Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles/Archive 29

Double quotation marks/brackets for book titles (Reviving)
As I erroneously edited an Archive page, moving it here:

Should Japanese book titles, etc. be enclosed in double quotation marks/brackets (『...』) within the text of an article or in a citation?

For example:

As opposed to:

It seems logical to me, seeing as how we italicize book titles in English, and the double brackets are basically the Japanese equivalent of italics. However, I wasn't able to find anything about brackets in the Manual of Style, and the "cite book" template example doesn't use brackets for Japanese titles, either. – KuroMina (talk) 11:10, 28 December 2019 (UTC)


 * I totally agree with this opinion. Without having an experience of editing a MOS, I might use this logical addition/change as the first case. As I intend to edit sometime in the near future, please post any opposing views here.  Yiba  (talk | contribs) 13:44, 6 February 2023 (UTC)


 * It does not seem "logical" to me. WP:en is in English, and should quote foreign text using the conventions of English to indicate the quotion. Imaginatorium (talk) 08:25, 21 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Please look at the above example carefully. The brackets are there as a part of Japanese text, making it clearer that it is the title of the book (exactly as Italic does in English) for the reader of the part of the line that is Japanese.   Yiba  (talk | contribs) 11:51, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I looked very carefully. (This is the example of the Donguri Sisters, right?) The Japanese title is not there for readers of Japanese, since WP:ja is for that purpose. The title is given in two versions, romanised and original, for the benefit of the person reading in English who wants to know exactly what the title is. And the (original) title is... どんぐり姉妹. In Japanese running text, this may be enclosed within kagi-kakko 『 』 because this is a convention of Japanese running text. In Japanese outside running text such brackets are not required, so they are plainly not part of the title. Imaginatorium (talk) 14:00, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Yes, we're on the same page as to the example(s). I said "reader of the part of the line that is Japanese", meaning in this case, you, who reads どんぐり姉妹.  And that part of the line is in Japanese language, agree?  May be it is simpler and easier to understand by stating: "どんぐり姉妹 is equivalent to acorn sisters, 『どんぐり姉妹』is equivalent to The Acorn Sisters."  (⇐ if I ended this line instead with ". then some picky person might say "this writer doesn't respect English writing convention" outside of en:wikipedia:P)
 * I looked up and found examples from other versions of Wikipedia on a book title:
 * Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen (britischer Originaltitel: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone) -German
 * 『ハリー・ポッターと賢者の石』（ハリー・ポッターとけんじゃのいし、原題: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone）-Japanese
 * Harry Potter i Kamień Filozoficzny (tytuł oryginalny: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone) -Polish
 * Please note the English part of the lines are Italyzed, because it is proper in English language for book titles to do so. (Unlike French, which does Italize book titles, the German and Japanese languages do not.)
 * There are Italyzed fonts in Japanese, but it is the convention to use『』for book titles, and it is important that this is not the regular kagi-kakko「」for quotes. While your point is well taken en.wikipedia does not need to respect the conventions of foreign language (as long as they are spelled correctly), there is intrinsic value to return the courtesy/respect extended by de., jp., pl. and other wikipedia to the English language conventions, in addition to making the handling of a foreign language "more proper" at very small cost.  Am I sounding logical enough yet?  Yiba  (talk | contribs) 02:50, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
 * No, you do not sound logical at all. English can respect anything, while quoting it, but the "quoting operation" is in English, and uses a consistent scheme. As do other WP versions, as you point out. ("Italyzed" is not a word; you mean "italicise") Anyway, you need to get a lot more support for your idiosyncratic proposal before it is worth discussing further. Imaginatorium (talk) 05:58, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Spacing of romanization
Neither the Hepburn romanization article nor Manual of Style/Japan-related articles mention how to space romanizations, other than specific rules on words ending in 絵 (e) and 画 (ga) and certain kinds of place names. This contrasts with the detailed rules in the Pinyin article.

The absence of rules has led to inconsistency on, to use a simple example, whether 私達 is romanized as watashitachi, watashi-tachi, or watashi tachi. Let alone where to place spaces and hyphens in romanizations of long strings of kanji.

I think it's easier to appropriate someone else's rules, even if one needs to make exceptions to them, than to create one's own rules from scratch.

Therefore, I suggest making the detailed rules covering almost any possibility in the ALA–LC romanization table the default, with the exceptions of the previously mentioned existing rules, plus those in the general guidelines concerning numbers (romanizations should always indicate how they're pronounced and should never contain digits) and title caps (all words except particles and pre-/suffixes attached by hyphens should start with a capital letter).

Making these exceptions would mean there'd be no change to existing policy, while adopting the ALA–LC rules in every other regard would resolve differences in personal taste in many other aspects by having rules to refer to. Tempjrds (talk) 14:38, 25 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Who or what is "ALA-LC"? Imaginatorium (talk) 15:19, 25 February 2023 (UTC)


 * I assume ALA is American Library Association and LC is Library of Congress, both reliable organizations. However, in at least one place in the linked document (about loan words), they write "Some loan words are divided into separate words in a straightforward way. In other cases, the boundary between words may not be so clear. Use your best judgement and add variants as necessary." In other words, they provide guidance but there are always judgment calls involved. For the example given above, clearly "watashi tachi" is substandard (because "tachi" can't exist as an independent word in this form), leading us to choose between "watashitachi" and "watashi-tachi". But I think the choice at that point is a judgment call. (I admit that I am befuddled by using the title Kinkaku-ji over Kinkakuji, but it's always been that way, so when necessary we could choose to apply WP:RETAIN.) Dekimasu よ! 08:27, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes, there are circumstances in which the ALA–LC table can't provide an objective solution and can leaves it to personal judgment. But I don't see why that would be a reason to dismiss it as not being useful, if that's what you mean.

In the case of the example I gave, I believe it comes under the instruction on side 17 to write "compounds formed by the addition of a suffixed single element" as single words. If you search the document for "達", there are examples of it being attached directly to the word it modifies without a hyphen, unless the word is a proper noun or a foreign word that was written in katakana.

We know the watashi tachi option just doesn't make sense, but to someone less used to romanizing Japanese, the ALA–LC table provides guidance on this.

At the least, I think it would be useful for the MOS page to link to the ALA–LC table and recommend it for guidance on how to space and punctuate Hepburn romanization and for resolving disputes in opinion, though the MOS's own rules take precedent when they differ (it would be useful at this point to list how they differ, so people don't have to search the page to find the specific rules in different sections) and the guidance shouldn't be applied hard and fast but with informed judgment as to what makes sense in the situation (as the table itself repeatedly emphasizes).

By the way, I don't think adopting the ALA–LC rules would make a great deal of difference to article titles: these should, as they do now, follow established/common usage when there is any in Latin script. It's primarily the romanizations in parentheses within articles that I think they'd be useful for helping to make more consistent (and especially complex things like long titles of artistic works). Tempjrds (talk) 17:25, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Taisha and Jingu are not done justice with "Shrine"
I prefer calling them Taisha or Jingu in article titles, but if we decide against that I believe we should call them "Grand Shrines" in article titles. We should make it so anyone seeing the title can grasp that it is not just a normal shrine. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk to the cutest Wikipedian) 17:37, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

Romanization and references
Wouldn't it be better for the manual of style to endorse the translation of cited sources over simply providing the romanization of its title? Of course not everyone can read Japanese, but it's not like reading the same thing in romaji would make it easy to decipher the meaning if one doesn't speak the language one bit.

Also, I haven't checked but, what are the guidelines when working on articles related to other languages that use non-Latin writing systems? For instance, I never saw any romanization for sources that use Ciryllic or Arabic scripts, so I don't get why Japanese would be any different. NicoSkater97 (  let's talk!  ) 21:34, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't use the visual editor so I don't now whether that makes a difference, but there are four parameters that can be used when citing a source written in Japanese which can help make a citation easier to understand: language, script-title, title and trans-title. These parameters seem to work with many of the more widely used citation templates like cite news and cite web, and there are examples on who to use them given on most template documentation pages. Whether the person adding the citations decides to use them all, use only some of them or not use any of them, I guess depends on the person. The same information can also be added to citations that don't use citation templates; it's just a bit more cumbersome. Of the four parameters, the title is probably the one that almost everyone ends up using, but it's not always being used in the best way possible (at least in my opinion). There's nothing stopping anyone else from coming by later and tweaking a citation if they think doing so would improve it (as long as they don't completely change things per WP:CITEVAR). Based on my experience, the same parameters/format style also seem to work well for other non-Latin writing systems, but the trans-title and the title parameters might be a bit trickier to handle for someone not competent in the citation's source language. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:27, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Why doesn't Wikipedia respect Japan?
From Personal_name: "In 2020 the Government of Japan reverted the order of romanized names back to the Eastern name order in official documents (e.g. identity documents, academic certificates, birth certificates, marriage certificates, among others), which means writing family name first in capital letters and has recommended that the same format shall be used among the general Japanese public.[17]

Japan has also requested Western publications to respect this change, such as not using Shinzo Abe but rather Abe Shinzo, similar to how Chinese leader Xi Jinping is not referred to as Jinping Xi.[18] Its sluggish response by Western publications was met with ire by Japanese politician Taro Kono, which stated that "If you can write Moon Jae-in and Xi Jinping in correct order, you can surely write Abe Shinzo the same way."[19] /.../ ''In contrast to China and Korea, due to familiarity, Japanese names of contemporary people are usually "switched" when people who have such names are mentioned in media in Western countries; for example, Koizumi Jun'ichirō is known as Junichiro Koizumi in English. Japan has requested that Western publications cease this practice of placing their names in the Western name order and revert to the Eastern name order.[17]"''

...so why doesn't Wikipedia respect the Japanese decision, to stop the old, misguided, confusing, misleading, and self-denigrating practice, of switching the order when using Western languages? 155.4.221.27 (talk) 12:42, 28 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Simply put, the opinion of the government/politicians of Japan and the question of whether Wikipedia usage is misguided and should be changed are two different issues. Wikipedia does not follow government recommendations for naming. The general underlying policy guidance is to follow usage in reliable sources, and as shown in the quote above, "names of contemporary people are usually 'switched'" in reliable sources. If you would like to suggest a change to the MOS (which, by coincidence, was the same as the Japanese government policy until recently), then please recommend it on its merits. And as far as the merits go, you have asserted that the current convention on Wikipedia is misleading or self-(?)denigrating, but I do not think you have shown it. Dekimasu よ! 02:27, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
 * The current MOS is not the same as the previous Japanese government policy. The previous Japanese government policy was simple and straightforward, in having Japanese names always flipped to the Western order, in Western publications. That is very different to the current Wikipedia MOS policy, of seven different options to go through, leading to utter inconsistency of how Japanese names are ordered. 155.4.221.27 (talk) 13:41, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think this has to do with respect or any lack thereof. Wikipedia simply follows WP:COMMONNAME when it comes to the naming of individuals, and this asks us to use the order that the majority of reliable sources use. If, over time, more and more reliable sources start referring to contemporary Japanese individual using the preferred name order of the Japanese government, then that's what Wikipedia will most likely end up doing as well. It's not, however, Wikipedia's role to right some great wrong and lead the movement for such a change. Finally, politicians are quite fickle and how they personally feel is often not very reflective of how a nation as a whole feels. So, what one government decides to do is sometimes completely undone by a successive government. This probably another reason why Wikipedia tends to wait until it's clear a change is needed before taking action. My personal opinion is that a change in the name order might take some time to get used to, but eventually people will get used it if that's how contemporary Japanese start commonly being referred to; however, the use of all capital letters for last names seems like it's going to be a non-starter simply because it's not consistent with basic English capitalization rules and those are unlikely going to change because of what the Japanese government wants. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:59, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I was looking into this to see what's happening in Japan, and the Yomiuri Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun and Asahi Shimbun still seem, for what I've seen, to be using the Western-name-order in their English language versions. Moreover, even official Japanese government websites seem to be using a hybrid-style in which something like "Prime Minister of Japan KISHIDA Fumio" is used when referring someone by their full-name, but "Prime Minister of Japan Kishida" or "Kishida" is used when referring to someone by only their family-name. This kind of overuse of capitalization (for undue emphasis reasons) is relatively common, at least in my opinion, when it comes to English usage in Japan. It would be interesting to see how the Japanese Government would compose a list of attendees for an official government function. Would it be something like "KISHIDA Fumio, Joseph Biden, Xi Jinping and so on? It seems that the all-caps of the Japanese PM's family name could ruffle some feathers and be seen as placing undue emphasis on his attendance. The order in which names are listed on such lists, I'm sure already causes headaches for those involved in beyond the scenes stuff at such events, and it seems like over-capitalization would just create more problems. I could see Western media sources perhaps someday switching the name order they use when it comes to the way they refer to contemporary Japanese, but I don't see them using all caps for family names. -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:38, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
 * "Moreover, even official Japanese government websites seem to be using a hybrid-style in which something like "Prime Minister of Japan KISHIDA Fumio" is used when referring someone by their full-name, but "Prime Minister of Japan Kishida" or "Kishida" is used when referring to someone by only their family-name."
 * There is nothing "hybrid" about that. They use the Japanese order, in both cases. All caps for the family name, is only relevant, when writing the full name ...and is also optional. It just makes the order clear and unambiguous.
 * Speaking of which: Some argue that you could use a comma. This is wrong. The comma indicates that the part after the comma, comes before the part before it (but is put at the end, for purposes of alphabetical order) ...but as in lists of books, with e.g. "Fellowship of the Ring, The". So "Kishida, Fumio" would mean that the name is really "Fumio Kishida".
 * Also, according the current MOS, all Japanese politicians must be written in the Eastern order: "1. Use the form personally or professionally used by the person, if available in the English/Latin alphabet (this can include the spelling appearing on their official website or official social media profile, but do not rely on a URL when the actual text is all Japanese)" 155.4.221.27 (talk) 13:23, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
 * What you're referring to above in the MOS is MOS:JAPAN, but you're leaving out the introductory sentence which states: "For modern figures, if no 'most commonly used name' can be established, use the following as a guideline". The "most commonly used name" being referred to is defined right above that section in MOS:JAPAN as "the spelling and name order used (for the title, and within the article body) should be that most commonly used in reliable, third-party English-language sources (encyclopedias, newspapers, magazines, academic books, academic journals, etc.) per WP:TITLE." This is consistent with what have been posted above about Wikipedia reflecting how reliable sources in the English-language sources refer to contemporary Japanese. If such sources start switching to the "last name first name" so that it becomes commonplace, Wikipedia will follow along; however, it's not Wikipedia's role to get them to make such a change. Perhaps you start should try contacting major media organizations directly and express your concerns to them. As pointed out above, even the main Japanese English newspapers still use the "first name last name" order even though they're Japanese media companies. If the local Japanese English media organizations switch over to the Japanese government's preferred order, perhaps international media organizations will follow. Finally, your comment about comma usage was interesting. You might, however, want to take a look at this because someone at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs seems to feel differently. -- Marchjuly (talk) 14:13, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
 * True, so Japanese politicians names should be written family name first, only if they don't have a "most commonly used name". (according to the current MOS) That was an oversight. Thanks for the correction. BTW, the numbered list should be changed, to have "most commonly used name" as #1 (with the five current entries, following it), to make the rules clearer.
 * "because someone at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs seems to feel differently"
 * A Japanese person doesn't properly understand a feature of Western writing? That is hardly surprising. Indeed, it is very common, even among e.g. those who write the English textbooks, or English-Japanese and Japanese-English dictionaries, in Japan. (none of which ever have any input, from any native speakers of English) The post-Meiji practice, by many, to flip their names, when speaking/writing in Western languages, is also an example of such a erroneous understanding. Like how they though (during Meiji) that Englishmen ate steak everyday, and how pretty much all English-Japanese dictionaries, today(!), translates "hip" as "尻". (which means buttock) 155.4.221.27 (talk) 19:21, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
 * The most common spelling of Japanese people's names, tend to be in Japanese, where their names are always written in the order "family name"->"given name"... 155.4.221.27 (talk) 13:36, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
 * The problem is that we need to know which is the surname for sorting, categorizing, citations, etc. Without the marker of capitalization, it's not clear. So if we aren't going to capitalize, we should keep to forenames + surname. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:33, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
 * ...except that, according to the current MOS, you write some Japanese names in the "Western" order, but others in the "Eastern" order. Aside from how historical names are written in Eastern order, you also have plenty of modern names, in Eastern order too. Some are early modern ones, such as Natsume Sōseki (as mentioned in the MOS), but there are plenty others. The MOS doesn't say that modern names are to be written in the Western order. It states a guideline, going by either "most commonly used name", or going with four other options ...and if all that fails, using Western order.
 * In other words: There is no consistent order.
 * ...unless you simply do as the Japanese government, quite sensibly, have decided, and always and consistently never re-order the name, but instead use its original order. Then the order is always perfectly consistent! That way, you avoid all the needless confusion and complications. 155.4.221.27 (talk) 13:30, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
 * The order was originally consistent (Western order for births after the Meiji Restoration; if you want to look at older versions of this page, which I was referring to above when I said "until recently", feel free to do so). However, because that came into conflict with WP:COMMONNAME, it was changed, precisely to be more consistent with how things are done on the rest of Wikipedia. Policy like Article titles supersedes guidelines like this manual of style. Also note that your preferred system would not make things always reflect the way they are done in Japan (Inoki Antonio? Matsumoto Tortoise? or are you simply arguing for using the standard way people are known on Japanese government documents, which would result in "switching" the names of all expatriates in Japan?). A blanket acceptance of Japanese government policy would also violate the principle of least astonishment for English Wikipedia users in the case of Japanese citizens who are best known for things done abroad (Osaka Naomi, Hayakawa Sessue, Ono Yoko). There is no perfect solution. Dekimasu よ! 16:38, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I've gone back all the way to the first version of the page, and looking further in the page history, and can conclude that the MOS has NEVER had a rule of consistently writing modern Japanese names, in "given name"->"family name" order. The order of Modern Japanese names on Wikipedia have always been inconsistent.
 * "Also note that your preferred system would not make things always reflect the way they are done in Japan"
 * No system would, as they aren't consistent ...except when they write in Japanese. Which, again, is how their names are most commonly written.
 * "which would result in "switching" the names of all expatriates in Japan?"
 * Would it? Any East Asian living in the West, has their name flipped to the Western, order, due to the fact that names are officially in that order, in those countries, so there wouldn't be anything strange about it, it it does, but I don't know if it does or not.
 * "A blanket acceptance of Japanese government policy would also violate the principle of least astonishment for English Wikipedia users in the case of Japanese citizens who are best known for things done abroad (Osaka Naomi, Hayakawa Sessue, Ono Yoko)"
 * Being inconsistent with the name order, causes plenty of astonishment and confusion
 * ...and Hayakawa Sessue? He's not particularly well known at all, but more importantly: his name isn't Hayakawa Sessue, nor is it ever written like that. His (artist) name is Hayakawa Sesshū. 155.4.221.27 (talk) 19:05, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I am not sure this discussion has been very productive, but at any rate, I will quote directly the previous MOS rule from the first old revision I checked, from 2014: "For a historical figure—a person born before the Meiji period (before 1868)—always use the traditional Japanese order of family name + given name in Latin script and family name + + given name in Japanese script.... For a modern figure—a person born after the beginning of the Meiji period (January 1, 1868 onward for our purposes)—always use the Western order of given name + family name in Latin script, and Japanese style family name+ +given name in Japanese script." If you want to see how that changed after a discussion, it's in archive 27. If you want to propose a change, editors will discuss it and we can see if there is consensus for it, but the chances are high that the answer will simply be that guidelines can't overrule policy. Dekimasu よ! 00:22, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
 * You've skipped the five point list, that follows. 155.4.221.27 (talk) 15:04, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
 * That list applied explicitly to romanization, not name order; hence the "always" quoted in my previous reply. Dekimasu よ! 16:15, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
 * True. I just checked that the numbered list was still there, but previously it was just about the romanization. Thanks for the correction.
 * It appears that it was "Western" order for modern names, until 14:21, 17 July 2015, when it was followed by a "most common" rule. So nearly a decade ago. Not really what I'd call "until recently".
 * Looking at the discussion, that was the basis for the 2015 change, I see some interesting details:
 * "The original rationale for the current guideline, which was adopted in 2006, was that Japanese schools taught students to put their given names first in English."
 * That's not a WP:COMMONNAME rationale... (still, you can point out that this was an old policy, which has now been overruled)
 * Also, the discussion had a consensus on Japanese order, with exceptions for WP:COMMONNAME ...except that this was not reflected in the change to the MOS. Only years later, did the very last option, in the numbered list, state that, if all else fails, you should use the original/actual name order, of the name.
 * Having "old names=Japanese order, new names=flipped" is inconsistent and confusing. (mind you, any flipping of names is always inconsistent and confusing, as you'll see and hear the unflipped version, and you'll not know which name is the family name or given name)
 * ...but having "old names=Japanese order, new names=often flipped, except when they're not" is even more inconsistent and confusing.
 * Not to mention how the romanization is inconsistent. If it were a consistent strict adherence to Modern Hepburn, that'd be good, but the current system is, again inconsistent and confusing. 155.4.221.27 (talk) 13:24, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

I actually started working on something in WP:VPIL. Awesome Aasim 18:32, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Proposed addition: Handling of 新 in station names
There's been a lot of back and forth with the naming of lines/stations on the Sōtetsu and Tōkyū Shin-Yokohama Line (see Talk:Sōtetsu Shin-Yokohama Line), so I would like to add this bullet point under MOS:JAPAN:


 * Names of the form 新〇〇 should be romanized Shin-〇〇. Example: Shin-Yokohama Station (新横浜駅).

Hopefully this is clear enough that nobody tries to rename Niigata as Shingata, but open to changes and/or wacky exceptions. Jpatokal (talk) 23:04, 14 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Going once, going twice... Jpatokal (talk) 03:13, 17 May 2024 (UTC)