Changes

::::Words like Canton, Peking, Chiang etc. have become standard English names and are essential to historical articles. We can't change thr English language here. Words that never became standard in English can be rendered in pinyin. [[User:RJJensen|RJJensen]] 21:58, 24 September 2008 (EDT)

::::Words like Canton, Peking, Chiang etc. have become standard English names and are essential to historical articles. We can't change thr English language here. Words that never became standard in English can be rendered in pinyin. [[User:RJJensen|RJJensen]] 21:58, 24 September 2008 (EDT)

:::::My feeling is that non-Pinyin forms should '''only''' be given primacy where not to do so would lead to confusion - this would be the case with such very well known names as Chiang Kai-shek and Sun Yat-sen, and possibly Mao Tse-tung (though the pinyin form of the last of these, Mao Zedong, is much closer to the 'old' version than is the PRC-used names of Sun (Sun Zhongshan) and Chiang (Jiang Jieshi). I hardly ever hear Canton outside of a historical context - Guangzhou is now far more common worldwide, I would say - and even Peking now sounds archaic in my opinion, and the Beijing Olympics have probably knocked it even further down the ladder. My suggestion, which sort of builds on that of Karajou, is to use pinyin as the primary form (except for Chiang, Sun and maybe one or two others). We should for major geographical names - provinces, important cities, major figures in politics or history - always also give the W-Gor other alternative names. For major figures, redirects should aslo be provided. Thus whether Zhou Enlai or Chou En-lai is chosen as the 'main' name, the other should exist as a redirect. If we can agree on this in outline (and I think that those of us participating here are those with the greatest interest in this issue), perhaps we could start a separate discussion on the Pinyin talk page to decide who should be 'pinyin exempt'? [[User:Bugler|Bugler]] 05:06, 25 September 2008 (EDT)

:::::My feeling is that non-Pinyin forms should '''only''' be given primacy where not to do so would lead to confusion - this would be the case with such very well known names as Chiang Kai-shek and Sun Yat-sen, and possibly Mao Tse-tung (though the pinyin form of the last of these, Mao Zedong, is much closer to the 'old' version than is the PRC-used names of Sun (Sun Zhongshan) and Chiang (Jiang Jieshi). I hardly ever hear Canton outside of a historical context - Guangzhou is now far more common worldwide, I would say - and even Peking now sounds archaic in my opinion, and the Beijing Olympics have probably knocked it even further down the ladder. My suggestion, which sort of builds on that of Karajou, is to use pinyin as the primary form (except for Chiang, Sun and maybe one or two others). We should for major geographical names - provinces, important cities, major figures in politics or history - always also give the W-Gor other alternative names. For major figures, redirects should aslo be provided. Thus whether Zhou Enlai or Chou En-lai is chosen as the 'main' name, the other should exist as a redirect. If we can agree on this in outline (and I think that those of us participating here are those with the greatest interest in this issue), perhaps we could start a separate discussion on the Pinyin talk page to decide who should be 'pinyin exempt'? [[User:Bugler|Bugler]] 05:06, 25 September 2008 (EDT)