Talk:Tibet Autonomous Region

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tibet Autonomous Region is part of WikiProject Central Asia, a project to improve all Central Asia-related articles. This includes but is not limited to Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Xinjiang, Tibet and Central Asian portions of Iran and Russia, region-specific topics, and anything else related to Central Asia. If you would like to help improve this and other Central Asia-related articles, please join the project. All interested editors are welcome.

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Tibet, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Tibet. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page.

	This article is part of WikiProject China, a project to improve all China-related articles. If you would like to help improve this and other China-related articles, please join the project. All interested editors are welcome.
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale. (add comments)
More information about this article... Top This article has been rated as top-importance on the importance scale.

What does "Xizang Zizhiqu" literally mean. I know "Xizang" means Tibet. What does "Zizhiqu" mean? Autonomous region, or something else?

Yes, "Zizhiqu" means "autonomous region". "Zizhi" means autonomous, and "Qu" means region.

("zi" = "self", "zhi" = "govern")

[edit] Xizang is alternate title, but use not described

Xizang redirects to this page, but it doesn't say at the top that Xizang is an alternate name for TAR. Does the region Chinese refer to as Xizang exactly correspond to TAR, or is it ever used (even historically) to mean the wider Tibetan region? I think if Xizang really is a synonym for TAR, that should be mentioned at the top. Otherwise it should redirect to its own page, or Tibet, or whatever. Francis Irving 17:05, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Chinese language Pro-TI pages use "Xizang" to refer to all of Tibet: see Tibet#Name. In any case I've changed the redirect. -- ran (talk) 18:28, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What to use at the top of the box

There are two possibilities. One is Pö Rangyongjong, which seems to be an ad hoc transcription of Lhasa pronunciation. The other is Bod-rang-skyong-ljongs, which is the Wylie tranliteration, a letter-by-letter transliteration of the Tibetan original.

Now, for cases like Shigatse (Gzhis-ka-rtse), there is a very good reason to use the ad hoc system: because that's how it appears in the English language. Various texts online are more likely to refer to Shigatse as "Shigatse" rather than "Gzhis-ka-rtse".

But this is not true for "Bod-rang-skyong-ljongs". In English, the region is called "Tibet Autonomous Region", not "Pö Rangyongjong". When we want to give a Romanization of the Tibetan version, the best system to use is one that is already established, i.e. Wylie.

An analogy for this is to improvise a new system for the Chinese "Sheetzang Tzejechew" instead of using Pinyin "Xizang Zizhiqu", and justifying this with a few isolated exceptions like Hong Kong and Sun Tzu which do not use Pinyin. -- ran (talk) July 1, 2005 01:55 (UTC)

Although Wylie is established, it appears to be used mostly by historians and professors, from what I can see. And although with Pö Rangyongjong, there is no "system" to it, it is what most people use. --Hottentot

But what is "Pö Rangyongjong"? It's not "Shigatse" or "Milarepa", which appear as the usual forms in the English language. But who uses "Pö Rangyongjong"? Googling "Pö Rangyongjong -Wikipedia" gives a total of 8 links, which are all Wikipedia copies anyway; searching for "bod rang skyong ljongs" gives a small collection of academic links, which, though modest, is slightly better. The truth is, no one uses "Pö Rangyongjong", except us.

Now, if we want to show Lhasa pronunciation, either use the Tournadre system (we can ask Nathan Hill), or IPA (we can also ask Nathan Hill). But forget "Pö Rangyongjong". -- ran (talk) July 1, 2005 03:41 (UTC)

Ooooh, I see what you're saying, all the Google hits for "Pö Rangyongjong" are taken form Wikipedia. It appears that the person who added that was User:Chiramabi, but that doesn't really matter. --Hottentot

[edit] Ethnicities

Where do these ethnicity figures come from? Only 6% han seems rather low to me... --Josquius 13:53, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Published 2000 census figures. For more on Tibet's demographics, what people say about it, and the actual published numbers, see Tibet#Demographics. -- ran (talk) 14:44, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Ran has inside information about the demographics. I guess he is the last to know that the chinese government has not published the real figures and are not to be trusted with any figures or statements about Tibet. People should be aware these articles are not at all neutral and should look for information on Tibet some place else. The poster "ran" has one sided manner of "contributing". Readers, beware!

I was not aware that published and publically available census data is considered "inside info". In any case, the data is sourced and it is your choice whether to believe in that source or not. Please familiarize yourself with Wikipedia's neutral point-of-view policy, as many of our pro- and anti-Tibetan independence contributors have already done, to avoid making further inane comments such as the one above in the future. -- ran (talk) 20:55, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

No mention has been made of the much higher Han Chinese to native Tibetan ratio within Lhasa and Shigatze. Comments have been added although I cannot find reliable figures to back up this truth. --Ratpup 22:39, 14 December 2006 (UTC)