I just added a note at the end of the article about Danish author [[Hans Christian Andersen]] about the Danish use of initials in personal names. In Denmark, this author is called H. C. Andersen. Even if these initials are short for Hans Christian, the full name is almost never used in Denmark. This is as common in Denmark as the U.S. use of a middle initial (e.g. George W. Bush), but all English, French, and German sources that I have found use the full name Hans Christian. Since Wikipedia is in English, it is just fine that it follows the established English convention.
This makes it just like a translation. The Danish words "smørrebrød", "København", and "H. C. Andersen" are translated into English "sandwich", "Copenhagen", and "Hans Christian Andersen". We are used to translating nouns and city names, but this is a case where also personal names are in fact translated. I find that fascinating.
This sort of knowledge should be written down somewhere, but where? Is there a science, school or discipline that teaches how to document a person's name or life? Shouldn't there be? I know we discussed this in May in [[Biography/Talk]]. I stated that biography is a scholarly discipline, which Larry doubted, and I had no hard evidence. I think I wish that it were a scholarly discipline, and I would like to establish biography as a discipline, in fact a subdiscipline of creating an encyclopedia. (This could lead to a discussion of whether disciplines are static or how they can be established.)
I have observed that books titled "biographic dictionary" never list people that are still alive. Is this a rule or just a coincidence? Has the rule been documented? Where? If such a work contains entries on people who are still alive, does it have to change its title?
Another unwritten rule is that the birth and death years should both appear at the top of the article. Only some older biographic dictionaries list the death year at the end of the chronologically organized article.
Are there any handbooks (or useful websites) that explain how to write biographies, biographic dictionaries, or encyclopediae? Is there a Wikipedia page that lists suchs references?
Any pointers appreciated.
Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se writes:
This makes it just like a translation. The Danish words "smørrebrød", "København", and "H. C. Andersen" are translated into English "sandwich", "Copenhagen", and "Hans Christian Andersen". We are used to translating nouns and city names, but this is a case where also personal names are in fact translated. I find that fascinating.
Actually transliteration is common. Interestingly different language transliterate the same source differently into the same target alphabet, it even happens in the same language (witness the Ussama vs. Ossama discussion).
Regarding H. C., I think we should use the person's preferred as the article name. Other popular (mis)representations can redirect to that. So if you're positive that he would have introduced himself with "H. C. Andersen", go ahead, move, and redirect.
If the preferred spelling is unknown or contains characters not allowed in page titles, the most popular English rendition is probably best. The article itself should include the "native" spelling, as should links (e.g. [[Kurt Goedel|Kurt Gödel]]).
This sort of knowledge should be written down somewhere, but where?
Regarding Wikipedia, in some policy article. For science in general, I don't know (the above were my personal opinions).
Are there any handbooks (or useful websites) that explain how to write biographies, biographic dictionaries, or encyclopediae? Is there a Wikipedia page that lists suchs references?
I'd begin queries at your local university's history department and/or publishers which publish a lot of biographies. These should at least have "house rules" if not references to more generally accepted customs.
Robert Bihlmeyer schrieb:
Actually transliteration is common.
Yes, of course. But transliteration follows simple rules on a phoneme basis. (BTW, he is called Usama bin Ladin in Swedish. :-)
So if you're positive that he would have introduced himself with "H. C. Andersen", go ahead, move, and redirect.
No, on the contrary I think it is fine that he is Hans Christian in English, and I would like to document this opinion so that nobody else makes this redirect by a thoughtless mistake.
There is a current trend in the English speaking world to be overly politically correct in the spelling of foreign names. Not only Beijing and Kampuchea, but also Göteborg, Hannover, Köln, and Wien start to appear in English texts. This is a pity, because Gothenburg, Hanover, Cologne, and Vienna are well-established words of the English language since centuries. And I find it unlikely that anybody would write Sverige, Deutschland, or Österreich in an English text anyway.
Oops, I just realized that I'm guilty of the [[Hannover]] entry in Wikipedia, so I'm going to redirect that to [[Hanover]] right now.
On Sunday 25 November 2001 20:29, Lars Aronsson wrote:
There is a current trend in the English speaking world to be overly politically correct in the spelling of foreign names. Not only Beijing and Kampuchea, but also Göteborg, Hannover, Köln, and Wien start to appear in English texts. This is a pity, because Gothenburg, Hanover, Cologne, and Vienna are well-established words of the English language since centuries. And I find it unlikely that anybody would write Sverige, Deutschland, or Österreich in an English text anyway.
I agree in principle, but Beijing actually is not a good example. It reflects the way the place's name is pronounced in the official dialect of Chinese. Peking OTOH is a pronounciation based on an out-of-the-way dialect where some missionary first wrote down "Chinese" words in the Roman alphabet. It's as if the only Swedish a foreigner could learn was the way it was pronounced by the Finns, I guess <g>
Michel Clasquin wrote:
I agree in principle, but Beijing actually is not a good example. It reflects the way the place's name is pronounced in the official dialect of Chinese. Peking OTOH is a pronounciation based on an out-of-the-way dialect where some missionary first wrote down "Chinese" words in the Roman alphabet. It's as if the only Swedish a foreigner could learn was the way it was pronounced by the Finns, I guess <g>
In my mind Peking/Beijing is just as good an example as Cologne/Köln, Vienna/Wien, Munich/München, Germany/Deutschland, or Sweden/Sverige. These names *are* the first version written down by some missionary. (In fact, "Finland" is the *Swedish* name for the country that the Finns call "Suomi". It was conquered by a Swedish crusade in 1200, then conquered by Russia in 1809, and became independent in 1917.)
Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se writes:
Yes, of course. But transliteration follows simple rules on a phoneme basis. (BTW, he is called Usama bin Ladin in Swedish. :-)
Only problem being that different languages have different letter-phoneme mappings (Swedish "Ladin" vs. English "Laden"), and that the "correct" pronounciation may be somewhere between two letters ("Ossama" vs. "Ussama"). Complicating matters is that living languages all have dialects -- which pronounciation of this man's name is "correct", the North-Saudi-Arabian, the Persian, the Pashtun(sp?)?
[...]
No, on the contrary I think it is fine that he is Hans Christian in English, and I would like to document this opinion so that nobody else makes this redirect by a thoughtless mistake.
There is a current trend in the English speaking world to be overly politically correct in the spelling of foreign names. Not only Beijing and Kampuchea, but also Göteborg, Hannover, Köln, and Wien start to appear in English texts. This is a pity, because Gothenburg, Hanover, Cologne, and Vienna are well-established words of the English language since centuries.
True. I'd draw the line between cities and persons; i.e. use anglicised versions for places, "most native" versions for people. But that's just me of course.
The good thing is that in Wikipedia we can somewhat reconcile both opinions by having one redirect to the other (as long as there's no conflict with another entry). So Vienna and Hanover should be articles, and Wien and Hannover could be redirects. IMO H. C. Andersen should be the article and Hans Christian Andersen a redirect to it, but the other way around is fine too.
To prevent people from reversing your decision in the future is impossible. But you may perhaps convince future editors with a succinct log message.
On Sun, Nov 25, 2001 at 03:22:46PM +0100, Lars Aronsson wrote:
I just added a note at the end of the article about Danish author [[Hans Christian Andersen]] about the Danish use of initials in personal names. In Denmark, this author is called H. C. Andersen. Even if these initials are short for Hans Christian, the full name is almost never used in Denmark. This is as common in Denmark as the U.S. use of a middle initial (e.g. George W. Bush), but all English, French, and German sources that I have found use the full name Hans Christian. Since Wikipedia is in English, it is just fine that it follows the established English convention.
This makes it just like a translation. The Danish words "sm?rrebr?d", "K?benhavn", and "H. C. Andersen" are translated into English "sandwich", "Copenhagen", and "Hans Christian Andersen". We are used to translating nouns and city names, but this is a case where also personal names are in fact translated. I find that fascinating.
It is fascinating.
This sort of knowledge should be written down somewhere, but where? Is there a science, school or discipline that teaches how to document a person's name or life? Shouldn't there be? I know we discussed this in May in [[Biography/Talk]]. I stated that biography is a scholarly discipline, which Larry doubted, and I had no hard evidence. I think I wish that it were a scholarly discipline, and I would like to establish biography as a discipline, in fact a subdiscipline of creating an encyclopedia. (This could lead to a discussion of whether disciplines are static or how they can be established.)
Biography is definitely a scholarly discipline. Think "Life of Johnson" by Boswell.
(PD version at http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/BLJ/)
Also see Parker Honan's excellent "Documenting Authors' Lives" for an excellent in-depth look at the difficulties involved in that particular subgenre.
I have observed that books titled "biographic dictionary" never list people that are still alive. Is this a rule or just a coincidence? Has the rule been documented? Where? If such a work contains entries on people who are still alive, does it have to change its title?
Hell if I know. :-)
Another unwritten rule is that the birth and death years should both appear at the top of the article. Only some older biographic dictionaries list the death year at the end of the chronologically organized article.
Are there any handbooks (or useful websites) that explain how to write biographies, biographic dictionaries, or encyclopediae? Is there a Wikipedia page that lists suchs references?
I don't know of anything online, but if you find anything let us know.
From: "Lars Aronsson" lars@aronsson.se
I just added a note at the end of the article about Danish author [[Hans Christian Andersen]] about the Danish use of initials in personal names. In Denmark, this author is called H. C. Andersen. Even if these initials are short for Hans Christian, the full name is almost never used in Denmark. This is as common in Denmark as the U.S. use of a middle initial (e.g. George W. Bush), but all English, French, and German sources that I have found use the full name Hans Christian. Since Wikipedia is in English, it is just fine that it follows the established English convention.
Yes, I agree with this.
This makes it just like a translation. The Danish words "smørrebrød", "København", and "H. C. Andersen" are translated into English "sandwich", "Copenhagen", and "Hans Christian Andersen". We are used to translating nouns and city names, but this is a case where also personal names are in fact translated. I find that fascinating.
Yep!
This sort of knowledge should be written down somewhere, but where?
Sure, that would be a useful bit of information to put in biographies: "In Denmark, he is known as 'H. C. Andersen.'"
Is there a science, school or discipline that teaches how to document a person's name or life? Shouldn't there be?
I imagine there are books written about it both by historians and by lit professors.
I know we discussed this in May in [[Biography/Talk]]. I stated that biography is a scholarly discipline, which Larry doubted, and I had no hard evidence.
Well, if I recall correctly, I was asking for evidence that there was such a thing as a biography subdiscipline of any other field, or if there were biography departments at universities. I've never heard of either. Of course, scholars in history, literature, philosophy, and other fields are constantly writing biographies.
I have observed that books titled "biographic dictionary" never list people that are still alive. Is this a rule or just a coincidence?
I doubt there even is such a coincidence. In any dictionary of biography important living people will be listed.
Are there any handbooks (or useful websites) that explain how to write biographies, biographic dictionaries, or encyclopediae? Is there a Wikipedia page that lists suchs references?
There is a Nupedia page :-) :
http://www.nupedia.com/policy.shtml
Larry
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org