Wikivoyage talk:Romanization

Proposed change: allow macrons in Japanese article titles
Current policy dating back to 2004 says Indicate long vowels with macrons, except in article titles. Computing has come a long way in 20 years and everybody can render macrons just fine now, so it's time to drop the exception and allow macrons in titles. This would also bring us in line with Wikipedia's policy.

Caveat: Household names like Tokyo, Osaka and Kobe should of course remain macronless. I'm happy to follow Wikipedia's lead here as well on what qualifies. Jpatokal (talk) 02:02, 11 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I assume that how to type a macron isn't obvious to everybody. While I have made an effort at learning how to type "obscure" diacritics needed e.g. in Sámi languages and Polish years ago, and the modern Finnish keyboard make typing them effortless once you learnt how, I learnt how to type a macron just last week.


 * I am all for furthering spellings that make it easy to get the pronunciation right (such as not dropping accents in Spanish city names), but I would like to see some discussion on how easy it is to type the macrons, why having them in the bolded name in the first line doesn't suffice and how the suggested change interacts with the "most commonly used in English-speaking countries" rule in Naming conventions. Do we really use macrons everywhere else where the names are used, such as in the city lists in region articles (piped from the macron-less article name)?


 * –LPfi (talk) 07:24, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I think The traveller comes first has to be our guiding principle here.
 * For readers, having macrons is useful: at best it helps them pronounce better and be understood, at worst they're ignored. Redirects ensure they end up in the right place if they search.
 * For editors, we already expect them to use macrons in content, it's not much of a stretch to ask them to do so in titles too. And we're aiming for eventual consistency anyway, so it's OK if somebody creates or links an article without macrons, we can fix it up as we go. Jpatokal (talk) 20:58, 11 March 2024 (UTC)


 * . I support using whatever name is the most common English name which is the core underlying principle of this site. This doesn't just apply to Japan, but also potentially NZ. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 07:48, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Is the form with macrons the most commonly used form for any widely written-about place in Japan? If not, then this concerns only places seldom written about in English. I assume that where the "most common use" is about only a few uses (i.e. where every author chooses their spelling regardless of the others, or just according to their bubble), we should use the Hepburn rules, not the "commonest" rule. If using macrons is common in English contemporary mainstream writing (i.e. excluding texts written for Japanophiles), then we should indeed follow suite. –LPfi (talk) 08:39, 11 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Oppose We already include the pronunciation in the lede, so that is never an issue for those who care. The example of Zao Onsen not having a common English romanization was proven false in the other discussion. Over 99% of results do not use the diacritics, so there is no reasonable argument in favor of using them. The diacritics are NOT the most common romanizations of most Japanese place names, again as shown with Zao Onsen. Hepburn romanization is for students of Japanese who haven't yet learned hiragana. It's not generally used in place names. It's not often used in English pamphlets of cities or attractions WITHIN Japan either. Concerning typing in diacritics, most native English and Japanese typers do not know how to do this, so that assertion is also false. This is not a necessary change and would have us representing places with the LEAST common names most often if implemented. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 11:12, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * There's a very clear reasonable argument: The traveller comes first. Macrons are helpful for pronunciation and that's why we already require them in article text, it's only consistent to allow  them in article titles as well. Jpatokal (talk) 21:03, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree with ChubbyWimbus. I don't understand the counter-argument. Naming conventions should be maintained, in the interests of travelers and readers of this English-language site. If the main point is to use the form of writing that is easiest to pronounce if you are familiar with it, we should change all text on this site to IPA. Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:23, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Naming conventions already explicitly allows Latin diacritics. It's the current Japanese romanization policy to never to allow them that's in conflict with naming conventions, and I'm proposing we eliminate this now obsolete exception. Jpatokal (talk) 21:01, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * If the macrons are seldom included in English texts, what we are talking about seems to be places rarely mentioned in English literature (unless we want to change the naming convention to favour pronounceability over commonness). Do we want macrons in articles on obscure places but not in those on the less obscure ones? That would make the obscure ones stand out as obscure. I think that would be confusing for no good reason. –LPfi (talk) 21:31, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Also, Latin diacritics are used often in writing place names and related adjectives in English. It doesn't look weird to write "Provençal" instead of "Provencal," which would be pronounced with a hard C, producing a last syllable of "kahl". We even use some borrow words in English like "A soupçon", or if you extend the discussion to accents, "A café". The much fewer Japanese borrow words in English in my experience almost never use anything but ordinary Roman letters, like sushi, kabuki, bonsai, koi, kamikaze, tsunami, judo, sumo, anime, emoji. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:21, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I should say, I'd be fine with a narrow exception, if needed, that would allow a transliteration of an article title at the beginning of each article after the characters, but in practice, we're already doing that in articles like Tokyo: "Tokyo (東京 Tōkyō) is the enormous and wealthy capital of Japan..." I could imagine other situations in which an exception could be warranted. But I don't see any reason to make macrons the rule. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:26, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Even in cities that are not touristy and not famous, such as Daito in Osaka, diacritics are not the norm. The difference between Spanish diacritics and using Japanese ones is that the Spanish is Spanish, so once you are in your destination, you'll probably see the diacritics. Japanese doesn't use Latin script, so it's not the same as Spanish. What English you will see is USUALLY written without diacritics at destinations and on pamphlets at and about destinations. The diacritics are only useful for those who care about exact pronunciation (and most foreigners naturally elongate vowels on their own), and we already have pronunciation guides in the lede of every article (as Ikan Kekek illustrated above) to satisfy those people so this proposal is not solving any problems. On the contrary, it seems to be making things debatable that are currently settled. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 10:07, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
 * As it now stands diacritics are very rarely used in English texts for Japanese place names. If the situation changes then we can revisit the policy but for now, I think we should keep the status quo. The dog2 (talk) 15:18, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Japanese Romanization
I've noticed in recent months users have been changing all Japanese names and articles to use diacritics in spite of what is written in both Naming conventions and Romanization that state: Maybe users are confused because the overriding rules are written separately from the Japanese Romanization subheading, but a significant number of Japanese place names have been romanized and do not use the diacritics. I recently moved Zaō Onsen to Zao Onsen, because search results show that Zao Onsen is clearly the most common English name (Zaō Onsen retrieves only 19,000 results which include Zao Onsen in some of the results, while "Zao Onsen" retrieves 1,970,000 results of which none that I see contain the diacritics). It is very clear that the article should be title Zao Onsen with (蔵王温泉 Zaō Onsen) written in the lede however, I did not realize until after I moved it that it was moved TO the wrong name before that. A lot of place names have also been changed in spite of having established English romanizations. It seems users have forgotten, are ignoring, or are unaware of the overarching romanization rules and perhaps are unaware that the diacritics are still able to be written in parenthesis.
 * For article titles, use the name most commonly used in English for a place, regardless of local character sets.
 * Articles should use the city, region or country name most commonly used in English-speaking countries
 * If a place has a common English name, use it, but always provide the local script and correct romanization in parentheses.

Is there a way to make this clearer? Or should I just send a message to users when I notice it happening? ChubbyWimbus (talk) 10:08, 4 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I would support making it very clear on Naming conventions with a subheading for "Japan" in a very similar fashion to Wikipedia. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 10:34, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
 * A split of #Disambiguation is probably also overdue. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 10:37, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Hey yo, since you're talking about me you could at least have @'d me in? Anyway, I wrote the Japanese romanization policy back in 2004, but these days I disagree with my old self and so does Wikipedia: I don't see any good reason not to use macrons for Japanese place names, particularly if we're simultaneously pretending Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park is the most common form in Australia. Of course Tokyo, Osaka and other household names don't need macrons, but Zaō Onsen isn't exactly in the same league. I've formally proposed the change at Wikivoyage talk:Romanization.Jpatokal (talk) 01:57, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * In either case, shouldn't Naming conventions continue to apply? Are these macrons most commonly used in English? -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:54, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * They are almost never the most commonly used names in English for Japanese place names online OR within Japan. Given that the user proposing this does not consider over 99% non-diacritic usage to be enough to qualify as "common usage", it seems clear that the proposal is intended to eliminate the current Naming conventions and replace it with one that advocates for usage of diacritics OVER and INSTEAD OF whatever is commonly used. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 12:36, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * At least my observation is that diacritics are generally not used in English when transliterating Japanese names, except in material specifically aimed at English speakers who are learning Japanese as a foreign language. It certainly would be helpful to indicate to English speakers which vowels are long and which vowels are short since that distinction is important in Japanese, and Japanese people will have no idea what you are talking about if you confuse long and short vowels. That said, Naming conventions says that the most common English name should be used, which is clearly without the diacritics. I think the solution would be to adopt the same policy that we do for our articles about Chinese cities. For say, Beijing, we have the page name without the tone marks, but in the lede we indicate what the correct pronunciation with the tone marks is (Běijīng). So for Japanese cities, we can just leave the page names without the diacritics, and indiciate in the lede correct pronunciation with diacritics to indicate the long vowels. So the page name would be "Tokyo" without the diacritics, but we indicate in the text of the lede that it is actually pronunced Tōkyō with the long vowels. The dog2 (talk) 15:25, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:46, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * You have described the status quo, that's exactly what we do today. Jpatokal (talk) 20:00, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Incorrect. Our current policy is that macrons may never be used in Japanese article titles, period, and this overrides the general naming convention that names should be "with or without accents/diacritics".
 * I'm suggesting that we a) allow them, and b) start using them when Wikipedia has determined that the macroned version is the common name. (For example, w:Zaō Onsen.) Jpatokal (talk) 19:59, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * See also: en:wikt:Wiktionary:Grease_pit/2024/March and en:wikt:Wiktionary:Beer_parlour/2024/March. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:28, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * We should not outsource all decisions about what names are most commonly used in English to Wikipedia, especially if there are claims on Wikipedia that a Japanese place name with macrons is the most common spelling in English. Really? I don't think The dog2's suggestion requires a tweak to current Wikivoyage naming policy, since it would be used just in the beginnings of articles to show a transliteration of the Japanese characters, but if it does, I'd be happy to support that limited change. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:36, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Did you make some mistake and respond to me when you meant to respond to someone else? I didn't write anything about Wikipedia at all. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:44, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm replying in chronological order, so Jpatokal and others see my reply easily. You'd prefer for me to thread the response so that it's more easily lost in the middle. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:50, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I would prefer that you respond to messages with messages that respond to them. The way that you're doing it is unintelligible. That's why the : and :: syntax exists. If you respond ostensibly to Person A but in reality, it's written to Person B several paragraphs down, that is confusing. See also the [reply] links that are made so that you can directly reply to the relevant comment. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:55, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm responding to the overall thread. If you want to enforce subthreads, feel free to create a subheading and move stuff accordingly, and do that every time, because your preferences are not the common practice on this site. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:57, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Source? Please just use the [reply] link and don't respond to my comments with off-topic noise. You're making it much harder to follow the conversation. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:59, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The [reply] links were apparently introduced to support the style of threaded discussions that's standard on Wikipedia, without regard to what is most used in the English Wikivoyage community. Here we usually add comments in chronological order, as Ikan Kekek said. It's a small cultural difference – different WMF projects are in some ways like different towns or countries. —Granger (talk · contribs) 22:09, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * But if we are going to do that, it's infinitely more confusing to have the : - or * -based comments, as that implies that there is some kind of reason to responses. We should just have a flat series of comments (which itself would be ugly and unintelligible, but at least not actively misleading). —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:14, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't find it more confusing, and both maintaining chronological order and providing a visual separation between successive comments, even when it meant looking like you were replying to a subsequent person, was the more common style at enwiki until the Reply tool became popular.
 * To cope with this, I've noticed a small increase in people deliberately naming the person/comment they're replying to, either with small quotations or by starting the comment with a user's name (e.g., "Ikan, I'm not sure about..." or "I agree with Ikan that...").
 * The other practice, which was used in the past and is still important now, is to assume that if the person's reply doesn't make sense as a reply to your own comment, then it's not a reply specifically to your own comment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:45, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't recall that being standard here or there. It's very distracting to not use the built-in ability to respond directly to someone else. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:39, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Other people find it very difficult to tell which comment came from which person, when there is no visual distinction, especially if there is no distractingly decorated sig in the earlier comment(s). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:18, 14 March 2024 (UTC)