Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles

New template

This needs to be updated for the new Template:Nihongo3. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:59, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this template does not seem necessary at all. I've used {{Nihongo}} before in a similar fashion, and all you have to do is put the romaji first and the English third (kanji second of course). So there is no need to have another template just for this basic switch.--十八 09:57, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Manual of Style: What to do when various Manuals of Style give inconsistent guidance

A spirited debate is taking place at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Project guidelines. The discussion is on a proposal to add the text "... where there is inconsistency between MOS and its subpages, MOS prevails" to the main manual of style. Fg2 (talk) 08:16, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

"nihongo2" is one up on "nihongo"

Thank you (whoever) for changing the "nihongo" template back to what it was before. Not because I like the way it is now, but because I dislike it less. (It's less bulky, and unlike the decorative version the CSS doesn't have blunders.) Below, I'll argue that "nihongo2" is a better solution much of the time.

First, let's reconsider what "nihongo" does, via example.

{{nihongo|Shōji Ueda|植田 正治|Ueda Shōji|comment}} is right now converted into:

Shōji Ueda <span style="font-weight: normal">(<span class="t_nihongo_kanji" lang="ja" xml:lang="ja">植田 正治</span><span class="t_nihongo_comma" style="display:none">,</span> <i><span class="t_nihongo_romaji">Ueda Shōji</span></i><span class="t_nihongo_help">^{<a href="/enwiki/wiki/Help:Japanese" title="Help:Japanese"><span class="t_nihongo_icon" style="color:#00e;font:bold 80% sans-serif;text-decoration:none;padding:0 .1em;">?</span></a>}</span>, comment)</span>

(With a little "i" graphic, it's a lot longer than that.)

I'll try to explain the above for those who aren't so familiar with HTML/CSS:

1. A sizable chunk of it -- the part that's in pink -- adds a little question mark and links this to Help:Japanese. (I'm not going to dissect this.)
2. Using "lang" and "xml:lang" (for HTML and X(HT)ML respectively), it tells any browser that's interested that the kanji part is in the Japanese language (not that it's in Japanese script). I suppose that this is for audio browsers, so that they attempt to render 植田正治 in Japanese rather than, say, Chinese. (In principle, lang="ja" xml:lang="ja" should be added for Japanese in roman script too, but I'm not recommending this.) Further, MediaWiki:Common.css says: :lang(ja) {font-family: Code2000, "Arial Unicode MS", "Bitstream Cyberbit", "Bitstream CyberCJK", IPAGothic, IPAPGothic, IPAUIGothic, "Kochi Gothic", IPAMincho, IPAPMincho; font-family /**/:inherit;}. I find it hard to think of any browser that benefits from the latter.
3. It puts the kanji into CSS class "t_nihongo_kanji" and romanized Japanese into CSS class "t_nihongo_romaji". Neither seems to be defined anywhere, though I suppose (i) individuals are welcome to define them for themselves, and (ii) one or both might be added to common.css later.

We all know the first of these three. As for the second and third, they're laborious to explain but add up to very little.

Back to Ueda. He was a member of Chūgoku Shashinka Shūdan. I'm not aware of an English name for this (and doubt that there was one), but let's imagine for a moment that it was "Chugoku Photographers' Club". What I'm encouraged to do is write {{nihongo|Chugoku Photographers' Club|中国写真家集団|Chūgoku Shashinka Shūdan}}. Result: Duplication of all the rigmarole above, with a duplicate (and elegant/helpful/irritating/obnoxious) and pointless link to the exact same Help:Japanese article.

Alternatively, I can write Chugoku Photographers' Club ({{nihongo2|中国写真家集団}}, ''Chūgoku Shashinka Shūdan''). Result:

Chugoku Photographers' Club (<span class="t_nihongo_kanji" lang="ja" xml:lang="ja">中国写真家集団</span>, <i>Chūgoku Shashinka Shūdan</i>)

No mind-numbing repetition of the link, much less bulk, and little (probably nothing) lost. And this is why I am using "nihongo2" as much as possible and "nihongo" as little as possible. -- Hoary (talk) 09:40, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

And your point being? I might add that you want to use, in general, as little kanji as possible when writing the article, this encyclopedia being English one. Ideally, almost all article on topics related to Japan would contain only one nihongo template in the opening sentence. So I don't see much a problem with an older version and new version. Of course, there is still a problem that the icon is probably confusing to people other than Japan-related articles contributors (but I'm not interested in repeating myself.) -- Taku (talk) 11:03, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

And my point being that when, as often happens, I want to add kanji in more than one place, I prefer to use "nihongo2" wherever possible for those second and subsequent occurrences, because doing so avoids pointless repetition of a link, and reduces the bulk of the page. Further, I recommend that others consider doing the same.

I want to use as few kanji as are needed to make the resulting article informative and helpful. But I strongly disagree with any claim that "almost all" articles on topics related to Japan should have no more than one string of kanji. Tadahiko Hayashi is neither typical of articles on Japan-related subjects nor a good article, but it's typical of my articles in mid-development: (i) it's bristling with names in kanji because there's no likelihood that most will get articles in the foreseeable future and in the meantime people may want to look up the names elsewhere; (ii) it has a bibliography that gives Japanese titles in Japanese script as these are what are easiest to look up (in addition to Japanese titles in roman script, English titles where these exist, and my own translations of the Japanese titles into English where I know English titles don't exist). I believe that these additional kanji are (potentially) helpful, and really don't care if they make a bizarre impression on people who can't read them or aren't interested in them. They'll make less of a bizarre impression if they're not all accompanied by a link to Help:Japanese. Which is why I intend to convert most examples of "nihongo" in that article to "nihongo2". -- Hoary (talk) 14:18, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

We do agree that the fewer nihongo (not nihongo2) templates the article has the better, so this isn't an actual debate but anyway. (In fact, others might find this interesting.) By "almost all articles must have at most one kanji" I meant eventually so. It clutters text a lot, often too much, if books title or names of institutions are given with English translation, kanji and romaji scripts. Usually, the first sentence of an article contains a rather detailed information on the name of the topic it discusses. (In case of Japan-related topics, this information includes kanji.) This is good because this is part of the role of the sentence; that is, to define the topic. This doesn't apply to names or titles mentioned in the middle of an article. Ok, granted, I add kanji for all the time in places other than first sentences. But this is just a temporary measure; eventually red links would go away along with kanji. It is true that not every book or institution is notable enough to merit a standalone article; but then I would ask: do we need to provide data lengthy enough to disrupt narrative, if not in the footnote. I know kanji is often useful information when one wants to find, say, a book by that kanji. But, for example, when mentioning a book, say, in a biography article of a novelist, we should use a footnote that would contain the year of publication, language, publisher, link to a digital copy (e.g., Aozora bunko) if available, etc. I know I don't do this, but that's because I'm lazy :) Some article contains a chunk of Japanese text in the middle of an article. Japan Standard Time is an example. But in this case that Japanese text should be replaced by a translation and the text should go to the footnote.

Of course, there are a lot of exceptions to this eventuality-kanji-must-be-gone rule. In particular, in the early post, I didn't think of lists; they are probably a different story. I meant to refer to occurrences of kanji in narrative. -- Taku (talk) 23:18, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Ah. First, it seems that we're basically in agreement on when kanji are appropriate. One reason why people here may be interested in how the "nihongo" template would be rendered by the browser is the cumulative effect when "nihongo" is splattered all over the page. In the past, I'd used it fairly freely, perhaps five times in an article; recently, another user added "nihongo" to lots of instances of nontemplated kanji in my articles (here's an example) and the purely visual effect (I mean, without considering the actual HTML/CSS coding) was grotesque; that user's efforts have led me to (i) convert all their good work to "nihongo2" and (ii) splatter my other articles with "nihongo2" as a defensive measure. All very tiresome. Of course a lot of editors who insert Japanese script here and there are blissfully ignorant of the existence of these templates and don't use them. But while the people who do use them seem happy to add "nihongo" wherever possible, I recommend that (whatever it ends up looking like) it should instead be used very sparingly. -- Hoary (talk) 01:21, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

New project to coordinate Manual of Style pages

Wikipedia:WikiProject Manual of Style is being formed. A draft of its goals (copied from the project page) follows.

Initial goals

• Provide a forum to discuss issues which cut across several Manual of Style pages, and any other issues which are related to the Manual of Style.
• Facilitate communication between editors interested in different aspects of the Manual of Style, and encourage editors to think of the Manual of Style as a whole.
• Identify discrepancies between individual Manual of Style pages, and encourage the resolution of these discrepancies.
• Develop guidelines for adding new pages to the Manual of Style, and for dividing or combining current Manual of Style pages.

Further goals

• Provide a cooperative and collegial forum for centralised discussion of style issues on Wikipedia.

Editors who wish to join the project may add their names to the list on the project page. Fg2 (talk) 01:24, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Bold and italic Japanese characters

Should bold or italic type be used for Japanese characters? --88.78.242.225 (talk) 18:13, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Use the Nihongo template, which formats them automatically. Doceirias (talk) 19:51, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

The main wp:italics specifically says not to use italic on non-Roman scripts such as Cyrillic, Greek, or Japanese. It also recommends not using bold text for such text, but does not absolutely forbid it. Rhialto (talk) 21:44, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

It makes the characters look bad when around roman script. Take "Nihongo" (日本語) in italics: 日本語 and bolded 日本語 and then the even more dreadful bolded-italic: 日本語. I don't see a need to ever have to italicize or bold Japanese script, so I'd say don't do it.--十八 22:33, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm running Firefox 3b4 on OS X 10.5.2 and neither the italic nor bold italic variants show up as italic at all. So on top of looking bad, they don't even work on some systems. -Amake (talk) 09:59, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, it is only a beta, so I wouldn't be too worried once the full version is out.--十八 10:39, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm running Firefox 3 Beta 4 on WinXP and both the italics and bold (as well as the bold italics) display just fine for Japanese text. If you're sure it's not another issue, you may want to file a bug report. Bendono (talk) 11:31, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I was assuming that italic and bold italic variants simply weren't provided by default on OS X, but it shows up correctly in Safari 3.1. Maybe it is a bug. I'll have to look into it more. -Amake (talk) 12:03, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the others: if you're using Japanese text, use the {{Nihongo}} template. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 01:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

WPJ template?

While of course having the WPJ template is useful here on the talk page, should there really be a WikiProject tag on the MOS page itself? I don't think we should imply that the Wikipedia-space MOS is subordinate to (or even just of equal importance to) WPJ, although I do support WPJ wholeheartedly. Dekimasuよ! 02:32, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

The navbox is there so people can find other Japan-related project pages (and the page is listed in the navbox). ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 03:45, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Re: Names of modern figures

I am confused by this edit by User:Eruhildo mainly because the last part of the addition, This may not necessarily be the same as the official name(s). directly conflicts with the first point on that list, Use the official trade name if available in English/Latin alphabet. Why should we be telling people to use the most popular name while at the same time telling people to use the official name is one exists? I think the last sentence of Eruhildo's addition should be taken out so that it doesn't conflict with point one, and re-write it as "In the case where an official spelling isn't given, use the most commonly known name" or something to that effect.--十八 20:10, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Consistency between projects is a good idea; but, adding to the current MoS with terms that directly contradict the existing MoS should be done only after a discussion here. Neier (talk) 11:56, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

It applies to fictional characters only. I merely copied and pasted it from WP:MOS-AM because I'm tired of seeing inconsistency. If you have an exception to a rule, it's not a contradiction. Though perhaps it would be better to leave out that last sentence about differing from the official name and link to the other MOS? How about "In the case of fictional characters, one should use their most commonly known name, as per Wikipedia's naming conventions. See Manual of Style (anime- and manga-related articles)." Is that acceptable? --Eruhildo (talk) 14:41, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Then it seems more to be that WP:MOS-AM was at fault for creating the inconsistency. I don't think WP:UCN should really be used though since at multiple places in that page it specifically talks about an article name, not necessarily about the spelling of a name within an article, such as in the Rationale section: "Names of articles should be the most commonly used name for the following reasons:", and then again in the Overdoing it section: "If there is no agreement over whether a page title is "overdoing it", apply the guidelines at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision)." So I don't think WP:UCN should, say, apply to fictional characters that don't have articles. Plus there's an Exceptions section on that page too, and I believe it makes sense for one such exception to be that the common name should only be used if an official spelling isn't already provided. I mean, take into account Yūko Gotō instead of the more common Yuko Goto which is technically a misspelling, and this was moved per WP:MOS-JP, as shown here.--十八 19:58, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I kind of wondered about that common name thing - I thought it looked like it was for naming articles, but I figured since this has been this way since the first time I read MOS-AM that I shouldn't question it. Meh, trying to change that could be a long discussion though - there are a lot of articles using the common names of characters, plus there are lots of series with no official romanizations. That could be messy. There's no way I want to get involved in that. --Eruhildo (talk) 02:41, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposal

There is a proposal at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Loanwords and the inclusion of original terms in parantheses. This is directly relevant to several thousand articles on Japan-related topics. Interested editors are invited to participate. Fg2 (talk) 09:43, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Move proposal

See Talk:Ume#Requested move. Badagnani (talk) 04:51, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

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)

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)

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)

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 1) keep Japanese suffix, add "Island(s)" (I don't like the redundancy of a "Miyajima Island") or 2) 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)

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)