Problem could be that these standardized forms lead to diacritic characters (e.g. hacek on 'c' & 's'; Чайковский ---> Čajkovskij and Щедрин ---> Ščedrin). Is wikidata able to deal with these?

Hi!

While letters like ч and щ can indeed generate some long combinations which are not very visually appealing,

Careful, this is one of the most debated and dramatic style issues after citation format! Actual transliteration should clearly follow scientific/ISO standards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_transliteration_of_Cyrillic .

However the labels and aliases are in languages like "it" and "fr", so they're supposedly translations rather than mere transliterations. This makes things more complex.

On 2015-04-23 01:21, Stas Malyshev wrote: This is what we commonly use at the English Wikipedia for romanization of Russian: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Romanization_of_Russian It was already noted that the Russian Wikipedia uses the reverse order for names (Dostoyevsky, Fyodor Mikhaylovich), whereas there is no reason to use this order on Wikidata. The reasonable options should be either "Fyodor Dostoyevsky" or (less preferable to me) "Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky". Cheers Yaroslav _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l

On 2015-04-26 22:26, Gerard Meijssen wrote: This is fine with me, but using ISO is really really weird for any Russian speaker. And I would like to see any reason why a romanization chosen for English labels on Wikidata should be deliberately different from English Wikipedia. Cheers Yaroslav _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l

On 2015-04-26 22:33, Gerard Meijssen wrote: On one hand, yes. On the other hand, no reliable source uses ISO. When NYT writes about a Russian person, they do not use ISO, they use what the English Wikipedia uses or smth similar. In my passport, they do not use ISO (fortunately), why should then ISO be used on Wikidata in an entry about me? Cheers Yaroslav _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l

When we use auto transliteration to generate English labels then I think we should follow the practice of the English Wikipedia with other transliterations demoted to aliases. Similarly auto generated German labels should follow the transliteration practices in the German wikipedia. When we use an auto transliteration bot to generate qualifier statements with transliteration of values in "birth name" statements (and other name statements ) then we just need a separate property for each transliteration scheme and make sure the bot uses the appropriate property for each qualifier statement. We can have lots of transliteration qualifier statements for each value (plus statements for IPA and for a pronunciation recording ). Joe On 26 Apr 2015 21:40, "Gerard Meijssen" <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote: _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l

Hoi, <grin> ISO is a reliable source; it is THE standard </grin> Wikipedia is definitely not a standard by its own admission. Thanks, GerardM On 26 April 2015 at 22:37, Yaroslav M. Blanter &lt;putevod(a)mccme.ru&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l

Am 27.04.2015 um 22:32 schrieb Gerard Meijssen &lt;gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: Hoi, Transliteration is exactly that. My name is Dutch, it is used written the same in English, French and German. They are languages I understand (up to a point) I know that my name is pronounced substantially in all of them. A name that is Ukrainian or Serbian could be should be transliterated differently. Thanks, GerardM _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l

I agree up to a point. Transliteration is not appropriate for labels for all items. There are however a few categories of items for which transliterated labels are appropriate. For example : * English labels for villages and towns * English labels for people *English labels for bands and albums I'm sure there are others that could use this too. Joe On 27 Apr 2015 18:09, "Leon Liesener" &lt;leon.liesener(a)wikipedia.de&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l

Hoi, We transliterate every name from one script to the other. Transliteration the official name is exactly the one you should not transliterate.. What is left after transliteration is not official. Thanks, GerardM On 29 April 2015 at 18:54, Thomas Douillard &lt;thomas.douillard(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l

Hoi, It does not quality anything. It is plain wrong. Thanks, GerardM On 30 April 2015 at 15:06, Joe Filceolaire &lt;filceolaire(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l

Hoi, It is still a bad idea. An official name exists only in one language. Thanks, GerardM On 30 April 2015 at 18:50, Thomas Douillard &lt;thomas.douillard(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l

Hoi, A name in a script that does not make sense to you is a standard to what? Do not put yourself at the centre of the galaxy... It is a few years ago, that it was proven earth did not centre the sun and the sun is only a spec in our galaxy. Thanks, GerardM On 1 May 2015 at 11:00, Thomas Douillard &lt;thomas.douillard(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l

Hoi, You rest your case Fine. You do not address the point that an official name is exactly that. It is the name as used by authorities. Typically it is what is used in registers, in passports. You do not have those for your convenience in any language. It does not matter what you can read or not. What matters is that you can accept is that it is not about you and your understanding. For this it is not relevant. When you want to make a trip to another country you look for the label for your item. Thanks, GerardM On 1 May 2015 at 19:19, Thomas Douillard &lt;thomas.douillard(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l

Hoi, It is still a bad idea. An official name exists only in one language. Thanks, GerardM On 30 April 2015 at 18:50, Thomas Douillard &lt;thomas.douillard(a)gmail.com <mailto:thomas.douillard@gmail.com>> wrote: I meant "add automatically the transliteration", not replace the name. This is a good candidate : we know for sure the source and the target language (the one of the user) so a good choice for transliteration method is always possible, and we don't pretend it should be the way to say orally the name in the target language. It's just a transliteration of the official name. 2015-04-30 15:14 GMT+02:00 Gerard Meijssen &lt;gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com <mailto:gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>>: Hoi, It does not quality anything. It is plain wrong. Thanks, GerardM On 30 April 2015 at 15:06, Joe Filceolaire &lt;filceolaire(a)gmail.com <mailto:filceolaire@gmail.com>> wrote: Exactly. The "official name " property always has the name in the original script. But we can and should have the transliteration in a qualifier. Joe On 30 Apr 2015 06:13, "Gerard Meijssen" &lt;gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com <mailto:gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>> wrote: Hoi, We transliterate every name from one script to the other. Transliteration the official name is exactly the one you should not transliterate.. What is left after transliteration is not official. Thanks, GerardM On 29 April 2015 at 18:54, Thomas Douillard &lt;thomas.douillard(a)gmail.com <mailto:thomas.douillard@gmail.com>> wrote: It's always possible to transliterate the official name <https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property:P1448>property. Of course this should be done by a gadget, or we may have to find a special treatment for the ''name'' properties. 2015-04-28 23:06 GMT+02:00 Joe Filceolaire &lt;filceolaire(a)gmail.com <mailto:filceolaire@gmail.com>>: I agree up to a point. Transliteration is not appropriate for labels for all items. There are however a few categories of items for which transliterated labels are appropriate. For example : * English labels for villages and towns * English labels for people *English labels for bands and albums I'm sure there are others that could use this too. Joe On 27 Apr 2015 18:09, "Leon Liesener" &lt;leon.liesener(a)wikipedia.de <mailto:leon.liesener@wikipedia.de>> wrote: The problem with ISO is that it's a standard for language-independent transliteration to Latin script. Since labels on Wikidata are language-dependent, making use of ISO does not make sense really. If you use ISO for Russian names in Cyrillic script, the label you get is not in English. It's still in Russian but transliterated to Latin script. ISO thus would only fit as an alias for the Russian interface language, if at all. 2015-04-26 22:39 GMT+02:00 Gerard Meijssen &lt;gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com <mailto:gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>>: THE standard </grin> Wikipedia is admission. Blanter &lt;putevod(a)mccme.ru <mailto:putevod@mccme.ru>> wrote: that we should follow any WIkipedia romanisation of Russian is not for the the speakers of English. uses ISO. When NYT writes about a they use what the English Wikipedia they do not use ISO (fortunately), why an entry about me? _______________________________________________ <mailto:Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l _______________________________________________ <mailto:Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l

Yes, that's what they are for, but wikidata is far from beeing complete, and if there is no label in your language, showing next to the original name a transliteration in your language could prove useful. I can very well imagine situations where it is unclear on how to say a Chinese name, for example. Putting a label in french can somewhat be a hard task, for example.

Hi, this is what the monolingual text datatype is for. The labels however are multilingual and should provide users in all languages an idea how the name is said. Best regards Bene Am 01.05.2015 um 07:14 schrieb Gerard Meijssen: Hoi, It is still a bad idea. An official name exists only in one language. Thanks, GerardM On 30 April 2015 at 18:50, Thomas Douillard &lt;thomas.douillard(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing listWikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.orghttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l

I'll all with you, on this, unfortunately only a few people reads IPA currently :(. I don't, for example. 2015-05-02 15:19 GMT+02:00 Gerard Meijssen &lt;gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l

My point is that it is not a given that we should follow any WIkipedia for anything. Also the point of romanisation of Russian is not for the benefit of Russian speakers, it is for the speakers of English.

Hoi, There are different transliterations per language pair. When you include Wikidata in the mix; Wikidata should in my opinion support the transliteration from Russian to English according to ISO for its label. Anything else including whatever Wikipedia likes may be an alias. Your point about confusion is the same as with standard metrics. Napoleon did us a service by moving to the metric system, It is sad that he did not conquer Britain so that we are now stuck with something that confuses the hell out of me when we have to deal with whatever you lot have.. Thanks, GerardM On 27 April 2015 at 07:09, Stas Malyshev &lt;smalyshev(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l [1]

However the labels and aliases are in languages like "it" and "fr", so they're supposedly translations rather than mere transliterations. This makes things more complex.

Thanks for your reaction, Stas. I understand what your saying, but I think it's quite arbitrary to use English transliteration. In my opinion transliteration should be unbiased and impartial, like those international (ISO) standards are. Wikidata provides a possibility to enter national standards Shchedrin (English), Sjtsjedrin (Dutch), Chtchedrin (French) and Schtschedrin (German) as aliases. So why not use the ISO-standard as the main form? best regards, Eric. Stas Malyshev schreef op 2015-04-22 22:10: Hi! maybe French and German too). Problem could be that these standardized forms lead to diacritic characters (e.g. hacek on 'c' & 's'; Чайковский ---> Čajkovskij and Щедрин ---> Ščedrin). Is wikidata able to deal with these? As a native Russian speaker I can say transliteration like Ščedrin would look very unusual for Russian-speaking person (assuming they have experience at all with non-cyrillic transliterations, which most internet users do). Something like Shchedrin looks more familiar and seems to be much more common. While letters like ч and щ can indeed generate some long combinations which are not very visually appealing, I think it is more common than diacritics, which most people I think would struggle with. As for Hebrew, there are standard transliteration rules, which look a bit weird since they are not phonetical but rather base on spelling and distinguish some letters that all but lost their phonetical distinction in modern Hebrew (such as kaf and kuf) - but they are frequently used for signs, street names, maps, etc. These rules have been recently updated but old ones still are used from time to time. See more athttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Hebrew _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l

It uses an algorithm to cluster words not letters since it's useless (lots of languages like Persian has the same situation as Japanese) so we don't need to deal with complicated rules of transliteration directly, the bot automatically follows them and chooses the most frequent result.

On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 1:41 PM, Yusuke Matsubara &lt;whym(a)whym.org&gt; wrote: This is not how the bot words, It uses an algorithm to cluster words not letters since it's useless (lots of languages like Persian has the same situation as Japanese) so we don't need to deal with complicated rules of transliteration directly, the bot automatically follows them and chooses the most frequent result. I will make 100 edits and you check and tell if it's wrong. I started the bot to analyse. Best -- Amir _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l