Talk:Mandarin Duck Blades

Requested move 1

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: no consensus, unfortunately. Proposed titles created as redirects. Jenks24 (talk) 08:15, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

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Blade-dance of the Two Lovers → Yuanyang Dao – The current title is not used by any reliable sources. There has been no English edition yet for some reason. Reading WP:NC-CHINA, there is not one comment about capitalizing a pinyin name for a novel. And... I don't think WP:CAPS applies for non-human pinyin names. Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 12:33, 4 August 2014 (UTC) George Ho (talk) 01:32, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

• Pinyin names for novels should be capitalised per WP:PINYIN ("English Wikipedia uses pinyin as the default Romanisation method for Chinese characters") and, as Section 4.9.2 in this source points out, pinyin title caps are the same as English. —  AjaxSmack  04:20, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

• Comment Where is the current title even from? It's a very "creative" translation of the original title. Can we track down the page creator? Timmyshin (talk) 03:28, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

The current title is commonly used on internet sites even though there is not translation. See this list for such titles. —  AjaxSmack  04:20, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

• Are there any reliable sources for the proposed title? —  AjaxSmack  04:20, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Here it is, but it also uses "Mandarin Duck Blades", a seldom-used title. --George Ho (talk) 06:29, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose as capitalization do apply if you're suggesting a name based on transliteration per the pinyin orthography (as I've mentioned earlier to you... cited in DeFrancis, ed. ABC Chinese-English Dictionary), which AjaxSmack has repeated above, and it would meet the general wikipedia capitalization guidelines (despite your thoughts otherwise, unless I explicitly see a consensus for an exception in the guidelines). No comment on the use of a transliteration. --Cold Season (talk) 19:35, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Cold Season, I changed the proposed name from "Yuanyang dao" to "Yuanyang Dao" to your pleasure. --George Ho (talk) 20:16, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Struck. --Cold Season (talk) 20:18, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

• Support move to Yuanyang Dao. I have search for Blade-dance of the Two Lovers and can't find it on anything other than clones and copies of Wikipeida itself. According to Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Titles#Translations you could provide your own translation in parenthesis in the title if you think that would help readers. In this case I doubt it would do so since the book is unknown by anything other than its Chinese name. Rincewind42 (talk) 15:48, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Don't forget WP:NC(UE). --George Ho (talk) 19:44, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support the title Yuanyang Dao, because a transliteration is in usage as shown in the provided sources and an established English common name is absent.--Cold Season (talk) 21:29, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. After waiting for the discussion to unfold, I have yet to see any evidence that the pinyin title is more common or widely known than the English titles. The example given above by the nominator show the pinyin as a transliteration of the Chinese characters, not as a standalone title. Instead, the pinyin is given as a parenthetical to an English title. I don't see the benefit for Wikipedia, as a general reference, to replace an admittedly problematic English title with a problematic one that is not in English. Go with "Mandarin Duck Blades" or something else in English if it's out there. —  AjaxSmack  03:00, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

That English title that you proposed isn't widely used either, as what WP:NCUE says. If the discussion results as "no consensus" or "not moved", then I'll propose that English title, despite its seldom use. --George Ho (talk) 03:43, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose per AjaxSmack. Nominator has good intentions and ought to be praised for that, but pinyin names for novels is not beneficial for English wiki in my opinion. Novels are to be enjoyed by general people, not just Sinologists. Chances are, the author doesn't even know what the pinyin version is, assuming he has the English skills of a typical HKer. Timmyshin (talk) 10:29, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

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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.

Requested move 2

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: moved. No prejudice against a new RM if new sources ever do turn up, e.g. the SCMP archives suggested by the IP. Jenks24 (talk) 13:43, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

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Blade-dance of the Two Lovers → Mandarin Duck Blades – The current title is not at all used by reliable sources. I proposed the pinyin title, "yuanyang dao", to be the article title, but it's not used as well. The proposed English title is seldom used. At least I found two sources that use the proposed English title, and the proposed title stays true to the original title (鸳鸯刀). WP:NC(UE) (guideline) doesn't say much about seldom-used English titles; rather it encourages commonly-used translated title. WP:UE (policy) implicitly encourages pinyin, but, as I said, the pinyin title received "no consensus". Therefore, WP:NC-ZH is rather ignored in this case. WP:NC-B discusses title translations, but, again, romanized title is discouraged, and neither English title here is "best known", especially because it hasn't been published yet in English. Therefore, WP:IAR should apply if and when no other related rules are found. Otherwise, I may be oblivious on which guideline or policy applies here. George Ho (talk) 05:21, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

• Comment it's a Hong Kong publication, shouldn't it have had a romanization based on Cantonese? What of "Twin Swords" (the movie's English title, which has the same Chinese title as the novel); as this was made into a movie, would SCMP have a review of the movie indicating the novel it is based on? -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 07:34, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Romanizing Cantonese isn't very easy. The Jyutpin isn't very great; English people can't pronounce Cantonese right. Also, the novel is written in Written Chinese. It was never written in Written Cantonese; correct? (对不对? or 對唔對?) If it were written in spoken Cantonese, we should go for Cantonese romanization. However, it was written as if we should read and speak Mandarin. I mean, almost no one here would easily memorize and type romanized Cantonese. --George Ho (talk) 08:01, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

• George's right (except Cantonese usually say 啱唔啱 rather than 對唔對), Cantonese romanization will be a poor choice here. Timmyshin (talk) 19:53, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
• Does anyone have access to the South China Morning Post archives for 1961? As the film based on the novel was released that year, and SCMP is an English-language newspaper, the movie review should indicate the name of the novel the movie is based on, in English. -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 04:24, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support. For lack of better alternatives. Timmyshin (talk) 19:53, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

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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.