Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2019 October 13

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October 13

Title capitalization

It's "President Lincoln" and "the last three presidents", but what about "used by presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower"? Capitalized or not (or are both acceptable)? Clarityfiend (talk) 19:55, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

As far as Wikipedia style is concerned, WP:JOBTITLES doesn't cover the point, but I say only the capitalized version makes sense. --76.69.116.4 (talk) 20:52, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I have only an outdated (12th) edition of the Chicago Manual of Style' at hand, but its advice with regard to geographic names is: "When a generic term is used in the plural following more than one name, it is lowercased" (e.g. "the Adirondack and Catskill mountains" [cf. "the Catskill Mountains"]), but "When a generic term precedes more than one name, it is usually capitalized" (e.g. "Mounts Everest and Rainier"). Extending that to personal names seems to suggest that capitalized "Presidents" is the way to go in your example. Deor (talk) 13:46, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Contrary to what 76.69 claims, WP:JOBTITLES unambiguously covers the point. To wit, and I quote, "They are capitalized only in the following cases...When a formal title for a specific entity (or conventional translation thereof) is addressed as a title or position in and of itself, is not plural, is not preceded by a modifier (including a definite or indefinite article), and is not a reworded description" (bold mine). Thus, the MOS specifically recommends not capitalizing in the phrase "used by presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower", because that word is plural and thus does not meet the explicit qualification "is not plural". --Jayron32 13:56, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

It seems to me that the operative part of the passage you've quoted is not what you have boldfaced but rather "addressed as a title or position in and of itself". Since the usage in question is not such a usage, that whole bulleted item would appear to be inapplicable to the OP's question. Deor (talk) 14:20, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 15:39, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

No, the MOS is clear in that it must meet ALL of those conditions, not just one of them. None of the conditions takes primacy over the others. If any of them are not met, we don't use capitals. Thus "It was granted to Prime Minister Thatcher" but not "It was granted to the prime minister, Thatcher", or "It was granted to prime ministers Thatcher, Major, and Blair". It must be a title without modification, such as an adjective, article, or pluralization. Any modification of the standard title renders it a lower-case usage. --Jayron32 15:52, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

One teeny niggle, the correct form is "the Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher" or "the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher", rather than "Prime Minister Thatcher" in the American style. [1] Alansplodge (talk) 20:43, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

In the case of the MOS, then, it would be "the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher". The Wikipedia MOS may or may not be identical to other styles used around the world, and in the case of the capitalization on that website, they may be using a different style guide for their own purposes. For our own style of capitalization, we default to our own manual of style and its own guidance. It states that capitals are supposed to be used "only...is not preceded by a modifier (including a definite or indefinite article)" Since your phrasing included the definite article "the", we would use "the prime minister" if obeying our own style guide. --Jayron32 17:27, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

The phrases "the Prime Minister" and "the Queen" are often (but not universally) capitalised in the UK, see for example our national anthem. I'll have to try to remember to do it the Wikipedia way in future. Alansplodge (talk) 16:50, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Exonyms for names of individuals?

It should be pretty clear to a lot of history buffs that names especially the given names of notable individuals sometimes get translated to the foreign-language versions when referred to in another country. For some current prominent examples of the phenomenon I am referring to, Prince William and Prince Harry tend to have their names translated to the foreign versions in foreign media (ie. Guillermo and Enrique). I would like to know more information about this practice and if there is already an article on it, I would like someone to point it out to me. Some of the questions I would like answers to include:

1.) Is there a general trend in this linguistic practice and has it changed from past to present? Or is it entirely random? Why is either the case?

2.) Is the practice mostly restricted to the Western world and European languages, and why?

3.) Is the practice used mostly for European royalty and nobility, and why?

4.) Has the practice become less popular in English and German speaking societies in recent years or when referring to individuals from the past two centuries (ex. Ludwig II of Bavaria) compared to other European languages and why?

70.95.44.93 (talk) 21:03, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Our article Exonym and endonym says Exonyms and endonyms can be names of places (toponym), ethnic groups (ethnonym), languages (glossonym), or individuals (personal name) but then goes on to discuss geographical names almost exclusively. We've also got List of English translated personal names which gives you some examples of non-royals/nobles but is thin on non-Europeans - though see Avicenna. I've run into a blank searching for scholarly study of personal name exonyms because of so much noise about toponyms, sorry, and hope other volunteers here will have more luck. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 02:52, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

70.95.44.93 -- One example I find a little amusing is that the king of Spain who ruled in the 16th century, known as "Felipe" there, is Philip II of Spain in English, while the current king of Spain named the same way there is Felipe VI of Spain in English...

Throughout the 19th century, it was common for ordinary immigrants to the United States to Anglicize their first names on immigrating to the U.S. ("Heinrich" becoming "Henry", or whatever). So Jean-Jacques Audubon became John James Audubon in the U.S. Similarly, Maria Skłodowska became Marie Curie after emigrating to France and marrying a Frenchman... AnonMoos (talk) 06:06, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Well, for one thing, Elizabeth II is called fi:Elisabet II in Finnish, but her son, Prince Charles is called fi:Walesin prinssi Charles instead of "Walesin prinssi Kaarle", even though Charles I of England was called fi:Kaarle I (Englanti). JIP | Talk 07:38, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Another important point is that many European languages have large numbers of personal names that are exact cognates of each other, being derived through normal linguistic changes from the same root, or have even been directly borrowed and then modified by those same normal changes. In some sense, William, Guillaume, and Wilhelm are not really separate things, they are expressions of the same thing modified by the language in which they occur. Why shouldn't we translate William to Wilhelm the same way we would translate water to Wasser? This exact congruity does not exist when non-European languages are considered. There is no cognate in English to Mao or Hideki or Kwame. And modern English speakers (at least here in the US, not sure about other countries and other languages) often create new names that have no real link to any previously existing one. Given the increase in communication between European derived cultures and non-European derived cultures and the increase in novel names, the tendency more recently is not to translate names (often not even when there are clear translations available). --Khajidha (talk) 13:03, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

There is a general trend in English in general to use endonyms in modern usages, excepting when the use of the exonym is idiomatic or entrenched in the literature such that changing the usage would cause confusion. With names, thus we have Felipe VI of Spain (who became King after the convention changed) but the earlier Philip II of Spain, Philip III of Spain, etc. since those names are in well-established usage in English as such. Other usages reflect this outside of names as well; for example the city is Beijing, but the dish is Peking Duck. The country is Thailand, but the breed of cat is a Siamese cat. The city is Kolkata, whereas the POW dungeon was the Black Hole of Calcutta. The native language term for these people and places never changed, what changed is the modern sensibilities to make English usage more reflective of the native language. However, we don't go back and change old idioms, we just change the new occurrences and current usage. --Jayron32 16:00, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

The Beijing/Peking example is a little different from the others mentioned. The Western Press (and consequently its audience) has widely misunderstood the change of spelling, which did not signify a change in pronunciation, but rather the adoption of a new system of romanization.

Earlier romanizations of Chinese languages (in this case Modern Standard Mandarin) were principally designed by and for for Westerners to obviate the onerous task of learning Chinese characters, but the modern Pinyin system was designed by Chinese linguists for the use of Chinese speakers/writers, and crucially the pronunciation of many letters does not correspond to those familiar to Western readers, but to sounds in Chinese phonology, some of which are not used (or recognised as distinct) in Western languages.

For example, in "Beijing" the 'B' is pronounced like the (unaspirated) 'p' in "spit" (whereas 'P' is pronounced in Pinyin like the (aspirated) 'p' of "pit"), and the 'j' is pronounced similarly to the 'chy' in "churchyard", (to quote the Pinyin article's chart) "like q, but unaspirated. Is similar to the English name of the letter G, but curl the tip of the tongue downwards to stick it at the back of the teeth. Not like the s in vision . . . ." [Dismounts from hobbyhorse.] {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.121.161.82 (talk) 16:50, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Um, I'm not sure why you are taking a contrary tone in this response, since I already pre-agreed with everything you were about to say. See, when I said in my prior post "The native language term for these people and places never changed," what I had meant by that was actually "The native language term for these people and places never changed," I hope that clarifies it for you. --Jayron32 11:57, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

I wasn't intending to take a contrary tone in the response, Jayron: I was merely trying to add detail about a subject that interests me and that I hoped would be informative for others. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.121.161.82 (talk) 15:20, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

I apologize for my mistake in misreading your tone. The fault lies entirely with me. Carry on! Your clarification was appropriate and added much to the discussion. I am sorry for being so rude in misinterpreting your meaning. --Jayron32 12:38, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

I think you need to clarify what you are saying, because the change from "Peking" to "Beijing" most assuredly DID signify a change in pronunciation in English. --Khajidha (talk) 16:54, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

The point is that this change in English pronuciation has arisen from a misunderstanding of what the spelling change actually signified. Chinese people continue to pronounce (in Chinese languages) the name of the city as they always have, and the Pinyin-system spelling "'Beijing' is pronounced close to (though not exactly like) the English-system spelling "Peking" (which is about as close as traditional English spelling can get, given the differing phonologies), and certainly not like (English-system) "Bay-shing" or "Bay-jing" which the misunderstanding has unfortunately given rise to. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.121.161.82 (talk) 17:12, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Seems to me that the "misunderstanding" comes from the Chinese side. If you don't want us to pronounce it "Bay-jing" or "Bay-zhing" then maybe you shouldn't have spelled it a way that was basically guaranteed to result in those pronunciations.--Khajidha (talk) 18:36, 14 October 2019 (UTC).

87.81.230.195/2.121.161.82 and Khajidha -- older Chinese Romanization systems like Wade-Giles had a lot of apostrophes, which ordinary Westerners (who weren't scholars or knowledgeable about Chinese) tended to omit, making an already somewhat-ambiguous transcription system far more so. Those who devised PRC Pinyin decided to dump the finicky apostrophes (so that Wade-Giles p' and p became p and b) in the interests of simplicity and greater usability for native Chinese speakers... AnonMoos (talk) 18:48, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

What do you mean "you"? I am an English person of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic stock, living in England, and haven't been to China since the early 1960s when (as a small child) I lived in Hong Kong for two years. How the Chinese authorities choose to devise a means of phonetic transcription for their own people's use is up to them, and they could in theory have chosen Greek, Hebrew or Cyrillic characters to do so, or made up entirely new ones, but happen to have chosen Latin ones for doubtless pragmatic reasons. Have you actually read the Pinyin article? Do you also criticise Spanish speakers for spelling the desert's name Mojave because it's "basically guaranteed to result in" the pronunciation "Mow-jayv"? My quarrel is with the Western media journalists who completely misunderstood how Pinyin works and foisted spurious "corrections" of pronunciation on to the Western public. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.121.161.82 (talk) 15:20, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

The biggest difference I see between "Bay-jing" and [pei̯tɕiŋ] (my inference from a quick look at the Pinyin article) is the substitution of voiced unaspirated stops for the unvoiced unaspirated stops that English lacks. Is it your view that we ought to either learn to pronounce [p] properly (which ain't gonna happen) or substitute [pʰ] instead? —Tamfang (talk) 07:52, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

By the way, some semi-strange exonymic practices are that the Latvian language insists on adding a final "-s" to almost all foreign masculine names (so that George W. Bush becomes Džordžs V. Bušs, while the Czech language adds a final "-ová" to almost all foreign feminine names (so that Michelle Obama becomes Michelle Obamová -- the Czechified versions of U.S. first ladies' names at the bottom of the Michelle Obamová article are entertaining). AnonMoos (talk) 16:20, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

The latter resulted in the 'outing' of J. K. Rowling as definitely female. Previously her British publishers had produced her books under the ambiguously initialed name to avoid a supposed prejudice of boys against reading female authors, but then the Czech translations appeared as by "J. K. Rowlingová." {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.121.161.82 (talk) 16:58, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Both of those examples are inflective suffixes to make declension possible, something which classical languages like Latin and Greek did as well. The Latvian -s is the same as Latin -us. In Czech, there is no paradigm according to which one could decline "Rowling" as a feminine noun, as no feminine nouns end in a hard consonant, thus the -ová is added which makes it a feminine adjective. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 21:39, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I can understand that in a way, but if you go through the ancient Greek New Testament and Septuagint, you'll find that a lot of the Hebrew and Aramaic names there are indeclinable as adapted to Greek, and the modern Russian language has a similar way of adapting many foreign surnames. Latvian is a little strange because it seems to add "-s" in almost all situations (in the nominative singular), regardless of the sounds of the word it's attached to. Neither "Džordžs" nor "Bušs" can be pronounced naturally as single consolidated syllables in the way that their spelling would suggest (i.e. as if they were written in Americanist Phonetic Notation), leaving their pronunciation rather obscure and unclear to non-Latvians. And "-ová" is a rather heavy suffix which adds two syllables to most of the names it's attached to (though only one syllable to Obamová)... AnonMoos (talk) 16:03, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

The Latvian -s is the same as Latin -us. Broader than that. Latin –us is from older –o–s; in Latin all non-neuters, except in the first declension (a stems) or where it has been altered by analogy, have s in the nominative singular. —Tamfang (talk) 07:52, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

That's not really true for all 3rd-declension consonant stems (as opposed to 3rd declension i-stems). See https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Proto-Indo-European_declension , subsections "n-stems" and "r-stems", AnonMoos (talk) 08:33, 16 October 2019 (UTC)