Template talk:Zh-p

Why add Hanyu

Pinyin is only capitalized as a specific pinyin, Hanyu Pinyin, Postal System Pinyin, Standard Cantonese Pinyin or Tongyong Pinyin. "Pinyin" is just a general term for romanization that is often but not exclusively used to refer to Hanyu. We need to be precise and accurate for a template applied to many articles.--Jiang 06:25, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I find it quite unnecessary and pedantic to add "Hanyu" in all of these templates. The system used is commonly called just "Pinyin" in English. Nobody is going to be confused if you call it that. Calling it "hanyu" makes people wonder what special kind wikipedia might be using. −Woodstone 08:27, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Then instead of talking about it, why not change it? --LakeHMM 08:34, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

One comment went missing here.

The "other" pinyins are hardly ever used anymore outside of very limited circles. In an English context, if the word pinyin is used, it is automatically assumed to be Hanyu Pinyin even if the great majority of people never even heard of Hanyu Pinyin. To my opinion adding Hanyu creates unnecessary doubts for the readers, making them wonder if the mentioned "Hanyu Pinyin" is the same pinyin they know about. −Woodstone 09:42, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

This would not work in the context of other romanization systems. For example, at Republic of China, "Pinyin" would be followed by "Tongyong Pinyin" and at Chongqing, "Pinyin" would be followed by "Postal System Pinyin".

The great majority of people haven't heard about pinyin, period. It is only those who make the effort to learn, or learn about, the Chinese language who will find the characters and romanizations provided in parenthesis useful at all. "Pinyin", while appropriately used colloquially in English to refer to Hanyu Pinyin, is ambiguous in the context of other romanization systems and will lead readers to question the apparent redundancy. --Jiang 10:58, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Changes by User:Eiorgiomugini were reverted without comment here. Just to get some impression about familiarity of these terms I did some Google counts:

• pinyin: 7 000 000
• hanyu pinyin: 208 000
• postal system pinyin: 28 000
• tongyong pinyin: 52 000

Therefore we can assume that the normal term is pinyin, which can be assumed to stand for Hanyu Pinyin. When any of the other types is meant, that can be made explicit. I will adapt the template accordingly. −Woodstone 21:11, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

It is fine to use pinyin as a stand alone term, but not comparatively. It makes no sense to say "The street signs in Taipei City use pinyin while the street signs in Taipei county use Tongyong Pinyin." Here, "pinyin" is in a long line of romanization systems and should be spelled out full. The google test doesn't work: just becuase "United" gets more hits than "United States" does not mean we should change all mentions of "United States" to "United". --Jiang 21:18, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

So let's use just pinyin when that is the only transcription and Hanyu Pinyin if it is combined with one of the others. The mixed templates can be adapted accordingly. Going that way in the vast majority of cases the reader is not bothered by the additon of "hanyu" and specialist artcoiles are still explicitly informative. It might be good, next to the existing Zh-p (pinyin), to create an addditonal simple template "Zh-hp" (Hanyu Pinyin) to be called from the mixed ones.−Woodstone 18:50, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Capitalisation

I've just recapitalised Pinyin, simply because it looks visually odd seeing it all lowercase in the mixed templates (eg Template:zh-cpw); for consistency, it makes more sense (in my opinion) to use the initial capital here. —OwenBlacker 16:51, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

see discussion above. for "pinyin" to be capitalized, it must be a proper name, which it is not. Rather than just meaning "romanization", we have to specify the romanization for it to be capitalized: Hanyu Pinyin. Either it is capitalized as Hanyu Pinyin, or left lowercase on its own. If it looks odd, I don't object to the alternative...or as Woodstone suggests, use a seperate template.--Jiang 17:02, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

No, I've read the discussion above and disagree. In a sentence, I think you're right, it should be lowercase; in the context of this template, where it's not a full sentence, I think it should be an initial capital, otherwise it looks really odd. — OwenBlacker 17:12, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I think lowercase "looks" better, but looks is not the main deciding factor here. I prefer "Hanyu Pinyin" over "pinyin", but I don't think "Pinyin" makes much sense.--Jiang 01:21, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

"Hanyu Pinyin" is definitely redundant; pinyin, when used in English by itself, refers to Hanyu Pinyin. I would support the change on all templates to "pinyin", though, as I don't see the need to capitalize the first letter. To me it looks odd as "Pinyin" precisely because it does not begin a sentence. It is not a proper noun and I don't think its use here in a template calls for capitalization. shoeofdeath 22:31, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

In certain articles, this will be listed along with Tongyong Pinyin. When talking about both, the full name is spelled out for each, so it is necessary to spell it out unless we create a separate template (too complicated) for listing alongside with Tongyong Pinyin. And "pinyin" on its own should not be capitalized, as stated above.--Jiang 01:55, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

The instances where Tongyong is mentioned are relatively rare (this template is linked on thousands of pages). Even on the Tongyong Pinyin page Hanyu Pinyin is referred just by "pinyin" without the "Hanyu" classifier. I believe this is because the word "pinyin" by itself is widely understood to mean Hanyu Pinyin, making the addition of "Hanyu" to the template unnecessary, right? Since we at least agree it should be "pinyin" instead of "Pinyin" I will make that change now. shoeofdeath 02:21, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

The table in the TY page should not be listing Hanyu Pinyin as merely "Pinyin" since the full name is used whenever the two are being compared (perhaps laziness on the part of the editor to avoid pipe-linking?).

I don't see the damage done by spelling out the full and proper name, even if pinyin is commonly understood to refer to Hanyu Pinyin.--Jiang 04:48, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Like User:Woodstone above, I think adding "Hanyu" is a bit pedantic, since "pinyin" is used far more than "Hanyu Pinyin", even though that is the full name. Furthermore, the title of the actual article we are linking to also lacks the "Hanyu".

Do you think the Pinyin article should be moved to Hanyu Pinyin? If this move were to take place I would say the template should probably also be changed. Also remember there are templates like this one that can be used when more than one pinyin system is needed. shoeofdeath 23:03, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Basic Rules of Hanyu Pinyin Orthography

All pinyin gloss should follow the Basic Rules of Hanyu Pinyin Orthography. – Kaihsu 15:43, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect ISO 639 code - pny

This is information from the corresponding Japanese template for Pinyin.

The current 2007-11-28T14:59:56 version specifies pny as ISO 639-3 code, as listed on Documentation for ISO 639 identifier: pny. Just click the See corresponding entry in Ethnologue link on the page, and you'll find Pinyin is the name of a language spoken in Cameroon. The correct code for Chinese Pinyin is zh-Latn, or, from what I have googled, zh-Latn-x-pinyin. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 14:41, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

My edit was reverted by Badagnani as he reported it didn't work well. The Japanese version uses zh-Latn, and I don't know why it doesn't work on the English Wikipedia. Please someone correct it. The code pny is not for Chinese pinyin. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 00:28, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I don’t know exactly what problems arise from switching the incorrect language to the correct one, but I agree. The language setting should either be corrected, fudged, or extirpated. It should not be incorrect. -BRPXQZME (talk) 15:19, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Incorrect ISO 639 code - pny (edit request)

{{editprotected}} (see above section for reasoning – the code should either be zh-Latn, or absent; not pny) -BRPXQZME (talk) 01:09, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

 Done removed for now. Happy‑melon 14:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Recent changes

{{editprotected}} can someone please remove the zh-Latin stuff again? It now just looks terrible on my browser (Win Vista, Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.14, looks OK on IE7), and I see no strong reason to keep it. Sample text: "The People's Republic of China (simplified Chinese: 中华人民共和国; traditional Chinese: 中華人民共和國; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó" (from People's Republic of China. Yaan) (talk) 12:05, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

looks OK now. Yaan (talk) 14:40, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

zh-Latn

{{editprotected}} This template is not setting {{lang|zh-Latn|...}}, could this please be fixed! See related note two headings up. Many Thanks, —Sladen (talk) 13:26, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

why? I seem to remember it caused problems earlier. See related note one heading up. Yaan (talk) 13:59, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Pinyin text is currently marked as being English; which it is not. If it is causing a problem, please could you demonstrate the issue (eg. screenshot and exact details of your browser setup) so that the Wikipedia CSS style sheets can be fixed. Until such an issue is demonstrated, some of the comments above appear to amount to fear, uncertainty and doubt. Being compliant with standards is far preferable; translation/audio tools cope more effectively and better font-selections can be made. —Sladen (talk) 14:09, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

IIRC, the problem was that letters with accent (i.e. every other vowel) were not in line (edit: and in typeface[?]). In any case it looked terrible. Browser setup is given above. Currently, I can't demonstrate the problem because there is none. I don't know if there are any useful translation tools based on pinyin, my guess is such tools would usually be based on Chinese characters - which usually accompany pinyin, at least on WP. Yaan (talk) 16:16, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

No, for a translation tool or audio description tool, the mark up is important for the opposite reason—so that the text is not treated [in this case] as English language when parsed; mostly like this means that the English prefix: pinyin: would be translated, but that the foreign text itself would be passed-through unmodified. For a search-engine is relevant when indexing material, for example for language-specific searching. The following four bullet points have text marked respectively as {{lang|zh-Hans}}, {{lang|zh-Hant}} and {{lang|zh-Latn}} respectively.

• Simplified Chinese: 中华人民共和国
• Traditional Chinese: 中華人民共和國
• Pinyin: Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó

Do you feel that the rendering is accurate on your computer? —Sladen (talk) 16:51, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I am currently sitting on a different computer (but here it looks OK). I can try Firefox again, but not today. Regards, Yaan (talk) 17:03, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Could you confirm that there have been no further issues that you can demonstrate? —Sladen (talk) 16:33, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Looks OK on WinXP SP3 with Firefox 3.0.1, too. So I guess you could just go ahead. Sorry for the delay then, but last time there was definitely something wrong. Maybe it would be a good idea to post a message at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject China, just in case. Yaan (talk) 15:56, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Duly notified at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject China#zh-Latn for interested parties. —Sladen (talk) 16:34, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I guess I was a bit unclear, my idea was to change the template first, and then give directions to people who might have reason to complain. Just go ahead, if something goes wrong it's not going to be irreversible. :) Yaan (talk) 16:46, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't pretend to understand all the technicalities of this, but reading the three bullet points above (not four as suggested), the zh-Latn one looks awful, it triggers an ugly Courier-style font. I'm using Firefox 3.0.4 on Windows XP SP2. It appears to be using the Latin characters from SimSun, one of the MS standard Chinese fonts. This is not only aesthetically displeasing, but makes it difficult to read the tone marks, which is a major problem in a pinyin template. The problem does not arise with the IE 7 rendering engine (run as a tab in Firefox). If a technical person could fix this, I'm sure Firefox users would be grateful. --Matt's talk 23:05, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Hello Matt! Sorry about the three/four bullet points; originally I put the English equivalent as a fourth point, but then decided it didn't need to be there. Thank you for the data point, it's useful and specific enough and should be easy to fix (request a normal font as a higher priority than SimSum. What language/desktop was that WinXP/SP2 desktop installed with? Are there any forced/overridden fonts in action in the Preferences? —Sladen (talk) 23:23, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Windows and FF both installed with English UK (added Simplified and Traditional Chinese packages). Firefox has the default font settings, with pages allowed to override prefs., and default character set is Western (ISO-8859-1). Current font prefs are:

• Western: Proportional: Serif, Serif: Times New Roman, Sans Serif: Arial, Monospace: Courier New
• Simplified Chinese: Proportional: Sans Serif, Serif: SimSun, Sans Serif: SimSun, Monospace: SimSun

Hope that helps. --Matt's talk 00:17, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Currently on a Win Vista SP1 computer with firefox 2.0.0.18, and the latin script looks ugly, too! It's in typeface and the characters with diacritics are out of line. Sorry, can't find the preferences now. Regards, Yaan (talk) 09:31, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Disabled editprotected request for the moment. Admins are not mind readers. ;-) I have no idea what's being requested here, and I have no idea if there's consensus for any change. Can somebody please clarify the situation? Thanks! --MZMcBride (talk) 22:55, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Basic summary of the situation:

• The correct language marker for pinyin text should be something along the lines of zh-Latn.
• However, the language being set to 'zh' triggers a font change in some browsers that some *COUGHHACKpeople-not-hardcore-enough-who-don't-write-their-own-custom-CSS-because-imagine-expecting-defaults-to-be-SANE,-for-crying-out-loud*AHE-HE-HE-HEM* would consider undesirable.
• Therefore, any time anyone messes with the setting on this and related templates, something is going to go awry. Either the language setting is wrong, or the font is (barring the possibilities that your browser doesn’t give a darn, or that you write your own custom CSS to alleviate the problem, )

The solution, as hacky as it is, is to have the CSS font selection changed for everyone for ??-Latn to be some decent Roman-alphabet font (e.g., the defaults for the rest of the text, which seem to work well enough). Until a reasonable solution (probably similar to the one I describe; I use some admittedly godawful mechanism in my own that probably does not amount to a wholly satisfactory solution) should appear, I do not see how it isn’t a fudge either way. So... I propose someone proposes a change wherever these things are supposed to be proposed? :D -BRPXQZME (talk) 19:12, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, this is roughly the solution I had in mind. I had tried to take it further it on a couple of WP:* discussion pages, but didn't track down the correct place to request such a change; which would be roughly along the lines of:

[lang="zh-Latn"] { font-family: serif; }

which will set it globally; ...instead of adding separate

<span style="...">...</span>

fragments. Perhaps Template talk:Lang would be another location to try and get such a change made. —Sladen (talk) 19:44, 21 January 2009 (UTC)