Template talk:CNY

Ambiguity with Japanese Yen

There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan#Currency templates about how to disambiguation between "¥" for Japanese yen and "CN¥" for Chinese yuan. Please feel free to contribute on that page.  Stepho  talk  09:58, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

RMB is a more common form than CN¥. This template should use RMB rather than CN¥, which it used prior to your change.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:11, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

You participated in the discussion about this (which has been archived at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Japan/Archive/November_2014#Currency templates). You saw that there was no consensus to change. You saw that there was also little support for "RMB" except from yourself. If you want to make such a major change to the template then please reopen the discussion before unilaterally changing the template. I will revert your recent changes. If you reopen the discussion then I will be happy to follow whatever consensus is reached.  Stepho  talk  02:44, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

You are literally the only person who cares. So here's the official discussion: No one uses the yen/yuan symbol when discussing the Chinese curency. It is almost unilaterally known as the Renminbi. Common usage trumps official pedantry.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 03:11, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

If I am the only person who cares, then surely it would be my choice. But I'm assuming that you also care, so there are at least two people who care. And in the previous discussion there were also comments from Margin1522 (talk · contribs), benlisquare (talk · contribs), Prosperosity (talk · contribs) and 日本穣 (talk · contribs), bringing the known total to six. In that discussion, only you were in favour of 'RMB', benlisquare and myself gave counterpoints about why it wasn't preferred and the others said nothing about it.

I lived in Hong Kong for 6 years. During that time I made many trips into mainland China. My memory is that most places used the Chinese character 元 in Chinese text, ¥ or $ in English text and CNY in financial businesses (banks, currency exchanges, etc). 'RMB' was used a modest amount in Hong Kong because HK people also write 元 for the HK dollar in Chinese text. But in case my memory is faulty, I double checked with a recent immigrant from China and he agreed with me that 'RMB' is little used in China itself.

The currency is indeed known as the RenMinBi (literally "people's money", which is what HK people call it in English). However, the units are the yuan (also spoken as kwai), jiao (a tenth of a yuan) and the fen (a hundreth of a yuan). RenMinBi covers all 3, so it makes no sense to say RMB 1.5 (1.5 of which unit?) but ¥1.5 makes perfect sense because the unit is specified.

I will agree that the currency is unilaterally called the RenMinBi. But if you want to say that 'RMB' is unilaterally displayed on shops signs then the onus is on you to prove it with references.  Stepho  talk  12:59, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but how often is CN¥ used in regards to the renminbi? Our article seems to show that the RMB abbreviation is in use even if it isn't the ISO code for the currency.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 19:27, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

An article about renminbi and yuan here supports Stepho in that it is technically wrong to say 10 renminbi, but correct to say 10 yuan. However, it also says that in financial circles "renminbi" (RMB) is often preferred over "yuan" (CNY), so common usage may trump what's technically correct. I should say that I have seen both RMB and CNY being used, and can't tell which is more common. I don't actually remember seeing the CN¥ symbol being used in English language newspapers for yuan, so can't comment on that (¥ seems to almost invariably referred to Japanese yen). Since we are talking about English wiki and English usage, what is used in China or Hong Kong is probably irrelevant how it should be used in the English. I suspect in five or ten years time we may have a clearer idea as to which is preferred, so may be it's a matter of wait and see. Hzh (talk) 20:23, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

I do have a solution I wish to propose.

Basic use abbreviation

{{CNY}} produces ¥ RMB (simple currency abbreviation)

{{CNY|123.45}} produces ¥123.45 RMB

Basic abbreviation w/link

{{CNY|link=yes}} produces ¥ RMB (simple currency article link)

{{CNY|123.45|link=yes}} produces ¥123.45 RMB

Verbal disambiguation

{{CNY|123.45|long=yes}} produces ¥123.45 Renminbi

{{CNY|123.45|long=yes|link=yes}} produces ¥123.45 Renminbi

Suppress "RMB"

{{CNY|123.45|long=no}} produces ¥123.45

{{CNY|123.45|long=no|link=yes}} produces ¥123.45

ISO code

{{CNY|123.45|ISO=yes}} produces 123.45 CNY

In this style, ¥ is more easily understood to mean yuan by appending the amount with "RMB" or "Renminbi", with an option for suppressing "RMB" in contexts where it is clear Renminbi is meant. This is based on the coding I have proposed for sterling. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 15:56, 9 August 2022 (UTC)