Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese)/Archive 1

There are a number of special issues with regard to Chinese names....

Characters
All encyclopedia entries whose title is a Chinese names SHOULD include the Chinese characters and Pinyin representation for that name in the first sentence.

Chinese characters on the English Wikipedia should be encoded using HTML entities with Unicode numbers. Big5 and GB encoded characters are acceptable as a draft for people who have no other means of entering characters but be converted to Unicode in HTML character entities when it is possible. After a Chinese text has been converted to Unicode, the Big5 or GB versions should be removed.

Romanization
Main discussion: Talk:Transcription of Chinese

Romanization presents some difficult issues in that it is a highly political issue. The most often used romanization is pinyin. Though many outside of the People's Republic of China dislike it because of its association with that government, pinyin is the most correct known way of romanizing Mandarin Chinese words.

In general, Chinese entries should be in pinyin except when there is a more popularly used form in English (such as Taoism) or when the subject of the entry is likely to object to romanization in pinyin. When an entry is not in pinyin form, there should be a link to the article from the pinyin form.

Names
Chinese names, unlike Western names, presents family/clan name first. Unlike other instances were this occurs, it is standard practice in English to also present a Chinese name last name first (i.e. Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping). Chinese names should be in pinyin unless there is a more common name used in English (i.e. Chiang Kai-shek, Sun Yat-sen) or when the subject of the article is likely to prefer a non-pinyin phonetization as is likely the case with personages from Taiwan (i.e. Lee Teng-hui).

The encyclopedia should reference the name more familar to most English readers. For most historical figures the means that encyclopedia entry should reference the Chinese name rather than the English name (Soong Chu-yu rather than James Soong for example), with a redirect from the English name. However, there are exceptions for figures whose English name is more familar (Confucius, Koxinga) and for figures who were raised in non-Chinese societies and whose Chinese names are unfamilar (Vera Wang, Michelle Kwan and Maya Lin).

Another special case is for a figure whose Chinese name is familar but used in English ordering (e.g. Wen Ho Lee). In this case, the primary entry should be under the English ordering with a redirect from the Chinese ordering.

In Chinese societies greatly influenced by western culture (e.g. Hong Kong), people tend to give themselves Christian names in addition to the names given by their parents. For example, Cheung Kwok Wing is also known as Leslie Cheung and his full name is written as "Leslie C HEUNG Kwok Wing" in official or legal documents. Such convention is not accepted in wikipedia and the family name would be ambiguous in "Leslie Cheung Kwok Wing".

When using pinyin for a Chinese name, pinyin spacing and capitalization conventions should be used. This includes keeping the last name separate and the given name capitalized with the different characters not indicated by spacing, hyphenization, or capitalization.

Names of Groups
The main entry for a Chinese group should be under the name most familar to English speakers. In some cases, this will be the translated name (e.g. Chinese Communist Party). In other cases, this will be the transliterated name (Kuomintang and Falun Gong). When the name is transliterated, the name should use the spelling conventionally used by English speakers (e.g. Kuomintang). Where this is not the pinyin transliteration there should be a link from the article from the pinyin name.

When a group uses a translated name, the Chinese characters should be included if the Chinese characters cannot be unambiguously derived from the English name or if providing the characters would provide any extra information. For example, the entry for President of the People's Republic of China should include Chinese characters because the name used for President (zhuxi) is not the standard term used for President, whereas including the Chinese characters for President of the Republic of China is redundant because it can be derived unambigiously derived from the English term.

Similarly Chinese characters should be included for the Democratic Progressive Party because the standard term used for the party (min-jin-dang) is a contraction of the full name (min-zhu jin-bu dang). Characters should also be included for National People's Congress because there are a number of different Chinese terms to translate Congress, and the entry should identify which one is used.

Names of Emperors
Discussion on a convention is underway on the bottom of this page.

The general principle is to use the name which is most familar to Chinese readers. This violates the Wikipedia principle that the name most familiar to English readers should be used, because English readers are not usually familiar with any of the emperors.

1) Emperors before the Tang dynasty: use posthumous names. eg. Han Wu Di. 2) Emperors between Tang dynasty and Ming dynasty: use temple names eg. Tang tai zong. 3) Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasty: use era names (same as reign names) eg. Kangxi. 4) If there is a more common convention than using posthumous, temple or era names, then use it. eg. Cao Cao instead of Wei wu di. Or Sima Yi instead of Jin xuan di. This is often the case with founders of dynasties and the special case of Puyi.

Because these are reign names are not personal names, the correct phrasing for emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasty is the "Kangxi Emperor" rather than "Emperor Kangxi".

Political NPOV
Wikipedia entries should avoid taking sides on issues such as the status of Taiwan and Tibet. In particular the word China should not be used to be synonymously with areas under current administration by the People's Republic of China or with Mainland China. The term "Mainland China" is a non-political term to be can used when a comparison is to be made with Taiwan, and "China proper" is a non-political term which can be used when making a comparison with Tibet. Although the used of the term "Manchuria" is considered by some to be somewhat objectionable when used in Chinese, it is largely considered a non-political and non-objectionable term when used in English.

A decision was made after extended discussion on Talk:China to use China as the title of the article on mainland China (People's Republic). Fred Bauder 12:39 Nov 8, 2002 (UTC)

Taiwan should not be described either as an independent nation or as a part of China. When it is necessary to describe the political status of Taiwan, special note should be made of Taiwan's complex political status.

Also note that there are potential landmines when using the term "Chinese". In particular, some find a distinction between "Chinese" and "Tibetans" or between "Chinese" and "Taiwanese" to be objectionable and the terms "Han Chinese"/"Tibetans" and "Mainland Chinese"/"Taiwanese" are more politically neutral.

The term "Mainlander" poses some issues. It is sometimes ambiguous whether this is refering to a resident of Mainland China or a member of the group that fled with the KMT to Taiwan in 1949. In refering to the latter group, the name is mildly objectionable when used in English and strongly objectionable when translated literally in Chinese. Preferred unambigous names for the two groups are "Mainland Chinese" and "wai sheng ren".

Hakka is the preferred name for that group even though the Mandarin word for that is something completely different phonetically.

In general, one should avoid using the term "Chinese" to be synonymous with the spoken Mandarin Chinese.

Excellent ideas on naming conventions! --maveric149

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All entries with Chinese names should have the Chinese characters for the name included in unicode.

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One must have a Chinese Communicator installed on a PC to do so. When the document was typed on computers of public domains which only offers IME (like Microsoft IME that doesn't convert Chinese characters in Unicode), presenting every single character in unicode is a tiresome work since typers have to search for them. I'm against this proposal. By the way while using Pinyin romanization, readers who don't know Chinese characters at all can search for the them if they have a Communicator or dictionary handy. -- Ktsquare

I don't think I was clear in my proposal. I've clarified it a bit.

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''Chinese characters on wikipedia should be encoded using HTML entities with unicode numbers. Use of either 8-bit characters or non-unicode encodings such as big5 or gb should be discouraged. Unicode is preferably because it has the highest available and also avoids political issues.''

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As I said earlier, typing every character in unicode is tiresome. Although I agree that big5 and gb encoding may invoke political issue simply because of Traditional and Simplified Chinse, readers who are proficienct in Chinese will feel more comfortable typing more. If one doesn't know Chinese characters at all, the typers can just list the Pinyin romanization without accompanied by any sort of Chinese encoding, saving time for both the typers and readers. Then anyone knowing the correct Chinese character should then do the encoding, avoiding any confusion. Ktsquare

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Names of Emperors

'''Emperors before the Ming dynasty should be refered to by the posthumous temple name rather than by reign name. Where there is any ambiguity, the temple name should be preceded by the name of the dynasty.'''

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Okay.... I partially agree on what you have said but let's make it more clear. Emperors before the Tang dynasty should be referred to by the posthumous name. Temple name should be used for emperors between Tang dynasty and Ming dynasty. There is a difference between temple names and posthumous names. See the guide on Chinese sovereign for the difference. But if you were saying emperors before Ming should be referred using posthumous AND temple name, that's plain wrong. An exmaple, give me the temple name of Han Wu Di. Nobody would use it except those wrote Hanshu like Ban gu and his disciples. Or give me the posthumous name (not the temple name) of Tang Gao Zu. Ktsquare

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'''Personal names for emperors should not be used except to refer to the founders of dynasties who used personal names before becoming emperor (e.g. Liu Bang) and except for the special case of the last emperor Puyi whose reign name and temple name are unfamiliar.'''

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The overall idea is going by the most common convetion which is pretty fimilar to those accustomed Chinese. The most common convention is use the name which is most familar to Chinese readers. This violates the Wikipedia principle that the name most familiar to English readers should be used, because English readers are not usually familiar with any of the emperors.

1) Emperors before the Tang dynasty: use posthumous names. eg. Han Wu Di 2) Emperors between Tang dynasty and Ming dynasty: use temple ames eg. Tang tai zong 3) Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasty: use era names (same as reign names) eg. kangxi 4) If there is a more common convention than using posthumous, temple or era names, then use it. eg. Cao Cao instead of Wei wu di. Or Sima Yi instead of Jin xuan di. Ktsquare

People who don't know Chinese "All encyclopedia entries whose title is a Chinese names SHOULD include the Chinese characters and Pinyin representation for that name in the first sentence."

Suggested rule: Those who do not know any Chinese MAY ignore this rule when starting a new article; however, they SHOULD ask for help in the Summary: field when submitting the text. --Damian Yerrick


 * Great idea. Those posters may type in somethng like (correct pinyin?) or (correct charaters?) etc. so someone who knows the word will notice and edit them Ktsquare

Would it be better copy other people's entries to the top than cut the whole paragraph out? I just read some of my entries some sentences of which looks weird with those cuts. Ktsquare

See Talk:China for a discussion on whether to use simplified or traditional Chinese characters. Fred Bauder 12:39 Nov 8, 2002 (UTC)

Name of places. What should we do with old transliterations of the name of places? Keep them? Replace them by new one (Pinyin)? Replace by pinyin and leave the old one into brackets? olivier 16:18 Jan 7, 2003 (UTC)

I like the last option (Replace by pinyin and leave the old one into brackets?) Vera Cruz


 * Agree, we can also say what transliteration system the old names are using, ex. Wade-Giles -- User:kt2

however my browser isnt reading pinyin and it would be nice if someone told me what i could do to change that. Vera Cruz


 * What exactly is your problem? Are the Chinese characters invisible? My browser reads Pinyin as long as it is typed in alphabets. User:kt2

Regarding choice of Romanization

I do not quite agree on what is written about Romanization: I think we should always aim for using Pinyin words in articles, regardless if it's the popular spelling in the West or not. The nice thing is that we can still have a redirect and an explanation of the popular term - included in the article or in a seperate one - which will avoid confusion when people search for the popular term; but when we write the main article I think that the Pinyin term should be used in all cases: both in the article text and in its title. It's true that some might at first be confused when seeing this term being used instead of the popular one, but as long as the popular one is included as well, and an explanation that the one used in the article is the Pinyin version (with a link to Pinyin) it only avoids confusion, and makes the process of creating new articles of Chinese topics easier, as everyone know they should use Pinyin Romanization. In my opinion, this is a very suitable choice for an encyclopedia, and I admit that if other informative websites I've visited would have done so from the beginning, I would not have felt so confused the first years before I began studying basic Chinese.

- Wintran 12:30 Feb 17, 2003 (UTC)

Trouble is that most of the people reading, searching for or linking to the articles will only be familiar with the term most commonly-used in English. That is why we have naming conventions (anglicization) and naming conventions (common names) (read those pages to learn why those conventions are important). Those two naming conventions are general ones and no specific naming convention can violate a general naming convention. But in this case there is no specific naming convention for Chinese (at least not yet). Only a talk page talking about naming issues for Chinese subjects. --mav 12:55 Feb 17, 2003 (UTC)

Sorry, I just learned that there's already a huge discussion on this topic in Use pinyin not Wade-Giles. I will continue the discussion there. - Wintran 22:16 Feb 18, 2003 (UTC)

Name of Emperors. Referring to the guidelines above, should we separate transliterations of each Chinese characters or combining the posthumous and temple names only?

3 choices for Emperor Tang Tai Zong of China:

--User:kt2
 * Tang Tai Zong (separate each transliteration)
 * Tang Taizong (no spacing of the temple names)
 * Tangtaizong (combine everything)


 * Seperate each transliteration: Tang should be seperated from the rest as it represents the dynasty, Zong should also be seperated because it has an independent meaning (so do Di and Zu) --Lorenzarius 19:29 Feb 2, 2003 (UTC)


 * No spacing of the temple names: In almost all books, academic Koreanists Romanize kings parallel to "Taizong". (e.g. King Sejong the Great) Because the temple name is basically like a given name, each character of which has independent meaning, but you don't translate the components, nor do you separate them.


 * Definitely, oh yeah, definitely, not Tangtaizong (combine everything). Spaceless may be what Chinese writing look like, but space should be inserted between obvious English word divisions. I read The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison that contains passages of spaceless words, and it alone was horrific, more so than Bride of Frankenstein. --Menchi 14:52 24 May 2003 (UTC)

Also, which of the following form should we use ? --User:kt2
 * Emperor Tang Tai Zong of China,
 * Tang Tai Zong, Emperor of China
 * Tang Tai Zong of China


 * I am inclined to use Emperor Tang Tai Zong of China.
 * I suggest we use Emperor (name of dynasty) XXX YYY of China for monarch before Ming Dynasty, while XXXXXX Emperor of China is used for monarch of Ming and Qing Dynasty (as stated in the above convention) --Lorenzarius 19:29 Feb 2, 2003 (UTC)


 * Place "Tang" in front of "Taizong" makes it, in Westerner eyes, look eerily similar to the Chinese personal names, like Hong Xiuquan. To avoid this problem, how about
 * "Emperor Taizong of Tang China"?
 * It's a shorter version of what I've seen in some book translation, which is "Emperor Taizong of Tang Dynasty"?
 * "Tang Emperor Taizong of China"?
 * It's closer to the Chinese meaning.
 * --Menchi 14:52 24 May 2003 (UTC)

I preferred "Emperor Taizong of Tang China", which includes the Chiniese reference but it assumed the reader knows that "Tang" is a dynasty. However the dynasty reference can be introduced in the article. Combining with what Lorenzarius introduced,

Emperor XXXYYY of (name of dynasty) China for monarch before Ming Dynasty, while XXXXXX Emperor of (name of dynasty) Chinais used for monarch of Ming and Qing Dynasty

examples:

Kangxi Emperor of Qing China. Emperor Wu of Han China Hongwu Emperor of Ming China.

Just a side note, some sinologists still use the Wade-Giles convention, for instance, Yung-lo or Hsien-ti; however these names neither specify that they were emperors, nor refer to their specific dynasties. The information was assumed in the content. -- User:kt2


 * Agreed. I Googled around and a number of academics, in many fields, including sociology, history, and science, they identify the dynasties in China using: [(name of dynasty) + "China"]. There are 2000 hits on "Qing China," 4000 on "Ming China," and 2000 on "Tang China." --Menchi 02:25 25 May 2003 (UTC)


 * Great, Shall we set up a poll now to settle the issue ? kt2


 * Sure, but I'm not expecting too many votes.... ;-p --Menchi 02:58 25 May 2003 (UTC)

Emperor XXXYYY of (name of dynasty) China for monarch before Ming Dynasty, while XXXXXX Emperor of (name of dynasty) Chinais used for monarch of Ming and Qing Dynasty is in my view a good idea. I have two observations about problems that might cause, based on my experience on drawing up the naming conventions on western monarchs.


 * Going by past experience, using {name} emperor in some cases and emperor {name} in other may well lead people who don't know why there is a difference to conclude that one (probably the latter) is a mistake, they as a result renaming it to emperor {name}. Someone will correct it, then someone else or the original renamer will change it again, and in the process naming and renaming, links may be broken. I know various pages on European monarchs have experienced such a phenomenon though the risk in most cases was less than might arise in this case.


 * As someone who has crusaded on occasions for 100% accuracy particularly in relation to titles, I have learned that on occasion absolute accuracy is unduly complicating and guaranteed to open up frustrating renaming wars. For example, Albert II is not King of Belgium, his title is King of the Belgians. But call his page Albert II of the Belgians and you are guaranteed (i) a degree of confusion among people who don't know why he is in as the latter, not the former, and (ii) endless renaming by people who think "that must be wrong. I will fix it". Similarly Constantine II was King of the Hellenes, not King of Greece but write in Constantine II of the Hellenes and the same will happen. So in both cases I had to bite my lip and accept a slightly inaccurate title and then state the accurate one (with an explanation) in the article text. It wasn't ideal, but it was user-friendly and avoiding renaming wars and resulting broken links constantly having to be repaired.

The trouble is that people who think the correct form is wrong often don't seem to enter the page to find out the reason for the name before renaming. In contrast people who do know the correct form tend to look at the text or go to the talk page, where they can find an explanation, often with a See Naming conventions (names and titles) link. There are many many more such examples of this problem. I have found that the best solution is to go for maximum accuracy combined with consistency and user-friendliness through the list. If that means being 90% accuracy rather than 100% accuracy, it is worth it if it avoids endless renaming as someone (often a newbie) finds what they think is a mistake and corrects it. Where less than 100% accuracy is used in the title, then the full correct version can be used in the text, with an explanation of why it is correct.

BTW, (I am not an expert or anything like it on Chinese emperors so I may be wrong in this) is it necessary to use the word emperor at all in the title? In western titles, we don't use regal or imperial titles, merely Albert II of Belgium, Juan Carlos of Spain, etc. That way, where we see a {name} of {country} it usually indicates a monarch or late spouse of a monarch. Would simply saying {x} of {name of dynasty} China produce any problems? Would it cause confusion? Would other non-imperial Chinese figures be written that way? It might be a way of avoiding any confusion over the location of the word emperor in the title, and so avoid naming wars.

Two final (and very quick!) points:
 * I am glad to see that you are proposing to use the word China in the title. Using a country name is a crucial help for people who don't know much about a monarch except where they came from. The manner by which Japan's emperors are named on wiki makes it very difficult for someone who doesn't know where to start, to know where to find the information. Using China means they can put in that word in a search and get a list of emperors along with other Chinese references.
 * Whatever system is agreed should be stated on the Naming conventions (names and titles) page so that people will not become confused and try to apply western conventions to Chinese emperors because they don't know there is a separate agreed naming convention. We already have a linked page but people may not notice the current small link. If you need any help with that, please feel free to ask me. We could restructure the page to make with headings to make it clear which conventions apply where and which don't. FearÉÍREANN 00:12 26 May 2003 (UTC)


 * The general principle is to use the name which is most familar to Chinese readers. This violates the Wikipedia principle that the name most familiar to English readers should be used, because English readers are not usually familiar with any of the emperors.
 * I am puzzled as to why we should not use the form of the name most familiar to English readers for Emperors of China. While most English readers are, I suppose, unfamiliar with the names of Chinese rulers, that does not mean that there are not generally used conventions for naming Chinese Emperors in English. Such conventions should be adhered to, as much as possible, given that people coming here from reading a book are going to be looking for Emperors under the name given in that book (written in English, presumably).  To say that because English readers don't know much about Chinese emperors, we should ignore the traditional English way of giving Emperor's names seems ridiculous.
 * On the other hand, as far as I can tell, although I'm not sure, since I'm not too familiar with how this stuff works, and I'm most familiar with the Wade-Giles transliterations, the system described is, in fact, the system most commonly used in English. Which makes this statement all the more bizarre. john 00:26 26 May 2003 (UTC)


 * Great, the database is back online....

The reason for re-discussion of the name of emperors is exactly what John (and probably many other wikipedians) has stated - I am puzzled as to why we should not use the form of the name most familiar to English readers for Emperors of China. IMO our aim is to make the titles most familiar in English and searchable in Google and other engines, even if accuracy has to be sacrifaced for clarity until a happy medium is reached.

Chinese rulers had vastly different legitmacies of their reigns - some were de facto emperors of all China, some occupied a region and others self-declared emperors while only taking over a scrap of land. I agree that emperor can be (and for consistency, should be) dropped from the title. For the sake of accuracy only the de facto emperors deserved such an title. However some wikipedians would then argue "why would emperor A is called an emperor and ruler B isn't?", which will in turn lead to editing wars as FearÉÍREANN has sugguested. I sugguested XXX of (name of dynasty) China.

Discrepancy between Pinyin (py) and Wade-Giles (wg) lies in the XXX of the title. Significant amount of scholastic works in the area still employed the wg convention; however these work are mostly from English speaking researcher. Pinyin convention has creeped in many English works by non-English speaking historians. The choice of convention is primarily a perspective of the author (and there is a bunch to say about this). Most sinologists are familiar with both systems. As far as wikipedia is concerned, we can always create two titles, one in py another in wg, which then lead us to another question - which title should be the primary and the other degenerates to redirects. Any thought? User:kt2 - 01:43 26 May 2003


 * py vs. WG: WG is dying. It'll be obsolete in a generation. WG has many variations (with or without hyphen, with or without apostrophe. Googling reveals 3260 hits of WG variations of K'ang-hsi Emperor. And 57,200 hits of py variations (two: Kangxi (54,700), and the wrongly spelled Kang Xi (2,460)). --Menchi 07:34 26 May 2003 (UTC)

This is a pretty misleading statement, and I don't think number of hits alone means that much. One ought to also look at quality of hits. The early hits for "K'ang-hsi" all relate specifically to the Chinese Emperor, and many are encyclopedia entries. The early results for "Kangxi" are frequently odd, many/most are not in English, and some don't seem to refer to the Emperor. Many of the better results for "Kangxi" are actually articles which principally refer to the Emperor as "K'ang-hsi". Also, the idea that Pinyin somehow is a more sensible transliteration ought to be dispelled just by learning of the "Qin Dynasty", which is surely further from the actual sound than anything in Wade-Giles. In the end, I don't think it matters that much, so long as people are dutiful about redirects. I'd say that for Communist figures the Pinyin should definitely be used, and for locations, etc. But for historical figures, I'm not sure. English scholarship does seem to be predominantly Wade-Giles... john 08:22 26 May 2003 (UTC)


 * Older English scholarship does seem to be predominantly Wade-Giles.
 * I exclusively searched American universities' web pages, and there are 624 Kangxi and 260 K'ang-hsi. In the first 200 pages of Kangxi, only two used K'ang-hsi on the same page. In parenthesis.


 * It is of absolute irrelevancy that "'Qin Dynasty', which is surely further from the actual sound than anything in Wade-Giles."
 * Keep in mind that py is a Romanization, not Anglicization. All the letters are used in the Latin alphabet, and can be written easily by Westerners -- that's the point. In any case, ch is already used to represent another sound in py. --Menchi 08:38 26 May 2003 (UTC)


 * Yes, so what? Why can't two different sounds in Chinese that sound like "Ch" be transliterated as, well, "Ch".  That's what Wade-Giles does with the Ch' and straight Ch, no?  Certainly, there is no language using the Roman alphabet with which I am aware in which "Q" sounds like "Ch".  "Kin" is what "Qin" looks like it should be pronounced as.  And there's absolutely no connection between the "K" sound and the "Ch" sound.  The Wade-Giles transliteration isn't particularly great, but I'm not that impressed with Pinyin either.  Anyway, as I said, I think the most important think is to be sure to have redirects, more than anything else.  If people want everything except "Sun Yat-sen", "Chiang Kai-shek" and "Kuomintang" to be pinyin, I have no especial objection. john 09:01 26 May 2003 (UTC)

I would like to stress my point, we shall always use the form, py or wg or any other system one suggests, of the name most familiar to English readers for Emperors of China. User:kt2 -

Era Name Emperor

Kt2, why are Ming, Qing emperors' English names are era+"emperor"? Is it because era names are adjectival? --Menchi 22:23 26 May 2003 (UTC)


 * No, era names are only used for referring to the Ming and Qing monarchs, and a few Song and Yuan rulers. One can just use the era names when referring to these rulers, as some sinologists would use. The emperor suffix is indicating that these rulers are de facto emperors. The sequence, i.e. era before emperor, was a residue of verbatim transcribing from the corresponding Chinese characters. Recall that posthumous names and era nemes go in front of the suffix "di" in Chinese characters. User:kt2

--

-

Taken from meta page:

We should better include Penkyamp transliteration for Cantonese as Hong Kong grows increasingly conscious about its differing identity from Beijing.

Maybe one day Taiwanese will also be included to give a genuine multicultural feel to the Han language and culture.

--User:GrandVoivodOfErdely