Template talk:Transliteration

Requested move 22 February 2022

The following is a closed 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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Noting that there is not a consensus to delete the redirect created as a result of the move. That would require an additional discussion at WP:RfD. (closed by non-admin page mover) Elli (talk | contribs) 20:47, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

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Template:Transl → Template:Transliteration – This template "transliterates" the input text. So, the new title is more proper and complete than simply transl. Also, the part transl is common for both the words translation and transliteration. As such, this template should be moved to Template:Transliteration to provide natural disambiguation against Template:Translation. ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 19:37, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support per nomination. It is indeed counterintuitive for one main title header to use the form Template:Translation and for another to use the ambiguous Template:Transl. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 00:43, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support per nom. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:27, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
• Opppose. This is an inline template, and so it's desirable that it should be called using as short a name as possible. That's why we have {{lang}} and not {{language}}. The ambiguity, however, is a real issue; a compromise between those two competing factors might be something like {{translit}}. – Uanfala (talk) 23:58, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

  {{translit}} could be a redirect that people would be free to use. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:17, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

  Well, by the same logic then why bother with this RM given that the redirect {{transliteration}} exists and people are free to use it? A template's title should be the same as what's used in the examples in the documentation, which should be the same as what we choose to encourage in its use in articles. – Uanfala (talk) 03:46, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

  For the same reason we moved all of the {{tl}} templates to {{template link}} etc.: Template function should be clear from the template name (this is a quote from a guideline), even while convenient redirects exist. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:25, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

  The template's function is clear enough already from the shorter title. As for the tl templates, they're not completely comparable, as they're not used in articles, so there's less need to have good wikicode. Still, half of them use abbrevited titles, the other half have long descriptive ones, which – as far as I can see from a quick sample – are down to either bold moves from 2020, or moves from 2021 citing this bizarre single-sentence RM of one template that received no participation. Also, in their own documentation the renamed templates still refer to themselves using the short forms. This is all a big mess, and I'm not sure why anyone would want to recreate it here. More relevant standards for comparison are {{sup}} (where an RM with actual participation failed), and {{lang}} and its whole family (to which {{transl}} properly belongs), which nobody that I know of has argued should be moved. – Uanfala (talk) 16:07, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

  How do editors know whether "transl" is short for "translation" or "transliteration"? That is the reason for this discussion. The other templates cited above, like {{lang}}, have no such ambiguity. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:09, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

  Well, that's an argument for using "translit". As for the other templates not being ambiguous: that is not the case. {{Lang}}, for example, is ambiguous with {{language}}, {{expand language}} and with the lang-xx family.

  Most single-word template names are ambiguous anyway, and even for the ones with longer titles a user won't normally know what they're for unless she's read at least be beginning of the documentation (example: can anyone tell without looking what exactly is the function of {{Template link general}}?). Similarly, a name like "transliteration" (or even "transliteration markup") won't give you much of a clue about what the template does unless you've read its documentation or seen it used in the wild. Still, I agree with the principle that templates should have clear and descriptive titles, and I support such renaming for almost all cases – infoboxes, navboxes/sidebars, citation templates, message templates, less common in-line templates... but not for the widely used inline templates. – Uanfala (talk) 16:38, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

  there's less need to have good wikicode I completely disagree with this. Our non-mainspace templates should be as clear as our mainspace templates, for easy use and clarity. If we go down the path of considering mainspace templates being superior, then we would lose many editors that work in non-mainspace. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 21:12, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

  We're veering off-topic here, but I agree with you that templates should be well-designed regardless of what namespace they're used in. However, that was not my point here. The need to have good, clean wikicode is important in articles, because there the code is likely going to stay on for decades, being read, edited, moved around and re-used. That's why it's worthwhile to police wikicode in articles in a way that doesn't make sense for talk pages like this one. What the wikicode looks like in my post here doesn't matter: people won't read it (unless they want to quote part of it in a reply), and they aren't supposed to edit it either. – Uanfala (talk) 23:07, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support - 'transl' has always felt a bit too close to 'translate', and it wouldn't be obvious that it means 'transliterate' if you encountered this template in-article without looking at the documentation; you'd be forgiven for thinking it refers to translations. We could keep 'transl' as a working shortened version of the template, in the same way {{convert}} and {{cvt}} are the same, if this move will also include a similar change (i.e., {{transliterate}} becoming the template proper, if that makes sense).--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 10:58, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support per Ineffablebookkeeper, "translate" and "translit" are very different things. "Transl" as the name would only make sense if it were referring to both or either. I usually don't see much point in renaming templates, but this makes sense. I would be okay with "translit" as well, but we may as well be complete. ASUKITE 20:15, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support without leaving a redirect. I was under the impression until recently that {{Transl}} was for {{Translate}}, not {{Transliteration}}. The fact that the longer name is a redirect to the shorter name is just as counter-intuitive. I would not be opposed to also creating {{Translit}} as a redirect, but "Transl" is not intuitive for "Transliteration." — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk) 00:15, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

  That does make sense, but the template is transcluded on over 44,000 pages (not sure if that number includes other redirects) so if we decide not to leave a redirect we will have to address those pages first to avoid breaking things. ASUKITE 16:13, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

  That should be easy enough to do. There are already bots that automatically subst or otherwise correct templates, so the WP:BAG should be able to quickly approve the task if necessary. — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk) 17:00, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

  Tbf, I agree with your proposal in principle. There's lot of ambiguity, especially because {{translation}} produces transl., which is exactly what the name of this completely different Template is. But I also agree with Asukite that it has 44,000 transclusions (via other redirects or not), so we'd have to change all of them. Yes there are bots but I'm not very sure if we need to do so much here. ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 17:54, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

  Deleting the redirect from the old title is an obvious no-no: it won't bring any benefits, but it will bring harms (old revisions of pages getting broken, people finding that what they knew no longer works, etc.). However, if there is consensus to both rename the template and more strongly encourage the use of the new template name, then the replacement can be added to WP:AWB/TR (so that it's carried out as part of AWB's general fixes); running a bot just for that may go against WP:COSMETICBOT. – Uanfala (talk) 18:03, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

  I'm in complete agreement here. Moving without redirect would mean that all page revisions prior to the move with show up as red-link and not as how they were supposed to be. But we must also strongly encourage transliteration going forward. ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 18:14, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

documentation change

At this edit, Editor Ineffablebookkeeper added this to the documentation:

However, use of {{lang|xx-Latn|...}} can cause discrepancies in font display when used for transliteration; as such, {{transl|xx|...}} is preferred for transliterations.

@Editor Ineffablebookkeeper: do you have any examples that show that what you wrote is true?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:18, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk: ooh, I'll have to dig this up from the depths of my Talk page, but I remember having this conversation with another editor about a year or two ago. On certain browsers, use of the -Latn parameter ends up displaying, say, transliterated Japanese text in a font built to support Japanese characters first and English second, so it sort of stands out from the surrounding text as a different font, even though it's in the Latin alphabet. For instance:

Hana {{lang|ja-Latn|Hana}}

Hana {{transl|ja|Hana}}

Both display identically to me, in the correct font.

However, on my Talk page archives here, it seems that, on my crunchy, powered-by-diesel laptop, they would display differently:

Might be me being stupid here. The point of the FOREIGNITALIC stuff is to make sure it's not jarring when you're using casual foreign terms, but it seems like the lang templates in certain browsers deliberately sets off the text (which is the only reason I noticed it in the first place)—so the text was weirdly a different typeface and looked bizarre in the plot summary... but it doesn't seem to do it on all the browsers and OS configurations I've tried, so I guess it's a specific setting. So I dunno. I hate it aesthetically because it looks like someone mad-libbed the text, but at the same times that's the point of the templates. I guess disregard. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 18:11, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Aha, don't worry! I think on my other (very dead at the minute) laptop, it does display differently. It's not a problem! It does look like a ransom note cut out of a newspaper at times, lmao. --Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) 21:10, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Again, not sure what sets this off; I don't think it's user-defined CSS, as I'm not clever enough for that, and it's not different operating systems, as both this laptop and my hybrid petrol-and-coal-powered laptop operate on Windows 7 with Google Chrome. I have encountered at least one editor removing them in puzzlement in the past, thinking they were an error or a misused template. Though both templates do the same thing, I've been replacing ja-Latn lang tags with {{transl}} regardless for a while now.--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 11:14, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

That is a browser issue and has nothing to do with the template. Compare:

• Hana ← <span title="Japanese-language text"><i lang="ja-Latn">Hana</i></span> ← {{lang|ja-Latn|Hana}}
• Hana ← <span title="Japanese-language romanization"><i lang="ja-Latn">Hana</i></span> ← {{transl|ja|Hana}}

The important part of those is <i lang="ja-Latn">Hana</i> which is the same for both {{lang}} and {{transl}}.

I have removed the above mentioned statement from the documentation.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:25, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Articles containing x-language text

I may be mistaken, but unlike the Lang template, it doesn't look like the Transliteration template adds the category "Articles containing x-language text" to articles using it. Some articles contain only transliterated foreign-language text, not the original script, and won't have the category applied to them. Why are the two templates different in this regard? flod logic (talk) 08:32, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

For my part I can only say that because the wikitext version of this template did not categorize by language, the Module:lang version of this template does not categorize by language. You might ask Editor Dbachmann why the original wikitext version did not do such categorization.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:11, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I don't know enough about the technical side of it, but as a frequent language tagger, it would make sense to me to have them both categorize by language for consistency's sake. Is it possible to change that? flod logic (talk) 13:51, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Because {{transl}} accepts both language and script tags, it seems to me that this template should not share the categories:

• Articles containing <language name>-language text
• Articles with text in <language name>
• Articles containing explicitly cited <language name>-language text

So, if we do this, perhaps these category names:

• Articles containing <language name>-language transliteration
• Articles with transliteration from <language name>
• Articles containing explicitly cited <language name>-language transliteration
• Articles containing <script name>-script transliteration

And there is this: Creating these categories in Module:Lang will all-of-a-sudden create links to about a thousand redlinked categories that will need to be created. That can likely be automated if we create a template that can add appropriate text to the transliteration categories much like {{Non-English-language text category}} does for the language categories.

Not a simple task. Worth doing?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:01, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Private-use language tags

Can the Transliteration template be modified to support Private-use language tags? I have been expanding Wikipedia's coverage of ancient history, and I am finding myself needing for the transliteration template to render Private-use language tags, but it seems that it does not currently do so.

Seeing as the expansion of Wikipedia's ancient history coverage would inevitably make it a necessity, can I request for the Transliteration template to be modified so that it can render Private-use language tags? Antiquistik (talk) 12:01, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Source

Hi @Jonesey95, why did you revert me?[1] “Source text to be transliterated,” foreign-script text like барахло, is never to be entered into this template. Only its corresponding Latin-alphabet target transliteration, like barakhlo.  —Michael Z. 02:05, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

My mistake. I was suspicious of the edit, because the documentation had been stable for a while, and I misread the documentation. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:07, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Thank you.  —Michael Z. 12:34, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Edit request 15 January 2024

Description of suggested change: Hi. I want to change the Proto-cuneiform listing to point to the main article ie "Proto-cuneiform" from the current "Proto-cuneiform numerals", which is a sub-article. Thanks.Ploversegg (talk) 02:44, 15 January 2024 (UTC) Diff:

−

ORIGINAL_TEXT

+

CHANGED_TEXT

Ploversegg (talk) 02:44, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Not done. You have not provided an explicit 'change-this-thing-in-this-part-of-the-template-to-this-other-thing' description. Don't make us guess at exactly what you want us to do.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 03:56, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Ok, let me stare at it and figure out the right words. This is my first time working with this template.Ploversegg (talk) 04:00, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Description of suggested change: Lets see if I can do better this time. I would like to request that in "Template:ISO 15924 script codes and related Unicode data" in the line "Pcun" that "Proto-cuneiform numerals" be changed to "Proto-cuneiform" corresponding to the article Proto-cuneiform. Thanks.Ploversegg (talk) 19:53, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Diff:

−

ORIGINAL_TEXT

+

CHANGED_TEXT

Ploversegg (talk) 19:53, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

{{ISO 15924 script codes and related Unicode data}} is not part of {{transliteration}} per se. It is its own template. It calls {{ISO 15924 script codes and related Unicode data/row}} which has this:

[[{{ISO 15924/wp-article|1={{{alpha4|}}}}}|{{ISO 15924 name|1={{{alpha4|}}}}}]]

where {{{alpha4|}}} is the ISO 15924 tag (in this case pcun). {{ISO 15924/wp-article}} defines pcun as Proto-cuneiform numerals but {{ISO 15924 name}} defines pcun as Proto-Cuneiform.

The best place to post this edit request is at the template where the change will be made. Or, because you have extended confirmed editing rights, you can fix {{ISO 15924/wp-article}} yourself.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:31, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Now my brain hurts. I'm going to try to edit Template:ISO 15924/wp-article and will hopefully not break Wikipedia in the process. Amazing how one can edit for many years and still not be aware of all the stuff under the hood.Ploversegg (talk) 20:54, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Template error

The inclusion of the equal sign (=) in texts results in an error message instead of the text being displayed. This causes serious issues for the transliteration of languages like Hurrian, Urartian, Ancient Egyptian, and Luwian, whose transliteration requires the use of the equal sign.

For example:

• Hurrian "pašš-ēt-i=t=ān," when put through the template as [undefined] Error: {{Transliteration}}: no text (help), results in an error;
• Urartian "šidišt=u=nə," when put through the template as [undefined] Error: {{Transliteration}}: no text (help), results in an error;
• Ancient Egyptian "Ꜥnt Ꜥstrt n=f m jkm," when put through the template as [undefined] Error: {{Transliteration}}: no text (help), results in an error;
• Luwian "a=wa=mu zan allantallin ammis nannis piyatta," when put through the template as [undefined] Error: {{Transliteration}}: no text (help), results in an error.

Can this issue be fixed? Antiquistik (talk) 14:02, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

When an equal sign exists in an unnamed positional (or unnumbered) template parameter, MediaWiki interprets the positional parameter value as a 'named' parameter/value pair. This is not exclusive to {{transl}} and has been ever thus for all templates that use positional parameters. So, in |pašš-ēt-i=t=ān, pašš-ēt-i is interpreted as the parameter name and t=ān is that parameter's value. Because pašš-ēt-i is not a parameter name that {{transl}} recognizes, it is ignored. The no text error message occurs because {{transl}} did not get a valid second (text) parameter. The commonly used work-around for this is to number the second positional parameter:

{{transl|xhu|2=pašš-ēt-i=t=ān}} → pašš-ēt-i=t=ān

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:47, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! Could you add this information to the main template page so other users won't experience similar issues in the future? Antiquistik (talk) 14:57, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 5 April 2024

The following is a closed 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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Withdrawn; primary given reason for a preference mooted by ensuring AWB doesn't autoreplace transl with transliteration. Thanks, everyone! (non-admin closure) Remsense诉 06:54, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

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Template:Transliteration → Template:Translit – The extra eration really contributes to a readability issue when there are lists, tables, or any preponderance of this template in an article—I get that {{transl}} is undesirably ambiguous, but frankly: the shorter the better. I would even prefer {{tlit}} if other people will let me get away with it.

No one in the 2022 move discussion mentioned an explicit issue with {{translit}}, so hopefully folks would be okay with it now. Remsense诉 18:25, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose per the explicit issue I mentioned in the 2022 discussion: "Template function should be clear from the template name" (this is a quote from WP:TMPG, a guideline). "Transliteration" is the proper canonical name for this template. You are free to use the redirect, and other editors should not replace it in the wikitext, per WP:NOTBROKEN, another guideline. I do not object to the creation of a redirect at {{tlit}}. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:30, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  That's not the case, unfortunately, as WP:AWB does replace {{transl}} et al with {{transliteration}}, roughly in line with other substitutions, which I agree with in principle because consistency between articles is nice. I did specifically poke around the tool talk page asking whether such an replacement could be removed, but no one seemed interested, so I guess I'm just realizing this is a bit of forum shopping to that effect, whoops.

  I suppose the function of "translit" would be clear to me, and perhaps to most that would be in the business of using such a template, especially in context. Remsense诉 00:51, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

  Oh, and to explicate: I think it's fair to say that "translit" is at least a hair less clear for editors, but when an article calls it 300 times, that's an extra 2.1kB on the article. Combined with a lot of the structural load in many template-heavy articles, extra length often makes articles physically more difficult to edit without going section by section. I don't want to be contrarian, but it feels like there are more concrete reasons to consider this move, and the case that {{transliteration}} is better solely for reasons of clarity is largely theoretical, as I haven't seen anyone say its meaning is actually unclear or confusing I hope you see how the flexibility in that guideline allows for us to disagree on this point. Remsense诉 01:13, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

  I do not think that there is consensus for AWB to rewrite "translit" or "transliterate" to "transliterate". I would support removal of those two particular redirects from Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects. As the top of that page says, Before adding a rule here, you must ensure that there is consensus in favour of the template renaming. Those two redirects were added by Mclay1 in February 2023; that editor might be able to link to a relevant discussion. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:03, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

  Despite that message, consensus is rarely if ever established beforehand for individual templates. Previous discussions have established consensus for bypassing template redirects unless there is a reason not to. If there is an objection, as in this case, the template can easily be removed from the list. I don't have a problem with that. MClay1 (talk) 06:48, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

  In that case, I will be doing so and withdrawing this move request as my main reason for preferring it is moot. Thank you for the engagement @Jonesey95, @Mclay1 et al. Remsense诉 06:52, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

• support 'Translit' is clear an unambiguous, also lang-xx templates use 'translit' and it's annoying to type out the whole thing when switching away from them—blindlynx 00:36, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose per the WP:TMPG. The current name describes the template's function clearer than the proposed name. Redirect from the shorter name exists, and if the issue is a few characters saved in the database, then talk to the folks at WP:AWB. -- Netoholic @ 13:01, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose – Proper English names for templates are much easier to understand. There is nothing stopping editors from using shortcuts in articles if they desire. MClay1 (talk) 06:49, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:TMPG. Nardog (talk) 06:52, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Style guidelines for multiple templates

See also: Template talk:Translation § Style guidelines for multiple templates

Are there style guidelines for the use of both {{translation}} and {{transliteration}} in conjunction with {{lang}}? E.g., "להד״​מ​ (lahada"m), לא ה​י​ו ד​ב​ר​י​ם מ​ע​ו​ל​ם (lo hayu dvarim meolam) - transl. such things never were, no way" -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:46, 14 April 2024 (UTC)