Talk:Chinese Postal Map Romanization

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[edit] Some questions on naming

Hmm...this title sounds a bit weird. How's Postal system pinyin or Postal system Chinese romanization? --Jiang 07:01, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I'm not even sure if "system" (式 "manner") should be translated out. Maybe just Postal Pinyin? I don't think "Chinese" is necessary, since no other country's postal Romanization is called Pinyin. --Menchi 07:06, Aug 19, 2003 (UTC)
I've heard "postal system" used before (never w/o the "system") so I think this should be moved to "Postal system pinyin" (capitalize?). --Jiang 00:11, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Moved from Pinyin of Postal System to Postal System Pinyin. --Menchi 00:17, Aug 20, 2003 (UTC)

Why was pinyin adopted for the system's English name, instead of the more common English term "romanization"?--I'm assuming just as a parallel with usage in Hanyu pinyin, etc...but this almost establishes a false sense of relatedness, almost anachronistic. However, the answer to my question is probably even more self-evident than I thought: it's probably just a direct adoption of the Chinese term (Youzhengshi pinyin) --Dpr 20:18, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Page move suggested

Postal System Pinyin is not a good name for this page, I will go and check the library and get back with a suggestion.--Niohe 15:50, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Here is a link to the page this article is a sloppy translation of.--Niohe 15:59, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

The most appropriate English term that I have found so far is Postal Spelling System. I believe a move to a more appropriate English term is urgent, because a lot of web pages apparently quote Wikipedia as an authority, I will continue checking.--Niohe 17:30, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

The Cambridge History of China calls the spelling system "Imperial Post Office romanization". Please give feedback soon, or I effect a move soon.--Niohe 16:26, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Another alternative would be "Chinese Postal Atlas romanization", a term which is widely in use.--Niohe 22:44, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. Thanks for looking into this.—Nat Krause(Talk!) 02:37, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Great! As I see it now, "Chinese Postal Map Romanization" is probably the most appropriate name for the article. "Imperial" only covers the Qing dynasty. I'll see if I can get more feedback and then I'll make a move in the next couple of days or so.--Niohe 03:19, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Chinese Postal Map Romanization seems like the best name to me as well. john k 13:45, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps "Chinese Postal Romanization" would be the best? I don't see how this system is exclusive to maps only. -- ran (talk) 00:18, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that is a possible name as well. The reason why I chose "postal map" is because the romanization is often referred to as "postal map spelling" or "postal atlas spelling" in the literature.--Niohe 00:57, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I think one source of confusion is the Chinese language article that this article ultimately is a translation of. It gives the impression that the primary name of the romanization is youzheng shi pinyin and that an English term should somehow refect that name. I am actually against having the term youzheng shi pinyin at the heading of this article for that very reason. It invites objections from character-by-character translation purists, who are numerous here on Wikipedia.

The basic problem, of course, is that the word pinyin did not exist when this "system" of romanization was invented. Instead people have been referring to these romanizations as based on the "Chinese postal map/atlas/guide" for a hundred years or so. So, I think there are good reasons for including the word "map" in the heading of this article.--Niohe 15:31, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page moved

I just moved the page, I have also changed the romanization template accordingly. Please let me know if this move has caused any double redirects or broken links, and I will take care of it.--Niohe 20:23, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Fixing all broken redirects is the onus of the editor moving a page (though one almost always ignored). Badagnani 00:01, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
I know and I'm working on it.--Niohe 00:58, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Redirects

I have started to fix possible double redirects and I'm planning to replace "Postal system pinyin" interwikis with something shorter than "Chinese Postal Map Romanization". I will probably use "Postal map" or "Postal map spelling". Any suggestions welcome.--Niohe 15:40, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it could be good to refer to it as the "older postal system" or something like that in the actual text that links here from other articles. That would make it clear that such spellings, the usual ones until 30 years ago, are no longer common. Apart from that, I'd like to congratulate you on your changes to the article, which have improved it considerably. I wrote the Spanish version of this article about one year ago, based on the information here, and had a few problems with the terminology too, as well as feeling a bit uneasy about the lack of references. This is one of the main problems of the current article and its spin-offs in other wikipedias. You have added some references, but I am still a bit concerned about the mention of that 帝國郵電聯席會議. I have tried to find some information about that meeting, but all the information I have found on the Internet seems to reveal a certain circularity, as if it all comes from this Wikipedia article, or from the unreferenced online text you have identified as the source of this one. I wonder if anyone knows of any reliable printed source in Chinese or in English where we can find more information about that meeting in Shanghai in 1906. Gelo 10:33, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the suggestion. The reason I rewrote the article is presisely because these articles tend to be translated into other languages and then spread further into cyber space, so I just had to fix this before the misunderstandings enter Encyclopaedia Britannica! Just look at the fr:Pinyin postal, this needs to be fixed before it spreads.
By the way, I think I saw somewhere that some people are machine translating the article on the Xinhai Revolution into English. No wonder some China-related articles look the way they look.
The references I added are just very basic references on romanizations, they don't say much about this conference as such. The Internet is not a good sources either, as you have noticed. I think the only way to find something tangible is to browse the contemporary press in Shanghai, such as North China Herald or the Shenbao. I'll look for other sources.--Niohe 12:34, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Source of this article

I have located the original source for this article; there is a Chinese article on the "postal system spelling" in the volume on language and writing in the great Chinese encyclopedia, Zhongguo da baike quanshu. Unsourced transcripts of this article has circulated on-line for a while, and eventually ended up here.--Niohe 15:32, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Encyclopedia reference

The reference to Zhongguo da baike needs tone marks, at the very least, if not characters; & an English version of the title would certainly be useful! And the publisher should probably be translated as well: how on earth is a non-specialist reader meant to understand "chubanshe"?

Incidentally, it would be a good thing if citation templates were used for the references. NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 16:42, 22 January 2007 (UTC)