macrons, others don't, and others are indifferent) doesn't help the project any. A lot of time was put into the current MOS-JA, and so far, I haven't seen a solid, valid reason for changing the part which addresses macrons. Discussing whether individual exceptions should be made is fine, but attacking the hard work of a large number of editors who spent months (and some of them, years) working things out to cover the largest number of possiblities without making the MOS-JA so huge and unweildy as to render it useless—that's just completely unnecessary.
What is all boils down to is this: There are exceptions to the MOS-JA, and there will likely be a few more added as time goes by. However, scrapping the whole of the macron usage part of it is completely pointless and counterproductive. Yes (as I indicated before), entering macrons takes a very slight amount of extra time, but in the end, it produces an encyclopedia that is useful to a larger number of people. Again, that's the whole point of Wikipedia: to be as useful as possible to the largest number of people as possible. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 09:42, 21 November 2006 (UTC)


I like your numbering system for different points, 日本穣. As you can see, the subject of a pair of the same numbers is the same. For example, "2" is about macrons in computer compatibility, "3" is the usefulness of macrons, "4" is about the difficulty of typing macrons, etc.
  1. There is no good reason to include macrons in article titles. The best I've heard is to allow those that understand to view the pronunciation without clicking the link to the article.
  2. Not all computers display macrons. It looks terrible to have the title of an article garbled for the users without computers with that ability.
  3. Macrons give extra information those who understand them. This information can be preserved in the first sentence of an article as is done in the Tokyo article. This is good enough.
  4. Entering macrons can be difficult. The characters in the character input table are too small to allow easy distinction between characters such õ and ō, which look nearly identical (if not identical) at this point size and font. The point size used for the text-input box is slightly smaller than the size in the article.
  5. MOS (Japan-related articles) says to use the "most commonly used English form." This is not usually the macron form.
  6. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) says, "When choosing a name for a page ask yourself: What word would the average user of the Wikipedia put into the search engine?" Without the character input feature of Wikipedia, many users would not be able to search for with macrons.
  7. Self-reference, as Rhialto mentioned - most cities refer to themselves without the use of macrons in their English translations. I also believe that most Japanese people write their own names using English without macrons, but I don't really live around a lot of Japanese people.
Wikipedia article titles are supposed to reflect common usage, not prescribe more accurate names. Macrons lower the usefulness of Wikipedia by lowering the search rankings of the non-macron titles (which would only be redirects to the macron titles). Most people do not type macrons. This is why the default keyboard layouts don't allow for the typing of macrons, because most people don't use them. The majority of people will be searching in their search engines and the Wikipedia search box without macrons. Jecowa 10:47, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for the response, 日本穣. It was very well worded. As anyone reading my responses should know, I am very much in favor of macrons. I have continued to counter such comments as above because I felt that I needed to defend macrons. I know I have responded to each of those points already and there really is not anything new to say. As you wrote, as long as there are no serious thoughts being given to changing the guidelines, then I willing to give it a rest for a bit. If in the near future serious consideration is given for changing the guidelines, I would appreciate a notice. Thank you. Bendono 11:31, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Around and around we go (for as long as needed). Self-identifying names can be taken from the stations as well. Ōsaka / Osaka or Tōkyō / Tokyo is not a foreign loan word; it is a transliteration. You could translate it to "Great Hill" or "Eastern Capital" for English. A reasonably good example of a Japanese foreign loan word is "soy", which is to be preferred to the Japanese term shōyu. You are abusing the style guide. Bendono 06:57, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
You know, the obvious conclusion to draw from that supposed contradiction is that the stations identify themselves with the macroned forms, and the city, as a distinct entity in its own right, self-identifies using the non-macronned forms. they are two distinct entities, and just because one identifies itself in one way doesn't have any bearing on how the other identifies itself. Rhialto 07:40, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Time for an RfC?

I absolutely concur that there is no reason why macrons or circumflexes cannot be used in Wikipedia. I simply feel there is no logical reason for every instance of a word has to have diacrits when neither standard English usage nor official Japanese policy (again, defer to the French Academy, defer to the Japanese Cabinet) mandates it in this context. I think it is especially unproductive to redirect time and energy to making what I view as superfluous, hypercorrective changes to numerous articles, especially after the policy necessitating those changes has come under concerted attack. I have never suggested abolishing the macron in Japan articles. What I have suggested is that we follow practice at numerous fine anglophone publications and at the online English editions of the Asahi, the Yomiuri and the Foreign Ministry. This would generate policies parallel to those at MOS-Arabic and MOS-Chinese, in which the ultra-correct forms (academic transliterations and Hanji, respectively) are used only once or as needed in an article. A complaint about clicking links to find diacrit forms? Well, 1) there is a Find function on your browser, 2) per my suggestion, my diacrits would be in the lead, so you could just hit the Home button, 3) and tabbed browsing permits ready access to linked topics.

In any case, no one is suggesting that Wikipedia be anything other than professional, and frankly I dislike the imputation that I advocate sloppiness. The NYT is not sloppy. The Economist is not sloppy. The AP is not sloppy. The Foreign Ministry of Japan is not sloppy. Passport Hepburn is in no way, shape or form a misspelling, and the fact that it looses some phonetic information does not mitigate this truth. To borrow from Bendono: "Knight" reflects the sound of its word rather less well than "Taro Aso" does the name of the minister. ("English kehnigits," anyone?) Yet why is the first correct while the second, supposedly, is not?

I too want professionalism. We simply disagree on Wikipedia's profession: the academic knows enough to take care of himself (to borrow the blithe wording from MOS-JA; why make articles any more foreign to generalist readers? With all due respect to Nihonjoe and Bendono, I admire your tenacity here and your contributions elsewhere, but I think it would be appropriate to submit a Request for Comment to obtain outside opinions. I will be on Wikibreak over the coming days, but I will pursue this.--Monocrat 14:26, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I also don't think the NYT, Economist, or AP are sloppy, but rather they are uninformed or unaware, or that their specific manual of style discourages the practice of macrons. I think the latter is the most likely as it makes it easier for them to write about things if they don't have to bother using macrons or other diacritics. Chances are, they also don't use most of the diacritics used by languages such as Vietnamese and many of the Eastern European languages, yet we use them here on Wikipedia in many or most cases (depending on the topic and the language in question). The same thing goes for the various English-language papers in Japan: the style manual they use likely doesn't indicate they should use them, so they don't.
The case of Taro Aso falls under the exceptions built into the current WP:MOS-JA as Taro Aso is the most common way to write his name in English due to his prominence. I don't really think an RfC is necessary here. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 03:07, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
"there is no logical reason for every instance of a word has to have diacrits when neither standard English usage nor official Japanese policy ... mandates it in this context." – Yes there is. When reading or quoting text from an article, diacriticless words convey wrong or incomplete information. Also, there is a standard English usage, namely the encyclopedic and scholarly, that aplies here. This is an English encyclopedia, not a newspaper, passport, road sign or Japanese government publication.
"2) per my suggestion, my diacrits would be in the lead" – Only some of them would; the others needed would be in arbitrary places around the article or on some other page. Points 1 and 3 in your argument are totally against accessibility and usability.
"The NYT is not sloppy. The Economist is not sloppy. The AP is not sloppy. The Foreign Ministry of Japan is not sloppy." – Yes they are. They have just adopted a more sloppyness-tolerant approach that works well in their environments, but not in ours.
"Passport Hepburn is in no way, shape or form a misspelling, and the fact that it looses some phonetic information does not mitigate this truth." – Yes it is. It is a required misspelling for the international passport systems to be interoperable.
"why make articles any more foreign to generalist readers?" – We are dealing with a foreign language here. Unambiguity and comprehesibility are more important when the subject is inherently "foreign". Generalist readers can either ignore the macrons, like they probably do with other diacritics, or find out what they mean and increase their understanding. Wipe 15:50, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Not again...

Away for a little while and there it is again. These macron debates are very repetitive and always end the same way. Perhaps at the top of the talk page there should be a link to a "macron FAQ", explaining why we use macros, that yes, your question has been asked before and no, we won't remove them. And apart from all the reasons to use macrons, people should also come to realize that there are a lot of Japan-related articles now, and that changing our romanization style (either to waapuro, non-macronned style, or whatever else) will involve an incredible lot of work. After that is done, there are probably articles we missed, hence still using the style we use now. Net result: no gain whatsoever and loss of consistency. People should be able to put this issue to rest. And I say this as someone who uses a hyphenated waapuro in his private life, so no, I'm not just defending my favourite system. Shinobu 23:57, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

The person who'll write that FAQ deserves a barnstar (or sensu). It won't end the eternal debate but will give it a decent home. Wipe 01:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I started one a little ago. I never made it very far, but if there is interest, then I can try to put at least a rough version up this weekend or next. Bendono 03:08, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

If you put it up, I will read through it and see if I can add anything, referencing the old talk archives where possible. Shinobu 07:22, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chuo

So, now that we've gone over the city names over and over again, the various things called "中央" seem to have falled through the cracks. Are we deciding to keep all of them as "Chuo" and not "Chūō"? I mean, I admit it might look kind of weird to have semi-macronned names like "Chūō, Tokyo" and "Chūō, Osaka", and I do understand the Train project argument that the non-macronned "Chuo Main Line", "Chuo-Sobu Line" are the official Anglicized names from the company or whatever. But that still leaves half a dozen other Chūō-ku in other cities, along with the Chuo Expressway. What's the consensus? LordAmeth 13:45, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I can see no solution to this problem holding a middle ground. The fact that Tokyo and other major cities stand out as exceptions against the current implementation of rules complicates everything.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  00:24, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd use macrons by default, because "Chūō" can be translated into the English word "central". And it would be difficult to prove any extensive usage of "Chuo" with or without macrons, in the English language. I already created one article called Yokosuka-Chūō Station WITH macrons.--Endroit 00:51, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I remember once seeing a bumper sticker that read "Yokosuka CHEW-OH!" In fact, there are two Google hits. So there's an alternative to the macrons (I'm joking!). Fg2 04:09, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] School IP notice

I ported the English-language school IP notice for an IP address used by Shinjuku Yamabuki High School on Wikipedia-JA: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%88%A9%E7%94%A8%E8%80%85%E2%80%90%E4%BC%9A%E8%A9%B1:221.114.251.157

I would like for someone to translate the notice :) WhisperToMe 02:24, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I looked through about 300 vandal pages on jaWiki, but it doesn't seem that they are using such IP notices there yet, probably because AOL doesn't exist in Japan and thus they don't have such a big problem with single IPs there. Translating into English is one thing, but you'd be best to ask at chatsubo to see if someone will translate it into Japanese for you. I don't think they'll want to translate the part about contacting the school if there's problems, though. Wikipedia isn't exactly that well known in Japan.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  01:28, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Really? Whenever I go on at school, my students call out "Wikipediaや!" with enthusiasm. Dekimasu 04:05, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
AOL does exist in Japan, though I don't think they have as huge a problem with it as we do. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 04:18, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Wow, I have never even heard of it here. And they didn't even bother to change the name to JOL. Dekimasu 04:44, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
AOL is fairly big in Japan, and the "AOL" name is even used in "old Europe" (as populated by cheese-eating surrender monkeys and the like). I think there's not so much of a problem with vandalism in Japan as the percentage teens (of all ages) who are obnoxious twits is lower in Japan than in the more populous anglophone nations (though I can't immediately provide factual evidence for this). Plus Japanese kids don't use computers: they use phones, and writing "Eric is a fag" (in any language) requires an irritating number of thumbstrokes. -- Hoary 09:29, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Then it must be a regional thing, because there is never any hint of AOL in this area. And I like Japan just fine, but I don't find your lower percentage comment to be true either. The last comment is sure true... but it's never stopped me from editing Wikipedia from my cell. Dekimasu 10:48, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
The notice has been translated :) WhisperToMe 01:36, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks WhisperToMe. I was getting worried this thread might get nominated for WP:LAME. Rhialto 01:40, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ryu vs. Ryū

I understand the macron debate. I personally feel the macrons make the English-language Wikipedia harder to use and overall less useful, but I also see the advantages. In particular, however, I note that a number of martial arts titles have been changed so that the main article is at -ryū rather than at -ryu (e.g. Isshin-ryū, Uechi Ryū. In my opinion, in the martial arts media, ryu is widely accepted and used; it's what's commonly seen in all the major martial arts magazines, for example; in the Yellow Pages ads; and on most English-language web pages. Right now a search on "isshin ryu" goes to the page Isshin-ryu which is a redirect page, but doesn't automatically redirect.

So, IAW Romanisation 11 (which cites Sumo as an example), I'd like to suggest that "ryu" be considered sufficiently common that it does not need a macron. For evidence, pick up your phone book and look at the Karate schools under Martial Arts. JJL 18:03, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

It all depends on context and commonality. If, in the English language, something is more well known in non-macronned form, then that's how it should be listed here (except in the rōmaji section of the Nihongo template used to introduce the term). Examples of this include Tokyo, Osaka, and many others. In fact, this is listed in the Manual of Style as an exception to the rule, so I don't know why people keep bringing this up over and over unless it's because they don't bother reading it. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 07:50, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
It seems like the vast majority of the time a word is more widely used in the non-macronned form then the macronned form. Are you saying that if I find something much more common in the un-macronned form than the macronned form I can go ahead and change it to the un-macronned form without bringing it up for discussion? Jecowa 08:46, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Um, no, Jecowa. Your examples are a different discussion altogether (above). And Google is not necessarily a good way to determine commonality. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:54, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
How is the Google test not a great way to determine commonality? The Google test is the first method given by the naming conflict guideline for identifying the most common names used for a subject. It says to do an advanced search, to search for only English language pages, and to exclude the term "Wikipedia" from the search. I forgot to do that last part though, so it should be un-macronned search and macronned search. The macronned form of Hokkaido is relatively rare. The ratio of the macronned form to the un-macronned form of Hokkaido is 1 to 1336. Jecowa 18:44, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
I said it wasn't necessarily a good way to determine it. And I was referring to your bringing the Hokkaidō/Hokkaido discussion down here when it's being discussed elsewhere. Please keep the various discussions separate to avoid confusion. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 07:43, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Sorry for mentioning Hokkaido in the wrong place. By the way, when you said, "If, in the English language, something is more well known in non-macronned form, then that's how it should be listed here," did you say that in favor of "Ryu" or "Ryū?" I think it was okay for JJL to ask for permission to move the page first, so he could make sure before he made a possibly controversial change. Also, where else is Hokkaidō/Hokkaido being discussed? I don't see it here or on Talk:Hokkaidō. I'd like to join it. Jecowa 08:09, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Actually, on Talk:Hokkaidō. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 09:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
The reason I bring it up now is because some Karate pages were moved to the macronned form within the past week (e.g. Uechi Ryū on 12 Nov.). I'd like to move them back, but since macrons are the default I was looking to see if there was support for my contention that -ryu is, like Sumo, common and standard. JJL 14:09, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
"Sumo" (technically sumō) is well understood by native English speakers, even those who have never seen a match. However, I really doubt that many native speakers understand "-ryu / -ryū". I would be interested to see a survey: "Do you know the word sumo? Do you know the word ryu?" I do not have access to native English speakers though. Sure, martial arts is popular and there are various magazines. The use of either -ryū or -ryu becomes jargon, technical vocabulary for that context. It is not general and should not be expected to be well understood, if even at all, by ordinary speakers. Bendono 20:53, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
I understand that it could be considered jargon, but I do think that many people have heard or read about (something)-ryu from time to time. A Google news search on +ryu karate turns up a fair number of hits from newspapers; a search on ryu alone turns up more, including the character Ryu from the Street Fighter video games, but also false positives (e.g., the Korean name Ryu). The Ryu page here shows that the word has many appearances in English--in martial arts, manga and fantasy, and music. (I'm not sure those are all derived from the Japanese ryu.) It appears that way on the web and in print ads. So, while I agree that Sumo is better known, I think ryu is reasonably familiar, as it appears in numerous contexts and various media. JJL 21:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
"Ryu" may be fairly well-known as a Street Fighter character, and in various other pop culture references. But that doesn't change the fact that it's a bastardization and misrepresentation of the original term. As I've written someplace else, "りゅ" is not a word at all, while　"りゅう" (ryuu or ryū) is. Depending on the context, it can refer to either a dragon　(竜) or a style or school (流), such as in karate. The fact that kids learning karate at their local strip mall might not care to learn anything about Japanese language or culture doesn't change the fact that "karate" and "ryu" are Japanese words, not English ones. I'll fully accept that karate, like karaoke and sushi has fully entered the mass consciousness of Western society; but "ryuu", in most contexts outside of video games and anime has not. In fact, I'd imagine that the vast majority of people who study other forms of budō, such as iaidō, kyūdō and kendō will be fully aware of the long vowels in ryuu and dou and would agree with me on this. The web, print ads, all of these sorts of things are of no significance in determining the accurate spelling of such terms. I suggest you look to scholarly works, or to any sensei of the Japanese/Okinawan tradition; they will surely agree that "do" and "ryu" are not accurate representations of the Japanese/Okinawan words. LordAmeth 20:45, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ryukyu vs. Ryūkyū

The word Ryukyu should be specifically unmacronned, and WP:MOS-JP should specifically mention this. That's because the word "Ryukyu" has been naturarized into the English language without macrons.

Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary has a specific entry for the word "Ryukyuan". The word Ryukyuan (with the suffix an) does NOT exist in the Japanese language, and adding macrons to such words goes against the spirit of WP:MOS-JP. (ie: The suffix "an" is NOT Japanese). And the existence of the specific word "Ryukyuan" in the English language proves that the word "Ryukyu" has been naturalized into the English language as well.

Also, be sure to vote in Talk:Ryūkyū Islands for a poll that's going on there. We are trying to move the article back to Ryukyu Islands. Thank you.--Endroit 17:50, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that "Ryukyuan" does not need macrons. However, that has no bearing on "Ryūkyū". Also note that most English dictionaries do not even contain an entry for "Ryukyu" but instead only "Ryukyu Islands". Conduct a street survey with native English speakers: "Do you know the word Ryukyu?" I really wonder how many people will understand the word. It is very different from words like "sushi" and"karate". I would do it, however I do not have access to English speakers where I live. Bendono 21:30, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Even if the man on the street writes without macrons, you want us to write with macrons. You reject the argument you use here as it applies to Tokyo or sumo, so it shouldn't be relevant if the man on the street knows anything about geography. Dekimasu 05:03, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
No, you are purposely trying to misunderstand. The street survey is to determine how well understood the term is and has nothing to do with their spelling preferences or geographical knowledge. If the term is well understood (such as Tokyo or sumo) then it passes as English and then the spelling is up for grabs. If it is not well understood, it is not English so we transliterate the Japanese, which may contain macrons. Bendono 06:00, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Ryukyu, Ryukyuan, and Ryukyu Islands are ALL listed in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary as shown below. They're ALL English words. Apparently, you cannot find a single English dictionary with the macronned spelling, because they've all naturalized into the English language with modified pronunciations.--Endroit 16:18, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I have moved Ryukyuan languages and Ryukyuans back to their original titles per this discussion. However, I don't have AWB and the macrons within the article are still there. Dekimasu 05:44, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Forget AutoWikiBrowser, Find and Replace rules! Macrons have already been removed. Jecowa 06:01, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I have moved Ryukyuan religion back as well. Dekimasu 02:33, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I would like to note that one of the encyclopedia entries mentioned at Talk:Ryukyu Islands calls the islands "the Ryukyus" and that this would seem to lend support to moving the page to the unmacronned form, as per the other page moves above. Dekimasu 18:19, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I moved the discussion on the poll further down, in a new section, Ryukyu vs. Ryūkyū : Planning for a poll.--Endroit 15:03, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dictionary entry for Ryukyu

  • Below is the entry for Ryukyu, from Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (subscription required).--Endroit 16:18, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Main Entry: ryu·kyu
Pronunciation: rēˈ(y)ü(ˌ)kyü, rɪˈ-
Function: noun
Usage: usually capitalized
Etymology: from the Ryukyu islands, southwest of Japan
: the language of the Ryukyuan people that is related to Japanese

[edit] Dictionary entry for Ryukyuan

  • Below is the entry for Ryukyuan, from Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (subscription required).--Endroit 16:18, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Main Entry: ryu·kyu·an
Pronunciation: -kyüən
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): -s
Usage: usually capitalized
Etymology: Ryukyu islands + English -an
1 : the people of the Ryukyu islands
2 : a member of the Ryukyuan people

[edit] Dictionary entry for Ryukyu Islands

  • Below is the entry for Ryukyu Islands, from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition / Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (subscription required).--Endroit 16:18, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Main Entry: Ryu·kyu Islands
Pronunciation: rē-ˈ(y)ü-(ˌ)kyü, -(ˌ)kü
Function: geographical name
islands W Pacific extending between Kyushu, Japan, & Taiwan; belonged to Japan 1895-1945; occupied by United States 1945; returned to Japan in 1953 (N islands) and 1972 (S islands) area about 850 square miles (2202 square kilometers), population 1,222,458 -- see AMAMI, OKINAWA, OSUMI ISLANDS, SAKISHIMA ISLANDS, TOKARA ISLANDS
- Ryu·kyu·an \-ˌkyü-ən, -ˌkü-\ adjective or noun

Before continuing the debate, I would like to clarify that we are discussing "Ryūkyū vs. Ryukyu", as the subject implies. "Ryukyuan" and "Ryūkyū Islands" are certainly related to the word Ryūkyū / Ryukyu though. I would like to emphasis this because I interpret "Ryūkyū Islands" / "Ryukyu Islands" as two words: (1) Ryūkyū / Ryukyu and (2) Islands. In other words, "the islands of Ryūkyū".

The word "Ryukyu" alone does not appear in several English dictionaries that I searched. Endroit found it in Websters (subscription needed) and is defined as: "the language of the Ryukyuan people that is related to Japanese". Thus, as per the English definition, Ryukyu should redirect to Ryukyuan languages. Unless anyone suggests that "Ryūkyū" is English (in which case there is no need for this debate), then in Japanese it is an old word for Okinawa and thus Ryūkyū should redirect to Okinawa. Ref: Daijirin: 琉球. Bendono 04:37, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

This continues to be a fascinating argument and most of the participants have been most civil. I'm chomping at the bit to comment on what's written close above, but I shan't rush to subject you to these comments because of my stronger conviction that all of this is getting out of hand. Arguments over macrons (and closely related issues) are more or less simultaneously proceeding on various fronts with a considerable degree of overlap (yes, the Ryūkyū/Ryukyu dilemma differs in one or two arguably significant ways from from, say, Ryū/Ryu, but it shares a lot), and I think there's a danger that they'll be won not by whichever side has the stronger arguments or is more persuasive but rather by whichever is most dogged (has the most stamina or is the most fanatically driven). That seems a great pity. Can we agree not to do any more name changes (or changes back) until people with more time on their hands than I do can integrate all these skirmishes into a single discussion forum? -- Hoary 05:01, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Hear, hear Mr. Hoary. I haven't the time or energy to battle in support of the macron on so many different pages, on so many different individual words. At the moment the arguments are getting all confused. Some people are campaigning for a change to the WP:MOS-JP, while others are just arguing about the interpretation of the current version. It would be great if somebody could somehow bring all of these discussions together, formulate a proposal and then for us all to vote on it, and then we could all abide by the new consensus. Bobo12345 05:14, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I certainly agree with Hoary. I think a summary of what happened needs to be here as well. In October the page was moved to the macronned form, and the vote was 9-7 to restore the page to the unmacronned form. The vote was closed as no consensus and then arguments began as to whether that was (a)no consensus for the original move or (b)no consensus for returning the page to its original location. Dekimasu 18:19, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh great, more discussion on the same topic being made at several different talk pages. One thing I would like to quickly clarify about my support for "Ryukyu Islands" over "Ryūkyū Islands" at Talk:Ryūkyū Islands: I am avoiding having an opinion on the more generalized debate of Ryukyu vs. Ryūkyū, Ryukyuan vs. Ryūkyūan, etc. My current position only prefers "Ryukyu Islands" over "Ryūkyū Islands" as I believe there is less of a grey area in that debate (explanation given at Talk:Ryukyu Islands). I am not preferring a change in WP:MOS-JP policy, except maybe a little clarification here and there. Clarification can always help. —Tokek 05:23, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Island names should always include macrons"

In a debate about the title of a Japanese island group, it was brought to attention what WP:MOS-JP mentions (in the "Body text" section): "10. Island names should always include macrons." Maybe this came from the Hokkaido vs. Hokkaidō debate, i don't know. However, this line seems to asume that hepburn romanization (with macrons) should ALWAYS be used, which conflicts with the opener paragraph to this article that recommends English names over Japanese names where appropriate: "An English loan word or place name with a Japanese origin should be used in its most commonly used English form in the body of an article..."

If it really was the case that all Japanese island article titles should use hepburn romanization of Japanese place names, then the following moves would have to be made:

I am not for these moves and I don't think these moves are what Wikipedia editors want, so I think rule 10 could be clarified and reworded to avoid self contradiction within WP:MOS-JA. At least rule 10 was used in the Talk:Ryukyu Islands proposed move debate. —Tokek 09:15, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Most of the recent spate of macron angst has not raised any significant points beyond what has been discussed before, as 日本Joe has pointed out above; but, rule #10 is my fault, so I guess it is time to break my silence. Macrons have been the norm for awhile, but, interpreting the rule in regards to places/names which are commonly known is a very gray area. I sought to codify that gray area for geographic regions, cities, and islands. So, there was discussions about Kyoto, Kōchi, Kyūshū, Honshū, Osaka, etc. The net result was that neither Honshū or Kyūshū were judged to be well-enough entrenched in the common English vernacular to warrant an exclusion. Even within the discussion, Hokkaidō was borderline (5:7 I think), so for a form of consistency, the Island names rule was borne.
If there is an exception (resulting from a renewed discussion about Hokkaido, or Ryukyu Islands, or whatever), then it can be noted, like Kobe and others are noted as an exception to the rule for cities. While the MoS provides the broad strokes for us, it is not a static document. Quoting from WP:MOS This manual, along with the supplemental manuals linked from it, provides guidance for those seeking it, but does not prescribe rigid rules that must always be followed. Neier 11:43, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
We have inconsistent macronizations for Ryūkyū Islands vs. Ryukyuan, and everything is going haywire. I believe the only way to correct this is to create a specific rule for Ryukyu/Ryukyuan in WP:MOS-JP. Do we take Bendono's suggestion and use macrons for the word "Ryūkyū" but not for "Ryukyuan"? We had 9 to 7 AGAINST macrons for the WP:RM vote in Talk:Ryūkyū Islands. What do we do now?--Endroit 15:44, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I continue to believe that the Hokkaidō article should be at Hokkaidō Prefecture per the specific directions in the MOS and the fact that the article is about the prefecture and not the island. That is a separate question from whether the article should really have a macron, which was voted down but could just as easily be added. There should really be a separate article for the island and for the prefecture, since the island is only the largest part of the prefecture. See the comments at Talk:Hokkaidō and please help with input here or there. Dekimasu 17:18, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
So we need to clarify Hokkaidō in the prefecture category (item #9). And we need to clarify Ryukyu/Ryukyuan, Bonin Islands, and Iwo Jima in the island category (item #10) of the Romanisation rule. And we need to clarify Hokkaidō in the Place names section of the Names rule.--Endroit 15:16, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Dekimasu that the island and the prefecture are two separate topics and should have their own separate articles. Jecowa 20:01, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A (hopefully noncontroversial) proposal not connected with the "Ryūkyū/Ryukyu and Ogasawara/Bonin" debates

The statement "Island names should always include macrons" has the same difficulty as the statement I noted in the topic "A (hopefully noncontroversial) proposal not connected with the "what the hell" debate" below. Namely, "always" requires more macrons than we've agreed to in body text. As an example, the statement requires that we refer to the island of Niijima as Nījima. There are probably examples with an "o" in one kanji followed by a "u" in a different kanji that we likewise don't write with macrons (although none comes to mind). Again, I don't believe we intended to require that, so I propose changing the sentence to "Island names should always include the macrons that are required for other text." Fg2 21:13, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. You're obviously fully cognizant of what makes sense - it's just a matter of phrasing it clearly enough in the guidelines. I think we agree that macrons should only be used for おお、おう、and うう, never for いい、ええ、アー and the like. As for instances where "ou" come in separate kanji and are thus not macronned, well, it's not an island, but Shimousa Province seems to fit the bill nicely. LordAmeth 21:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bonin vs. Ogasawara : Planning for a poll

In Ogasawara Islands, similar to Ryukyu vs. Ryūkyū, we have a rule conflict. The article is at Ogasawara Islands, based on the Japanese name. But according to the English words of Japanese origin rule of WP:MOS-JP, it should rather be at Bonin Islands, because the dictionaries prefer Bonin Islands. If the article is voted to stay at Ogasawara Islands, we need to list it as an exception somewhere in WP:MOS-JP.

There will be 2 choices as follows:

  1. Ogasawara Islands (based on Japanese name) / list as exception in WP:MOS-JP
  2. Bonin Islands (based on English/dictionary name)

Highest percentage wins. The poll shall be for a period of 2 weeks, coinciding with the Ryukyu vs. Ryūkyū poll below.--Endroit 16:31, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I suggest you take this up at Talk:Ogasawara Islands first and see if there is any desire to change it. Bendono 21:57, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
This issue deals with policy concerns in WP:MOS-JP, and it was brought up by Dekimasu and others in this discussion and in Talk:Ryūkyū Islands. So I believe this is the correct place to do the poll. Besides, we did similar polls here, for Tokyo, Osaka, etc. for the cities and prefectures.--Endroit 23:17, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ryukyu vs. Ryūkyū : Planning for a poll

The poll at Talk:Ryūkyū Islands resulted in no consensus, with a tally of 9 vs. 7 AGAINST macrons. So I think another poll is in order, for all instances of the words Ryūkyū & Ryukyuan in general. There will be 3 choices as follows:

  1. Ryūkyū / Ryūkyūan (with macrons)
  2. Ryūkyū / Ryukyuan (mixed usage, per Bendono)
  3. Ryukyu / Ryukyuan (no macrons)

Highest percentage wins, even if below 50%. The poll shall be for a period of 2 weeks, starting 1 week from today. Comments?--Endroit 20:23, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Two notes:
  • We need a consensus. That means that we need to work out our differences and come to a general agreement. The highest percentage is not a consensus and will only invite future troubles at a later date. I do not think anything productive will be gained from another poll.
  • Personally, I write "Ryūkyūan", but will not object if it is "corrected". With the -an suffix, it is not only a Japanese word anymore, so I really do not feel very strongly how it is written. I offered it to be flexible with those who dislike macrons. If people want to use macrons for it, then by all means go ahead. I am fine with it either way. So if there is going to be another pole, then make it just be between Ryūkyū and Ryukyu. Bendono 07:00, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Based solely on the discussion here, there appears to be a defacto consensus around option 2, "Ryūkyū / Ryukyuan (mixed usage, per Bendono)". but I don't believe that's the actual consensus. I for one, believe option 3, "Ryukyu / Ryukyuan (no macrons)" is the way to go. In any case, we can throw out option 1, "Ryūkyū / Ryūkyūan (with macrons)" from the beginning, unless anybody objects.
The root of the problem here, are the 2 rules in WP:MOS-JP which seem to be in conflict with each other:
  1. The English words of Japanese origin rule.
  2. Section 10 in the Romanisation rule, which says "Island names should always include macrons."
The voting in Talk:Ryūkyū Islands largely depended on the interpretation of these 2 rules.
If we go strictly by the first (English words of Japanese origin) rule, we need to use "Ryukyu / Ryukyuan (no macrons)" based on the dictionaries.
However, the latter (Romanisation) rule says we need to use "Ryūkyū Islands" for the islands only.
Parts of the Romanisation rule are relatively recent, and were never thoroughly discussed. I think many people will agree that section 10 of the Romanisation rule needs to be changed. We need to discuss how to revise it to include an exception for Ryukyu-related articles. Also, if we happen to decide on using macrons all around, we need to also revise the English words of Japanese origin rule, to make an exception for "Ryūkyū / Ryūkyūan".--Endroit 15:02, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ryūkyū in real books

The Internet is great. However, very few books are digitally available. So I went to the library. Below is an excerpt of some of the English books that I found using the spelling "Ryūkyū" in the titles. To be fair, I specifically filtered out books regarding linguistics.

  • Ryūkyū in world history, Josef Kreiner
  • Sources of Ryūkyūan history and culture in European collections, Josef Kreiner
  • Temporal and spatial variation in the culture history of the Ryūkyū Islands, Richard J Pearson
  • Ryūkyū studies to 1854 : western encounter, Patrick Beillevaire
  • Handbook and specialized catalogue of the postal issues of the Ryūkyū (Liu Chʻiu) Islands (issued under United States administrations), William C Lassister
  • Specialized catalogue of the postal issues of the Ryūkyū (Liu Chʻiu) islands (issued under United States administrations), by Arthur Lee-Francis Askins
  • Ryūkyū Islands (under United States administrations) : standard list of post offices, Melvin H Schoberlin
  • Okinawa or Ryūkyū: the Floating Dragon, Earl Rankin Bull
  • Catalog of the Ryūkyū research collection. A special collection of books, articles and manuscripts in relevant languages dealing with the Ryūkyū Islands, as of May 1, 1964, Douglas Gilbert Haring
  • China's quasi-war with Japan : the dispute over the Ryūkyū (Liu-ch'iu) Islands, 1871-1881, Pak-Wah Leung
  • Japan country map. area maps, Japan 1:2,000,000, Kansai district 1:200,000, Kantō area 1:750,000, Ryūkyū Islands 1:4,000,000 : city plans, central Tokyo 1:17,500, central Osaka 1:15,000, central Kyoto 1:15,000, Periplus Editions.
  • A list of books and articles on Ryūkyū, Douglas G. Haring
  • Ryūkyū survey 1960, Naoichi Kokubu
  • Geological map around Ryūkyū arc, Eiichi Honza
  • Scientific investigations in the Ryūkyū Islands (SIRI) report, by National Research Council (U.S.). Pacific Science Board
  • Ryūkyū lacquer, Harry Mason Garner

A few things to note:

  • Some of these were issued by the US administration and other official bodies.
  • Notice the expression "Ryūkyū Islands"
  • Notice the expression "Ryūkyūan"

I noticed one interesting thing while I was there. The US occupation was known as "United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands", or USCAR for short. This is called 琉球列島米国民政府 in Japanese. Notice the expression 琉球列島. Perhaps the previous conversation about Ryukyu Islands vs. 琉球諸島 vs. 南西諸島 was meaningless. Bendono 07:02, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

What percentage of the books had these macrons? ...I believe that the administration of the Ryukyus was separate from the administration of Okinawa, which makes the distinction in Japanese understandable. After Okinawa was returned to Japanese control, the US still had control over the "Ryūkyūs". I note this which indicates that the Ryūkyūs are now considered a part of the Nanseis. Dekimasu 00:48, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was oppose. --Endroit 06:22, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Poll: "Ogasawara Islands" instead of "Bonin Islands"

Proposal — Use "Ogasawara Islands" instead of the common English name "Bonin Islands", in body texts and in page names.

This poll is intended to resolve the conflict between the current page name Ogasawara Islands, and the English words of Japanese origin rule of WP:MOS-JA.

  • A "support" vote suggests a change in WP:MOS-JA to make an exception for "Ogasawara Islands".
  • An "oppose" vote suggests a page move from Ogasawara Islands → Bonin Islands.

This poll will run for 2 weeks starting now.--Endroit 23:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Survey

Add  * '''Support'''  or  * '''Oppose'''  on a new line followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~.
  • Oppose — Major dictionaries and encyclopedias seem to agree that it's called "Bonin Islands" in English. (The Ogasawara Islands article should be moved to Bonin Islands).--Endroit 23:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment: Please provide a few links showing this. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 03:24, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Please see the citations/links I just provided below, in the "Discussion" section.--Endroit 05:01, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose as the article should be at Bonin Islands, but should definitely include Ogasawara Islands and any other common names in the first paragraph. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:09, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose Hmm, I didn't even notice that the Wikipedia article was located at Ogasawara Islands until now. —Tokek 09:19, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose per common usage. "Ogasawara Islands" - 58,800. "Bonin Islands" - 114,000. Jecowa 18:52, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

--Endroit 04:57, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • "Bonin Islands" entry in Merriam-Webster Unabridged. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition & Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (subscription required):
Main Entry: Bo·nin Islands
Pronunciation: ˈbō-nən
Variant(s): or Oga·sa·wa·ra Islands \(ˌ)ō-ˌgä-sä-ˈwär-ä\
Function: geographical name
islands W Pacific about 600 miles (966 kilometers) SSE of Tokyo; belong to Japan; administered by United States 1945-68 area 40 square miles (104 square kilometers), population 1507
--Endroit 04:57, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was oppose. --Endroit 06:22, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Poll: "Ryūkyū" instead of "Ryukyu"

Proposal — Use the macronned form "Ryūkyū" instead of the common English form "Ryukyu", for all instances of the word "Ryukyu", in body texts and in page names.

This poll is intended to resolve the conflict between the following 2 rules in WP:MOS-JA:

  1. Section 10 in the Romanisation rule, which says "Island names should always include macrons...."
  2. The English words of Japanese origin rule.

This vote will not affect the unmacronned usage of the words "Ryukyuan" and "Ryukyuans", as already discussed above. Based on the results of this poll, exception clause(s) will be written into the relevant sections appropriately.

This poll will run for 2 weeks starting now.--Endroit 23:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Survey

Add  * '''Support'''  or  * '''Oppose'''  on a new line followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~.
  • Oppose — Major dictionaries and encyclopedias use "Ryukyu" without any macrons in English. Ryukyu Islands and related articles should be moved back to their unmacronned form.--Endroit 23:21, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong support As shown in the bibliography excerpt, a great many professionally published English books on the subject use the properly spelled form "Ryūkyū". That includes Ryūkyū used alone as well as in Ryūkyū Islands. More importantly, it is overbearing to always prefer "Ryukyu" over "Ryūkyū" in all cases as this poll suggests. "Ryūkyū" is the more precise form; redirects already exists for the less precise "Ryukyu". Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It needs to be accurate and precise. There is no need to simplify or make it less precise. Bendono 02:27, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
    From the way I read it, the proposal is suggesting to always prefer "Ryūkyū" over "Ryukyu" in all cases. If so, you are actually strongly supporting an overbearing proposal, not opposing one. —Tokek 15:18, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose as "Ryukyu" is by far the most commonly used way to write it. In all applicable cases, however, the rōmaji instances (when kanji are given) should be "Ryūkyū". ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:13, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
"by far the most commonly"? Did you notice the bibliography excerpt bibliography excerpt showing many examples to the contrary? Those were only in book titles (and excluded linguistic works). It is far more prevalent in actual text. Bendono 06:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
You ignored my question about what percentage of the books on the topic those examples actually represented. Dekimasu 12:36, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose (sort of). I have no expertise in Japan-related subjects, so I don't have a strong opinion on this issue. However, I wanted to note that point #10 "Island names should always include macrons...", whatever its history, is in a section entitled "Body text", with the additional line "Take care with these points regarding usage in article body text (anything that is not the title of the article):" so #10's relevance to the article's title isn't as transparent as it might seem. The following section in MOS-JP, "Article titles", says "Article titles should follow all of the points above, with the following exceptions: ... 2. Article titles should use macrons as specified for body text except in cases where the macronless spelling is in common usage in English-speaking countries (e.g., Tokyo, Osaka, Sumo and Shinto, instead of Tōkyō, Ōsaka, Sumō and Shintō)." So the MOS-JP seems to be distinguishing between article titles and the form to use in body text. It's not clear to me whether the poll is about the article title, the form to use in the article text, or both. The examples from dictionaries/encyclopedias seem to indicate that the macronless form is common English usage, even though specialist works use macrons, so I'd prefer an article title "Ryukyu Islands"; however, I wouldn't have a big problem with the macronned form in the main text.
For those editors who are citing scholarly works as the correct form over sources such as Webster's, I would note that in other areas WP uses a spelling or transliteration standard that deviates from academic practice--see WP:GREEK for an example. The standard laid out there is very different from what you'd find in an academic journal. --Akhilleus (talk) 07:00, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose per common usage. "Ryukyu," with 882,000 hits, is 1888 times more common than "Ryūkyū," which has 467 hits. If you only include pages that include the terms "linguistic" or "linguist" then "Ryukyu," with 20,700 hits, is only 339 times more common than "Ryūkyū," which has 61 hits. Jecowa 19:30, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Support per linguistic accuracy. As I have stated before, Ryūkyū is a more proper form of romanization for 琉球. Even if it's been absorbed into English-language usage, this is not like "tycoon", which has been divorced of it's original meaning. "Ryukyu" in English refers to 琉球, and only to that; it should be spelled correctly, not dumbed-down, watered-down, Anglicized. LordAmeth 00:53, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
If you wish correct spelling then choose "Ryukyu." It is the correct spelling of the word. This can be seen in many dictionaries such as reference.com and webster.com. The Oxford dictionary mentions Ryukyu in the Ryukyu Islands entry, but has no mention of Ryūkyū. Jecowa 01:41, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
No, the correct spelling is "Ryūkyū". Arguing for "Ryukyu" is like arguing that 49 / 100 is equal to 0.5 when it is 0.49. "Ryukyu" is close, but still not accurate. "Ryūkyū" is the most accurate spelling. A great many books (partial bibliography excerpt) do use the more accurate form "Ryūkyū". Wikipedia needs to be accurate, not merely close. Bendono 02:03, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
"Ryūkyū" more closely indicates the Japanese spelling than "Ryukyu," but the English spelling can be found in English dictionaries. Jecowa 04:40, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
A lot of things can be found in English dictionaries which aren't really English words, or which aren't really words at all, but merely colloquialisms and such. Even though "truthiness" is in Merriam-Webster, does that really make it a word? LordAmeth 10:13, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
LordAmeth, you're just happenning to contradict ALL English dictionaries in this case. If ALL the English dictionaries list "Ryukyu Islands" or "Ryukyu" WITHOUT macrons, the macronless form "Ryukyu" is correct English, and the macronned form "Ryūkyū" is NOT correct English; that's all. Also, tycoon (大君 taikun?) wouldn't have macrons to begin with. Perhaps you meant to say sumō (相撲?), tōfu (豆腐?), or Tōshiba (東芝?)?--Endroit 11:16, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I used "tycoon" as my example intentionally, as it is one of the few words to have been taken from Japanese fully into English, adopting a meaning and usage completely outside of the Japanese context. Unlike sushi, sumō, Ryūkyū, and the like, which are only used in reference to the same meaning they hold in Japanese, "tycoon" has been fully adopted into the English language and thus the romanized spelling, taikun, referring to the original Japanese word, is no longer valid. I must say, I honestly don't care if I'm going against every popular English language dictionary. Look at any scholarly article, scholarly text on Japan, any dictionary or encyclopedia specifically devoted to Japanese terms, and you'll find that nearly all of them use macrons (or spelled out romanization, e.g. "ou", "uu") in every case. LordAmeth 11:44, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Support I won't argue the point on the basis of what is or is not proper in transliterating from Japanese to English, since that is a matter of custom, however the inclusion of macrons in the English forms of Japanese words and names seems to be increasingly common, the practice is more exacting in referring to the language of origin, and the macrons are not especially distracting to an English reader with little knowledge of things Japanese. I think it makes more sense to retain such diacritics unless there is a clear reason not to. Pinkville 01:28, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Your premise would have to be that "Ryukyu Islands" and "Ryukyu" are NOT an English word, thereby contradicting ALL English dictionaries.--Endroit 11:16, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
By no means do "ALL" English dictionaries support your case. A glance at the Library of Congress Authorities, surely one of the most trustworthy sources available, gives "Ryūkyū" as a variant for Ryukyu Islands. And the trend seems to be towards increasing use of macrons in Japanese names and words in English transliteration (when not already incorporated into English, as with your later example of "tofu" [which comes to us via Japanese from Chinese, by the way]). Furthermore, "Ryūkyū"/"Ryukyu" is a proper noun, not a common word, it precisely is "NOT an English word", so all the more reason for it to be rendered in a manner that comes closer to the language of origin. Pinkville 13:56, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
A further note, the authoritative Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names actually prefers the Japanese Nansei-shotō to any of the Ryūkyū variants. Then again, probably the just alternative would be to use a form like Luchu that more closely resembles the Okinawan... Pinkville 00:23, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Support Both forms exist and are verifiable, thus I go for the most accurate rōmaji one.--Húsönd 05:06, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Sure, why not use "the most accurate rōmaji" for sumō (相撲?), tōfu (豆腐?), and Tōshiba (東芝?) as well?--Endroit 11:16, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually, that's not a bad idea. Although the forms without macrons are far more common, the ones with macrons are more accurate and using them on Wikipedia article titles would not only be harmless as also educational.--Húsönd 18:57, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Toshiba is a company name... It's proper English to use Toshiba. WhisperToMe 02:39, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. The version with macrons is more informative and more precise than that without, which, it can be argued, is plain wrong within a context (WP articles) that provide macrons elsewhere, and certainly risks giving the wrong impression. A non-trivial percentage of readers are likely to benefit in some way from the use of macrons. Those who are uninterested in the long/short distinction, in approximating the Japanese pronunciation or in orthography will be free to ignore the macrons provided by others. -- Hoary 08:17, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, and ALL the dictionaries were wrong to begin with, because sumō (相撲?), tōfu (豆腐?), and Tōshiba (東芝?) would be "more informative and more precise" for the reader as well, right?--Endroit 11:16, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
They would indeed, yes. I'd be happy with sumō and tōfu; but as "tofu" now appears to be completely assimilated within English, "tōfu" might seem a bit pedantic or quaint (cf "façade"). (Offhand I can't judge the degree to which "sumo"/"sumō" has been assimilated.) They're words, not names. Toshiba is the romanized form that's chosen by 東芝 itself and that is (I think) universally used. As for Ryūkyū/Ryukyu, unlike a corporation or person it can't choose how to spell itself. I'm not much influenced in any Japanese governmental choice of spelling, as Japanese (quasi-) government organs make such a balls-up of romanization. I'm certainly not influenced by the practice of the US occupation regime. And when it comes to names I'm not much interested in general-purpose English dictionaries. To go further back in this thread, I'd like Tōkyō and Ōsaka too. (There's nothing specifically Japanese about this: I'd also like Rīga.) -- Hoary 14:25, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Endroit's arguments-XinJeisan 11:45, 10 December 2006 (UTC)XinJeisan
  • Oppose and this poll is obviously not going to get us to consensus, either. Dekimasu 12:36, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Support per the above arguments, but yeah, we won't get consensus here, it seems. —Nightstallion (?) 17:32, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Support: Typically I only like the non-macroned form for very famous place names like "Tokyo" and "Osaka" -- Ryūkyū just doesn't make the cut in my opinion. --awh (Talk) 23:13, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Support: Common usage is more than a comparison of google hit counts. For one thing, taking into account the fact that Wikipedia has only allowed Unicode for a little more than a year, expecting all other internet sites around the world to update just as swiftly to a (more correct / different -- depending on your point of view) way of writing transliterated words is unreasonable. At Wikipedia (for better or worse), the number and types of editors we have leads to a culture of trailblazing to some extent. Going by popularity is also subject to the whims of the world at large. If AP/CNN/Reuters all of a sudden decided that "Hey, these macrons are a good idea", then the number of sources which use them would slowly start to dwarf the number which don't. The editorial decisions of those groups are not something which we can control, though, and basing our policies on theirs is not the best way to do things in my opinion. At one point, 倭 was the most common (only) written form for "Japan", but I don't see many people pushing for that renaming. Using Google to determine how entrenched/popular a particular word is in English is acceptable, but still prone to inaccuraceies when comparing across a broad spectrum of subjects. Geographically, comparing the popularity of cities is easy. Determining the popularity of Ryuku/Ryūkyū is complicated given the different ways it can be used (island chain, kingdom, language, culture, etc); however, assuming all of the hits are for the island chain, its 882,000 Ghits are still less than Honshū (1.4 Million). If Japan called the islands 琉球諸島, then my vote would be strong support. Neier 01:12, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for the valuable comments. However, I am sure that someone will point out that Japan (presently) calls the chain of islands 南西諸島. This issue has been discussed enough and no one is proposing "Nansei Islands" (which already exists as a redirect) so it really has no bearing on this case. Whether the origin of English "Ryūkyū Islands" is 琉球諸島, 琉球列島, or even somehow 南西諸島, it is obvious that Ryūkyū (even Ryukyu) is to be identified as 琉球. Hopefully we do not need to rehash that conversation again here. Besides, this vote is about Ryūkyū vs. Ryukyu in general, and not only about the expression "Ryūkyū Islands". Bendono 02:18, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to stress that when we romanize, we transliterate: there is a word in Japanese that has a certain meaning that we want to express or explain and for that purpose we approximate the word in latin characters. But in this case, we don't want to give the impression that we are romanizing, because we aren't using something like Nansei-shotō. Ryukyu, as used in English, is certainly based on a Japanese word, but it is now an English word with an English meaning. There is no macrons in English like there is in (some forms of) romanized Japanese. Wipe 08:25, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
That's why I said that it would be "strong support" if Japan still used this name. It's my opinion that the layperson would not recognize the word Ryukyu (Ryūkyū) if you asked them about it, so, we should strive for accuracy above repeating the same casual attitude that has resulted in the less accurate spelling in other sources. As pointed out above, some published books have taken the time to make it correct, so it is not like we are making things up. Macrons don't appear out of thin air; however, they can easily disappear. Neier 14:07, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
What is it that is so accurate and correct about implying a Japanese meaning when we use the English one? There is a difference, whether some layperson knows it or not. Wipe 00:44, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Oppose - Unless the macronned form is seen in any proper dictionary, I shall vote oppose. WhisperToMe 02:39, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Oppose - From WP:NC: Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature. In this case, macronless form is easier to recognize as it is the form used in English dictionaries and is not ambiguous as there's no entiries about Ryukyu, Ryūkyu nor Ryukyū other than this usage. --Kusunose 03:54, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose - In my opinion, Ryukyu is naturalised enough with all the English suffixes, somewhat anglicanized pronunciation (c.f. the dictionary entries), connections with American history, and different scope compared to current Japanese usage. The island chain is Ryukyu Islands (or the Ryukyus for short). The languages are Ryukyuan. There should be very little need to use the word Ryukyu alone as-it-is, but in these cases, e.g. when talking about the Japanese term, macrons should be used. Also, use the nihongo template where appropriate. Wipe 07:07, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Support - The macroned form encourages correct pronunciation of the term, while (in my opinion at least) not being distracting to the lay-reader. It also hints towards the Japanese origin of the word, which I think is a good thing. Academic texts (which I believe Wikipedia should strive to be) use the macroned form for these reasons. Bobo12345 13:32, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Ryukyu appears in English terms as well, so I oppose renaming * all* instances. There is no practice of using macrons for English terms outside of Wikipedia. This is like saying all occurances of "Italy" should be renamed to "Italia", "typhoon" to "táifēng", "pork" to "porcus" (Latin origin) in article titles to encourage "correct" pronounciation. The proposal has too much far reaching consequences that probably goes against other Wikipedia policies anyway. —Tokek 15:18, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
It is interesting how all of your examples change much more than just a macron. At present, there is no specific rule for Ryūkyū or Ryukyu. If there is a consensus for Ryukyu, it will be added as an exception like Tokyo. That may be used to argue for Ryukyu in all cases. I do not know how it would be written if there is a consensus for Ryūkyū. However, it would not be listed as one of the exceptions. Thus, there may be more freedom in the interpretation. In the end, whatever the result is, it will probably be used to argue all Ryukyu or Ryūkyū either way. Bendono 22:16, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose Page titles also function as search terms and link targets. Therefore they should be something that is easy to type on a standard English keyboard. Native spelling, pronunciation and Romanization can be listed in the article. --Dgies 18:24, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
There are already appropriate redirects. That will not change regardless of the conclusion made here. You can access the various pages with or without macrons. The result of this vote will be used to change the spelling of Ryukyu or Ryūkyū in the actual articles. If some useful redirects are missing, please add them or let us know. Bendono 22:16, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose Not standard English spelling. Rmhermen 00:41, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose I am generally opposed to all rules requiring the use of macrons in English texts intended for a general audience. -- Meyer 02:41, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

What exactly are you voting for? Again, I ask for clarification: is this poll for "Ryūkyū" vs "Ryukyu" or "Ryūkyū Islands" vs. "Ryukyu Islands". As shown already, many books also use "Ryūkyū" and even "Ryūkyū Islands" with macrons as well in English. Also note that a "Ryūkyū Islands" -> "Ryukyu Islands" poll just ended with no consensus a few weeks ago. As is often done with other pages, it may be best to wait a few months again before trying this again. Bendono 00:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
The scope is ALL occurrences of the word "Ryukyu" in text bodies and page names, except "Ryukyuan" and "Ryukyans". Question is: Do we use Ryūkyū with macrons, instead of Ryukyu?
This poll is required to clarify the interpretation of WP:MOS-JA, since WP:MOS-JA itself is in conflict due to a later addition (item 10 of the "romanisation" rule).
Ask admins for an opinion. If the other related poll was "no consensus" and if this poll has a clear consensus, that should weigh heavily. That's because the other poll kept referring back here to WP:MOS-JA, which means the interpretation of WP:MOS-JA was in question in the other poll. Obviously, that needs to be clarified first, before any admin or arbitrator can make a decision on the final page name. In my opinion, this can be a part of WP:DR, and may escalate into WP:Arb, if there is no resolution here.--Endroit 00:46, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Thank you everyone, for a very huge turnout (by WP:MOS-JA standards), with 22 editors voting. This vote was very important for WP:MOS-JA, in terms of knowing where to draw the line between the convenience of using macrons vs. WP:ENGLISH. It was also a sort of a referendum, for the English words of Japanese origin rule of WP:MOS-JA and its validity.--Endroit 07:50, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Poll results & summary

Poll #1 — 0 out of 4 voters (0%) in favor of using Ogasawara Islands instead of Bonin Islands.
The results of this poll was: oppose. The effect will be as follows:
  1. The Ogasawara Islands article shall be moved to Bonin Islands, per the English words of Japanese origin rule.
  2. Section 10 of the Romanisation rule shall be revised, to include an exception for Bonin Islands.
Poll #2 — 9 out of 22 voters (41%) in favor of using Ryūkyū instead of Ryukyu.
The results of this poll was: oppose. The effect will be as follows:
  1. Recent macronizations of Ryukyu, Ryukyus, Ryukyu Islands, Category:Ryukyu Islands, Ryukyu Kingdom, Ryukyu proper, Ryukyu Trench, etc. should all be reversed and demacronned, per the English words of Japanese origin rule.
  2. Section 10 of the Romanisation rule shall be revised, to include an exception for Ryukyu Islands.

I have revised Section 10 of the Romanisation rule already. Please check for accuracy.--Endroit 07:50, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

A comment about "Bonin Islands". Current revision: "Island names should include macrons in all cases, except for Ryukyu Islands, Bonin Islands, and Iwo Jima. These islands use the common English name." The spelling "Bonin" has absolutely nothing to do with macrons. It is in opposition to "Ogasawara", not some non-existent *Bōnin. I suggest rewriting that section. Bendono 12:54, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Stated another way, 9 vs. 13 voters in support. So there is not a consensus to prefer "Ryūkyū". Fine. However, that does not mean that there is also consensus for supporting "Ryukyu" either. Without a consensus either way, nothing should change: no renaming of articles and no new rules. We're right where we were before these polls.
I initially thought that you were proposing to move Ryūkyū Islands. However, you clarified that: This poll at WP:MOS-JA is NOT a move request". Thus, there is to be no move.
When I asked what you were trying to vote for since the last poll resulted in no consensus, you wrote: "If the other related poll was "no consensus" and if this poll has a clear consensus, that should weigh heavily.". Is this poll a "clear consensus"? I think not. However, neither you or I can claim to be impartial in this judgment. The Ryūkyū Islands -> Ryukyu Islands move vote was determined to be " no consensus". This poll here does not change that result.
Just because there is no consensus to prefer the spelling "Ryūkyū" does not mean that there is a consensus to spell it as "Ryukyu". In insist, try another poll specific to your intent.
I would appreciate it if you would hold off on moves and new rules until some others can weigh in on these results. Bendono 11:16, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
On the contrary, the status quo was the unmacronned form. If you're claiming "no consensus", all instances of "Ryukyu" should be reverted to their unmacronned form. Your best course of action is WP:DR, and to get many admins to agree with you that the status quo was the macronned form.--Endroit 11:24, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Although the status quo was for "Ryukyu", it was a pretty shaky status quo - as shown in the previous poll results on the "Ryukyu" talk page mentioned above. I see you're enthusiastic about your side of the issue, but don't you think it would be prudent to take things slowly, allow the discussion to continue and develop a little further and perhaps eventually come to a true consensus? Pinkville 12:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
There was nothing shaky about the original unmacronned Status quo condition of all instances of the word "Ryukyu" in Wikipedia, until about September. Then a select few people started changing ALL instances of the word "Ryukyu" to "Ryūkyū" without any discussion. The above voting has allowed opinions from 22 people to emerge, which is more valuable than any other discussion we've had so far. Anyways, the above discussion has confirmed that the moves to the macronned form "Ryūkyū", from September through November should have NOT took place in the first place, with only 41% support. Once we return all instances to the unmacronned form "Ryukyu", we can continue further discussions.--Endroit 12:55, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi. Bendono asked me to comment here, as a reasonably impartial outsider. I moved Ryūkyū Islands back to Ryukyu Islands a few days ago, because I didn't realize we were waiting for a two-week survey to wrap up. My justification at the time was that there was more (at the time, quite a bit more) support for the un-macroned version, the name is commonly used in English language sources without macrons, there had been no discussion to move to the macroned version, and the original article was not macroned. I note as well that redirects will be in place no matter what happens, and that the question of macrons should be discussed in the article text.

Normally "no consensus" means leave it where it is, wherever that is: If it's wrong, leave it wrong; If it was moved presumptively, leave it moved presumptively. In this case, however, we're trying to decide on a general naming convention, and if we just leave everything alone, we're left with inconsistency and an invitation to further conflict, especially given that MOS-JP says to use macrons in all island names. Therefore, I think we should make a decision in this case, and write it into MOS-JP. Based on the arguments presented above, it appears to me that we have good reasons for preferring unmacroned versions of "Ryukyu", in the tradition of "Iwo Jima", while keeping our guideline that other island names be macronized (with exceptions noted).

I'm just one uninvolved admin, who already made the mistake of taking 11 days to be 2 weeks; the above analysis is just my opinion. I certainly invite anybody to seek further input on this matter, perhaps from people who know more than I about Japan and Japanese. Perhaps you can find some in Category:User ja-4. -GTBacchus(talk) 18:53, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

If it's true that a no consensus vote leaves the page at the "presumptively moved" title, that is a policy flaw. It is rewarding people for changing things without consensus and punishing the status quo of the article without consensus. It means anyone can move any page if they can get 40% of editors to agree with them. A similar line of reasoning would allow, for example, American English speakers to eliminate all British English from Wikipedia (remove all British English, protect the page and begin a discussion, end the discussion without consensus, unlock the page, and all British English would be gone). Dekimasu 03:21, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I moved the Ryukyu page, unaware of this debate (thinking I was simply following MOS:JP by including the macrons, which are used for most other Ryukyu-related articles). The debate is closed, it seems, but could anybody tell me why Ryukyu should be treated any different from, for example, Hokkaido? I bet you most encyclopedias will list "Hokkaido" and not "Hokkaidō". That's not a good argument for Hokkaido being "naturalized" into English, is it? Mackan 11:48, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

The Hokkaidō page was moved to the macronned form after a vote on adding the macrons ended with a slight majority against macrons (7-5 against). The reasoning was not faulty, but the process was ignored. As is noted in a section above, the current Hokkaidō page should be renamed Hokkaidō Prefecture, with a new page being created at Hokkaidō (island). However, I doubt that anyone thinks that one should be macronned on the island rule and the other should be unmacronned per "naturalized" English. They should both be macronned. Dekimasu 03:21, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Breadth of MOS:JP

It occurs to me that we need to have some sort of discussion about whether MOS:JP applies to articles that deal with the other Japonic languages and Ainu. As an example, we currently have references (via Okinawan) to gōyā, etc. Of course this differs from the official Japanese name (tsurureishi) and the usual Japanese spelling (katakana gōya), but the correct Okinawan spelling gōyā/gōyaa would be deprecated under the current guidelines. There are undoubtedly far greater problems with the Japanese renderings of certain things in Hokkaidō, but I have studied Hokkaidō little and been there rarely. Should there be guidance to allow the original spellings? Dekimasu 05:03, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be fine to add something to the effect of "The transliteration of related languages such as (but not limited to) Ainu and Okinawan should use the accepted standard transliteration for that language, if any. If none exists, the Japanese transliteration as described here should be used." Of course this means that we need to find a few references to what the accepted standard is for these languages before doing so. Anyone have some good references for this? ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 07:39, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
It should be "Ryukyuan", not "Okinawan". Also, I think you need to add a phrase saying that if the Ainu/Ryukyuan word is written in Japanese exclusively in katakana, WP:MOS-JP shall not apply. I'd hate to see the Tokunoshima word Doumoi (ドウモイ) butchered into Dōmoi. See Domoic acid and ja:ドウモイ酸.--Endroit 16:40, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Good point. Dekimasu 02:18, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, so how about this: "The transliteration of related languages such as (but not limited to) Ainu and Ryukyuan should use the accepted standard transliteration for that language, if any. For transliterations of these words which are always written in katakana in Japanese, a direct katakana to rōmaji transliteration—without macrons—should be used (e.g. ドウモイ becomes "doumoi" rather than "dōmoi"). If no other accepted transliteration method exists, the Japanese transliteration as described here should be used." ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:27, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

The links should be to Ainu language and Ryukyuan languages. I just cursorily changed Ryukyuan to a disambiguation page since it had been a redirect to Ryukyuans, but don't have any time to do any real fixing up there now. Also, it still doesn't deal with the extra macronning we have in place for gōyā, which would presumably become gouyaa. I'm not convinced that one is just a katakana macron, but I simply don't know anything about transliterating Ryukyuan. Dekimasu 02:38, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
From everything I can tell, it's always written as ゴーヤー, so gōyā would be correct. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 03:14, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Presumably people who speak Ryukyuan don't write their words out in katakana, which makes it an issue. In normal Japanese I normally see ゴーヤ in the grocery store and restaurants. I realize we're overloading you here when there's no reason you should have to be the one to know, but I hope that someone does. Dekimasu 17:23, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
If they have an accepted standard transliteration for Ryukyuan, then it should be used. That's what my proposal states. I'm not understanding where the confusion is here. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:24, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
It says that "for transliterations of these words which are always written in katakana in Japanese, a direct katakana to rōmaji transliteration—without macrons—should be used," which would make ゴーヤー into gouyaa rather than gōyā. I think the confusion I have is that the second sentence isn't worded as contingent upon the conditions of the first sentence not being fulfilled. The content of the third sentence needs to be in front of the second sentence in order to make the order of operations clear. Dekimasu 20:32, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Not that it helps resolve anything but, ja:琉球語 and ja:ウチナーヤマトグチ talks a little about the nature of Ryukyuan.--Endroit 18:13, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
No, that's quite helpful. The relevant part of JA says that they originally used Chinese characters (independent of Japanese kanji) and also adopted a hieroglyphic system. It also says that Japanese kanji may be used alongside Ryukyuan readings (giving the examples 地名の「あがり」を「東」、「いりおもて」を「西表」という漢字を当てて書くことなどである). Putting the two together seems to exclude the Japanese spellings for Ryukyuan terms in any case in which the proper Ryukyuan name can be determined. Dekimasu 18:32, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I wonder if this couldn't be handled more simply by altering #2. Dekimasu 18:35, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Nihonjoe, can you elaborate just a little more on the Ainu language? Apparently Ainu is so different that they use 16 extended Katakana characters [9] and more, to represent words ending in consonants. This is so different from Japanese.
ㇰ (ク)、ㇱ (シ)、ㇲ (ス)、ㇳ (ト)、ㇴ (ヌ)、ㇵ (ハ)、ㇶ (ヒ)、ㇷ (フ)、ㇸ (ヘ)、ㇹ (ホ)、ㇺ (ム)、ㇻ (ラ)、ㇼ (リ)、ㇽ (ル)、ㇾ (レ)、ㇿ (ロ)、セ゚ (セ゜)、ツ゚ (ツ゜)、ト゚ (ト゜)、ㇷ゚ (プ)
For example, ainu-go (アイヌ語?) in Japanese language is aynu itak (アイヌ イタク) in Ainu language, kami (神 god/spirit?) is kamuy (カムイ), kawa (川 river?) is pet　(ペッ), yūkara (ユーカラ traditional Ainu sagas?) is yukar (ユーカラ).
See Ainu language, ja:アイヌ語, and related articles for details.--Endroit 15:16, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm not really that familiar with Ainu, though I'd like to learn it. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:11, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Me too. But in your wording, I think you need to let people know that, for Ainu, a separate transliteration system exists as summarized in the Ainu language article, and that normal rules in WP:MOS-JP should not apply. Ainu is totally different.--Endroit 17:21, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
The transliteration of related languages such as (but not limited to) Ainu and Ryukyuan should use the accepted standard transliteration for that language, if any. It already says that. If a separate transliteration system exists, it should be used. I'm not sure how to make that sentence more clear. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:24, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I just want to make sure people don't get the wrong idea. Can you squeeze in the additional sentence below, or something similar?
  • "For example, yukar is the correct transliteration for the Ainu word ユーカラ, not yūkara."
Otherwise, it seems fine.--Endroit 19:59, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm, perhaps we should create a sub-page which details the standard transliterations for each of these languages? Something like Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)/Ainu and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)/Ryukyuan. I think that would be better than giving an example on the main page. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:47, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, updated proposed wording: "The transliteration of related languages such as (but not limited to) Ainu and Ryukyuan should use the accepted standard transliteration for that language, if any. If there is no accepted standard transliteration for that language, and the word is always written in katakana in Japanese, a direct katakana to rōmaji transliteration—without macrons—should be used (e.g. ドウモイ becomes "doumoi" rather than "dōmoi"). If no other accepted transliteration method exists, the Japanese transliteration as described here should be used." ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:47, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I have studied Ainu a little. With the main exception of the Sakhalin dialect, Ainu does not not contrast between short and long vowels but rather replaces them with diphthongs. Thus, there is little need for a macron. Bendono 07:35, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. Dekimasu 08:18, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for being komakai (so detailed), but I will ask you to make 3 changes:

  1. Link "Ainu" to Ainu language
  2. Link "Ryukyuan" to Ryukyuan languages
  3. Change "the word is always written in katakana" to "the word is usually written in katakana". ("Always" doesn't happen in real life, because I've seen ラーメン/ramen written as らうめん.)

So the final version will be:

  • "The transliteration of related languages such as (but not limited to) Ainu and Ryukyuan should use the accepted standard transliteration for that language, if any. If there is no accepted standard transliteration for that language, and the word is usually written in katakana in Japanese, a direct katakana to rōmaji transliteration—without macrons—should be used (e.g. ドウモイ becomes "doumoi" rather than "dōmoi"). If no other accepted transliteration method exists, the Japanese transliteration as described here should be used."

--Endroit 15:33, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, final wording: "The transliteration of related languages such as (but not limited to) Ainu and Ryukyuan should use the accepted standard transliteration for that language, if any. If there is no accepted standard transliteration for that language, and the word is generally written in katakana in Japanese, a direct katakana to rōmaji transliteration—without macrons—should be used (e.g. ドウモイ becomes "doumoi" rather than "dōmoi"). If no other accepted transliteration method exists, the Japanese transliteration as described here should be used." ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:45, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, thank you. It looks good now.--Endroit 13:19, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Done. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:51, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] figures

What is meant by "figures?" E.g. Historical figures, Modern figures. Does this term only refer to politicians, revolutionists, and mythological characters or does it include everyone? Jecowa 08:59, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

A "figure" is any person. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 09:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A (hopefully noncontroversial) proposal not connected with the "what the hell" debate

I want to rename the article Kami-Ījima Station with the new title Kami-Iijima Station. This would put it in accord with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)#Romanisation #1: "All other long vowels are written without macrons: ああ → aa, いい → ii, and ええ → ee." However, when we recently changed Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)#Romanisation Article titles #2, we simply specified "Article titles should use macrons" (allowing the exceptions for English custom). This could be interpreted to require i-macron instead of ii in titles, making it different from body text. I don't believe the intent of the change to macrons in titles was to change this.

So I propose to change Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)#Romanisation Article titles #2 to read as follows: "Article titles should use macrons as specified for body text except in cases where the macronless spelling is in common usage in English-speaking countries (e.g., Tokyo, Osaka, Sumo and Shinto, instead of Tōkyō, Ōsaka, Sumō and Shintō). I've written the proposed change in boldface to make it easy to see, but of course I don't intend to make it boldface in the MoS.

I hope the insertion of "as specified for body text" will not be controversial. But if anyone has an opinion, please speak up.

Fg2 20:53, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I believe when it says to use macrons, it means to use them in the manner described above. If the original title was in kanji, then this article would need to use "Ii." "Ī" should only be used when transliterating katakana and only when an English spelling isn't available. Jecowa 21:48, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
It sounds fine to me, and I hope along with you that this can be solved quietly. I don't know if it's explicitly stated in our policies, but I don't think I have ever seen macrons used in place of ii, ee, and aa. This should be perfectly fine... I don't want to see "ē ja nai ka" or "Īdabashi" or "kakkō ī". That's just really really weird. LordAmeth 23:19, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Jecowa is correct. The correct title of the station would be Kami-Iijima Station. Only double katakana is written with the macrons in all cases. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 00:21, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Looks like a redirect may have already been there. I was bold and just moved the article and cleaned up the links to it. Without the macron seems to be the only way it's listed as far as I can tell when doing a search. With the macron yeilds no results. I excluded Wikipedia and all mirrors in these two searches. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:50, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to all Fg2 07:21, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

A sidenote for the letter "I" with macrons... Whatever works for Polynesian languages don't necessarily work for Japanese. For example Hawaiian language has macrons for "I", as in Waikīkī. But because of several "pronunciation respelling for English" notations, Waikīkī can be misread as Waikaikai. And Ījima can be misread as Aijima. That's very confusing and unnecessary for Japanese. For Japanese related articles, I believe we should avoid "I" with macrons because of this confusion. (However, no need to mention this in the MOS-JP).--Endroit 17:05, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Hercule debate

Ah, the lovely Talk:Hercule (Dragon Ball) debate involves two groups - One who prefers the name (in the original Japanese version) Mr. Satan, and one who prefers the U.S. dub name Hercule.

There have been two move requests from Hercule to Mr. Satan - One filed about a week after the first one failed.

WhisperToMe 22:26, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rikishi "names"

There's a very curious discussion on-going at Talk:Asashoryu Akinori#Requested move, where this guideline is being quoted as if it overrides the general principle of common names, or indeed that its application would in any way justify the current article title. Surely any sensible application of the naming conventions would conclude that wrestlers should be either at their shikona as it's actually used, or else at their actual, legal "real" names (if one is going to ignore convention, and appeal to "encyclopaedic accuracy" in the abstract). No-one would ever use their "shikona first names" to disambiguate between Takanohana I and Takanohana II, and the current scheme just leads to tortuous piping to get a more reasonable style in article text (see the first article for an example of same). These are not actual Japanese family and given names, and to insist on using them in article titles as if they were (in either classical or Westernised style) seems to me misguided. Alai 23:26, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cities in categories

Recently, many "People from XYZ" have sprung up, where XYZ is a city name. Since city names can be common, I think we need to standardize that these should be "People from XYZ, ABC" just like the city articles are named. Commmon usage (where Tokyo, Osaka, and other registered cities are excepted) can also be excepted here. For a (possibly incomplete) list of current offenders, see Category:People by city in Japan. I also want to execute an educational campaign of sorts, to enforce the idea that people shouldn't be listed by both the prefecture and the city, if the city cat exists; but, that is not a Japan MoS issue. Comments (on the naming proposal)? Neier 12:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Obviously, those category names need to be fixed. We already have a rule for cities, in WP:MOS-JA#Place names, and we should enforce it.--Endroit 19:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hokkaidō

Please note that the Place names rule itself needs to be updated, as follows:

  1. Hokkaidō needs to be fixed. Either the article gets revised and/or renamed to Hokkaidō Prefecture, or we need to change the prefectures section of the Place names rule, to make exceptions for Tokyo & Hokkaidō.
  2. We need a separate section for designated cities (Osaka, Yokohama, Nagoya, etc.). We've discussed it before. Please see my separate proposal for "Designated cities" right below.

--Endroit 19:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

It should be at Hokkaidō Prefecture because it is not about the main island. We should also create a stub page for the island. The argument that we would be calling it "Hokkai Prefecture Prefecture" is weak, because we already ignore the difference between -ken and -fu, and Hokkaidō is a special case. In a worst-case scenario it should still be at Hokkaidō (prefecture). Dekimasu 04:33, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Hokkaidō Prefecture, Hokkaidō region, and Hokkaido Island all redirect to Hokkaidō now. We also know that the current article name is in conflict with the Place names rule of WP:MOS-JA. If nobody objects to what Dekimasu just said, I think we should go ahead and implement his suggestions.--Endroit 18:26, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Designated cities

In the Place names rule of WP:MOS-JA, I propose to add an item for designated cites. Basically, the "designated cities" rule should specify that "all designated cities drop the prefecture name except for the ones where disambiguation is necessary". Or we can list all the cities, because the list is short.--Endroit 19:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I think we discussed this a couple months ago. I don't think a consensus was ever reached. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:59, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
The most recent discussion where most of the large cities lost their ", Pref". Neier 23:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe the most recent discussion indicated that designated cities with unique names do not need the prefecture name. No consensus has been reached for those with ambiguous names (Fukuoka, Chiba, Saitama, Shizuoka, Kawasaki) or those not so well-known internationally (Sakai). I think one unresolved issue is how to disambiguate -- keep the current comma style with the prefecture name, or add "(city)" after the name, or some other method. --Polaron | Talk 23:40, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I do quite a lot of work on disambiguation, so I can actually contribute to this discussion. Here's what I think is a well-informed reply:
  • While clearing up links to "Fukuoka" to point to "Fukuoka Prefecture" or "Fukuoka, Fukuoka" is a pain, it is necessary. This is particularly true because so many people link to "Fukuoka, Japan" without regard to which Fukuoka they are talking about. The same is certainly true for Saitama. I haven't personally disambiguated Chiba or Shizuoka, but I'm sure the same applies to them. When the prefecture and city names are the same, the disambiguation can't be dropped or tons of incoming links will be misdirected.
  • In the case of "Sakai", on the other hand, the vast majority (95%+) of the links are meant to point at "Sakai, Osaka". I actively maintain the page to send the links to the right place, which resulted in the comments from the previous discussion. The others are errant links for "Sakai Project". Personal names are never a problem. It could probably move to Sakai and probably would move to Sakai under the proposed rule, regardless of the fact that it isn't a very well-known city.
  • Kawasaki should clearly stay where it is because of the prominence of the company with the same name.
Dekimasu 00:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree completely with Dekimasu. The question is, should we leave the current dismabiguation method of attaching the prefecture name after a comma or should we use another method. My preference is to simply attach "(city)" to the name since we are disambiguating between something that is a city and something that is not. --Polaron | Talk 01:03, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I mostly agree. The only troubling aspect is that for Kawasaki and Fukuoka, towns by the same name in other prefectures exist. So while there is technically only one city with that name, people may be confused when looking for one of the other places. I don't know how big any of those other towns are; but, if they ever become a city, then the problem is compounded. Neier 01:31, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe that we unanimously agree on the following point already: "The designated cities Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, Yokohama, Nagoya, Kitakyushu, Sapporo, Sendai, and Hiroshima should be in the form <cityname> only, without the prefecture." That's a good starting point. So the question is, what do we do with the rest: Kawasaki, Sakai, Fukuoka, Chiba, Saitama, and Shizuoka?--Endroit 01:49, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Should we just leave out the 6 cities we disagree on, and mention only the 9 cities we agree on? That way, the cities we don't mention will default to <cityname, prefecturename> based on the existing rule for Place names. And we shouldn't have to discuss the existing rules for which we have no censensus on.--Endroit 02:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
To be honest, I don't agree with all of the current 9. My previous post was based on what I think can and can't be done in terms of disambiguation. There is no reason not to apply what I said about Fukuoka to Osaka, Kyoto, and Hiroshima. I am sure there are tons of misdirected links to Kyoto city that should be aimed at Kyoto Prefecture. Many people like to make links that read Uji, Kyoto instead of Uji, Kyoto (especially when they are writing it in three parts as Uji, Kyoto, Japan)... and where should Kyoto, Japan point? Now it points to the city, but the reasoning is flawed. As a purely stylistic choice I agree with removing the prefecture names, but it is creating problems that aren't easily fixed. Dekimasu 04:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
For example, New York, United States redirects to the article New York, about the state rather than the city. Dekimasu 04:13, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
The 9 cities (Groups 1 & 2A) were unanimously supported back in the September discussion. (Apparently, we've decided that the cities of Kyoto, Osaka, and Hiroshima are significantly more famous than their respective prefectures.)
After what Dekimasu just said, we are still left with 6 cities unanimously supported: Kobe, Yokohama, Nagoya, Kitakyushu, Sapporo, and Sendai. And we can further discuss Osaka, Kyoto, and Hiroshima for censensus, if any.--Endroit 07:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Dekimasu, on the 9 cities which need disambiguating (Kawasaki, Sakai, Fukuoka, Chiba, Saitama, Shizuoka, Osaka, Kyoto, and Hiroshima), can we first determine if the disambiguation occurs completely within the jurisdiction of Japan? 7 of these (Fukuoka, Chiba, Saitama, Shizuoka, Osaka, Kyoto, and Hiroshima) only need disambiguation within Japan, and 2 of these (Kawasaki and Sakai) need disambiguation internationally. If the disambiguation occurs only within the jurisdiction of Japan, can't we emphasize what the Japanese government is trying to say, that the designated cities are significant enough to be "designated"? This means addresses in Japan can read Ōsaka-shi, Kita-ku (大阪市北区?) rather than Ōsaka-fu, Ōsaka-shi, Kita-ku (大阪府大阪市北区?). It's Ōsaka-shi rather than Ōsaka, but the prefecture is completely dropped, showing the significance of the city of Osaka within Japan. Wikipedia-wise, WP:MOS-JA can take precedence over WP:DAB, if the majority of the disambiguation occurs entirely within Japan. So can't we go ahead and make a rule saying that the designated cities "Osaka", "Kyoto", and "Hiroshima" should be written that way, and not "Osaka, Osaka", "Kyoto, Kyoto", and "Hiroshima, Hiroshima"?--Endroit 17:17, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I think we also decided that Nagasaki was to be used for the city, right? Neier 22:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, indeed. Nagasaki can be added to the above list, as the 10th city. And the newly proposed rule can be worded something like:
  • For the following designated cities and world-famous cities, use the form [[{city-name}]] (without the prefecture name): Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, Yokohama, Nagoya, Kitakyushu, Sapporo, Sendai, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.
--Endroit 01:51, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I would tweak it very slightly to this:
  • For the following designated and world-famous cities, use the form [[{city-name}]] (without the prefecture name): Hiroshima, Kitakyushu, Kobe, Kyoto, Nagasaki, Nagoya, Osaka, Sapporo, Sendai, and Yokohama.
I removed "cities" after "designated" to improve the flow of the sentence, and I alphabetized the list to make it easier to find a particular city in it. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 03:05, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Splendid, looks great!--Endroit 15:24, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I am still quite opposed to this. Although I usually agree with Endroit, and the reasoning (emphasis of separation from the prefecture) is logical, this proposal can only take precedence over WP:DAB at the expense of objectively hurting a large number of links in the service of a stylistic choice. Someone will have to go through and correct the links all the time. There won't be an easy method for figuring out which links shouldn't be there, as there is for dab pages - it will require visiting every page linked to Kyoto and checking to see whether the links should point to Kyoto Prefecture. I don't see anyone being willing to do that.

This could still be solved and preserve the reasoning if "City" was added to all of the titles. The only other input that I have is that there is no reason to ignore the disambiguation problem for some of the designated cities and still leave Chiba, Fukuoka, etc. the way they are. If you are set on doing it this way, the only page that should be a disambiguation page is Kawasaki. And I don't mean to be combative, but wouldn't it be helpful to have a second opinion on the feasibility of this from WP:DAB? I am inclined to leave a note. Dekimasu 05:04, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that because Osaka, Kyoto, and Hiroshima are quite well-known outside Japan as cities, a vast majority of the links do probably refer to the city. We could simply clarify the disambiguation note at the top of the article so people will still get to the prefecture article of that's where they intended to go. I think an analogous situation is the case of cities in Spain and Italy. Barcelona, Madrid, Rome, Milan, Naples all go to the city. In any case, we should definitely get a wider range of opinion on how best to deal with this. --Polaron | Talk 05:16, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, the prefectures also cover quite a large area outside of the cities they are named after. Other cities within those prefectures are sometimes very large, like Sakai, Osaka, Higashiosaka, Osaka, and Fukuyama, Hiroshima. That seems to be a very different situation from Madrid (which is basically contiguous with its province), although I understand that both are primary use claims.
As I continue to process the mail-address line of thought, it is getting a little less convincing to me. Osaka City is still the capital of Osaka Prefecture. And the lead of the Sakai article reads "Sakai (堺市, Sakai-shi) is a city located in Osaka Prefecture, Japan." Dekimasu 07:01, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
We need to look at 4 cities: Kyoto, Osaka, Nagasaki, and Hiroshima. Each of these 4 cities is the capital of its respective prefecture with an identical name. I understand that some kind of a disambiguation is required, so a more detailed dab info for the prefecture should go at the top, as Polaron says.
The majority of the links in Wikipedia (over 50%) appear to link to the city rather than the prefecture, in each of these 4 cases. I guess we can consult with WP:DAB if 50% is sufficient, and if not, clarify what percentage is required to claim primary usage.
Also, the page naming, etc. depends on the "risk of confusion" factor described in WP:DAB. Take a look at some dictionary and encyclopedia definitions:
  1. Kyoto: Merriam-Webster, American Heritage, Columbia, MSN Encarta, Britannica (city), Britannica (prefecture)
  2. Osaka: Merriam-Webster, American Heritage, Columbia, MSN Encarta, Britannica (city), Britannica (prefecture)
  3. Nagasaki: Merriam-Webster, American Heritage, Columbia, MSN Encarta, Britannica (city), Britannica (prefecture)
  4. Hiroshima: Merriam-Webster, American Heritage, Columbia, MSN Encarta, Britannica (city), Britannica (prefecture)
Most of these sources have just one entry for each, defining it as the "city and capital of X prefecture" or just simply the "city". Britannica has 2 entries, one for the city and one for the prefecture, however the prefecture article is extremely small in each case. In all the above sources, the city is the primary usage, and the prefecture is the secondary usage with much less significance.
So I believe the "risk of confusion" factor may be only significant within Japan, but not internationally.
Finally, as Dekimasu suggested, we need to start actively patrolling Osaka, Kyoto, Nagasaki, and Hiroshima, check the "what links here" all the time, and fix the links. Also, we should consult WP:DAB if this proposal is acceptable. Dekimasu, can you please drop a note with WP:DAB? Please let us know if we need to discuss in their talk page, or if they will discuss in ours.--Endroit 17:57, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I have left notes at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation. Dekimasu 02:16, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disambiguation for Kyoto

I just went through the first 100 in Kyoto's "What links here" list. And I think I see what Dekimasu is saying. It's really a BIG problem, because there are quite a few potentially wrong links. We need to agree on a convention on how to disambiguate these. How about this....

  • All ancient usages of Kyoto prior to the Meiji restoration (1868), including Heian, Miaco (Miyako), etc., should all redirect to Kyoto (the city) rather than Kyoto Prefecture.
  • All modern usages of the word Kyoto after 1868 needs to be re-evaluated as follows:
  1. If any source says somebody/something is from Keihanna or Kansai Science City in Kyoto, it's in Kyoto Prefecture, and not Kyoto.
  2. Otherwise, if an English source says somebody/something is from "Kyoto" only, we're not sure, so look for a Japanese source. If any "City of Kyoto" variation is used though, link to Kyoto.
  3. If a Japanese source says somebody/something is from Kyoto-shi (京都市?) it's Kyoto. If a Japanese source says somebody/something is from Kyoto-fu (京都府?) it's Kyoto Prefecture. If a Japanese source says somebody/something is from Kyoto (京都?) only, it's usually Kyoto (the city), but we're not certain; what should we do then?
  4. Finally, if we end up not being sure, should we redirect it to Kyoto Prefecture by default, like the Japanese Wikipedia does?

--Endroit 13:53, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

My opinion about the issue:
  1. If topic is about the city, I think it's better to link to Kyoto via unambiguous page names such as [[Kyoto, Kyoto]] or [[Kyoto City]], which redirect to Kyoto, so that no one has to evaluate such links again.
  2. In Japanese usage, if city/prefecture is ommited, I think it is likely talking about the prefecture.　However, if we are not certain, I think we should leave the link as is.
  3. In English usage, if city/prefecture is ommited, I think it is likely talking about the city.　However, if we are not certain, I think we should leave the link as is.
  4. The Japanese wikipedia does not redirect 京都 to 京都府. It has ja:京都, which deals with pre-Meiji Kyoto, ja:京都府 for Kyoto Prefecture, and ja:京都市 for Kyoto City. It might be a good idea to have an article about historical Kyoto in English Wikipedia (and historical Nara as well).
--Kusunose 15:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I see there hasn't been a flood of assistance here. I'll try to get a few more comments again. Heian, though, needs to remain a dab because of Heian Period. Dekimasu 13:39, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Emperors?

I'm sure this has been touched on before, but I was sometime ago reverted for changing an article of Empress Genmei to conform to the suggestion layed down here as regards romanization of ん as m - such people do not have "official romanizations", and Google searches are inherently flawed. Could this not be fixed to at least be more clear? elvenscout742 13:58, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Google Books gives 64 hits for "Genmei" and 66 for "Gemmei", so it's a toss-up either way, IMHO. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 03:01, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that you were incorrect to follow the suggestion. Dekimasu 05:13, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notice of polls: Ryūkyū/Ryukyu & Ogasawara Islands/Bonin Islands

Please vote above in the Ryukyu vs. Ryūkyū section, to resolve inconsistencies within WP:MOS-JA. The following 2 polls are now ongoing:

  1. Poll: "Ogasawara Islands" instead of "Bonin Islands"
  2. Poll: "Ryūkyū" instead of "Ryukyu"

Polls end Dec. 13. There's only a few days left, so please hurry.--Endroit 18:17, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

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