Wikipedia talk:Diacritical marks

Arguments for a more balanced point of view

This "Diacritical marks" essay is very well-written and persuasive, but it omits quite a few points that I believe are essential for fairness and a neutral point of view. (See discussion at Talk:Bac Kan#Survey). In particular, this essay:

• doesn't make clear that accepted usage of diacritics is language-dependent and so does not necessarily apply to Chinese or Vietnamese diacritics, for example.
• doesn't make clear that non-Latin-1 diacritic characters in article titles and category names cannot be read by screen readers, so this is against Wikipedia web accessibility guidelines. Also, foreign languages (with non-Latin-1 diacritic characters) embedded in Wikipedia should use language templates for the same reason.
• doesn't point out that major book publishers, and major commercial publishers of English articles online, know that it would be insane to use complex diacritics—that the majority of English native speakers cannot read—in the titles (or in author names) of books in English (other than foreign language textbooks, of course) or in online article titles. Diacritics may be used (usually together with anglicized versions) inside books, but only plain English is used on the cover and in the ISBN registration.
• doesn't explain that although very simple and often-used diacritics can be ignored by the uninitiated, complex diacritics cannot: most people know that Zoë can be anglicized as Zoe, and résumé or resumé can be anglicized as resume, so they can write and search for the anglicized version. But it's not so intuitive how to anglicize Chinese or Vietnamese diacritics. It's not "harmless" to use foreign languages such as complex diacritics, Chinese, Japanese, or Korean in English article titles, as the majority of users cannot read them and would feel annoyed or insulted. People who buy English newspapers or magazines do not expect significant parts of the content (such as titles or headlines)—or significant amounts of the content—to be in foreign languages that they cannot read, write, pronounce, or remember. To put it simply: "Authors and publishers would rather be read than be dead"—it's neither unethical nor racist to use plain English at least in titles/headlines of English publications.
• suggests that reasons for using foreign names with diacritics are "accuracy" or "respect", but does not point out that "accuracy" and "respect" often do not apply unless you use the full formal foreign name—and that if you do indeed use the full formal foreign name then it often will not be recognizable in English (examples: Edison Arantes do Nascimento and Manuel Sánchez Montemayor). Shortened anglicized names are virtually always used in sports, and simply adding diacritics to a shortened name does not automatically make it either more respectful or more accurate. To the contrary: shortened names (with or without diacritics) are often ambiguous, and are insulting in some cultures (Western people often address each other by first names, but this is considered very insulting—unless you are a relative or close friend—in many Asian societies). Anybody who is truly "adding diacritics because they are more accurate" is surely going to find the correct name in the corresponding foreign-language Wikipedia and link to it—but that is not happening. I don't think many non-anglicized names—such as names with diacritics—are used in the Olympics, are they? Most countries' passports carry anglicized versions of names, so the use of such names is not considered inaccurate, insulting, or "unethical" (as you describe it). In the case of Chinese: while diacritics are "official", in real life they are being abandoned—most people have enough trouble with the English alphabet, without adding diacritics. (Why was simplified Chinese adopted?) Diacritics were abandoned in Korea for this reason; macrons (and the like) have been virtually abandoned in Japan too. Surely Vietnam is going to be little different, as far as usage of diacritics in English is concerned.
• does point out that anglicized place names are preferred, but doesn't point out why: Not using anglicized place names is likely to result in language-mismash titles when "(city)", "(town)", "(village)" or the like are added for disambiguation. (Shortened BLP names with diacritics are also likely to be ambiguous, requiring language-mismash disambiguation). Surely language professionals avoid language-mismash titles? LittleBen (talk) 05:15, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

PS: I am not opposed to appropriate use of foreign languages in English Wikipedia, as you can see from this. PPS: Nothing to do with diacritics, but I don't know how—in Persons—danah boyd (without capitals) can be considered acceptable (as is ABBA (ALL CAPS)) if archy and mehitabel is not. LittleBen (talk) 11:11, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

• PPPS: It is quite easy to do a fair and objective search to find the most common form of a name in English-language media using Google: As an example, for the tennis player from Argentina with the Spanish-language name Facundo Argüello: http://www.google.com/search?q="Facundo Argüello" tennis -tenis -site:es.* -site:*.ar -site:wikipedia.org -wikipedia. What this search does is (1) search for articles containing the name with diacritics, (2) include articles with the word "tennis" but not the word "tenis", (3) eliminate Spanish-language web sites prefixed with "es" (http://es. etc., like Spanish Wikipedia) from the results, (4) eliminate web sites with the Argentine suffix "ar", and (5) eliminate all of Wikipedia.org and sites that cite "Wikipedia".
• If you page through the first 18 pages of Google results, there is only one Indian newspaper with a couple of pages that have the name with diacritics in a title (and seemingly identical pages that have the name without diacritics if you click on "Profile")—but no content whatsoever about the player, and two or three French-language articles on about the 18th page of search results that show the name with diacritics. I can't see the name with diacritics in the body of the articles either. Surely this is pretty conclusive evidence that virtually nobody uses the name with diacritics in English?
• Further discussion that affects this essay masquerading as a guideline is here.  LittleBen (talk) 07:53, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

M-W encyclopdia

From the talk on Jimbo's page, I draw you attention to the M-W encyclopedia entry "Walesa, Lech" [1]. Your chart for the M-W entry appears to be a short-form entry from the dictionary/pronunciation guide under, Wałesa. Perhaps you want to update it. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:55, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Also, your Columbia entry is mislinked and you may wish to include the other entries tabbed on that page, World Biography, and World Encylopedia. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:21, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

The M-W.com encyclopedia entry is actually from the concise edition of Britannica: "This entry comes from Encyclopædia Britannica Concise. For the full entry on Walesa, Lech, visit Britannica.com." M-W did once publish its own encyclopedia, but I don't have access to it. My Webster's entries are, of course, from the company's famed dictionary. All the encyclopedias I've listed are major general-purpose works like our project. Thus, Oxford's World Encylopedia is included and Gale's (owner of encyclopedia.com) Encyclopedia of World Biography is not. Some of the links to encyclopedia.com lead to the wrong tab because the source content has been changed. The pages are correct and the tabs are aptly named, so I can't be bothered to fix those for now. Prolog (talk) 20:10, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

So, just add a couple of columns. It hardly invalidates the overall results. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:34, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Please move this to the WP namespace

This is comprehensive, well-researched, and actually describes WP consensus. It would do more good in the Wikipedia: namespace. As a user essay, it's unlikely to be seen (I've been here around 12 years and had never encountered it before, despite being involved the entire time in fending off jingoistic attempts to strip diacritics from WP). PS: It's also generally not appropriate to use {{Guidance essay}} but {{User essay}} on userspaced essays.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:33, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. I have moved the page accordingly. Prolog (talk) 16:45, 26 September 2017 (UTC)