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

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[edit] tokyo articles and macrons

Currently, the MOS says that "Tokyo" is the English name for Tōkyō. OK, that's fine. However, there are now a bunch of articles with mixed macrons - e.g. Jinbōchō, Tokyo. It seems more than a little weird to me to have macrons for the are name but not for Tōkyō itself. Any of you have commentary on this? --moof (talk) 12:50, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I believe the rationale is that "Tokyo" is an established notation, while "Jinbocho" is not. Established notations are used as-is, while everything else is rendered in Modified Hepburn. I believe you'll find that all articles relating to Kyoto are similar (however, for instance Kōchi, Hokkaidō, etc. articles are "Kōchi," and "Hokkaidō," because "Kochi" and "Hokkaido" are not household terms). -Amake (talk) 13:07, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
What Amake wrote. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:18, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Name ordering...

I know the ordering of names for Japanese people is a well discussed (and occasionally argued from the look of things) issue, and I hate to poke around in that sort of issue, but...

Evidently as part of the large scale textbook review going on, the Japanese government has decided that giving names in the given-family order is no longer correct when speaking English. The English text books are all being rewritten with names said in family-given order, with the justification that regardless of the language being spoken the cultural and personal opinion of the individual in question should decide name ordering and that doing otherwise is culturally disrespectful. Something like that anyway.

I just thought this should be thrown out so it can be directly addressed instead of turning into dozens of small scale arguments on different pages as people hear about it. I can't help but feel that if the official policy doesn't address this it could get ugly somewhere at some point.

RatherJovialTim (talk) 12:34, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

But this is what the Japanese government has decided for English language conventions? I don't think they really have a say in what other languages do with their language. Same reason we have Tokyo in English, instead of Tōkyō. Just because the Japanese want to be more "correct" doesn't mean the English speaking world is going to follow suit; or at least not immediately. In any case, I'd like a source to substantiate this claim of yours.--十八 20:32, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
While I think it's great that the Japanese government is finally taking a position on this issue, the WP:MOS (and WP:MOS-JA) both indicate that the most common English usage is what should be used. Until the most common English usage is to use that order, it won't be the primary usage here. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 21:37, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Categorization of macroned ( ¯ ) titles

When a title begins with a macroned character, the article name is categorized after Z instead of in the normal alphabetical order. For example in Category:Judo technique, "Ō guruma" is not categorized under O between M and N, but instead under Ō which is placed at the end. This is a bit confusing when readers can't find articles in the category. Could this be fixed? Shawnc (talk) 19:31, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

This is a matter of sorting in the category. Wiki markup language has something called "DEFAULTSORT" that can help. To get it sorted together with the "O" articles, edit the article and just before the first category (categories should be near the end of the article) add a new line {{DEFAULTSORT:O guruma}}. This tells Wikipedia to sort it as if it were spelled without the macron. Give it a try and see how it works. You can see an example in an article like Hyōgo Prefecture. Best regards, Fg2 (talk) 20:29, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for the explanation and User:Bendono for doing the sorting. Shawnc (talk) 15:55, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Clarification on island names?

I've just finished slogging through the archives of this page and I think this issue has been briefly touched on once or twice before, but I'd just like to clarify: What is the preferred system for giving the names of islands? For example, should the island 久米島 be rendered as Kumejima, Kume-jima, Kume Island, or simply Kume? Currently, the article is situated at Kumejima Island, which seems suboptimal to me, while Kumejima redirects to the town of the same name. The current guidelines for place names suggest that "Kume Island" is not preferred, and earlier discussion seemed to oppose dropping "jima" in most cases, but the hyphen issue is unclear. Moreover, usage in current articles varies wildly. For example, Miyako-jima uses the hyphenated form in the title, but drops the hyphen in the body of the article, while on the Ikemajima page there is a reference to "Miyako Island". I realize there may not be one rule that fits every situation, but can we decide on a general principle to apply to most cases?

On a similar note, the articles on the Daitō Islands are also rather inconsistent. Should 南大東 be Minamidaitō, Minami Daitō, or Minami-Daitō? (With or without a "jima" suffix?) Ditto　北大東 and 沖大東. Currently, each of these three patterns is used in at least one article. --Shiquasa (talk) 06:21, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

For the hyphens, they are generally discouraged. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:27, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Should islands, rivers and mountains have a consistent naming scheme? Fg2 (talk) 07:13, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Probably? Right now, islands, in as much as they're addressed at all, seem to be classed together with municipalities (see my comment below), but perhaps it would be more appropriate to treat them the same way as other geographical features. That being said, is there currently a consensus about how to treat mountains and rivers? --Shiquasa (talk) 00:29, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Without boring you with too many details, I am in charge of English translations for a (small) Japanese town. The way I and at least some of my peers do it is this: Always drop suffixes (-shima, -yama, -kawa, etc.) unless doing so makes the name too short or nonsensical. "Too short" is obviously relative, but our general rule is that given a Japanese {name}{suffix} (e.g. {肱}{川}), if {name} is only one character then {suffix} should not be dropped. Then we attach an English identifier like Island, Mount, River, etc. For instance 堂々山 → Mount Dōdō, but 肱川 → Hijikawa River, and 亀ヶ池 → Kamegaike Pond ("Kamega" is nonsensical). In general I like this method. I would recommend "Kume Island" for 久米島. -Amake (talk) 09:41, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Also, regarding Minamidaitō vs. Minami Daitō, etc., my policy is not to separate location prefixes and suffixes like Minami-, Kita-, etc. So I would recommend Minamidaitō, Kitadaitō, and Okidaitō. -Amake (talk) 09:45, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the rapid reply! That sounds generally reasonable to me, but the current MOS:JP states: Suffixes such as "City", "Town", "Village", and "Island" are generally superfluous in English and should be avoided. So, er, I guess my question still stands. Perhaps this issue needs to be revisited? --Shiquasa (talk) 00:29, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Actually I think I wrote that. The "no suffixes" thing originally came from wanting people to stop writing "Honshu Island." "Honshu Island" is bad because the Japanese (本州) does not contain the word "island" in it, and because it's redundant as everyone (should) know that Honshū is the name of an island (just like "England Island" is redundant). Municipality suffixes are a separate issue, but I won't bore you with my thoughts on that.
So you're right, the rule needs clarification. What do people think of suffixes like "island" for names that actually contain 島? -Amake (talk) 03:23, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure if this has been resolved, but superfluous in English does not mean superfluous in Japanese. Honshu in fact contains "state" not "island", but it's still called Honshu in English, and not called simply "Hon" in Japanese. It should be transliterated into romaji as a proper name, not translated into English. Kawa is a little different. Sumidagawa is "Sumida River" but somehow we have gotten redundant because Sumidagawa is taken as a proper full name, and people will write "Sumidagawa River" I've also seen "<something>-ji Temple". So it may be necessary to go case-by-case, and maybe do a lot of redirecting if suffixing is to be standardized.MSJapan (talk) 13:45, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it's really been resolved yet, and I've held off on editing the articles in question for the past few weeks. My particular concern in these cases is that I'm dealing with a lot of islands which share their names with the municipalities located on them. So, for example, there is the town of Kumejima (久米島町) located on the island which is also named Kume(jima) (久米島), the city of Miyakojima(宮古島市) which is partially located on the island of Miyako(jima) (宮古島), and so on. Certainly there will have to be lots of redirects whatever happens, but in general I think I prefer the "X Island" approach just to make it is clear as possible when we're talking about the island and when we're talking about the municipality. I'm really not too bothered either way, though, so if anyone else has an opinion, please speak up. --Shiquasa (talk) 05:58, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Personally I don't see a point of having separate articles for a municipality and island when they both refer to the same geographic entry. Hokkaidō is a case in point; the article basically starts like "Hokaido is Japan's second largest island and one of prefectures." Why can't we do the same for other small islands as well? For example, Kumejima, Okinawa can start like "Kumejima is an island and town in Okinawa". (And I thought that was a kind of informal unwritten consensus.) I'm not sure about the naming convention, though. But any attempt for standardization should begin in List of islands of Japan. -- Taku (talk) 06:35, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. It gets a bit more complicated when the municipality in question actually encompasses multiple islands, such as Miyakojima, Okinawa, but even then you may be right that the islands don't necessarily need their own articles. Either way the naming question is still relevant. --Shiquasa (talk) 01:00, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree that we don't necessarily need separate articles for, say, municipalities that solely occupy an island of the same name. In that case I would make an article for the municipality (Kumejima, Okinawa) and within that article note that it occupies Kume Island (久米島 Kume-jima?). I'm not sure I understand MSJapan's objections above. We seem to agree that Honshū should be Honshū (if you want to get technical, 州 has other, more relevant meanings than "state;" also note that reducing to "Hon" fails the brevity test I mentioned above), and that suffixes like 川 are redundant. I definitely think 島 as a suffix (久米島 the island) is redundant; as part of a proper noun (久米島町 the town of Kumejima) it is not. -Amake (talk) 03:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, consider Iwo Jima (which has since been renamed), which is/was called such in English and Japanese. It's not "Iwo Jima Island." Similarly, is it "Kumejima", or "Kumejima Island". If we use "Kumejima" which one does it refer to if the suffix is redundant?
Also, this isn't just a question of island names, but a larger question of when to use suffixes and when not to use suffixes in Japanese geographical and other place names. If we resolve it only for one type of usage, it has to be gone through over and over again, so we need to consider English usage as well as Japanese usage in each case and come up with an SOP. MSJapan (talk) 04
36, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I've been ignoring this, since I'm hardly an expert, but with article titles, don't forget the option of paranthesis. Kumejima (island) or Kumejima (town) would be just dandy, and we're even more free to add context within the body of the articles. I would generally argue against ever using both Japanese and English; someone mentioned above saying things like Hijikawa River, but I think we definitely need to call that either Hiji River or Hijikawa (River). Likewise, Kamegaike (Pond). No need to repeat the extra phrase within the body of the article, since it is defined as such in the lead; in other articles, we can add context, "near a pond named Kamegaike." Doceirias (talk) 05:02, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Replying to the posters above: Iwo Jima is a historical name which should be left alone, but by my system it would be Iō Island. Regarding Kumejima, I already described how this should be handled (Kumejima is the town and Kume Island is the island). I also already described my formula for coming up with these names above, which covers not just islands but also rivers, mountains, etc. Regarding parenthetical explanations like (island): Those are currently only used for disambiguation as far as I know. Unless there's more than one thing named Kamegaike, "pond" should not be in parentheses. For unfamiliar cases (which is most cases) I think an English label is necessary, if only on the first mention (not every instance in the same text). For short names ("short" defined above) I think the redundancy is acceptable since the whole point is that English speakers don't understand the Japanese suffix in the first place. -Amake (talk) 10:57, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Let's examine common usage for a second, instead of aesthetics. From existing Wikipedia articles at least, the following appears to be preferred usage (feel free to disagree ... I know there are exceptions to everything below, but I'm trying to identify commonalities):

  • Mountains: "Mount X" (e.g. 100_Famous_Japanese_Mountains, and note though List_of_mountains_and_hills_of_Japan_by_height uses Japanese terms (-san, -dake, etc.) the articles it links to tend to be of the form "Mount X")
  • Islands: This one is not as clear cut ... it appears that the Japanese suffix is preferred when it is -shima/-jima, but "Island(s)" is preferred when it is -tō or -rettō (reference: List_of_islands_of_Japan, again click on the articles to see actual article title, which doesn't always match the link on the list page)
  • Rivers: "Y River" seems to always be preferred. The question is whether -kawa/-gawa is dropped. Usually it is dropped (e.g. Sumida River), except for situations like Amake notes above, when the part before -kawa/-gawa is subjectively deemed "too short" or "nonsensical" (e.g. Arakawa_River, Kinokawa_River)

This seems to suggest a limited number of potential solutions if we want overarching policy instead of just "case by case" decisions.

  • Mountains: There seems to be a general consensus on dropping -san, -dake, etc. and just using "Mount X" (e.g. Fuji-san -> Mount Fuji)
  • Islands: I see two paths ... either give preference to common usage, which might give us a two part rule--if the suffix is -shima/-jima, keep Japanese usage (e.g. Itsukushima) otherwise drop the Japanese suffix and add "Island(s)" (e.g. Rebun Island). Otherwise, the simpler solution is to either keep the Japanese suffix and make no further change in all cases, or drop the Japanese suffix and add "Island(s)" in all cases
  • Rivers: It seems that we either can keep it simple and drop -kawa/-gawa in all cases and add River, or continue to allow subjective judgment in cases where the part before -kawa/-gawa is deemed too short or nonsensical

My preferences (for what they are worth):

  • Mountains: "Mount X" (drop Japanese suffix) ... English common usage seems pretty consistent here
  • Islands: either 1) for -shima/-jima, keep Japanese suffix and add no English suffix; for all else (e.g. -tō, -rettō), drop Japanese suffix and add "Island(s)" (I don't know if "forcing" suffixes like -tō/-rettō/-shotō that are unknown/unused in English is a good idea) or 2) use Japanese suffix in all cases (KISS). I am not a fan of 3) keep Japanese suffix, add "Island(s)" (I don't like the redundancy of a "Miyajima Island") or 4) drop Japanese suffix in all cases and add "Island(s)" (this is mostly an aesthetic preference ... there'd be too many "strange" cases like "Miya Island", "Itsuku Island", & "De Island" for my liking
  • Rivers: I hate allowing subjective judgment in rules ... it seems to defeat the purpose (imagine a law on speeding that simply read "don't drive too fast!"), therefore I favor dropping -kawa/-gawa in all cases and adding River. I am not concerned about the cases where the first part is subjectively deemed too short (I see no real issue with "Ara River" or "Hiji River", especially for the general Wikipedia user ... if we can handle the lovely Aa River, I'm sure "Hiji River" would not be too shocking to the eyes). I am slightly more concerned about cases where dropping -kawa/-gawa makes no sense in Japanese ... but note that it makes perfect sense in English. Thus, while "Kino River" is a little strange when you know that the Japanese is 紀の川, in English "Kino River" makes perfect sense.

Sorry for the long post, but I thought it might be helpful to identify common usage first, then potential solutions, and finally my personal thoughts. I hope this helps! CES (talk) 13:51, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

My preference is always a rule that is simpler and consistent, because rules of that kind are the easiest to apply, remember and maintain. Aesthetic, unfortunately, is a delicate issue. I agree that "De Island" (as opposed "Dejima") sounds way too strange. I would thus propose this. Basically, we should ignore the fact that islands are islands, and treat them simply as geographic entities. If we do this, it would make perfect sense that we don't have separate articles for a municipality and an island, when they are exactly the same geographic entity. Dejima would be named "Dejima" because we ignore that it is an island, and simply give it the commonly used geographic name. In fact, not every article about an island necessarily contains the suffix "island" or counterparts in Japanese (e.g., jima, to). For example, technically speaking, Kansai International Airport is an island (artificial one that is). But we don't give put the suffix "island", obviously. "Dejima" won't be different. I would also want to note that some place names may contain "jima" or "to" even though they don't refer to actual islands. (I can't think of any particular example on top of my head, but there are quite few of them, I think.) Needless to say, those are not suffixes but part of the names and should never be altered in any way.
I'm not sure about rivers and mountains, for I don't contribute to articles on those topics. But the consistent use of the prefix "mountain" and the suffix "River" (don't forget capitalization) seems a no-brainer to me. In any case, good work, CES. A standardization, if feasible, is a definitely a good step. -- 02:17, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
I think most of our problems with dropping the Japanese ending for the feature comes from the fact that we are familiar with Japan and Japanese. I recently wrote an article on a small mountain called Mount Maru. We all know that there are literally dozens of Marauyamas scattered throughout Japan, so it sounds odd to us. However, consider our audience. Most of the readers of Wikipedia probably have little or no knowledge of Japan and Japanese. For them, it won't be an issue. Those readers who do have such knowledge (granted those readers will be more interested in our articles than not) may look twice, but will adjust. We can also supply redirects for the common Japanese names.
Though it has been archived, this naming conventions article has merit: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (landforms). It allows for regional variations should we encounter some that we deem necessary, like Iwo Jima.
I have another example like Gassan. Daisen was listed under Mount Daisen. I just moved the article to Daisen as Mount Dai seemed a little too short to me, especially when the reading is not strictly Japanese, but sinitic (to quote my source).imars (talk) 13:37, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalization

I do not believe that capitalization in romaji is addressed properly in the MOS. The MOS says there is no real system and therefore people tend to follow the English MOS, but that is simply not feasible because the grammatical structure of English and Japanese is totally different. For example, in English we don't cap "in", "on" and "of" in titles, but people here are capping "ni", "de", and "no", which fall into that same general category. That is what people who don't know how to work with Japanese in an English setting tend to do, and as a result, it looks amateurish.

There are plenty of resources that say to use an initial cap and not to cap anything else. The Monumenta Nipponica style sheet is the de facto standard MOS for academic papers dealing with Japanese, and they say to initially cap the first word (as well as proper names) in titles. Japan Style Sheet: The SWET Guide for Writers, Editors, and Translators (ISBN 1880656302) also advocates the same position. Therefore, I think we need to change the Japanese MOS to reflect common convention, instead of running counter to it. MSJapan (talk) 13:37, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

If it's a sentence, sure, but in a title we capitalize the same types of words as an equivalent English title. Therefore, particles are not capitalized, and I don't think they should be. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 00:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear enough. What I mean is that from a romaji standpoint it should be, for example, Kojinteki na taikei not Kojinteki Na Taikei or Kojinteki na Taikei, and the latter two seem to be the norm, not the first one, as I've recently gotten into a minor disagreement over such with respect to song titles. MSJapan (talk) 05:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I would recommend Kojinteki na Taikei (which is also what MOS-JA recommends). As we are writing for an English-speaking audience, and because titles generally have capitalised words in that manner, it's more natural for it to be that way. For a title, Kojinteki na taikei is not suggested or recommended here. And referring to anything from Japan when it comes to Romanization issues is absurd as they haven't sorted it out themselves yet. I can't offer an opinion on SWET as I've never seen or used it. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:23, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Nihonjoe. Keeping articles about, say, Japanese music in line with the capitalization section of WP:MUSTARD is certainly desirable with the general call for consistency in WP:MOS in mind (the other WikiProjects have similar standards). And I actually own a few records by Japanese artists where exactly that kind of formatting was applied to the romaji titles included for an overseas audience. If anything, a list of particles and their common romanizations (or a link to such a list) would be a worthwhile addition to the guideline, as it would help the not so Japanese-savvy editors to figure out what words exactly must not be capitalized in mid-title. – Cyrus XIII (talk) 10:38, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
On a related note, should we include something about not merging particles with words (e.g. Kojintekina Taikei)? This confuses people less familiar with Japanese (makes it harder to look up the word). ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:26, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Certainly, I mean, I for one consider myself "less familiar" with the language and would welcome such advice with open arms. – Cyrus XIII (talk) 10:57, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree with both the capitalization rules of English being placed on Japanese words and particles, and with the separation of the particles from the ends of words. For the former, there was a similar question here, and Cyrus's response has a useful link to the NYT, where Spanish titles are normalized. I'm sure if we dug long enough, we'd find something similar (refs to Tonari no Totoro or the like) for Japanese. The latter is probably less controversial than our practice of separating the family and given names in kanji (which I whole-heartedly support). Neier (talk) 06:06, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
I brought it up because of absurdities like Rurouni Kenshin. That one bugs me every time I see it. It's like writing "Thewandering Samurai". ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:28, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Or it would be if ni were a particle. If memory serves, the (fictional) word is Rurouni. Doceirias (talk) 18:53, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Nope. Rurō is a real word by itself. MSJapan (talk) 01:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Nope. Rurouni (流浪人?) is an entirely fictional word created for the series. Doceirias (talk) 03:29, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Hmm...doing a little more research, it looks like it was written るろうに (in hiragana) until volume 28 of the manga, at which point they finally wrote it as 流浪人, which is normally るろうにん (Rurōnin). I bet most Japanese didn't know that until the author explained it in volume 28. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 04:10, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
It's written in kanji a couple of pages into the first chapter. Above, I just grabbed volume one (of the kanzenban) and checked. Doceirias (talk) 09:52, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
While this matter isn't really about capitalization anymore, but rather spelling, wouldn't it be a case of honoring the subject's official romanization (Rorouni Kenshin) rather than following conventions (Rurō ni Kenshin), as in Kodansha vs. Kōdansha? – Cyrus XIII (talk) 09:40, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
I've yet to see any official titles not separate particles. The ni in rurouni not being a particle, that aspect of it was just a misunderstanding. Doceirias (talk) 09:52, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Especially since the way I was reading it offers pretty much the exact same meaning. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:05, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation

Over at Talk:Guilty Gear XX, I have been involved in a debate of whether or not to include the pronunciation of the title in addition to the romaji. I am on the side of no, as I feel it's redundant. My opponent, an IP address, has included "pronounced Guilty Gear Igzex" in the article in question without consensus. What I want to ask is if there is a ruling against such inclusions. Are there things that should and should not be included in the extra portions of the template? Satoryu (talk) 22:29, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Generally, pronunciation information is unnecessary for Japanese articles. The rõmaji provides everything you need, especially since Japanese is quite straightforward with pronunciation. Now, in this case, as the pronunciation of the "XX" is unusual, it's worth mentioning in the article as long as it can be sourced. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:29, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
A source for what exactly though? The fact it's a non-standard pronunciation? If you know a bit of Japanese, you can see that based on the kana spelling... 88.161.129.43 (talk) 18:00, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
A source for the unusual pronunciation. "Igzex" is not a Japanese word, so the pronunciaton may not be immediately apparent. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 04:13, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure I follow you... I don't know what kind of (probably made-up?) word "iguzekusu" is supposed to stand for. I've looked around, but couldn't find anything. "Igzex" is just intended to give the lambda reader an idea of the way the "XX" is to be pronounced. If we leave it at "iguzekusu" in the nihon template, a lot of readers might completely overlook it or simply (and wrongly) assume "that's how they say "XX" in Japan" (which is what Satoryu first did, in fact). Maybe I could make that clearer by removing the capitalization: "Guilty Gear Igzex" -> "guilty gear igzex"? Or reformulate the whole thing altogether?
Anyway, should the non-standard pronunciation not be noted in the article simply because we don't know of an official romanization for "iguzekusu" (assuming there is one at all)? 88.161.129.43 (talk) 07:39, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What's wrong with ruby?


An earlier discussion of ruby is in the archives here.


Ruby is encouraged in Chinese pages. It was first created for the Japanese language (Furigana), why not use it? --Atitarev (talk) 13:18, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

can you provide more information? I'm aware of Ruby but have never seen it in practice. Is it universally supported? Brettr (talk) 14:11, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Currently, most web browsers do not support it without special plugins. Rhialto (talk) 14:19, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Not most browsers. MS IE supports it by default. Mozilla Firefox requires an easy to install plug-in. There is no issue if the plug-in is missing but it shows similar to this. Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(use_of_Chinese_language)#Ruby_characters Ruby characters in Chinese. --Atitarev (talk) 05:09, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
While MSIE may support it by default it doesn't support it very well. To quote from the page you linked, "IE — perfect... except if you put it inside a table, in which case it crashes the browser." ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:13, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Also, you say it is encouraged in Chinese pages, but this page says that only about 15 pages are even using the {{ruby}} template. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:16, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
OK, then, thanks for the participation. --Atitarev (talk) 11:13, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Te form plus iru

Skimmed the MOS, didn't see this - when transcribing a verb in this form, should it be written shite iru or shiteiru? I'm thinking the former. But what about when the thing is slurred to shiteru? Confusing. Doceirias (talk) 05:29, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I guess I'd favor separating them by following the form shite iru. Certainly they're often slurred and then I'd probably write shiteru. What would you think about shite 'ru with an apostrophe indicating the omission of something? Fg2 (talk) 07:42, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I've never seen an apostrophe used, and can't recommend creating a new mark up here. Doceirias (talk) 08:19, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Since the verb form connects the te-form and iru, I think there should be no space, and this would also work to be consistent with the relaxed pronunciation shiteru.--十八 07:52, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
But we separate other verb forms, like nasai or kudasai... Doceirias (talk) 08:19, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I personally have always seen kudasai separated from the te-form, but have yet to see iru separated from it, or else I'm just looking in all the wrong places. Maybe it's more up to preference in romanization techniques, especially if considering there's nothing currently in the MOS about it. Have you looked over revised Hepburn romanization romanization and made sure they don't cover it somewhere?--十八 08:52, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I have no problem romanizing している as "shite iru" and してる as "shiteru". To me, it's just like saying "do not" and "don't" because the latter in both cases is just a contraction.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Douggers (talk • contribs)
But contractions in English are relative. For example, why is it that "cannot" is correct, and "can not" is not?--十八 04:03, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't believe "cannot" qualifies as a contraction in the same way "can't" does; it's a compound word. Also, in my mind "cannot" and "can not" would, strictly speaking, mean different things: "I cannot x" is exactly what you think it is, while "I can not x" is a (possible and syntactically correct but completely contrived) statement of ability to do [not x]. So first of all I think you're wrong, and second I don't see how that has anything to do with romanizing している as "shite iru" and してる as "shiteru" (which is what I have generally done in the past). -Amake (talk) 09:52, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
My point is that we don't have things like "donot", but we do for "cannot", giving an exception to the rule on when to make it a compound word or a contraction. And, strictly speaking, wouldn't "don't" be a compound of "do" and "n't" where "n't" is just a relaxed pronunciation of "not"? In that case, contractions are just merely a subset of compound words in that contractions are just relaxed pronunciations of compound words. In the case above, してる would be a compound of して and る, the relaxed pronunciation of いる. So we can have "cannot" but not "shiteiru", or we cannot have "donot" but have "shite iru". This was what I was getting at; it's relative.
And I might add, in terms of meaning (to me at least), "can not" and "cannot" mean the exact same thing. English just decides to push the two words together in written form for some strange reason; this is why I hate English so much. I mean, it's not like it's wrong to emphasize it in speech by saying "I can...NOT...do that", although you could also say "I canNOT do that", but I think the first case is more emphatic due to the spacing between the words.--十八 10:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't think we need rules or guidelines for every possible question regarding romanization. I would prefer "shiteiru/shiteimasu" as this is basically a compound verb. This is the way I generally see it written in academic works and textbooks, too. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:22, 1 June 2008 (UTC)