Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles/Prefectures and macrons

Prefectures and macrons

There has been some good work done recently by User:Bobo12345 wrt moving Oita articles to Ōita. It initiated in this discussion, but Ōita is not the only prefecture with macrons. I think that the remaining prefectures have varying degrees of recognition outside Japan already, so moving all of the articles/categories to macron'd names may be controversial in some cases. Please comment on each of the following (and, add if there is any that I've left off). After we reach a consensus here, I will add the exceptions to the Names section of the MoS. Neier 12:03, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment - Potential moves should be mentioned on the affected articles' talk pages as well. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:50, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I put a notice at Talk:Prefectures of Japan, Talk:Kyoto Prefecture, Talk:Kochi Prefecture, Talk:Hyogo Prefecture, Talk:Hokkaido, Talk:Osaka Prefecture, Talk:Kyoto Prefecture, and Talk:Tokyo. The list of affected articles is much larger (all cities, towns, etc), however, since this is more of a naming convention issue, I think the above list is sufficient. Neier 00:37, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

So, are you guys in favor of macrons for Kochi and Hyogo because they are not in English-language dictionaries? I personally would rather that all municipalities and prefectures go by official spelling, but I won't vote yet on Kochi and Hyogo; I would like to see the rationale first. WhisperToMe 02:26, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I vote for Kōchi and Hyōgo. Bendono 05:04, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Since they are closely related to this discussion, I added Honshū and Kyūshū to the survey. Unlike the the other prefectures under consideration, both of these articles have already been moved to their macronised versions. Bobo12345 03:35, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I found Honshu in the Merriam-Webster dictionary [1] - therefore I strongly oppose macronization for Honshu. WhisperToMe 03:41, 6 October 2006 (UTC) EDIT: I also oppose Kyushu for the same reason [2] WhisperToMe 03:41, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Some dictionaries and newspapers have a no-macron policy. I am sure you can always find a non-macron version if you look. With the spread of Unicode and better fonts, more and more references are using diacritics where appropriate. Bendono 05:04, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Note 2: Oita City is in the dictionary [3] but the prefecture is not. WhisperToMe 05:27, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

This is more about common usage, and while the dictionary entries exist for islands and cities, there are a lot of uncommon words in the dictionary too. For words which are not place names, the dictionary search is useful because it proves a mainstream usage. In my opinion, for place names, being in the dictionary doesn't give it a free pass to notoriety; it only shows that some effort was made by the dictionary writers to include cities around the world. Google searches seem to be slightly more relevant in these cases. I updated each of the terms below with their unfiltered Ghit count. Neier 05:47, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Neier, your google search results confuse me. For example, on "Kōchi" Google gave me 28,200 hits and for "Kochi" gave me 7,520,00 hits - both unfiltered searches. For "Hyōgo" Google gave me 21,200 results, while "Hyogo" gave me 6,350,00. Did you mean to put the Google hit count results for these place names using macrons or without using macrons? Those don't seem to be to be the results using macrons. Jecowa 06:57, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for not making that clear. They are the hits without macrons. I don't think anyone here (even me) would argue that macron'd versions of any word are more common on the internet than the macron-less version. What the google search shows is the relative popularity of each place in common usage. So (using google as the only barometer), maybe people are three-times more likely to know about Tokyo than Kyoto; and 30 times more likely to know about Tokyo than Kochi. The numbers game has several flaws if we were very concerned about accuracy; but, there is a fairly good gap in recognition between Kochi, Hyogo, Kyushu, and Honshu and the rest of the places below. Hokkaido is on the blurry edge (I didn't do the google search before making my opinions below -- they were based on gut feelings. I guess I'm happy that google somewhat feels the same way as me) ;-) - Neier 07:09, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, that's good. It was kind of confusing because it said "Ōsaka" then right below that it said "47.6 million google hits" and I thought it must be the results for "Ōsaka." I think it's silly that Wikipedia likes macrons so much. They are not commonly used. They are hard to type (I don't know how to type them). People like me complain about them. It's weird to use pronunciation markings like macrons in an article title. And we have to have discussions like these to consent which article will be condemned to use macrons in its title. Can't we all just agree to hate macrons? Does anyone else think macrons are so weird? Jecowa 07:36, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I recently read something interesting, that the MoS is not for editors, but for the encylopedia. Meaning, that the MoS gives a common set of guidelines for articles. Editors don't have to follow the MoS to the letter when creating articles; but, mainly that they don't intentionally damage MoS-compliance that is already in articles. So, if you can't type macrons, that is not an issue. Someone will come along (eventually) who can. There are a ton of un-macron'd articles already, just like there are a ton of Japan-related articles without the project tag on the talk pages, just like there are a ton of improperly linked dates which people try to clean up, etc. As for typing macrons in article searches, the non-macron title should always be redirected to the macron title.

The google info for the macron words is very insightful. Kochi, Hyogo, and Hokkaido only have a 300:1 ratio, while Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo are closer to 1000:1. I'm a bit astounded that Honshu and Kyushu rank so highly. Neier 08:11, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Neier, why not check out the individual hits of the macron queries? From what I can tell, Google cannot distinguish between macrons and non-macrons. WhisperToMe 14:13, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

It looks as if Google distiguishes between the two. A Google search for "Kōchi" shows a bunch of results with Kōchi in bold. A search for "Kochi" shows a bunch of results with Kochi in bold. Jecowa 16:50, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you mean now, WhisperToMe, from looking at your links below. That's really interesting. This is why your search for "Honshū -wikipedia" displayed pages that did not contain "Honshū." Other web pages (probably on Wikipedia) contain links to these pages using hyperlinked words containing "Honshū." So these results so not contain "Honshū" themselves, but other pages linking to them do. Google should come up with a way to not include this type of result as an option in the sdvanced search. Jecowa 17:08, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

For lack of anywhere better to contribute my two cents - I support macronization in all cases. If the consensus is to keep the most common words, like Tokyo, Kyoto, and sumo non-macronned, that's fine. I'm certainly not going to argue. But I really don't think we should let this slip. Just because something's in an English dictionary doesn't mean we can't spell it correctly according to romanization. Curaçao is spelled using non-standard English characters; so is Führer. I'm sure there are tons of other examples of things that could be spelled using standard English letters but which, as of right now, Wikipedia lists with more "correct" native spellings. If we're going to make exceptions, I think the only placenames that should stay non-macronned due to prevalence in English are Osaka, Tokyo, and Kyoto. Kōchi, Nikkō, Hyōgō, Hokkaidō, Honshū and Kyūshū are simply not that common in English. LordAmeth 21:50, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I would also welcome macrons in all cases. I do not like exceptions and would argue against Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto. However, if those where the only exceptions, I think that it would still be an incredible improvement. +1 on macrons. Bendono 05:16, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I just realized we were trying to determine how well known these places are, not which whether people would be more familiar with the city names written with macrons, sorry. So, anyway, I support that cities with less than ten million unfiltered Google hits are not well known. By the way, could anyone please tell me how to alphabetize titles that use macrons? Also, does anyone know the reason why we would consider using the macron version of a title as opposed to the official English title or the most commonly used title? Ōsaka refers to itself as "Osaka City" on its website. Jecowa 06:17, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

A read should be able to ignore the difference between Tōkyō and Tokyo and understand them to mean the same thing. However, a reader who only comes across Tokyo will most likely not be able to infer that it really means Tōkyō. Macrons are easy enough for a reader to ignore. However, then can not necessarily be inferred by their absence. I think that this is a reason to allow macrons where appropriate without exception. Bendono 05:16, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it should be consistent with what is mentioned in WP:CG#Category_sorting, which says to convert letters with diacritics, or non-standard letters to the nearest standard letters. So, in a edited list, Ōita Prefecture would go in the O section. We're lucky with Japanese romanization, because it is pretty clear what the nearest letter would be. Neier 01:02, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I was wondering more like whether "Ō" or "O" would come first alphabetically. For example, hypothitically if you had "Tōkyō" and "Tokyo" in an alphabetized list, which would come first. I know there are some words that are identical save a macron. If there isn't a standard for this yet, then I think one should be created. Jecowa 06:25, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Apparently, "o" comes before "ō" in Wikipedia alphabetization. Here's how I found that. Type Kyoto in the Search box and click Search. At the top of the resulting page, it says "You searched for Kyoto [Index]. Click Index. You get a page listing all the articles in Wikipedia's article namespace, beginning with Kyoto. You have to go forward several pages to get to Kyōto.

Also see Wikipedia:Searching#Words with special characters.

Fg2 07:51, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

This is the main reason to catsort without the macron. (^_^) ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 08:18, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

That is the ordering method my computer uses too. Thanks for the looking that up, Fg2. Should this be mentioned in the "Alphabetic order" section of the project page? Jecowa 08:29, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I updated the project page. And, I think that you would find that ō comes after o, p, q, ... z and any other characters with a unicode value of less than #333. Neier 14:29, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Kōchi

• 7.500 million google hits without macrons
• 0.028 million google hits with macrons
• Support. Neier 12:03, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 16:02, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support. --awh (Talk) 22:51, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support--Endroit 23:03, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support Fg2 00:25, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support Never heard of it before today! Bobo12345 01:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support I support macronization except for the absolutely most common English-use words. LordAmeth 21:41, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support Jecowa 07:44, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Dekimasu 15:17, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support Bendono 05:17, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Hyōgo

• 6.350 million google hits without macrons
• 0.021 million google hits with macrons
• Support. Neier 12:03, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 16:02, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support. --awh (Talk) 22:51, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support--Endroit 23:03, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support Fg2 00:25, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support Bobo12345 01:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support Jecowa 07:44, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support LordAmeth 21:41, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Dekimasu 15:18, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support Bendono 05:18, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Hokkaidō

• 15.700 million google hits without macrons
• 00.043 million google hits with macrons
• Weak support. Neier 12:03, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 16:02, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. --awh (Talk) 22:51, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose--Endroit 23:03, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose Fg2 00:25, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Weak support Bobo12345 01:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. Jpatokal 02:23, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose - In the dictionary (and therefore an English word!) [4] WhisperToMe 03:41, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose Jecowa 07:44, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support LordAmeth 21:41, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
• Strong oppose per Honshū below, including pronunciation issues. Dekimasu 15:20, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support Bendono 05:18, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Ōsaka

• 47.400 million google hits without macrons
• 00.043 million google hits with macrons
• Oppose. Neier 12:03, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 16:02, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. --awh (Talk) 22:51, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose--Endroit 23:03, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose Let's keep it the same as city Fg2 00:25, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose Bobo12345 01:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose WhisperToMe 02:26, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose Jecowa 07:44, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support LordAmeth 21:41, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose because it's established in English; too bad, though, since this is a pronunciation error that's easily explained through the macronned form. Dekimasu 15:23, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support Bendono 05:19, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Note: Encarta: Ōsaka Bendono 07:27, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Kyōto

• 70.800 million google hits without macrons
• 00.091 million google hits with macrons
• Oppose. Neier 12:03, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 16:02, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. --awh (Talk) 22:51, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose--Endroit 23:03, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose Let's keep it the same as the city Fg2 00:25, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose Bobo12345 01:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose WhisperToMe 02:26, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose Jecowa 07:44, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support LordAmeth 21:41, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose per my comment at Osaka. Dekimasu 15:24, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support Bendono 05:19, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Note: Encarta: Kyōto

Tōkyō

• 229.000 million google hits without macrons
• 000.167 million google hits with macrons
• Oppose. Neier 12:03, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 16:02, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. --awh (Talk) 22:51, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose--Endroit 23:03, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose Firmly established in English without macrons Fg2 00:25, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose Bobo12345 01:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose (The word is in the dictionary [5]) WhisperToMe 02:26, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose Jecowa 07:44, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support LordAmeth 21:41, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
• Strong oppose per Fg2. Dekimasu 15:21, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support Bendono 05:19, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Honshū

• 1.39 million google hits for Honshu without macrons
• 1.44 million google hits for Honshu with macrons
  • I have different results: [6] 1.30 million without; 9.87 without... [7] BUT I am not sure if Google can properly distinguish between the two! Check out the hits with the macron version! WhisperToMe 14:12, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support Bobo12345 03:35, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose - In the dictionary (and therefore an English word!) [8] WhisperToMe 03:41, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Neier 05:47, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 05:51, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support Jecowa 07:44, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support LordAmeth 21:41, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. I believe this is in standard English usage, preempting the use of the macron. I also have secondary reasoning here. It makes sense to oppose Osaka and Tokyo in macronned form partially because the English pronunciation is totally different from the Japanese pronunciation. It makes sense to support the macronned form in the case of Kochi and Hyogo, because people unfamiliar with Japan are unlikely to have any pronunciation bias in those cases - and at worst, this will just be vowel length. I think there is pronunciation bias for Honshu. A native English speaker looking at Honshū will still pronounce it "Hanshū," which seems to defeat the purpose of the macronization. Dekimasu 15:15, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support Bendono 05:20, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Kyūshū

• 8.75 million google hits without macrons
• 9.05 million google hits with macrons
• Support Bobo12345 03:35, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Strong oppose - In the dictionary (and therefore an English word!) [9] WhisperToMe 03:41, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Neier 05:47, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 05:51, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support Jecowa 07:44, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support LordAmeth 21:41, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
• Neutral as it does not have the pronuncation issues of Honshū above, and doesn't have the fame either. I believe this is still an English word, though. Dekimasu 15:17, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support Bendono 05:20, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Kōbe

• 27.7000 million google hits without macrons
• 00.0443 million google hits with macrons
• Oppose--Endroit 15:12, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
• SupportBendono 15:49, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose unless the WP:MOS-JA is changed. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 17:09, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. Dekimasu 06:39, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose With over 27 million Google hits, I believe that Kobe is commonly known. Jecowa 17:39, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
• Weak oppose. (some of the 27million are probably basketball related; but "Kobe Bryant" only has 3.3 million hits, so it is still around 24million). Neier 23:02, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support Not as world famous as Tokyo, Kyoto or Osaka Bobo12345 23:06, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose' WhisperToMe 23:21, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Note: Encarta: Kōbe Bendono 07:28, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

SUMMARY

It looks as if concensus is for Hyōgo, Kōchi, Honshū, and Kyūshū; a strong concensus against Tōkyō, Ōsaka, and Kyōto; and a lack of concensus for Hokkaidō. I guess we can discuss whether the lack of concensus should mean "status quo" for Hokkaido, or whether it should mean "MoS-compliant" for Hokkaidō. At any rate, I will update the MoS with this information (while keeping Bendono's discussion below in mind, still). Neier 14:35, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Being WP:BOLD, I decided that Hokkaidō is more consistent with Honshū and Kyūshū. Neier 14:45, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Sounds sensible to me to treat all the 4 main islands in a consistent manner. Bobo12345 02:56, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I have listed the categories at Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_October_11#Japan_prefectures. Various regions were also nominated. (Chubu region, Tohoku region, Chugoku region, Kanto region — all of which are named with macrons in their article pages already). Pages containing the to-be-renamed names can be moved without the formal review process. Kyushu pages were already listed by Bobo12345. Neier 12:01, 11 October 2006 (UTC)