Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles

WP:VG/GL#Non-English games

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Ruby

Ruby is now supported in IE, Safari, and Chrome—and two extensions are available to add support to Firefox. May be time to change this? LittleBen (talk) 03:20, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Kyu and dan grades

Hi there. I've been working on Judo-related articles, and I'm wondering what the convention here is for Romanizing kyu and dan grades. For example, I have seen 初段 rendered as both 'Shodan' and 'Sho-dan', and I'm wondering if I should use a hyphen or not. CanadianJudoka (talk) 07:42, 8 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by CanadianJudoka (talk • contribs) 07:40, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Non-standard readings of kanji

I've been encountering an issue that I believe we should cover in some form here.

It is quite obvious when it comes to pop culture that sometimes names of items will be written a certain way (possibly with kanji), but then there is a reading (normally would be given in furigana in print in Japan) that is completely different from any on'yomi or kun'yomi reading of those kanji.

While it is not a standard practice as put forward by this manual of style, I have been including the intended reading of the kanji (or in rare cases hiragana) in parentheses after the phrase that is read in an idiosyncratic way, such as "Ace" (A（エース）, Ēsu), "Eight" (∞（エイト）, Eito), "Fantasy" (幻想（ファンタジー）), and "Ikura" (いとくとら（いくら）). I've found the pages on Saint Seiya to be particularly problematic in this regard, as a particular editor has been editing the pages to treat everything as some massive fansite and exclude katakana readings of characters' names when things like かじき座 is supposed to be read as ドラド and トナカイ座 is supposed to be read as カリブー.

As the state of the pages before I went to them show that they already do not comply with various other manuals of style (fictional events written in the past tense, poor formatting, etc.), I am proposing that at least this bit gets added to this manual of style, stating that if a Japanese reader needs to be informed of a particular idiosyncratic reading, particularly if it so extreme that a combination of hiragana and or kanji are read in a specific way that in no way would ever match their standard readings, that we should include that same information in some form.—Ryulong (琉竜) 10:23, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree[1]. I think there are many terms like them in music -e.g., 哀歌(Erejii - Elegy; e.g.哀歌 (エレジー)), 前奏曲(Purerudo - Prelude; e.g.雨だれの前奏曲), 輪舞/輪舞曲(Rondo; e.g.輪舞曲), etc. "理由" called "Wake", "本気" called "Maji" and so on are known too. Recently many parents name their children special reading names called "Kirakira name" (キラキラネーム) or "Dokyun name" (DQNネーム) -e.g., 大宙(Ten), 希星 (Kirara), 月 (Akari), 虹実 (Nanami) etc. It seems a school teacher could not read one-third of his children's names at first.[2]

Incidentally, there are lots of established and special readings such as ateji (当て字), ateyomi (当て読み), jukujikun (熟字訓) and hanjimono (判じ物) from ancient times. -e.g. 明日(Asu/Ashita (tomorrow); Myonichi in on'yomi), 姉妹 (Kyodai (brothers); Shimai (sisters) in general), 煙草 (Tabako - tabaco (cigarette/cigar)); Enso in on'yomi), 氷島 (Aisurando (Iceland); Hyoto in on'yomi means an iceberg), 鞄 (Kaban - 夾板 or kabas (bag)), 麦酒 (Biiru - beir (beer); Bakushu in on'yomi), 小鳥遊 (Takanashi (family name); Little birds play (小鳥(が)遊(ぶ)), then there is no hawk (鷹がいない-鷹なし-たかなし)) etc. In Man'yōshū, "山上復有山" reads "ide" because the form of "出" is just like the combination of "山" on "山".--Mujaki (talk) 15:59, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

"Names of emperors", with regard to Meiji and Taishō Emperors

Just reading about the Taishō Emperor, and I have a question. The article states that he, '[h]aving ruled during the Taishō period[,] ... is now known as Emperor Taishō[, but a]s this is not a personal name, more accurately he should be referred to as "the Taishō emperor".' I agree with this statement, since the "posthumous names" of these Emperors were originally conceived of as era names and are overwhelmingly used as such in Japan today, without necessarily any regard to the Emperors in question. This, however, raises the issue of whether the articles on him and his father should be renamed accordingly. I know in English they are sometimes (erroneously) called by these names as though they were personal names, and Wikipedia should use English, but if it is the case that the articles should be named according to their inaccurately translated English names, should that not at least be stated on this page? elvenscout742 (talk) 05:52, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Also I just checked: while the Emperor Meiji article doesn't say anything as drastic as that, the order "Meiji Emperor" appears 10 times in the article, while "Emperor Meiji" appears 13 times. However, this includes the article name, opening line, and text box header, and three other occurrences in similar fashion. So if these six instances are disregarded (if the article were moved and the style altered accordingly, they would go the other way) the article is already overwhelmingly geared toward the "Meiji Emperor" wording. elvenscout742 (talk) 06:07, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Language templates

• The MOS:CHINA has a useful tip for embedding kanji in English Wikipedia: Template:Linktext can be used to allow readers to look up kanji in Wikipedia. So instead of Tokyo (東京, Tōkyō, "Eastern Capital") we can write Tokyo (東京, Tōkyō, "Eastern Capital"). I propose to add this as a recommendation under MOS:JAPAN#Templates (currently Sec. 5.1) if there is agreement.
• Here I wrote a short piece related to accessibility and Wikipedia guidelines on embedding foreign languages in English Wikipedia. This information does not seem to be widely known, so I propose to add a link to this as well. LittleBen (talk) 10:57, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm not sure I understand what linking to individual kanji would help the reader understand about the topic as a whole. A link to the Japanese Wikipedia might help in some circumstances: 東京. Dekimasuよ! 07:02, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, linking to the individual kanji isn't really that helpful. The basic reader doesn't need to know the ins and outs of the characters to understand anything about the topic. They might have a greater importance in Chinese, but even then I don't see it on use on Chinese articles that often either.—Ryulong (琉竜) 07:07, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

• It's used for Pearl Buck's Chinese name. I'm just suggesting it as an option—I'm not suggesting that it be "compulsory". It's surely useful to know the meaning (origin) of the characters in somebody's name—as a conversation starter, a mnemonic, or whatever. ;-) LittleBen (talk) 11:40, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

(Not support)"東京" is one term; LittleBen's proposal is just like writing as "word" for English term. "Tokyo" is less unsatisfactory than other many cases such as "Aichi" (愛知), "Akita" (秋田) and so on. "Tokyo" comes from "Eastern Kyo (as the place name; Kyo-no-miyako, Kyoto)" or "Eastern Capital"[3], but "Aichi" (愛知) is ateji of "Ayu-chi" meaning "gushing out - place" or "tying the hem - place"[4], "Akita" is also ateji for "鰐田" or "飽田"[5]...-Mujaki (talk) 16:03, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Article titles

• I see that there's an article on Tokyo, but another article on Tōkyō Station. Isn't that ridiculous? The Japan-related MoS doesn't seem to recommend that consistency is preferable (macrons in the lede—the first sentence—is surely the "standard"?) Surely no respectable English source would write it as Tōkyō Station.
• A little more research shows a lack of consistency in a number of articles: Omuta, Fukuoka was moved to Ōmuta, Fukuoka in 2007. The city's web site is here. Kōchi Airport likewise (2010). There seem to be quite a few articles about Japan with macrons in the article title. Surely nowadays most newspapers and books do not show Japanese names with macrons. It seems to be Wikipedia "standard style" to explain the pronunciation (and use macrons) in the lede... and not use macrons in the article title. LittleBen (talk) 11:36, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

There are several links to macron-related discussions in the archive box above. You might be interested in reading through those discussions to see how we got where we are today. Dekimasuよ! 22:23, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Move the pages to the common names without macrons. Easy enough.—Ryulong (琉竜) 22:55, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Sould not move without consensus. There are some previous discussions as Dekimasuよ! said. e.g., Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles/Prefectures and macrons.--Mujaki (talk) 15:52, 18 September 2012 (UTC)