Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles/Archive 16

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linking kanji to ja

User:Tokyo Watcher, also editing as User:博多っ子, has been adding kanji after every occurrence of a Japanese proper noun and linking such kanji to ja. After an exhaustive exchange, I appear to have convinced him that policy does not support adding kanji everywhere. However, he demands to know what specific policy prohibits inline links to ja from the existing kanji in the lead sentence of articles. I'm not sure why he keeps talking to me as he clearly doesn't believe my arguments, so could someone else either talk to him or just add an "Interlanguage links should not be used inline" sentence to this page, so Tokyo Watcher can be content? Thanks muchly, BanyanTree 01:31, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I've updated the appropriate section to make this more clear. Hope that helps. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 00:22, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
Apparently not. I tried, but, with the latest response here, now I'm as frustrated as BanyanTree. Neier 01:28, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I think the biggest problem is a language barrier. Tokyo Watcher obviously doesn't have a native or near-native grasp of English, and is either not understanding the MOS-JA, is pretending to not understand, or is refusing to understand and accept the MOS-JA. I'm going to assume the first. It may be useful if someone could explain it in Japanese on his page. I don't think I could do a good enough job, though. If he still doesn't want to understand, then we'll have to come up with some other way fo dealing with this problem. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 07:12, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I originally thought so too; but, after showing him the MOS rule, his response that "various interpretations to be possible" indicates to me that he understands the points, and just does not agree with them. I've also tried to steer him here where he can go full-throttle in Japanese; but, no dice. Neier 07:48, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I completely rewrote Fushimi Sanpō Inari Jinja into English. The other articles listed on his user page need to be touched by the English fairy as well so they'll be understandable. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 21:46, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

hi

well hello people i just want to learn japanese —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Powerislove2006 (talk • contribs).

There are many books you could use in almost any bookstore. Many colleges and universities 9and high schools) teach Japanese as well. Please note, however, that this page is for discussing the Manual of Style (Japan-related articles), not for requests on where to go to learn Japanese (or expressions that one wishes to learn Japanese). ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:14, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

YOUR moves of Shinzo Abe, Junichiro Koizumi, and Kijuro Shidehara

Please do not move the above articles to the Romaji name, because the Manual of Style says that articles on people should have the popular English name of these people as their titles when possible. In the case of these three people, their popular names do not include macrons, unfortunately. Flyingtoaster1337 13:36, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

You said, "Their popular names do not include macrons, unfortunately". This means, this English Wikipedia have been spreading misspelled names and misspoken pronunciations decisively rather than other Western mass media, because Wikipedias, esp. English Wikipedia has been already the most famous and authoritative encyclopedia. YOU have mistaken causes and effects. "Their popular names"? Their true names have never been "popular", though Shinzō Abe, Jun-ichirō Koizumi, and Kijūrō Shidehara are the current and past Prime Ministers of Japan, because YOU have been spreading their misspelled names which lead to misspeak. Anyway, my talk page is not appropriate place for the discussion of Japanese names and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles). I have to copy and paste this section to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles). --Rocky7 06:14, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shinzo_Abe&diff=101061390&oldid=101061257

This is a serious and HUGE problem. Their names are universally spelled in English in those manners. In addition, the proper pronunciations are already reflected in the notes. WhisperToMe 18:08, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

As you aptly talked, YOU and Western mass media, esp. this English Wikipedia, have been producing and re-producing "a serious and HUGE problem" as to how to spell and speak Japanese names, though it is a very very simple and important problem. Current subtitled news on televisions, articles of newspapers, etc. can never reflect "the proper pronunciations" of Japanese names. But YOU can easily do only by adding diacritic marks to them correctly or using those alternatives. Apparently YOU and Western encyclopedias, esp. English Wikipedia should spell people's names correctly, such as Shinzō Abe, Jun-ichirō Koizumi, and Kijūrō Shidehara. All Japanese romanized names are directly expressing their exact pronunciations as they are. But those are not one of phonetic alphabets at all. Those are just true real names. Such a wonderful feat are possible only in case of the words of Japanese language origin, therefore, it is very reasonable to put those romanization marks( ā, ē, ī, ō, ū, n- or n' ) on words of Japanese origin. YOU have mistaken causes and effects, too. Indeed, Japanese themselves often cut necessary diacritic signs, but this is because all Japanese know their correct pronunciations perfectly by other methods such as kanji and common sense, and because there are cases that it is impossible to add diacritic signs, e.g. names of credit card. But Japanese themselves are methodical and easy to forget, therefore, they themselves need perfectly correct records, esp. in encyclopedias, esp. concerning Japanese names. Besides, Japanese names which diacritic marks are not omitted are true Japanese names as well as non-English Western names. Shinzo Abe, Junichiro Koizumi, etc. are only the misspelled versions of the correct Japanese names, as well as German names, French names, etc. which diacritic marks are cutted. Anyway, my talk page is not appropriate place for the discussion of Japanese names and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles). I have to copy and paste this section to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles). --Rocky7 06:14, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Use the exact romanized names or those proper alternatives in this English Wikipedia!

"Please use the exact romanized names or its proper alternatives as possible as you can in this English Wilpedia, esp. in the title, because the exact romanized names are Japanese true names all over the world. This is common sense of pure Japanese(not including ethnic Japanese). As for misspelled versions or omitted ones of the words of Japanese origin, esp. Japanese names, it is natural to comment them as "misspelled versions or omitted ones" in the opening paragraph, because all of them are evidently "loan words". --Rocky7 06:14, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't order people to misspell (and misspeak) Japanese names.

"Storm of Spring" and is this one of the famous racism attacks to Japanese people? I'm sad, but I have to write. It is already well-known that there are too many anti-Japanese racism admins and sockpuppets in English Wikipedia and Japanese one. Apart from YOUR anti-Japanese racism policy, the words of Japanese origin, esp. Japanese names apparently should be kept their romanization-macrons( ā, ē, ī, ō, ū ) as they are except using those proper alternatives, because YOU(not only English-language speakers but all the people in the world, including Japanese themselves) cannot pronouce Japanese alphabetical names correctly without the help of the diacritic signs. Therefore, current WP:MOS-JA seems to be only the very stupid products by anti-Japanese racism people such as Chinese and Koreans, who cannot convert their own language words to alphabetical ones as they are with simple and exact romanization. On the other hand, wise Westerns who have visited [Japan]] and studied Japanese language have taught romanization style to Japanese people for their own sake and for all Western-languages speakers since 19c, because romanization style is corresponding with Japanese language rather than German language and Italian language, and romanization style of Japanese words is very, very simple and useful, because you are only indicated to extend the sound of marked character or not to liaison "n" and "[next vowel]". This is very simple principles, but exteremely important laws because it is obviously enough easy that anyone cannot misspell and misspeak. Such a simple and essencial principle is not observed in other languages, even in neighbor countries' ones, e.g. Chinese language, Korean language. In case of Chinese romanized names and Korean ones, there are not such a easy and exact law, therefore, diacritic marks cannot be needed, because if they use diacritic marks, they would need too many ones to practice. The pronunciations of their names in English language and ones in their native tongues are ordinally quite different. In other words, English names of Chinese and Koreans are fatally pseudonyms from an auditory pespective. Contrary to them, Japanese romanized names are real names that are used in Japan and that should be used all over the world as they are. Japanese romanized names which diacritic marks are cutted inappropriately, are only the misspelled version or omitted version of their real names. When Japanese themselves use Japanese romanized names which diacritic marks are cutted, they are using the omitted version with consideration, because all Japanese know those correct versions with other measures such as kanji, hiragana, katagana or Japanese common sense. But when non-Japanese people use Japanese romanized names which diacritic marks are cutted, they are often only using the misspelled version with no consideration, because they are not taght correct spellings and exact pronunciations by the titles of English Wikipedia. In Japanese romanized words, there are twelve specific characters( Ā , ā , Ē , ē , Ī , ī , Ō , ō , Ū , ū , n- or n') at most. In case of Japanese person's names, eight specific characters( Ī , ī , Ō , ō , Ū , ū , n- or n') are used. These characters are divided to only two groups, this is, extending type and non-liaisoning type. How foolish you are, if you cannot realize and practice such easy two types! Japanese diacritic marks are absolutely necessary in order to spell Japanese names correctly, to speak them exactly, and to be received amicably by Japanese people themselves. Why can YOU order people to misspell and misspeak Japanese names? --Rocky7 06:14, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The most important thing!

The most important thing when spell(speak)ing the words of Japanese origin, esp. Japanese names, is to pronounce them correctly as possible as YOU can, in other words, to spell them exactly as possible as you can, because Japanese themselves know their romanized names( and their proper alternatives) are directly expressing their real names and that their exact pronunciations are reflected by their exact romanized names. If you don't spell them exactly and/or speak them correctly, even the wisest Japanese often cannot notice that the words YOU told are the words of Japanese origin, even if they are the famous Japanese names. Only diacritic marks can avoid ALL from getting stuck to such a silly problem. In order to confirm their exact pronunciations, YOU should use IPA, not romanized names. Only exact romanized names or their proper alternatives should be used as the title of English Wikipedia, and misspelled versions and omitted ones of them should be introduced as "misspelled or omitted version", because this is the truth. These "misspelled or omitted version"s are permanently "misspelled or omitted version"s, however popular they are. Japanese themselves have been using omitted versions as omitted versions, then of cource so have been Westerns. In Japanese language, a completely same set of pronunciations ordinally has too many meanings which are quite different from each other. All Japanese guess the meanings of them from the context and/or kanji. Each pronunciation of each character of Japanese language is too simple to misspell and misspeak. Because of this circumstances, all Japanese can concentrate their attention only on distinguishing the meaning of words from others. Therefore, if a pronunciation of a marked character is not correct, even the most intelligent Japanese often cannot understand them correctly and would be puzzled. The more famous Japanese names they are, the more puzzled they are. --Rocky7 06:14, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Why can YOU order people to misspell and misspeak Japanese names?

For example, "zo" and "zō(zou, zoh, zow)" are quite different in their meaning and impression. "Shinzo" and "Shinzō(Shinzou, Shinzoh, Shinzow)" are the more different from each other; The pronunciation of "Shinzo" are indicating in Japanese language, "You'll be dead" or "I'll kill you"(in Japanese, "死んぞ", "死ぬぞ"), therefore, the title "Shinzo Abe" is a very malicious joke that means stealthily, "You must die now, Abe" or "WE wanna kill the Prime Minister of Japan". YOU are apparently blackmailing in the form that only Japanese can realize. On the other hand, "Shinzō(Shinzou, Shinzoh, Shinzow)" means Heart(ja:心臓) in its pronunciation. So, "Shinzō Abe" is meaning secretly "Hearty Abe" and/or "Honest Abe". Obviously it's a good naming(at least for the Japanese, at least as a naming). And see e.g. Gerhard Schröder, François Mitterrand. Their diacritic marks are not omitted by YOU. Therefore, I have to ask YOU. Why have YOU persisted to prevail such a crazy anti-Japanese-racism mistakes all over the world, though YOU can very easily prevail correct spellings and exact pronunciations? In fact, the title "Shinzo Abe" in English Wikipedia have already spoiled too many things as well as other Japanese-related articles. --Rocky7 06:14, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I can't agree with the current anti-Japanese racism policy.

As I told above, as for the names of Japanese origin, esp. Japanese names, their correct pronunciation, in other words, their exact romanized names should be respected absolutely as they are, even though almost Japanese people are very generous and indifferent to such a stupid foreigners' problem. Anyway, Japanese alphabetical words with diacritic marks are already another Japanese language and, at the same time, the Western languages(of cource, including the English language). Do YOU think it is adequate to cut acute accent( ´ )s, grave accent( ` )s, circumflex( ˆ ) s, umlaut( ¨ )s, cedilla( ¸ )s, etc. from non-English names in the worldwide encyclopedia that is indeed obviously referenced all over the world? To begin with, romanization signs in question( Ī , ī , Ō , ō , Ū , ū , n- or n') are just diacritic marks as well as acute accent( ´ )s, grave accent( ` )s, circumflex( ˆ ) s, umlaut( ¨ )s, cedilla( ¸ )s, etc. All of them are generated by wise Westerns themselves. These very simple diacritic marks( Ī , ī , Ō , ō , Ū , ū , n- or n') are not phonetic ones such as IPA:[ˌɡeɐ̯haɐ̯t fʁɪʦ kʊɐ̯t ˈʃʁøːdɐ]. They are indicating only "Extend" and "Not liaison". For the phonetic signs, the words of Japanese origin should have IPA(International Phonetic Alphabet) in this English Wikipedia as well as other non-English words, because the pronunciations of English-language speakers deviate from ones of other Westerns. Even if all of the admins of English Wikipedia and Japanese Wikipedia are very very crazy anti-Japanese racists, I think, it seems very unfavorable at least in English Wikipedia to compel people to misspell Japanese names without allowing people to use diacritic marks, and to make people have party to such deliberate insults to Japanese people, because misspelling and/or misspeaking a name of a person, esp. VIP is considered (very, very) rude all over the world. Besides, it is very clear that this English Wikipedia can easily spell their non-English names with diacritic marks as they are. It is impossible for YOU to make excuse in this English Wikipedia. Japanese names belong first to Japanese people. Though when serching non-English names with diacritic marks, there may be some problems, but those problems are all resolved easily by redirects from the page of misspelled names to one of correct names. What kind of character-set mass media are using now and will be is aparently none of my business and none of Wikipedians'. Sooner or later they would realize what kind of character-set they should use as well as decent Wikipedians. Among Asian names, only Japanese names and Philippine names need the same pronunciation all over the world, because their Latin-alphabetical names are directly expressing their own language names, by those correct spelling, this is, by those pronunciations. In addition, all Japanese have been taught their romanized names as their Western-language names(of cource, including English-language names), because intelligent Westerns themselves found and determined that, when expressing the words of Japanese origin, esp. Japanese names, it is the best way for all Wesrtwern people to use romanized names. Even now, in spite of current anti-Japanese racism policy WP:MOS-JA, in case of "ō"(except "ō" before h), "oh" is already used as its alternative all over the world for poor Western mass media. See "Sadaharu Oh", "Shinichiro Ohta". Contrary to current anti-Japanese racism policy WP:MOS-JA, "Sadaharu O" is redirected to "Sadaharu Oh", and Shinichiro Ota haven't even exist(06:14, 8 March 2007 (UTC)). This "oh" is not romanization itself, but its alternative for poor Western mass media that don't have necessary romanization characters. This shows the truth that we should use exact romanized names or those alternatives at least, when describing someone or something of Japanese origin, esp. Japanese names. Therefore, I can't agree with current anti-Japanese racism policy WP:MOS-JA at all. The persons who have created current anti-Japanese racism policy WP:MOS-JA should explain why YOU are crazily eager to make people missspell and misspeak Japanese names, forgetting the position and features of English Wikipedia and ignoring WP:NPOV? Are YOU thinking English Wikipedia is here to spread your malicious anti-Japanese racism? The persons, who have ever created current anti-Japanese racism policy WP:MOS-JA and have not respect diacritic marks of non-English names, cannot be the pure Western and cannot be the pure Japanese. YOU must be anti-Japanese racism Chinese and/or Koreans, even if you are living in Japan. I myself don't mind ignorant foreighners' misspelling and misspeaking at all, but I cannot agree with arrogant facism order, esp. inhumane racism order to compel people to misspell and misspeak people's name intentionally. --Rocky7 06:14, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, Oh is probably known as Oh because that's what he has written on the back of his uniform in romaji every night he goes out on the field, in Japan. Do you think it is less than racist to call those who agree with the current manual of style "Koreans" or "Chinese" as an insult? I think Oh (who is Chinese) might be offended. Meanwhile Japanese elementary schools will continue to tell students to spell 辻 "Tuzi" and 七 "siti"... talk about compelling people to misspell things intentionally. Dekimasuよ! 09:38, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
What? "Oh (who is Chinese) might be offended"? Sadaharu Oh cannot be mad about the spelling of "Sadaharu Oh", because "Sadaharu Oh" is the alternative of his correctly spelled name, "Sadaharu Ou" or "Sadaharu Ō. Are YOU ALL Chinese? Sadaharu Oh is almost a Japanese. In fact, "Sadaharu Oh" is his Japanese name, not Chinese name. We except Chinese, Koreans and Zainichis could not call him a "Chinese". If Sadaharu Oh heard your calling him a "Chinese", he would be mad or embarassed. Sadaharu Oh is, indeed, the son of a Chinese father and a Japanese mother, but he was born and raised in Japan(Tōkyō). He cannot talk any language but Japanese one, therefore, it is very clear that Sadaharu Oh is practically one of Japanese people, though he has Taiwanese nationality because of the nationality law at the time. And ja:王貞治 has been known in US only as "Sadaharu Oh" since the games with MBL teams in 1960s, because US mass media have been introducing him as "the Japanese homerun king Sadaharu Oh" since 1960s like this. Not only in Japan but everywhere, I don't know such a crazy elementary schools teaching students to spell 辻 "tuzi", not "Tsuzi" and 七 "siti", not "nana" or "shichi", See sa shi su se so and ta chi tsu te to. Almost all the Japanese input methods created by venders, however, enables "tuzi" to be changed to "辻", "siti" to "七", etc. in order to enable to input data at the highest-speed. These things never mean that "tuzi" is the correct spelling of "辻", and "siti" is that of "七". All Japanese are just skillfully using both correctly-spelled names and their omitted(misspelled) versions. Would I have to explain such a basic Japanease common sense here from now on? To begin with, why isn't here any pure Japanese Wikipedian except me? --Rocky7 03:40, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
There are plenty of other Japanese editors, but none of them are quite as loud as you. As for romanization, I'd have you read the following: "Kunrei-shiki is sometimes known as the Monbushō system in English, because it is taught in the Monbushō-approved elementary school curriculum." from Kunrei-shiki Rōmaji. Have a look at that article, then come back and give us your Japanese lesson. -- Exitmoose 03:48, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Alternatives of Japanese romanized characters

Left cahracters are superior than right ones.

--Rocky7 06:14, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Teach Rocky7 a lesson about using inflammatory language

I have seen Rocky's tirades. Jeez... the language is so inflammatory that I can hardly read it.

We cannot take Rocky7's proposals seriously at the moment. WhisperToMe 06:20, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "Teach Rocky7 a lesson", but this page is not for teaching anyone a lesson. It's for discussing the MOS-JA, and that's it. I read through the posts above and the generally made no sense to me. If someone felt like summarizing all of that rambling into maybe 3-4 sentences, that would be nice. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 07:01, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
It says that Westerners cannot correctly pronounce Japanese names without diacritics, so (once again) all instances of all Japanese words should have diacritics. That is basically the entire post in one sentence. Along the way it calls this MOS and the English Wikipedia racist against Japanese people, and infers from this that all of us here are Chinese or Korean. As an example, he notes that the English Wikipedia uses "Shinzo Abe" rather than the macronned form as a sneaky way of saying that it intends to kill the prime minister of Japan.
Personally, I didn't learn Japanese so I could make those kinds of statements about prime ministers. For that matter, if I had a yen for every time a Japanese person called me "Niku" instead of "Nick", I could buy the whole cow's worth. I never let it bother me, nor did I think of it as a form of racism.
As for WhisperToMe's comments, they probably refer to the continuous violations of WP:CIVIL and Wikipedia:No personal attacks throughout the posts. Dekimasuよ! 09:54, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Dekimasu, that is EXACTLY what I was talking about! WhisperToMe 00:29, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
While the presentation is poor and some of it I did not understand, I agree with some (not all) of what Rocky7 says. As a whole, I am extremely unhapppy and dissatisfied with the treatment of Japanese names here on Wikipedia. I have argued many of these points numerous times. I do not have the time like before to continue or repeat that again now. Call it protest or whatever you like, but as a rule I try to stay away from intentionally misspelled entries such as *Tokyo, *Osaka, *Shinzo Abe. It's a pity though because such topics are often the most visible parts of Japan. As a Wikipedia editor, I am ashamed of such guidelines. It really hurts the quality of this encyclopedia. That being said, I must say that I am happy that macrons are allowed in many other cases. Bendono 07:11, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I can certainly understand Rocky's point of view, if not the rage. Romaniji, Hepburn or otherwise, is far from a perfect representation of Japanese spelling or pronunciation. But then, why does anyone expect it to be?
The point of romanization isn't to show a character-by-character facsimile of the original Japanese, because that doesn't serve much practical use. Does it matter that the "O" in 扇　and 仰木, or the "Z" in "Takarazuka" and "Ponzu" are different?
Nor is it the purpose to show the exact pronunciation - that's going to be impossible when English speakers and Japanese speakers treat vowels differently. Hideo Nomo is "correctly" spelled, but an untrained English speaker is likely to pronounce it "Hee-day-OH Know-mow". Similarly, an English speaker isn't going to shorten the "O" in "Tokyo" or "Osaka" or "Shinzo" just because they're missing macrons. There's just too huge a difference in the way vowels are extended in English in Japanese to make the effort worthwhile (though there are exceptions, i.e. 大野 vs 小野).
Now, my point isn't that unmacronned vowels are better than macronned vowels. Rather, it's that it's futile to find an romanization system that perfectly fits either the original spelling or the pronunciation, because not every Japanese phonic has an English equivalent, and vice versa. Look at how Koreans have struggled with Lee vs Rhee, Park vs Pak, etc - there's no right answer.
Better to have a system that most of us can agree on, flaws and all. And if pronunciation's an issue, then International Phonetic Alphabet is far more useful. Ytny (talk) 07:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Spelling and pronunciation are two separate issues and must not be confused. Illustrative examples include I / eye, to / too / two, night / knight, bear / bare, see / sea, no / know, be / bee, whole / hole, there / their / they're, right / write, new / knew and countless others. I am not concerned if English readers can properly pronounce these words. I only care about spelling the them correctly in the right context. Same with Japanese. I am not concerned if English readers can properly pronounce the words. I only care about spelling them correctly. Like English, Japanese spelling has some trouble spots as well. But for the most part it is quite regular.
I think IPA is great, but again pronunciation and spelling are separate issues. I gave this example last year: "To day eye went two too stores and bought to packages of meet witch I will cook to knight." That is surely unacceptable. How about this version: "2day ai went 2 2 storz & baut 2 pakages ov met witch ai wil kuk tunait." That is even less acceptable. *Tokyo, *Osaka, and *Shinzo are exactly the same. I have not read those articles in a while. Honestly, it is revolting. It is like trying to read a paper that claims that 1 + 1 = 3. Sorry, not close enough. *Tokyo is not close enough either.
This guideline already has a romanization system, so there is no need to choose a new one. The problem is when to deviate from that system and drop macrons. All that I can is continue to push for a consistent, uniform spelling and ignore articles that are deemed "exceptional". Hopefully such articles are useful to others, but they might as well not exist for me. Sigh... Bendono 14:28, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't think your example tells us much - you're talking about homonyms within the same language, which is neither here nor there. It doesn't explain the need for romaji to represent the original spelling character-for-character. We certainly aren't going to try to reflect the original spelling of Leicester in katakana.
Is it "revolting" that the article for the Italian city of Roma shows up as Rome in Wikipedia? Because that's for the same reason the article for the Japanese capital is at Tokyo. And shouldn't it be Toukyou and Oosaka if we're going to obsess about "proper" spelling?
As long as the long vowel is represented in some way, whether that is with a macron, a circumflex, oo, ou, uu (etc.), then I am satisfied. The circumflex option essentially ended in the first half of the 20th century. Modern texts in English opt for macrons. oo, ou etc are rarely if ever used in published English texts. You can find Tōkyō and Ōsaka (as opposed to Osaka which also exists) in a great many published English texts. This is established practice, and not something that I have made up. Bendono 01:11, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
And it's not like macrons are part of the Japanese language the way diacritics are in Spanish or French. In fact, even Japanese people don't bother with them for the most part. --Ytny (talk) 23:53, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Of course not. But at the same time Tōkyō will never be written ときょ. Bendono 01:11, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Thing is, we must have a MOS which follows the general policies and guidelines established by Wikipedia as a whole. This means that, even if we don't personally like it, we will have articles at Tokyo, Osaka, and Shinzo Abe, instead of at the macronned forms, because those are by far the most common romanizations of those names. This is unavoidable, and we have the {{Nihongo}} template to use so that the correct macronned form of the romanization also exists in the article for those who care. The vast majority of people aren't going to care, though, despite what we may think about it. Those of us know know the difference between "o" and "ō" are less than 1% of the English-speaking world, and it will likely always be that way. Therefore, the forms we use here are governed by the guidelines at WP:MOS-JA, which incorporates the policies and guidelines accepted for general use on Wikipedia, and adds additional guidelines to make article more consistent here. I've said that I don't personally agree with every guidelines in the MOS or MOS-JA, but I do see the need for them. What we have now is an acceptable compromise, IMHO. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:20, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
As for "the most common romanizations of those names", I wonder if this might be changing. The older folks among us may remember a time when American newspapers didn't bother printing diacritics on foreign names of any language, simply due to technical reasons and convenience. This has been changing slowly with the introduction of digital typesetting (and hispanic readers complaining about their names being misspelled :-)). I see no reason why this couldn't happen for Japanese, and Wikipedia would be fully capable of and justified in being an early adoptor – after all, there appears to be no question that the macronned forms are technically correct, we have both skills and technology, and we don't have to fear confusing and driving away our customers. – I would never advocate the use of correct names that most people won't recognize anymore, but anyone will easily recognize Tōkyō as Tokyo. It will look somewhat unusual at first, that's all. I don't buy the allegations of racism, but I do wonder why Shinzō Abe's diacritics should be treated differently from those of Ségolène Royal, Felipe Calderón, Gerhard Schröder, or even Zürich (where a similar debate is taking place every year or so). Rl 22:38, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Until the majority of reliable outlets start using them consistently, Wikipedia will not. The MOS here says that the most commonly used is what we use, so until the common usage changes, it won't change here. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 23:53, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
For me, there is a technical reason to consider macrons separately from those other diacritics. The macronned forms exist only in unicode datasets, but the other diacritics noted above exist in both unicode and the 8 bit ascii data sets. Every computer system since dos and a bit before can handle those ascii characters, but only the latest systems can handle unicode. WP can handle unicode of course, as can most of those readers with the latest computer systems. But there is a substantial installed user base, even in Japan, that does not have a computer with the necessary codepages to read macronned vowels properly. For me, it is an accessibility issue. Rhialto 23:47, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Every modern OS supports UTF-8, including those used in Japan. Even Windows 98 support UTF-8, though you may have to install the fonts for it as they may not be included with the OS. I know Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Mac OS X support it, as do most (all?) current version of Linux. That covers the vast majority of users around the world, so I don't see a problem with requiring they have UTF-8 characters installed in order to use some parts of the English Wikipedia. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 23:53, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Actually, although it's a very small subset of internet users, the Wii browser doesn't support macrons at all (at least the Wii browser in Japan doesn't, haven't seen a Western one). Pretty hard to look at Wikipedia articles through it. Dekimasuよ! 15:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
I would venture to guess that the number of Wii browser users on the net constitute less than a tenth of a percent of the people online. I'm probably being overly generous in guessing that high of a percentage, too. The Lynx browser has a much larger userbase, yet we have pictures on Wikipedia. We can't cater to everyone, and the vast majority of people online are using operating systems and browsers which support macrons and other UTF-8 characters, so I don't see a problem. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:31, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
I wasn't trying to use it as an argument that we should change anything, just that it's not a given that all new browsers will support UTF. The vast majority of users will be fine. It wasn't an important point in retrospect, but we often repeat the line about how everyone should be able to see what they want if they install things correctly. Dekimasuよ! 17:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Nihonjoe, most common really varies by genre. In academia, particularly history and linguistics, the macrons will often be used. You are surely aware of that.
The {{Nihongo}} template is not a solution. It does not allow me to read the rest of the article with the correct spelling. All I can do is give up and click on the ja link (if one exists). Why even have an English version of the article if I must resort to reading it in Japanese? Japanese is my primary language so I can read it, but what about other people? Rl gave a few relevant examples. Those topics are outside my field and I can only rely on the information there. I would expect an encyclopedia to spell them correctly. I do not know what the acute, grave, or diaeresis mean in these cases, and it does not assist me with pronunciation. That is to be expected as pronunciation and spelling are two separate issues. It surely means something to some people. Macrons in Japanese mean an incredible amount to me.
Rhialto, ASCII is 7-bit, not 8-bit. Encodings range from 0x00 through 0x7F. In addition to a lack of macrons, it also does not contain diacritics for acute, grave, diaeresis, breve, tilde, ogonek etc.
We had this conversation last year and it is in the archives. I have personally tested Windows 98 SE English and Japanese, Windows ME English, Windows 2000 Professional English and Japanese, Windows XP English and Japanese, Vista Japanese and a few Linux distros for Unicode support focusing on macrons. While the first three are officially obsolete, they all handle macrons just fine. Whatever accessibility problems you are having are a problem with your setup that should be fixed. The "latest systems" from the mid 1990s handle Unicode just fine. In any case, Wikipedia is Unicode-based now, so the issue is rather moot now. Bendono 00:35, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

My personal experience with every computer I have used in Japan is that, except for those under the control of myself or other technogeeks, those computers installed in offices where I have worked and in homes invariably do not have any support for macrons installed. I am sure it can be installed, but that imposes an extra layer that the end users would have to navigate before WP would be accessible for them. "Can be" and "is" are very different, and the average end user who is not tech-savvy will simply see a site that has boxes instead of readable text, and rather than install whatever needs installing, they would go elsewhere and consider WP to be badly written. Rhialto 00:56, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the extra layer, the simplest solution I've found for myself is to completely disable the 7-bit option. So, on my OSX box I switch between kana (romaji) and English (unicode) without having to think about it. XP or Vista should be able to be set up in the same way; although, I'm less sure about W98, since it requires the service pack just to get the fonts to display correctly. Neier 01:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
That's fine if you are technicaly minded. But just as the average car driver knows nothing abut repairing their car beyond calling the automobile association, the average computer user doesn't have much idea of what's under the hood of their machine. They just expect it to work out f teh box, and don't blame their own machine if this site fails to display properly when 99% of other prograsm display as intended. Using macronned vowels inline forces them to go under the hood to make the document readable.
fwiw, I think a reasonable compromise would be to have the fully macronned/acented forms listed once, in the article's first paragraph, set off by brackets so it isn't inline text, similar to the Arabic policy, and use non-macronned forms in all other places. That way, the full information is available in the article on that subject, and macrons won't interfere with readability in any article on older machines.
Rhialto 23:21, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

We aren't forcing misspellings on people

Are you the author of the tirades against that Wikipedia JA naming policy?

If so...

Haven't you seen our wonderful setup?

And, gosh darnit, why do the Japanese themselves "make those errors?" Huh?

See: http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/index-e.html WhisperToMe 06:19, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Why are we feeding the fire? Dekimasuよ! 07:40, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Sure?

"We aren't forcing misspellings on people." Sure? I can't think so, unfortunately. "Trirades"? Not "tirades". I have still had a lot of things to protest against current confusing WP:MJ, unfortunately. YOUR "wonderful setup"? Frankly speaking, I can't think so, unfortunately. Sorry, but I will have to say the same thing sooner or later. I think there are many policies to be improved in WP:MJ. Please notice them by yourself, if YOU can. Only this hard work tired me out. Anyone, please help me. Please understand me profoundly. There seems neither decent pure Japanese Wikipedians nor wise pure Westerns here. "Huh?"? Please calm down. If you got angry, forgive me. But not "errors". They are just imitating. You haven't understand this discussion enough yet. English language belongs to Japanese people? Such a crazy thought any Japanese can't have. But as for YOUR convention prevailing the misspellled Japanese names, I think Japanese people have the right to say, "YOU are too rough. Please spell our name correctly". Even me, just being forced to use the omitted version of shinzō Abe in order to adjust to his omitted(misspelled) version in all of the documents of US government[1] and all of the articles of Western media(including this English Wikipedia). "Shinzō Abe" has been called as "Shinzo Abe" for a long time by English Wikipedia and US government before he became the Prime Minister of Japan. About this problem, I sent a simple email to THE WHITE HOUSE today. See below. Such a confusing problem occurs because YOU have already penetrated "Shinzo Abe" all over the world esp. by the title of the article of English Wikipedia, and because YOU have already advertised "Shinzō Abe" as if it were only phonetic alphabet esp. by the first paragragh of the article of English Wikipedia, though it is his true Western name. Almost all Japanese, including "Shinzō Abe", are not living in English-language world. So, probably, even he cannot help using the omitted version of his true name esp. for English-language speakers, because he himself is forced to understand that he is already known as "Shinzo Abe", neither as "Shinzō Abe" nor as "shinzou Abe", all over the world. Therefore, he and his fellows didn't even add "u" after "Shinzo". He and his fellows didn't even offer its alternative. This means, they have already given up to resolve this very HUGE but very trivial problem, and they are just following YOUR title and the omitted(misspelled) version in the documents of US government and the articles of Western mass media. After all, Shinzō Abe himself and his fellows dared to use omitted(misspelled) version with consideration. Even US government ordinally use the mispelled versions such as Junichiro Koizumi, Shinzo Abe, Taro Aso, probably influenced by this English Wikipedia. Strange to say, even the capable bureaucrats of Japanese government have been using the articles of English Wikipedia as their inside documents. They have been watching YOUR behaviors. It's a true story. YOU don't realize Japanese modesty at all. Japanese culture and nationality are quite passive and quite different from other countries', esp. Korean, Chinese. When Japanese themselves use non-diacritic versions, they use them only as non-diacritic versions with some consideration, never as true versions, because they and all other Japanese know their true names with other methods(such as kanji, katakana, hiragana) or common sense(e.g. Kyoto, Tokyo, Osaka). In addition, there are many cases that it is very troublesome to put diacritic marks from the keyboard, different from handwriting. Moreover, Japanese themselves are very fond of using abbreviations and the like. So, I admit Japanese themselves have some responsibility, but, I, one of them, already achieved accountability concerning this troublesome problem. This problem appears to be a complicated problem from the Japanese side, but, on YOUR side and US government's side, it is very simple problem, because this is a question which name is a true Japanese name YOU should respect. Apparently, YOU, in other words, the titles of the articles of English Wikipedia and the documents of the White House, have the most important keys. Omitted versions are permanetly omitted ones, however often they are used as if they were true names of Japanese people. In this point, they are very similar to nicknames, this is, automatically generated nicknames. Do YOU think nicknames and the like should be used as the titles of the articles of an encyclopedia? I don't think so. Thank you. --Rocky7 03:54, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not reading all that. More than a dozen lines, let alone more than an entire screenful, of text without a paragraph is painful to read. Please, think of your audience if you want to be listened to. I might even agree with you, but you are so hard to read that I won't take teh time to find out. Rhialto 05:34, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

My serious discussion cannot be "personal attack".

I want to say, "Please stop personal attack by saying "personal attack"". If there is a person who call such a logical and fair discussion "personal attack", any persons who have the quite different opinions from each other cannot talk anything. Go away from the irrelevent problem such as personal attack saying "personal attack", at once. The biggest problem of the original discussion is that English language is the fartherest one from Latin language among Western ones. But it can't be helped. The second biggest problem is that: "Why can't YOU use the diacritic marks of Latin language in the title of Japanese names?" I just have to think, "What kind of people can think such a rude policy? YOU must be neither pure Westerns nor pure Japanese." This is neither "racism discrimination" nor "personal attack", because YOU may be ethnic Japanese who are crazily eager to adapt to all of the conventions in the English language's world, and because this is only a fair logic like comparative linguistics and comparative cultural studies. I didn't attack anyone personally. I just criticize the policy very similar to anti-Japanese racism. Anyway, judging from Google"Shinzo Abe""Junichiro Koizumi", the titles of the articles of English Wikipedia have the most important keys. (My talk page is not appropriate place for the discussion of Japanese names and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles). I have to copy and paste this section to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles).) --Rocky7 03:54, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

"Japanese Romanized True Names" (sent to the White House)

I emailed the following message to the White House. 

Greetings

The correct spelling of the true name of current Prime Minister
of Japan is "Shinzō Abe"( its alternative, "Shinzou Abe", 
"Shinzoh Abe" ), not "Shinzo Abe". 

Even Japanese themselves are forced to use omitted(misspelled) version 
as the most prevailing one, in order to adjust to the documents of US 
government and all other articles of Western mass media.

The same can be said of all Japanese Romanized true names.

The correct spelling of the true name of the previous Prime Minister
of Japan is "Jun-Ichirō Koizumi( its alternatives, Jun-ichirou Koizumi, 
Jun-Ichirou Koizumi, Jun'ichirou Koizumi, Jun'Ichirou Koizumi), 
not "Junichiro Koizumi". 

Apparently US government, esp. THE WHITE HOUSE has the KEY to
determine whether true Japanese Romanized names are used as 
the most prevailed version or not. 

Fortunately or unfortunately, almost all Japanese have not lived in 
Western-languages’world, but all Japanese know that 
English-language has the most powerful influence all over the world. 

This means, among all Western media, 
THE WHITE HOUSE and US government have the most respectable authority
about Japanese Romanized true names.

Therefore, if you hope truly strong cooperation with and/or help of 
Japanese government, you should  ..... 

You have the strongest power to make the world better 
by the slightest good faith.

Another Hint:

See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Rocky7
or
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_%28Japan-related_articles%29

Sincerely,
Peter ******* ********

The answer from THE WHITE HOUSE

I received the answer from the THE WHITE HOUSE at May 10, 2007. 

On behalf of President Bush, thank you for your 
correspondence. We appreciate hearing your views 
and welcome your suggestions. The President is 
committed to continuing our economic progress, 
defending our freedom, and upholding our Nation's 
deepest values.

Due to the large volume of e-mail received, the 
White House cannot respond to every message. 

Please visit the White House website for the most 
up-to-date information on Presidential initiatives, 
current events, and topics of interest to you. 

In order to better receive comments from the public, 
a new system has been implemented. 

In the future please send your comments to 
comments@whitehouse.gov.

Thank you again for taking the time to write.
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