[Wikipedia-l] anglicization is stupid

Wed Nov 20 01:40:37 UTC 2002

Zoe wrote in part:

>Well, no, I disagree that "*everyone* agrees" the names are incorrect.  In
>your example of Confucius, should we use the old-style Chinese transliteration
>or the new version?

This isn't an argument that "Confucius" is incorrect,
but rather that it's not quite clear what *is* correct instead.
If any Chinese version is *more* correct than "Confucius"
(a point that I admit that many here would deny),
then any Chinese version would be an improvement,
even if still not perfect.

>Should we not transliterate at all but force those who
>only know the Latin alphabet to try to figure out his REAL name by only being
>able to look it up in Chinese ideographs?

Nobody will be *forcing* any user to do anything of the sort.
Every article should have all common spellings (English and original)
in boldface in the first paragraph (we do this now if we know enough to),
and they should have redirects from all of these that are in Latin-1
(we do this now too if we know enough to).
Searching will work; linking will work -- no matter who wins.

>decided that his name would ONLY be in Chinese?

Nobody is proposing this, any more than anybody is proposing
that his name should be given ONLY in English.
Rather, the question is which form is to be *preferred*,
in particular which form is to be the article title.
Every form will be (and is currently, when set up correctly) *supported*.

-- Toby