Talk:Li (surname 李)

"Dy" Romanization
Does anyone know why the romanization Dy is sometimes used in the Philippines for Li?--71.111.229.19 (talk) 22:02, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't, but since [l] and [d] are both alveolar consonants, it is possible that they sound similar to people there. (Although that is just speculation, and I don't know how likely it is, given that the Filipino language seems to have both of those sounds as separate phonemes. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 03:36, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

From what I can find on Wikipedia and the Internet in general, 李 is indeed pronounced that way in the Lan-nang variety of the Hokkien branch of Min Nan. There seems to be a bit of a correspondence that the "l" of most other varieties of Min Nan (from Taiwanese and Amoy to Teochew) correspond to "d" in Lan-nang (take the transcription for 'hello' on the Lan-nang page [though the "d" phoneme seems to be missing from the list of initials as of late May 2011 - they seem to have just taken the standard Taiwanese romanisation system and forgotten to change it...]; the standard Taiwanese pronunciation is given in romanised form at http://wikitravel.org/en/Minnan_phrasebook. Although I'm not a linguist at all, nor indeed a Min speaker; and I'm not sure there are many scholarly descriptions of the Lan-nang variety / other Filipino variants of Min Nan (not in English on the b, at least). Michael Ly (talk) 20:23, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

The phoneme in Hokkien (i.e. Minnan, 閩南話) can be pronounced as  or, depending on phonetic context. When it is followed by a nasal vowel, it is pronounced as ; otherwise, it is pronounced as. However, according to this article (in Chinese), this sound has gradually become  in the past few decades. So, given that the Chinese immigrants in the Philippines are mostly Hokkien-speaking, it is not surprising (to me) that they'd use "D-" to spell this surname, which is pronounced ->  in Hokkien. -- Dan (talk) 03:30, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Dan, thanks for that! I knew about / allophonic variation before, but I must say I hadn't known about the realisation being an earlier one for . But now on close examination of e.g. the sound files of http://203.64.42.21/iug/ungian/soannteng/chil/taihoa.asp, it does sound as though  is the more 'official' pronunciation. Phonetic realisations can be so subtle at times! But thank you! Michael Ly (talk) 18:37, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, according to some sources, it's a flap sound . That sounds like the Japanese, Spanish single , the "tt" in "butter" in some US regional dialects of English.  So, you can say it's something in-between  and .  To an untrained Chinese ear, it would sound like an .  To other untrained ears, it may sound like a , depending on mother tongue.  Dan (talk) 01:48, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Merger and naming discussions
See Talk:Li (surname) where a second discussion has been opened on this topic of names, articles, how many to have, how to organize them. The older discussion is still going on at Talk:Li (surname meaning "profit")  -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 00:07, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

RFC at Li (surname)
There is a Request for Comment concerning this article at Talk:Li_(surname). Please provide input there.--Wikimedes (talk) 03:36, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Requested moves

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Article titles must be in the Latin alphabet; this is not something with a lot of wiggle room. Red Slash 20:34, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Li (surname 李) → 李 (Chinese surname) – If Chinese characters have to be there in the title, why not give it the appropriate title? The article is clearly about "李" not "Li (李)". There is one photo in the article about the "Lee" family. Timmyshin (talk) 22:56, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Procedural close sorry but User:Timmyshin the result here is in line with recent RFC result, if you want to reopen the RFC you need to reopen the RFC. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:49, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
 * You are missing the point. Timmyshin (talk) 00:22, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Or perhaps you are missing the WP:POINT. In any case, the proposed title appears to obviouisly not WP:USENGLISH, and I concur with the suggestion for a speedy close, since it seems clear this suggestion will not be agreed by consensus. —BarrelProof (talk) 00:38, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Compared to the current title, the proposed title uses the same amount of English (if not more) and the same amount of non-English. So what part of WP:USENGLISH is relevant here? Timmyshin (talk) 00:47, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The bit that says use English. Consider that we don't have เจียรวนนท์ (surname). Some readers are not able to read เจียรวนนท์. In ictu oculi (talk) 05:16, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * And you also won't see Chearavanont (surname เจียรวนนท์), for a good reason. Timmyshin (talk) 06:33, 5 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Speedy close, before more time is wasted discussing this so soon after the close of the RfC. -Zanhe (talk) 01:47, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Most people outside China can't read Chinese and don't know that 李 is pronounced "li". Anthony Appleyard (talk) 04:37, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Except it's also pronounced "lee", "lei", "lie", "ley", "lý", "le", "sy", "dy", "dee" etc. Timmyshin (talk) 06:33, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * "Li" is the official English transliteration of "李" that is approved and always used by the government of modern China. "Lǐ" is the pinyin; but since that complicates things, I think "Li" is the next best alternative; and "李" must be included because there are several other Chinese surnames that have the exact same pronunciation/transliteration; and "surname" must also be included because this article is not about plums. - Ujongbakuto (talk) 10:05, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The problem is, the topic or the surname is not just confined to citizens of modern China. Most people in Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong with this surname use "Lee", not to mention South Korea, some people in Indonesia use "Lie" e.g. Lie Kim Hok, most in the Philippines use "Dy" e.g. Benjamin Dy (also scroll to the top of the talk page) and Vietnamese use "Lý" (while some may argue that Vietnamese are different from the Chinese, don't forget the Hoa people, same with North Korea which uses "Ri".) Timmyshin (talk) 18:33, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * At least 90% of people with the surname live in China, where it's romanized as "Li" per the pinyin standard. -Zanhe (talk) 18:57, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Maybe someone could try starting a Lee (surname 李) article and see what happens; maybe it will survive, just like Lea (surname), which comes from Lee (English surname). But I suspect that it will be merged/redirected to the current "parent" article, just like how Lee (Chinese surname) is now a redirect to Li (surname). - Ujongbakuto (talk) 21:16, 5 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Please for the love of God don't open this can of worms again, I mean speedy close per above. _dk (talk) 06:04, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Strong Oppose WP:UE, WP:UCN, the undisambiguated portion of the title must be the English language rendering. The proposed title is clearly not the most common form of the surname as it appears in English. "李" based undisambiguated title portions of page names can be a disambiguation page, redirect or other types of non-content pages, it cannot be the title of a content page. The current title works, as it indicats the English rendering (Li) and which other Li's this is disambiguated from (only "李", not others) -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 06:23, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment Li or Lee (surname 李) would work better, because Hong Kong is an English speaking locality, and they use "Lee" -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 06:31, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * There's gotta be a way to do this without putting tone marks or Chinese in the article titles. How about Li (third tone)? There is also Li (surname 理), but it is quite cursory. 理 is not so much a different surname as another way of writing this one. So 李 and 理 could be combined. La crème de la crème (talk) 08:52, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * "So 李 and 理 could be combined" - No, they really shouldn't be combined, they're completely different things. It would make as much sense as combining John (given name) and John (human waste disposal). -- benlisquare T•C•E 14:42, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * In that case, the Li (surname) article needs to be corrected: "Lǐ 理 (3rd tone), the original form of Lǐ 李, now rare." Actually I thought of a better idea: Li (Tang imperial surname). La crème de la crème (talk) 09:36, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
 * There's already a Li (surname meaning "plum"), which is a redirect. - Ujongbakuto (talk) 11:31, 6 September 2014 (UTC)


 * We've already had a lengthy and tiresome discussion not too long ago, do we really need another one right now? The current system isn't broken, it's the least problematic of the multitude of alternatives suggested before, and shouldn't be fixed. -- benlisquare T•C•E 14:39, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment: I recommend that people also take a look at other Chinese surname index pages such as Ji (surname) and Lu (surname). The situation is extremely complex, and the current naming system is the result of a lengthy RfC that followed numerous contentious move requests, deletion requests, and debates, and was finally closed just a few months ago. Why open this can of worms again? -Zanhe (talk) 16:48, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose There are a number of ways to work this out (I'd prefer some system in which we have no non-Roman characters in titles), and while we can agree the current situation isn't perfect, simply using a Chinese character as the title is unworkable. With all respect to other cultures and while bearing in mind that we cover a lot of topics rarely covered in English, this is the English Wikipedia. &mdash;innotata 03:42, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
 * NOTE the subsidiary list article List of people with surname Li is also up for renaming, see Talk:List of people with surname Li -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 12:41, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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Lee - which romanization?
Hello, I'm wondering what kind of romanization system spelled Li as Lee, particularly in Singaporean/Malaysian context, and specifically for the name of Lee Kuan Yew. I'll be grateful if anybody can shed any light on this. Bennylin (talk) 15:12, 8 March 2019 (UTC)


 * "Lee" is the anglicized spelling following the English surname. It does not conform to any romanization system. -Zanhe (talk) 23:11, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Bennylin (talk) 17:58, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Is the Vietnamese Lý non-Chinese?
Lý Bí and Lý Công Uẩn were ancestry Chinese. So excluding Vietnamese as non-CHinese is less acceptable. 2601:204:E37F:FFF1:9852:4D3F:B5F3:B12D (talk) 00:19, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Gŭ (surname 古) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 06:36, 23 October 2021 (UTC)