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Name order

Hi, I don't know much about Korean by any means, but the way Korean names are set up has been really confusing me. Mostly because, while Korean names are surname first like in Japanese, they do not follow the same guidelines (see WP:MOS-JA). Now, I'm not saying that a bunch of articles need to be moved to swapped the name, but I do think that it should be mentioned in the lead how the name is structured. For instance, Kim Jong-il could start off as:

Jong-il Kim, usually written surname first as Kim Jong-il, is...

The rest of the article would, of course, refer to him as "Kim Jong-il", since that's what everyone knows him as, English speaking or otherwise. Does this seem like an ok system?--SeizureDog 13:21, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

It is probably better to use {{Korean name}} (cf. {{Chinese name}}). The situation with Japan-related articles is somewhat different, as the custom of using the Western name order for Japanese names is fairly widely followed; this is not the case for Chinese and Korean names. -- Visviva 11:47, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

East Sea (Sea of Japan)

I would like to propose a change to the sea naming convention. In Korea the East Sea is never referred to as the Sea of Japan. Since many people, like me, use this excellent publication as a method for navigation it would be useful to give things their proper names where appropriate. Given the easy linking of articles it should not create problems. It would also provide more information to the reader since the inappropriate naming gives the impression that Korea is willing to use the name, whereas in reality there is continuing hostility to this legacy of Japanese colonial rule.Wrdc 23 April 2007

What exactly is the change you propose? Dropping the “… (Sea of Japan)” in all texts that only deal with Korea?
This is an English encyclopedia, so whatever name dominates in English texts should be used.
You may argue that, just like articles on South Asian topics are supposed to be written in the distinct South Asian variety of English, articles on Korean topics should use “Korean English”, perhaps drawing from Konglish, American English and Korean. Unless Wikipedia accepts the notion of English as one of Korea's languages as well as the notion of distinct Korean English geographical names, it is irrelevant what the sea is referred to as in Korea.
Arguing that the sea is not called Sea of Japan in the Korean language (which is not the case here, as Wrdc said “in Korea”, not “in Korean”) would be a bit like saying the English Wikipedia should use Hanguk and Deutschland instead of Korea and Germany just because those are the terms in the languages that are spoken by a majority of inhabitants of each place. Wikipeditor 01:43, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
On this map from National Geographic,
http://shop.nationalgeographic.com/product/305/1284/173.html
we see the body of water in question titled, East Sea (Sea of Japan). This is a very simple matter. In reference to Japan, Sea of Japan (East Sea) is accepted. In reference to Korea, East Sea (Sea of Japan) is fine. I'm American, I speak standard midwestern English. I use both names interchangably. Let's keep domestic politics out of this. Both names make sense when speaking of the countries in question. Internationally East Sea is vague, so we use the other. This is a really simple issue, we should be fair and reasonable about it. DaronDierkes (talk) 07:38, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
I would like to second this suggestion. What could be a better example of proper English language usage regarding geographic place names than National Geographic? I think the English wikipedia should follow their lead with regard to articles about Korea. I would assume that they have weighed the applicable issues regarding naming clarity and cultural significance of names when preparing their definitive maps. If the term East Sea (Sea of Japan) is used, it is 100% clear to anyone reading it in terms of which body of water it refers to. Mcettrick (talk) 17:37, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Korean music album titles

A new editor has created a page for a Korean album, with the title in Korean. Whether the album is notable or not is not what I'm focussing on, but rather the title itself. Under Wikipedia naming conventions, how should the album be named? It is currently at 한번 더, OK?, but should it be Hanbeon Deo, OK? (or whatever the Romanization is) or One More Time, OK? (its translation)? SKS2K6 00:08, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

That seems correct. I will move the article to the RR you suggest; I'm not sure why this album needs its own article anyway, but will leave that for another time. -- Visviva 11:48, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Romi Paku/Zainichi

There is some debate over how to properly romanize Zainichi Korean voice actress Romi Paku/Pak Romi. Evan1975 17:25, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Dual transcriptions

Sometimes transcriptions are given both based on South Korean and North Korean dialects:

In some cases, transcriptions are only given in either dialect:

What's the official policy on this? Giving dual dialects looks messy, and lots of people probably won't understand what you mean if you write "Nyŏngbyŏn / Yŏngbyŏn". The exact syntax used also differs from article to article. (Stefan2 21:20, 3 November 2007 (UTC))

Suggestion: We must not capitalize the second syllable of given names

Korean people's given names' two syllables are usually separated with a space (because of the Korean government's weird previous policy). But this can confuse the reader. Such as Moon Hee Jun, many people would think that "Jun" is a middle name, which is actually not a middle name. If we write the name as "Moon Hee jun," people will not be confused.

This goes to hyphenated given names also. The letter after the hyphen is sometimes capitalized (such as Lee Chun-Soo) but sometimes not (such as Lee Chang-ho).

We really have to unify this with using a small letter (not a capital letter) for the beginning of the second syllable since they are not two different names. --­ (talk) 23:50, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

If no one disagrees or no opinion about my suggestion, I will execute this suggestion. --­ (talk) 02:16, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
it's not that i necessarily disagree with the suggestion; it's just that for many people, it's "officially" done that way. For example, on albums, it says Moon Hee Jun. It's current policy to name people "Moon Hee-jun" unless there's an already existing way of doing so. SKS2K6 (talk) 06:17, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
I know, I'm chiming in very late. But Hee-jun's official fanclub shows his name as "MOON HEE-JUN." The cover of SMTown's 2003 winter album calls him "MOON HEEJUN." I can't even count how many different ways I've seen Lee Soo Man credited on SM Entertainment's very own merchandise. Point being, with some possible exceptions, Koreans in the entertainment industry seem to romanize their name variously, for stylistic reasons I guess. Meanwhile, trying to wikilink to these people's articles is time consuming. Without a very prevalent use of one single romanization, would it be best to just follow WP:NC-KO? --hamu♥hamu (talk) 19:50, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
  1. Well, most Korean people think hyphens, spaces, or even capitalization are necessary between each syllable. I totally don't understand them; they're stupid. No one writes the name "Jennifer" as "Jen Ni Fer" or as "Jen-Ni-Fer." They really have to be enlightened or something.
  2. Or we can write Korean people's name with using capitals to all single letters, like LEE MYUNG-BAK rather than Lee Myung-bak to avoid the confusion with usage of capital letters.

--­에멜무지로 (talk) 07:29, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Caps are a no per WP:MOS. SKS2K6 (talk) 16:04, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Using caps is the only solution since the capitalization of Korean people's names is really messed up right now. --­ (talk) 02:16, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Just follow WP:NC-KO; that's the solution. That's a whole lot easier than rewriting the policy to something utterly bizarre, and then trying to make people follow it. --hamu♥hamu (TALK) 03:25, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I just added "capitalization" and "hyphenation/spacing of given names" section. Please check. --­ (talk) 22:27, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Sorry for my revert:
  • "Kim Il-sŏng" and "Yi Seung-man" are examples per "Given name" section.
  • "Capitalization" section is duplicate of "Given name" section.
  • "Hyphenation/spacing of given names" section contradicts with current convention: 1) Hyphening in "Given name" section; 2) Established spelling should be used even with space. —jisok 01:07, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Well, I suggest these; one of them has to be approved. If an established spelling contains a space:
  1. we keep the space but without capitalizing the second syllable, like when we use a hyphen (like Hong Gil dong, not Hong Gil Dong).
  2. we replace the space with a hyphen (Hong Gil dong → Hong Gil-dong) so that we can avoid mis-taking the second syllable as a middle name.
I know there is a lot of people (not only Koreans) have spaces in their first names, but it is not recommended. --­ (talk) 05:55, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

[indent] Two points:

  • Established spelling: If a name is established, it should be used however weird it looks. If it's "Gil-Dong" or "Gil Dong" or "GiLdOnG" established, you can't drop it by your own research.
  • No established spelling: Your suggestion -- un-hyphening -- needs editors' consensus, and my -1 for that. There're two Korean naming conventions outside WP: "Hong Gil Dong" and "Hong Gil-dong". WP editors are better follow realities; Wikipedia is not a tool to change world. —jisok 08:28, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Well, in the situation "no established spelling," there's no actual reason to hyphenate two syllables. In the Revised Romanization of Korean, it says the given name is generally not separated by a hyphen. And also personally I don't think hyphenation is necessary. Plus, even Chinese given names are not separated by hyphens. --­ (talk) 21:23, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Actually my preference is with you -- single name without hyphen nor space. My objection is about the mismatch with established names which mostly have hyphens (or spaces). But you may try consensus of other editors. —jisok 03:44, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
With the HELL I've been through trying to get articles to follow WP:NC-KO as it is now, I would oppose any changes to it unless it could be shown beyond any doubt that a hyphen is never, ever used. Since it's used about as often as it's not, this can't be done. So I absolutely oppose changing it. I'm one editor working an entire set of categories by myself; don't change stuff midstream unless there's an insanely good reason. --hamu♥hamu (TALK) 04:19, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
I strongly oppose using hyphen with no established spelling. In the Revised Romanization of Korean, given names are generally not separated by hyphens unless it's really necessary. And this rule (not hyphenating) is currently very well kept in English Wikipedia. So you don't have to be worried!
FYI, there's no reason to break a given name's two syllables. Breaking syllables with a hyphen is the same as writing the name "Jennifer" as "Jen-ni-fer"; no one writes "Jennifer" that way. --­ (talk) 04:51, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
When making general sweeping claims, such as that this Wikipedia follows your "rule", you need to back it up. Show me 20 that do it "your" way, I'll show you 20 that don't. In media written in English by Korean sources, names are formatted a variety of different ways, including with the hyphen. Go to KBS Global and see for yourself. There is precedence for it. You saying that you don't understand Koreans and that they're stupid is not a justification for changing the policy. --hamu♥hamu (TALK) 05:32, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, I think it's time to finish this. Let me conclude this.

  1. No established spelling: No hyphen or space whatsoever. When a syllable break has to be needed, separate the syllables with a hyphen, not with a space.
  2. With established spelling: follow the established spelling whatever the syllable separator is. Keep the original syllable separator.
  3. After a hyphen, capital letter must not be used; but after a space, capital letter is used.

--­ (talk) 20:22, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

And my response is #1) No. Follow established policy. #2) No. Follow established policy. #3) No. Follow established policy. We are not going to make a change that will affect thousands of articles without a damn good reason. You have not shown any reason at all that any change is necessary. Please work on implementing the current policy instead of changing it. --hamu♥hamu (TALK) 20:33, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
The reasons for all three of them is "legacy." That's what everyone has done. So all three of them are actually following the current established policy. This is the only thing I'm trying to unify and clarify: A small letter is used after a hyphen and a capital letter must not be used after a hyphen. Currently, the capitalization after a hyphen is really mixed up; we MUST unify them with using small letters. And you should remember that there's no reason to be pissed off. --­ (talk) 04:42, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
I am not pissed, and I'll thank you to stay out of my business. I am, however, extremely confused because you seem to be contradicting yourself. Please state exactly what part policy you want to change with a very strong justification for the desired change. Please also go around to all Wikiprojects that deal with Korea-related articles and notify them of the changes you want to make (a simple note directing them to this discussion will probably suffice), as that's who it will affect. Any changes you make without doing all of those things and receiving consensus on the desired changes will just be reverted. --hamu♥hamu (TALK) 05:15, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Requested moves

I thought I would drop a notice that I requested the moving of three sport shooter biographies. See Talk:Kim Jong Su#Requested move. -- Jao (talk) 12:40, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Clarify hyphenization MR spelling

Feel like a minor bit should be clarified under "Given name". It's not specified how we should treat voicing for the second particle after a hyphen in names. For example, I ran into this issue with "정상진". I used "Chŏng Sang-chin", but should it have been "Chŏng Sang-jin"?

Some additional reasonings (provided to me by the 172 IP user above), although note that these are not people names:

  • In the 1939 proposal for MR, "연산군" is romanized/hyphenated as "Yŏnsan-gun" and not "Yŏnsan-kun".
  • Similar is done in the 1961 version: "덕수궁" -> "Tŏksu-gung", not "Tŏksu-kung".
  • Note that the 1939 proposal does not use hyphens in peoples' names at all, so we need to indirectly reason.

Also my reasoning: just because a hyphen is written, does not mean that consonants would be voiced differently in speech. We should reflect how people would speak the name.

Please let me know if thoughts or if I'm getting anything wrong. 211.43.120.242 (talk) 12:15, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Note: Personally I don't care much about this. I usually don't care about article titles or any case where a spelling is supposed to follow a common form in English.
I merely told them what I noticed. 172.56.232.178 (talk) 02:51, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
I've seen both variations. For example, for 김알지, the progenitor of the Kims of Silla, most texts M-R romanizations romanize it as Kim Al-chi, but there were some that romanized it as Kim Al-ji. On the other hand, most texts romanize the powerful Goryeo government minister 이자겸 as Yi Cha-gyŏm, however, a few texts also romanize it as Yi Cha-kyŏm instead. The reason for the discrepancies may be due to the difference between the official M-R and the South Korean version of M-R. I've personally just used the variants that were more common in English language sources, so Kim Al-chi over Kim Al-ji and Yi Cha-gyŏm over Yi Cha-kyŏm. ⁂CountHacker (talk) 08:22, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
Good points. I'll note we already display an implicit preference for non-NK/SK MR, per MOS:KO#Romanization: Use McCune–Reischauer (not the DPRK's official variant) for topics about North Korea and pre-1945 Korean names.
I'd argue based on these factors that unless there's a clear WP:COMMONNAME, we should by default use the default MR, and per my OP's bullet points I'd argue the default MR would prefer 이자겸 as "Yi Cha-gyŏm". 211.43.120.242 (talk) 11:44, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

By the way, a more serious problem than this would be reflecting consonant assimilation before and after a hyphen.

The original MR explicitly states that this should not be done.

A simple example, the word Silla, will help to clarify the point. In Chinese, hsin 新 plus lo 羅 are pronounced Hsin-lo but in Korea, sin 新 plus na (la) 羅 are pronounced Silla. To hyphenate this name as Sil-la would imply that it is composed of two parts which individually are sil and la, which is obviously misleading.

(page 49)

As a side note, the surname 이 is actually I (not Yi) in MR.

Another very important example is 李, the surname of the kings of the last Korean dynasty and still a very common Korean surname. Actually it is pronounced in the standard dialect and should be Romanized I, but some may prefer to retain the older Romanization, Yi, because that is already the familiar form.

(page 53)

These are also found in the McCune–Reischauer article.

While I usually don't care about article titles (or any case where a spelling is supposed to follow a common form in English), I decided to post this because some people may find this helpful. 172.56.232.137 (talk) 19:28, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Now that I think about it, what's the reason for our defaulting to hyphens in names for both MR/RR anyway? To my understanding, neither system has them used by default in given names (MR even less so than RR), so why do we set it as so?
I just searched through the talk page archives of NCKO and couldn't find any compelling arguments for their use beyond "I think Koreans use them" or "they're helpful". In academic papers, hyphens aren't used for MR, and our using them leads to all kinds of hairiness, as seen in this thread.
Anyone have any thoughts on this? Significant issue; if we overturn this practice it will impact a huge portion of pages about Korean people on Wikipedia. 211.43.120.242 (talk) 01:46, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
Documenting two more thoughts.
  1. Leaning towards proposing this for pre-1945 historical figures: set default spelling to be MR without hyphens.
    • Reasoning: this is the practice in English academic lit on Korea. These pre-1945 figures are often confined to history books/papers, and thus it is likely safe to assume WP:COMMONNAME practice will be the academic one. Also, default naming formats make finding pages easier and also reduce the amount of debates that need to happen. Debates add admin overhead to our already stretched community.
  2. For post-1945 figures, I'm not sure what to do. There's a further split here: 1. What do we do with North Korean names (NK version of MR? Just MR? Hyphenate? Spaces like Kim Jong Un?) and 2. South Korean names (significant variance in naming practices).
211.43.120.242 (talk) 06:58, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
After some thoughts, I started to think that "add a hyphen to a given name by default" is not really necessary.
  1. When there is an established English spelling, that is used as the article title (and also any case where a spelling is supposed to follow a common form in English). That spelling can be anything – that is, it does not even have to use a hyphen. For example, Yuna Kim (joined) and Yoon Suk Yeol (spaced).
  2. When there is no established English spelling, there is not really a reason to default to a form with a hyphen. You will have to use the spelling in accordance with RR or MR, but that spelling (whether with or without a hyphen) may rarely (or even never) be attested in any English-language text.
  3. For modern people, if Koreans are inconsistent (like what the first sentence of WP:NCKO#Given name currently says), then why should the guideline state what to use by default?
172.56.232.178 (talk) 07:31, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
Three thoughts and a proposal:
  1. I think for family names in both MR and RR, we should recommend they be spelled according to WP:COMMONNAME. This will go against MR/RR, and thus not be strict applications.
    • For MR, I think 이 is the only notable exception that will come from this. The WP:COMMONNAME spelling in academic literature is "Yi" I'm pretty sure. Other common family names tend to follow MR, e.g. 박 ->"Pak" and 김 -> "Kim".
    • RR, I think we should set default family name spellings to those most commonly used by South Koreans, e.g. Park, Lee, and Kim. Some stats in table here. I think people will be bothered if we use "Bak", "I", and "Gim", when each of those spellings are used in <2% of cases.
  2. I disagree with not having default spelling systems for post-1945 people. I think we should give a clearly weak recommended romanization for post-1945 people. E.g. "There's lots of variations for names, here's a suggestion for what you can use". Reasons:
    • As said before, ease of finding and fewer debates.
    • There are many notable people whose names have basically never been written in English-language reliable sources, and it's too hard to find how they would have spelled it. What do you do with those names? Wikipedia editors will inevitably make some kind of choice in these scenarios; we should give them at least an option that's relatively consistent.
    • What if an editor creates 250 articles with clearly bad or outlandish spellings that virtually nobody else will be able to find/interpret? (e.g. 철수 -> "Joolsoo"). This is a realistic scenario; I can envision this happening. If there's no standard, nobody will have any consistent basis to dispute the spellings.
    • Relying on MR/RR also has the benefit of relative reversibility. I'd strongly prefer we have relative reversibility rather than not. Impromptu romanizations like "Younghill Kang" are hard to reverse to Hangul (강영흘).
  3. One thing I think we could/should investigate. Is hyphenating or not hyphenating more common for South Koreans? I think the National Institute of Korean Language possibly has statistics on this; they've surveyed passports before. We should also check what various style guides in newspapers etc recommend.
    • This could influence whether or not we recommend hyphenation by default.
To summarize, this is my tentative proposal. Unless WP:COMMONNAME or preferred spelling is known,
  • For pre-1945 people, default to MR (with diacritics), except for spelling 이 as "Yi". No hyphen in names.
  • For post-1945 people, spell surnames according to WP:COMMONNAME practices. For given names, weak recommendation for strict MR for NK (with diacritics) and strict RR for SK. No hyphens in names.
211.43.120.242 (talk) 08:21, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
Note: #3 I wrote above is only about between syllables of a given name. I did not mean that Wikipedia editors should use any random spelling when there is no established English spelling (I thought this was clear since I wrote "You will have to use the spelling in accordance with RR or MR" in #2).
I agree with your tentative proposal. 172.56.232.253 (talk) 09:31, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
Oh I misinterpreted. I thought you were saying that 1 and 2 were about pre-1945 and 3 was about post-1945. 211.36.142.187 (talk) 10:34, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
My response to your 3 points now that my head is clearer:
For 2, I'd argue it's possible that hyphenation is common practice, but I need to research this. We already let common name practices affect the surname independently of the given name, the given name may be affected independently too by some practice.
For 3, I'd argue our goal is to specifically avoid dictating what Koreans should do. Per common name, we should aim to represent current common practice. If there's like a 70% common practice then we should follow that until if/when it changes. 211.43.120.242 (talk) 13:20, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
Since the issue is brought up, I decided to bring up another related issue.
This is currently found in articles about people who go by their mononyms:
Hong Gil-dong, known mononymously as Gildong, ...
Using different hyphenations for the exact same name is inconsistent and confusing. If the mononym does not contain a hyphen, then the same should apply when writing the full name. This is consistent and not confusing:
Hong Gildong, known mononymously as Gildong, ...
I think this should be done. 172.56.232.253 (talk) 09:47, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
Is this a frequent issue? I haven't seen it around much. May be able to just handle locally if not, without setting a guideline. It'll also possibly go away naturally if we recommend no hyphens by default.
I'll note though, I'm still not certain about no hyphenation for RR. I'm going to do some research on common name practices for hyphenation. 211.43.120.242 (talk) 11:27, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
Found in Chaeyoung, Changmo, Dahyun, Dawon (singer), Hyojung, Jeongyeon, Seungkwan, Soojin (singer), Soya (singer), Yebin (singer), etc. 172.56.232.246 (talk) 03:50, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Article naming conventions vs romanization in body

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)
 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

One thing that's difficult to understand in the MOS is what to use in the body: names per the naming convention or romanization guidelines.

For example, do we use Gyeonggi Province (as recommended in NCKO) or Gyeonggi-do (RR)? Currently we provide no guidance for that. It's implied elsewhere in the transliteration section that common name has weight for how we spell things in the body, but it's not explicit.

I like how MOS:JACOM handles it. It clearly applies for both body and article title. I think it should be possible for us to do similar. I may take a go at it.

@Nonabelian let me know if any thoughts. 104.232.119.107 (talk) 04:04, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree. I think this is the biggest issue we need to think through how to fix. I also like how others have tried to address for instance MOS:IRELAND and WP:HEBREW have guidance for Article names and In-line use explicitly. I think we might need a "Article Name" section, if only to say follow the convention as laid out in names for people for biographies, places for geography etc.
Agree the transliteration guidance should be the fallback option to the explicit guidance for names, places. --Nonabelian (talk) 22:29, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
Still actively brainstorming. Given the things I want to receive consensus on (namely the romanization section), I think how we rule on that may need to come before this reorg. seefooddiet (talk) 14:42, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
Edit: I suspect we don't need a separate article title section; suspect our guidance will be the same for both title and body. This matches the common practice in academic writing on Korea; just use common names for spelling. seefooddiet (talk) 07:33, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
I take this comment back; I may advocate for splitting off WP:NCKO again from MOS:KO 😥 I couldn't figure out a good way to merge these two seamlessly seefooddiet (talk) 05:14, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

MR hyphenation

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)
 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Hey all, this is 104.232.119.107; I decided to just make an account again.

This post is primarily meant for @Nonabelian. This post is about MR romanization practices. Unfortunately this is the first of a series of major questions that I'd like to discuss before the MOS gets approved. I'll take these one at a time, for clarity. As a heads up because you've been developing code that implicitly accepts the current What Korean romanization to use section, my next discussion thread will be on that section.

I wanted to get your thoughts on whether we should hyphenate people names in MR. Previously, I (211.43.120.242), another IP user (172...), and @CountHacker had a discussion on this: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Korean)#Clarify hyphenization MR spelling.

Tl;dr of the thread is that the IP user and I are skeptical of hyphenation. We're not sure why it's recommended; it's a practice from South Korean MR, it's not a common practice in academia (most style guidelines I've seen recommend against it), and if we did recommend it, we should recommend in the MOS how to voice the particle after the hyphen. seefooddiet (talk) 16:27, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Sea of Japan and Liancourt Rocks

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)
 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm going to rewrite the Sea of Japan section to also be inclusive of the Liancourt Rocks. I'm going to propose that our guidance be to use whatever the title of each of those articles are in the body, and will also warn people against haphazardly trying to edit war or drive-by criticize the terms. seefooddiet (talk) 01:07, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Hopefully this wording is strong enough. God the talkpages for the Liancourt Rocks and Sea of Japan are such trainwrecks... seefooddiet (talk) 01:48, 4 August 2024 (UTC)
Actually nvm. I need to go through and read both their archives to understand the situation better. I'll try to do this in the near future. seefooddiet (talk) 06:06, 9 August 2024 (UTC)
@Freedom4U I had written this section before seeing your argument on Talk:Liancourt Rocks/Archive 22#Requested move 15 March 2023. Your argument sounds pretty compelling to me, and I'm dissatisfied with the quality of counterarguments others made, as well as how the move was closed (see talk page of the user that closed the move). Do you think we should reopen this discussion at some point, while highlighting these irregularities in the previous discussion?
Also, what are your thoughts on how to word this section in the MOS/NCKO. I think the section's meat could probably stay ("use current titles, avoid mentioning alternate terms"), but considering wording it emotionally softer to avoid harming future move discussions. Maybe better to keep the section sparse? seefooddiet (talk) 22:20, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
I wouldn't reopen discussion myself, though I probably would have phrased my comment quite differently had I made it today. You're welcome to if you'd like to, though I don't particularly care about the discussion. What the MOS is supposed to be in the end is just documentation of consensus/convention, so it should state that you shouldn't mention alternate terms unless you're discussing the naming conflict. That's especially true with the Sea of Japan, which imo has a much stronger case for the current consensus. ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 22:39, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
I'm loathe to open the discussion myself, but I think someone eventually should. Dealing with the nationalists and dismissive people who'll make poor arguments is a headache.
I'll word the section softer in near future. seefooddiet (talk) 22:47, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Mountains

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)
 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

@Seefooddiet For the most part I agree with your suggestion at Talk:Namsan#Question; I think we should follow Wikipedia:WikiProject Mountains#Naming conventions for mountain names. I would personally use a comma to disambiguate for WP:NATURAL but for the sake of consistency we should do what they do already. I’m not sure how unencyclopedic the slash is though; nothing in the naming conventions at WP:MOUNTAINS seemed to suggest it was, but we should definitely stick with something consistent, whether it be "and" or slash. Dantus21 (talk) 07:22, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

My first instinct was the same as yours; the comma feels better to me. I got the mountain idea from WP:NCPLACE#Natural features, which recommends that WikiProject guideline.
For the slash, I once tried a RMT for a mountain that had a slash in it (I was changing an unrelated part of the name; left the slash as is), and someone overrode it with "and". Just looked into it; I think WP:DISAMBIG#Format may be loosely interpreted to express a preference for "and", as we're supposed to format the term in parentheses as any other part of a title. I've yet to see a slash used like that in a regular title. seefooddiet (talk) 07:46, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
Maybe I should just post a question on the talk page for the disambig page seefooddiet (talk) 07:50, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#Question: "/" in parenthetical disambig?
I'm thinking of recommending 1. try to disambiguate by mountain range first 2. then disambiguate by location, with "and" instead of "/" seefooddiet (talk) 18:15, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
Having taken a quick look at the mountains in the Taebaek and Sobaek categories (two major mountains ranges), imo it didn’t seem like disambiguating by mountain range would be helpful (or at the least used a lot), so I feel it’d be excessive to list that one. I think that your second provision ("disambiguate by location…") would be the way to go. Dantus21 (talk) 18:52, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
Hmm yeah maybe you're right. I recommended range first strictly to try and adhere to the WP Mountains guideline, but it's just a guideline, and this just adds bureaucracy and more thinking for little gain. seefooddiet (talk) 18:57, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
Side note: for a mountain like Gayasan (North Gyeongsang/South Gyeongsang), should we rename it to Gayasan (North and South Gyeongsang) or Gayasan (North Gyeongsang and South Gyeongsang? I think that "North and South" is a whole lot more logical (and can also be seen at North and South Brother Islands (New York City)), but I’m not sure what the usual approach is. Dantus21 (talk) 18:56, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
North and South; think justification is also concision. I can write all this in the mountains guideline btw; currently rewriting it. seefooddiet (talk) 18:59, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
Sounds good 👍 Dantus21 (talk) 19:03, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Recent changes, Aug 7 (UTC)

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)
 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Hello, I've recently made some significant changes so want to slow down and give a high-level summary of them.

  • Rewrote lead
  • Shortened prose for explanations/policies that exist on other pages. I tried to display prominent links to those pages instead.
  • Completely rewrote the Hanja section.
    • Mostly kept existing logic, made some additions
  • Mostly rewrote Article layout section.
    • Added significant amount of guidelines; I don't suspect they are/hope they aren't controversial. They're already common practice for our articles.
  • Created a Naming guidelines section
    • Rules that apply to all Naming conventions, unless overridden in the Naming conventions section.
    • Check out the Avoid redundant English names section. I'm not sure we should keep this; it's more just a pet peeve.
  • Overhauled Naming conventions other than the people name section
    • People name section is pending discussion.
    • Logic should mostly be the same, except for province names. I'll make a separate post about that.
    • Moved formatting titles of works into this section from Romanization section.
  • Rewrote Wiktionary links section with help of the original author (172 IP user)

I recommend you reread the sections I described above to understand what has changed. I tried to make everything uncontroversial. If you see anything you disagree with, please let me know ASAP so we can address it or potentially revert to an earlier version. I'm trying hard to balance not stepping on any toes while still writing quickly.

TODO:

  • Templates section
  • Misc copyediting
  • Discuss Romanization conventions and people naming conventions
  • Copyedit or revise both those sections depending on discussion

Sorry for my disorganized editing style; just kind of the way I write 😓 seefooddiet (talk) 07:16, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Nonabelian Dantus21 Paper9oll. Paper9oll, as you edit a lot on pop culture, I'd appreciate some of your insights on the article layout section. To my understanding it should be mostly what's already practiced right now. seefooddiet (talk) 07:38, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
@Seefooddiet Is there a particular aspect you feel is missing and would like to see improved? I couldn't think of any at the moment, but I can add more if there is a direction provided. Otherwise, I have no objection to the current state of the Article Layout section. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 09:24, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
Not particularly, the goal was actually to be minimally intrusive and reflect current practice, so hearing that you think it's acceptable is a relief! seefooddiet (talk) 17:59, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
Having did a readthrough of most of it, here's what I have to say.
  • English word section looks good, but maybe make a more explicit guideline for what words should be italicized (or not) as I feel this could be a slippery slope for interpretation. For example, you could specify dictionaries to check (like Cambridge or Oxford) and specifying a ratio of dictionaries with the word (like 3:2) that could indicate to not italicize. Perhaps I'm overcomplicating stuff
  • Merge use korean language terms section to english words section
  • What does "topics related to korea as a whole" mean for RR? Does it mean for names like Joseon? Why single out personal names for MR?
  • By the romanization template, does that mean that an article will have a consistent romanization throughout (I think I might not understand the extent of it)?
    • Likewise with above; has complicated implications. Like in a MR article, should we write "Soŭl" for Seoul? Is that desirable? seefooddiet (talk) 20:09, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
      • I’m still unsure what to do here (I might make a post about romanizations soon), but whatever it is Seoul should be the exception, because according to this ngrams Soul was/is almost never used, even in cases before RR existed. Dantus21 (talk) 05:45, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
        The situation is quite complicated; I'm currently researching the situation and discussing it actively with the IP user. I'm currently working on Romanization of Korean to share what I've learned with others.
        I'm considering publishing an WP:ESSAY on the situation for future readers. Still doing the background research though.
        We're joining into a debate that has lasted over a century, and how we rule on may have a significant impact on how others spell Korean terms. Complicated situation, but fun given the real impact we may have seefooddiet (talk) 05:56, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
        By any chance where are you discussing this with the IP (if you want to share)? I’d be interested in helping out too, although my Korean is admittedly not too great. Dantus21 (talk) 06:15, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
        Via email; we're discussing in a mix of Korean and English. Most things of substance we discuss on Wiki directly for public viewing; it's usually questions about Wiki policy that we discuss privately. This talk page and links to other discussions match our current understanding of romanization. seefooddiet (talk) 06:44, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
        Interesting disclosure here. I'm concerned on the statement it's usually questions about Wiki policy that we discuss privately. For transparency and accountability, could you please elaborate on the types of policy discussions that occur privately? Are these primarily clarifications, or do they involve substantive (regardless of depthness) discussion about changes to Wikipedia's policy? Do they align with the Wikipedia's policy on consensus pertaining to off-wiki discussions? — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 07:14, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
        Yes they do. It's usually questions about how policies work. They're usually shallow questions; when there's anything of substance we go to wiki. I would hope there's no reason to be suspicious; you know me and intentions here are clearly good seefooddiet (talk) 07:33, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
        I'm a little saddened by your comment. What even would either of us have to gain by conspiring here? Neither of us benefit from these policy changes and I've welcomed disagreement, and I've disagreed with the IP user both publicly and privately. I disclose my process as much as needed out of good faith. There's no "gotcha aha" moment here to be found. I'm remarkably boring; I'm reading 90 year old papers about linguistics. seefooddiet (talk) 07:41, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
        I'm just caught off-guard by such disclosure hence raising some alarms. Don't worry, this is all good-faith. Thanks for the clarification. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 07:49, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
  • Hangul section looks good
  • Already commented on Hanja section
  • Article layout section looks good
  • Template section looks good; maybe say something about not putting in context=old? Hunminjeongeum is barely used anyway and imo that name will cause more confusion; perhaps it might just be a pet peeve of mine
  • Naming guidelines look good; We should definitely keep the avoid redundant English names; most of the names are so uncommon that we should avoid tautologies when we can.
    • I'm still a little on the fence about it; I visited Gyeongbukgung a few weeks ago and they put "Gyeongbukgung Palace" all over the place. "Namsan Mountain" is also reasonably common. However, maybe this just falls under common name and are exceptions rather than a trend. seefooddiet (talk) 20:09, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
  • Possible to break up naming conventions section or maybe even make a separate page?
  • Do common modified romanizations apply to ancient people and North Koreans?
  • I haven’t looked at administrative divisions yet, will look at soon.
  • Geographic features, temples, and works in naming conventions section look good.
  • I am ambivalent to the dates, wiktionary, and references section, but they generally look good.
I'll admit I didn't look at your specifications before rereading, so forgive me if I accidentally addressed something that you already planned to! Dantus21 (talk) 09:00, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback 🙂 I'll edit your comment with subbullet responses seefooddiet (talk) 20:03, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Provinces titles

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)
 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Per above, I rewrote the province naming convention section, and while doing so realized that our guidance is based on shaky ground. I ended up changing it to just be prescriptivist ("Here are the current titles, use them").

The reason for this is because it's hard to explain/justify our title formats otherwise. Look at Provinces of South Korea#List of provinces, "Official English name" column. There's so much inconsistency with official names, and I'm not sure WP:COMMONNAME has been established for all the provinces. I have a gut feeling that people just decided to weigh WP:TITLECON and WP:USEENGLISH higher.

Making things more confusing, the NK titles don't use diacritics (ŏ), which likely means some flavor of WP:COMMONNAME is being applied.

And to make matters 100x worse, what do we do about historical provinces? See Provinces of Korea; I just have no clue. There's so many unknowns here. How do we handle the "-mok" provinces of Goryeo? How do we spell the provinces of Joseon? What about the 1895–1896 provinces, where they redid all the provinces then reverted them? What about the provinces of colonial Korea? Should we refer to them using their Japanese names? Should we include parenthetical glosses for their current or Joseon-era analogues?

I honestly have no clue; each one of these issues merits a long conversation. If anyone's brave enough to discuss this with me I'll join you, but I suspect people won't want to. I've already thought about these questions for hours and am still struggling. seefooddiet (talk) 07:26, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Romanization guideline for titles

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)
 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Right now, the guideline for article titles seemingly suggests MR (McCune-Reischauer) for North Korean stuff and pre-1945 people, while it suggests RR (Revised Romanization) for South Korean stuff and everything else pre-1945. While this guideline is technically "stable", I feel that having the pre-1945 people be MR while everything else pre-1945 be RR seems fairly arbitrary; why have names for people be MR but everything else RR? I will note that scholarly precedent is to use MR for everything pre-1945 (as far as I’m aware). However, most of the pre-1945 articles (for instance state names) still use RR. I think there are 3 options here for how this guideline can go forward.


  • A. All pre-1945 articles (including people) titled with MR. Consistent and follows scholarly precedent, although such a massive upheaval in moving makes me a little nervous.
  • B. All pre-1945 articles (including people) titled with RR. Does not follow scholarly precedent, but would be much more stable Wikipedia-wise (less moving than MR) while also being consistent.
  • C. Status-quo guideline. Most stable, as it requires the least moving, but inconsistent as singling out people's names seems relatively arbitrary.

What do you think of this? Dantus21 (talk) 00:03, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

P.S. Concerning ngrams (which goes up to 2022 now), MR still seems to win for most pre-1945 topics, such as Buyeo, Balhae, Baekje, Goguryeo, and Joseon. However, back in March of this year, Britannica changed their pre-1945 Korean articles to fit RR, as seen here, here, and here, and while Wikipedia isn’t obligated to follow Britannica, it might be something to consider. Dantus21 (talk) 00:07, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
Seefooddiet Paper9oll Nonabelian courtesy ping (feel free to ping others who might be interested too) Dantus21 (talk) 00:09, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping, I will abstain on this. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 07:07, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
I'm still heavily brainstorming what to do; I think about it a lot each day, and I'm still not sure. I'd like more time to think if others will allow it, I plan on reading a bunch of papers about the romanization debate. Complicated and lengthy history that should be explained with rigor on Wikipedia, not just for this MOS, but also for public viewing so readers understand why the romanization situation is complicated.
For whether academic literature uses MR or RR, the vast majority of academic journals use MR. I think a couple of South Korean journals use RR (off the top of my head, [1], but I think there's more). For books, in my experience (I've read around 30ish books about mostly 19th century and onwards history, a couple of broad histories too) is that most books about pre-1945 history use MR.
I'm currently considering if there are more options than just the A, B, and C that you listed. One idea I'm still developing is that just as there is flexibility for choosing what MOS:DATEFORMAT to use for when there are no strong MOS:DATETIES, we could consider allowing Wikipedia article authors to use whichever format they prefer for pre-1945 articles (not for NK or SK articles). However, I'm still working on developing this idea; need to weigh consistency vs flexibility. I feel that there's maybe other alternatives too, and want to continue thinking about those. seefooddiet (talk) 00:27, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
Others might support it, but I strongly disagree with the idea of allowing others to pick and choose romanizations. While stable within the article, I feel it'd be super haphazard for stability across Wikipedia (emphasis for clarity). Why should one article use MR and another use RR? I get that MOS:DATEFORMAT basically does the same thing but I'm not a fan for bringing it here as it also affects article titles, which would be more apparent to readers. Dantus21 (talk) 00:33, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
Also, what are some themes you've noticed in the romanization debate? Clearly your work isn't done over there but I think that if I and other users can get a general grasp it might be helpful in considering how to move forward. I've heard some themes of Koreans not liking MR but foreigners liking it but that is probably an oversimplification. Dantus21 (talk) 00:36, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
If it's ok, I'd rather not discuss my ideas before I'm done thinking of them. It's easy to reject half-baked ideas, but good ideas sometimes start half-baked, and it takes time to develop them into something viable. If you'd like you can dive into the literature yourself as well; I'll likely be reading the same things you find.
I feel like this MOS may possibly take two to three months more before it gets put into action; considering this is arguably the most important part of the MOS I think we should take our time on it. seefooddiet (talk) 00:43, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
I don’t really see any issues with discussing so-called "half baked" ideas; outside input can help develop them, but if you don’t want to share them now you don’t have to. Dantus21 (talk) 00:55, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
Personally, I am dead-set against Option B. Common name should trump consistency. Another problem is that in many cases the MR and RR romanizations are not visually similar. Most people end up finding the common MR romanization, search for the subject in Wikipedia and not get a result. Someone without the knowledge of converting between MR and RR, would not realize that Koryŏ general Chŏng Chung-bu that they read about in a book would be the same person titled as Jeong Jung-bu via Option B. I do think the status-quo is somewhat ridiculous only pertaining to people's names, there's definitely room for expansion for other topics besides people names. MR should be used for other historical subjects such as historical texts like the Jewang ungi, historical government positions such as sang changgun (supreme general), and historical government offices such as the Seungjeongwon or the Hongmungwan. Based on the NGrams, I think that there is an argument for moving historical states to MR as well. I'm not sure yet if Option A would be the best bet so far, due to the ramifications of moving countless articles. My current worry is that there could potentially be pre-1945 topics commonly well-known in RR that could be overlooked. ⁂CountHacker (talk) 01:00, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
A couple of running thoughts:
  • I'm leaning towards A, although still need to think about implications and read more into the debate.
  • I'm not sure if ngrams also consumes academic papers, which overwhelmingly use MR.
  • If we do end up approving A, I can build up a log of moves, and once enough occur I can use WP:AWB to change all WP:KOREA articles to use the same MR spellings. We should probably do this in batches to minimize the quantity of edits made.
seefooddiet (talk) 01:09, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
Ngrams does not search through academic journals, only books. For academic works, use google scholar to look for usage. I agree that the guideline should be A, but I disagree with mass moving articles. Each article should still be discussed on a case by case basis (or in small batches) before they are moved. ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 18:56, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
Writing in case I forget: we should mention how to handle Korean diaspora names as well. Think in general it should follow standard ordering of common name, personal pref, then romanization.
Then there's other ambiguities, like which language version of their name to use (Russian etc for Koryo-saram? Japanese for Zainichi Koreans?). Also complicated due to alignment with NK/SK; for Zainichi Koreans who support the SK-aligned Mindan, should probably prefer RR. And for Zainichis who support the NK-aligned Chongryon should probably prefer MR. seefooddiet (talk) 21:20, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
Option B should not be considered. It's not in line with reliable sourcing. MR should be used in pre-1945 (and potentially even later) topics unless the WP:COMMONNAME is found to be different. ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 18:26, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Re-naming on Joseon grand princes

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)
 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

(I also posted on the WP:KOREA talk page.)
Any thoughts on changing the MoS for Grand Princes from <Grand Prince (title)> to <(birth name), Grand Prince (title)>?

For example:
Grand Prince Yeongchang --> Yi Ui, Grand Prince Yeongchang
Grand Prince Uian --> Yi Hwa, Grand Prince Uian
Grand Prince Neungwon --> Yi Bo, Grand Prince Neungwon


Btw, the titles(작호) of Joseon grand princes (unlike Europe) were not passed down to the next prince, they were given by the king himself and were unique.

Currently WP:NCKO's #Novelty section does not specify on how the names of nobility other than monarchs should be titled. It seems like there aren't much English sources on how the names of Joseon grand princes should be formatted, but the changes will surely make them more consistent with European royalties per WP:NCROY. Korean sources seem to use both styles, but more of the status quo. -- 00101984hjw (talk) 04:16, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Still thinking. Do the specific 호 (Yeongchang, etc) count as "substantive titles" per NCROY? I think the "Grand Prince" part probably counts. Per the Royals with substantive titles section. Because these seem to just be names given to people rather than specific titles (which also exist in the West; not sure of how those kinds of names are handled for Westerners on Wikipedia).
If we did align Korean titles with NCROY, not sure how we'd do it.
Also, I have a gut feeling that part of the reason NCROY recommends titles like this is because some of the names are quite generic and overlap a lot, so maybe disambiguation is coming into play here. Do these 작호 names overlap to a notable degree? seefooddiet (talk) 05:10, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
Another question; how commonly-used are the personal names of these people? If they rarely go by their personal names, maybe it'd be better to stick with just their titles? seefooddiet (talk) 09:01, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
The specific titles (작호) are definitely substantive, as that is how they were addressed in formal situations and in historical texts. Birth names (휘, also called true names) were avoided when addressing a person posthumously, and were used in limited ways.
In many Korean-language sources both styles are used (i.e. 영창대군 vs 영창대군 이의), but title-only is used more than title and birth name, as it's more succinct.
I'm not sure how many 작호 names overlap, though.
I don't really support this change. My original rationale was that it may help with WP:CONCISE as English-speaking readers may not be familiar with Asian titles. rn I'm really just curious on what other editors might think of this since I'm no expert on Joseon Korea either. Nevertheless, we should still decide on a single format and specify it in the #Novelty section. Various titles such as Gong, Hu, or Baek, which are often translated as Duke, Marquess, or Count in English, were used since the Korean Three Kingdoms period, until they were all united into Daegun (Grand Prince) in the early 1400s according to EKC, so those titles should follow the same style as well. 00101984hjw (talk) 02:28, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
Hm now that I read Substantive title closer, is this even an analogue to that system? I think it's different.
And I agree, we should develop broad guidance for these misc. royal names. Do you think you could develop a ruleset? Even in the worst case, you could just describe the most common current practice (if you think it's acceptable), and that can pass as our guidance. seefooddiet (talk) 02:42, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
Ughh...
As a disclaimer, my background knowledge on Korean history mostly stems from highschool history class, so I probably wouldn't be the best person for the job. Do you know any prominent editors from WP:CHINA? Since many of these titles were uniform throughout the sinosphere (I think Daegun was unique to Korea) they might be able to provide some guidance.
I'll try looking into Korean sources and think of something when I have the time. -- 00101984hjw (talk) 03:02, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
I don't really know many Wikipedian Chinese history experts personally; we could post on WT:CHINA for advice, but I suspect many will not be sure about the intricacies of Korea's titles.
But it's probably better that we abstain from creating guidance until we have someone who is a subject matter expert. seefooddiet (talk) 03:16, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
If you want to follow the Chinese example, then via looking at Category:Chinese princes, most of the Chinese princes are titled only via their names, and in the case of the Manchu Qing, only their personal names. However, we should not follow their example for Korean princes, as most English language sources seem to only refer to Korean princes by just their titles. It is Prince Suyang that steals the throne from his nephew, Crown Prince Sohyŏn that died suddenly from returning from the Qing, and Prince Yeongchang that was murdered by his kingly half-brother. I agree with @Seefooddiet that the Korean princely titles aren't exactly the equivalent of a substantive title from the UK. ⁂CountHacker (talk) 23:09, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
Much thanks for the input. I updated the draft with a broad guideline on article names. However, there is one last issue.
What should be do with deposed princes and queens? Current article names seem to suggest that royalties who died with their deposed status have "deposed" in their articles (Example: Deposed Queen Shin and Deposed Crown Prince Yi Hwang) while previously deposed monarchs whose status were recovered don't (Example: Princess Hwisin). Some of these articles seem to follow the WP:COMMONNAME in Korean sources, while others aren't even consistent with their corresponding articles in the kowiki. -- 00101984hjw (talk) 23:47, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
Article names on queens seem pretty consistent ("Queen Posthumous Name" for most queens / "Deposed Queen surname" for queens who were deposed, as deposed queens did not receive a posthumous title). But according to the Deposed Queen Yun article apparently Western references are rather using Deposed Lady Yun as in. --- 00101984hjw (talk) 23:55, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
Using your example of Deposed Queen Yun, there's definitely some English sources that use Deposed Queen Yun as well, such as The Lives and Legacy of Kim Sisŭp (1435–1493) and "An Annotated Translation of Daily Records of King Yeonsangun, Chapter One (the 25th Day to the 29th Day of the 12th Month of 1494)". I would say more English sources simply omit the adjective of "deposed" and simply refer to her as Queen or Lady Yun. However, since you would need to disambiguate her from the other queens and consorts surnamed Yun, you might as well keep the adjective "deposed" as a form of WP:NATDIS. Regarding the deposed crown princes, I don't recall any mentions of them in English. We could potentially just keep the status quo, and revise later when a more common name arises in English. ⁂CountHacker (talk) 04:05, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Districts?

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)
 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Does anyone know the reason we translate "-gu" to "District" for autonomous districts, but not for non-autonomous districts? Only discussion I could find is this one, but it doesn't explain the rationale.

Thoughts: I know autonomous districts are a level above non-autonomous; if the intent is to differentiate the two, this seems to be a little arbitrary of a method to do so. I haven't verified, but my impression is that the WP:COMMONNAME practice is to use "-gu" in both scenarios. If we wanted to make a WP:NCCS/WP:USEENGLISH argument, we should be consistent about the use of "District" in both scenarios. I'm trying to brainstorm alternate methods of differentiating the two types of districts (and whether we need to differentiate at all).

But I feel like maybe I'm missing something? @Sawol @Kanguole or anyone else, any thoughts? As a heads up we're currently working on rewriting both MOS:KO and WP:NCKO. seefooddiet (talk) 23:22, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Translating "-gu" as "District" in all cases would be more helpful to the English-speaking readership of this wiki. It seems particularly counter-intuitive to use partial translation to mark a distinction that, though real enough, is not made in the Korean names. The use of a hyphen indicates that "gu" is being treated as a separate element, so handling it separately from the main name seems appropriate. The distinction should be made in the opening sentence of each article. Kanguole 09:48, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the comment, I think I agree with your take. Will wait for more participation before moving to change it. seefooddiet (talk) 20:31, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
@Kanguole one additional question; what's your thoughts on North Korean districts? Those are a bit of a mess; we ask them to use "-guyok", but not to use "-ku" (equivalent to SK's "-gu") or "-chigu" at all. On the other hand, we ask them to use " County" for NK's "-kun"/"-gun", so clearly some level of WP:NCCS/WP:USEENGLISH is being applied.
I admittedly don't know much about administrative divisions in NK, though. I don't know if these are truly at the same admin level as each other, nor what the common name convention is for these. seefooddiet (talk) 22:06, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
I think it would be helpful if there's a hatnote that describe the native name, something like
In this article, the native name of this place is Jeju-do, and the place should be referred to as Jeju Island. The word -do means Island
might need rephrasing but that's all I can suggest 27.125.249.50 (talk) 15:50, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. See Template:Family name explanation#Footnotes vs. hatnotes for a related discussion. I think some people believe that hatnotes should be reserved for navigation purposes, and not article title explanations. I don't necessarily have a stance on this debate, just noting why some might argue no hatnote is better.
I think this section (Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)#First parentheses) should be reasonably clear enough. E.g. South Jeolla Province (Korean: 전라남도; RR: Jeollanam-do) is a province of ... Once this MOS passes I can go ahead and try to standardize this for all the provinces. seefooddiet (talk) 17:27, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Surnames

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)
 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi, I'm very happy there's an effort to modernize and improve the MOS guidelines for Korean articles. I'll add a few comments as I see fit here.

If the author presents their family name first (e.g. "Hong Gil-dong"), this should be preserved using an author-mask parameter.

This does not seem to match best practices by academic sources and style guides. Most Korean academic sources with English translations go by the format Moon, Jae-in, not Moon Jae-in, when listing authors (Koreascience does this, for example). This is also the case in the major style guides which all add a comma after the surname. See this guide on citing Korean surnames according to the Chicago, MLA, and APA style guides [2] which all retain the comma after the surname. ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 16:09, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

MLA is more complicated, recommending a comma if the name appears on the title page of the source with the surname last and not otherwise. Still, I agree: Wikipedia is a generalist publication, and should, like such generalist publications as Science and Nature, mark author surnames in citation lists in a uniform way, which the comma does. Not in prose of course. After all, we don't write Western names in citation lists in the same way we do in prose. We certaily shouldn't be mandating |author-mask=. Kanguole 17:39, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
It's nice to have you here editing the MOS, thank you!
I think I align with no comma. But for Kanguole's suggestion, I want to provide some nuance on |author-mask. While I don't think we necessarily need to mandate it all the time, I think we should recommend its use when the author's name was originally in Korean (particulary if it was in Hanja) and has been romanized, in order to show the original Korean text. seefooddiet (talk) 21:57, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

"Avoid redundant English names"

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)
 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

This section appears to suggest that Gyeongbokgung Palace or Bulguksa Temple are incorrect because they are tautologies. That's not how language works. Both of these see very high levels of usage if you check ngrams, and they follow hundreds of different examples in the English language - (River Avon, La Brea Tar Pits, Mount Maunganui, etc.). The guide shouldn't recommend removing these tautologies as a default, when they are very frequently the common name. ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 16:17, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

It should be made clear that common English-language takes precedence. If a name isn't found in English there might be a case for this guidance. Kanguole 17:41, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
Common English-language names taking precedence is the current guideline.
I think F4U makes a compelling case that the practice is probably common enough that maybe we remove the section altogether. However, I'll note that in practice, our current naming conventions de facto follow this guidance. Unless those naming conventions are altered, effectively nothing will change I think. The section was previously just providing a foundation for the rest of the naming conventions. But I think F4U makes a good argument that the foundation is probably incorrect. seefooddiet (talk) 22:02, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
You are right about tautologies not necessarily being "incorrect" and also being used frequently, but I’d still support keeping the redundancy section on the grounds of WP:CONCISE.
Also, would you say "Gyeongbokgung Palace" and "Bulguksa Temple" are used much more frequently than "Gyeongbokgung" and "Bulguksa" alone? Dantus21 (talk) 02:01, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
I think one could argue that because of Wikipedia's general preference for reflecting common practice, if the common practice was to do something long we should follow the common practice regardless of concision considerations. Granted, we haven't rigorously established that this kind of partial redundancy is truly the common practice.
For "Gyeongbokgung Palace" etc, those need to be researched and decided on a case-by-case basis; but I wouldn't be surprised if a reasonable number of places use that kind of partial redundancy. Again, I visited Gyeongbokgung last month and that phrasing was used in the signage of a number of places (although I recall there being inconsistency). seefooddiet (talk) 05:38, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
I probably wasn’t clear enough, but I wasn’t trying to contradict concision with WP:COMMONNAME, which your first paragraph seemed to addresss (forgive me if my interpretation was wrong). Dantus21 (talk) 05:46, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
I think I wasn't clear enough either lol. I meant the step after WP:COMMONNAME. I.e. assuming no known common name exists, if in general people tend to render names in a lengthy manner... etc seefooddiet (talk) 05:55, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
Oh, that’s what you meant. My fault for the misunderstanding 😅 Dantus21 (talk) 06:21, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Names hyphenation

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)
 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi Freedom4U, could you give rationale/evidence for no hyphenation for North Korean names? seefooddiet (talk) 06:05, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

That's what the AP style guide recommends and I haven't seen anything to contradict that guidance. It's also the style that North Korean English-language publications use. ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 06:06, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
Confirmed that's the AP's recommendation, may try to look into NK's official recommendation to confirm. But also hm. Looking at the 2022 edition AP style guide I can get access to, it says The style and spelling of names in North Korea and South Korea follow each government’s standard policy for transliterations unless the subject has a personal preference.
I need to do more research, but to my knowledge SK actually officially recommendations against hyphenation for personal names. [3] As a rule, syllables in given names are not seperated by hyphen, but it is admitted to use a hyphen between syllables.
It may not matter that AP may be technically incorrect in this, as so many English-language publications hyphenate regardless. seefooddiet (talk) 06:41, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
Ooh yeah I'm aware of the South Korean government's recommendation not to hyphenate, honestly don't know what's up with that. But I can confidently say that the majority of news outlets I'm aware of spell North Korean names like that (without the hyphen). As for North Korean publications, you can pretty quickly confirm that's the case looking at KCNA Watch—a North Korean news aggregator run by NK News ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 06:54, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
Right, I think probably safe to accept NK no hyphen, although finding the govt's recommendations would be a nice bonus. I may research the SK situation further. seefooddiet (talk) 07:08, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
@F4U As a heads up, NK's situation is, at least officially, more complicated than we just discussed [4]. Someone had pointed this out to me before, but it slipped my mind.
If names are Sino-Korean, then they are spaced, else no spaces. Needlessly complicated rule... I'm not sure whether we should ask people to do this too. I'm not sure if this rule is enforced in NK. May try looking into it now, but may be hard to verify.
Edit:I'm leaning towards not asking them to do it. It's too complicated for such little marginal gain. seefooddiet (talk) 03:22, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
Ack, thank you for finding that! Did you mean that they are not spaced? The examples they give are
1. 김꽃분이 Kim KKotpuni
2. 박동구 Pak Tong Gu
3. 안복철 An Pok Chŏl
None of which are hyphenated. Still, I think by their spelling conventions basically no names used in North Korea are spelled without a space (since basically all given names seem to be composed of hanja). You can look through some of these [5] [6], I couldn't find any examples otherwise. ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 03:48, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
Yes, I edited my comment afterwards but you probably didn't see. And I agree, functionally most two-char personal names are rendered with spaces in them.
Side note, the KKotpuni example is illustrative of >2 char given names not using spaces (and their weird double capitalization rule), so that's something. The >2 rule and double capitalization aren't hard to do/understand, so may include in guideline to just do that. seefooddiet (talk) 03:59, 27 August 2024 (UTC) Edit: This part of the comment was incorrect and I no longer agree with it. seefooddiet (talk) 07:21, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Romanization for North Korea articles...

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)
 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Realizing the Romanization situation for North Korea is on shaky ground. I want to avoid discussion fatigue, but this bit is important.

The Romanization of Korean (North) ("NKR") differs from McCune–Reischauer in a number of ways. See [7]. Some examples:

  • 전라도 NKR: Jŏlla-do vs MR: Chŏlla-do.
  • 찔레골 NKR: JJilre-gol or Jilre-gol vs MR: Tchille-gol. Notice the second capital "J" and optional removal of second "J".
  • 김꽃분이 NKR: Kim KKotpuni vs MR: Kim Kkotpuni. Notice the second capital "K".

Currently, we blanket recommend MR for all NK-related topics. Yet, as discussed in #Names hyphenation, we're considering borrowing elements of the official North Korean style for people names, and applying them to MR, when really those style elements are a part of NKR. I don't think this works.

I think these are our options:

  1. Use NKR for all NK-related concepts.
  2. Use pure MR for all NK-related concepts (i.e. for names, no spaces or hyphens between syllables by default).
  3. Use MR for all NK-related concepts, borrow elements of NKR style rules (as proposed in #Names hyphenation) and apply them to MR.
  4. Use NKR for people names only, use MR for everything else.

I think we should do either 1 or 2; think 3 and 4 are too confusing and arbitrary.

I'm leaning towards 2. 2 is closest to the current status quo, and is closest to international academic writings on Korea. It also is asking less of our users; we're already asking them to learn MR and RR, adding NKR is a lot.

But also arguments for 1: news articles on KCNA Watch use NKR (example). [Edit: also, I emailed NK News and confirmed that their style guide asks for NKR.] It also may seem like a political move to not use NK's preferred system (although SK's systems have long been ignored by the academic community and seemingly nobody's been bothered by our use of MR for NK thus far). seefooddiet (talk) 07:36, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Freedom4U Yue Kanguole Dantus21 CountHacker Tagging users who may care about this issue. If you know other people who edit on North Korea, please tag them too. Sorry for so many discussions, we're getting closer to finishing this, just a few major open questions. seefooddiet (talk) 07:40, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
Relevant past discussions: 2003, 2004 pt 1, 2004 pt 2, 2006.
For NK, MR has been in place since the first version of the MOS/NCKO. I couldn't really find an adequate discussion of why NKR isn't used, but I'm maybe missing something. seefooddiet (talk) 18:05, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
One key detail in the AP Stylebook I just noticed is this: The style and spelling of names in North Korea and South Korea follow each government’s standard policy for transliterations unless the subject has a personal preference. Technically, the AP is asking its staff to use NKR for people's names. I'm not sure how closely they follow that guidance. For place names, it seems like NKR isn't being consistently applied: e.g. NKR and MR ("phyongan" and "pyongan"; 13 results for "Phyongan" vs 19 for "Pyongan"). You can observe similar for NKNews: 170 results for "Pyongan", 208 for "Phyongan".
I'm still leaning MR because of status quo and possible divided usage on MR/NKR. seefooddiet (talk) 07:16, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
Sorry for my late response! I’m no expert, but I’d say Option 2 by a long shot, as it seems to be what the majority of reliable sources seem to use. I wouldn’t worry about it being a political statement, since we’re just following what the sources do. If someone has a different take I’d be interested in hearing it though. — Dantus21 (talk) 04:23, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
I'm for option 2 too. --ChoHyeri (talk) 12:51, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
As an update I'm increasingly conflicted and need to do more research. I'm going to try and verify what other mainstream international newspapers use. So far I've verified that NK News and Associated Press both recommend NKR (with the latter recommending it for names). seefooddiet (talk) 08:17, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
I’m sure you already were thinking this, but also keep in mind what the newspapers actually practice too, as it seems like AP and NK didn’t strictly follow their own recommendations. Dantus21 (talk) 11:26, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
Going to investigate that as well. My example given was a possible common name situation seefooddiet (talk) 18:08, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
I've been doing some more thinking. Our rules are already incredibly complicated, and we're already asking for knowledge of at least 2 romanization systems. I suspect NKR actually does see a good amount of usage, but I'm loathe to overload our rules even more. Complication drives people away, and we need more editors. seefooddiet (talk) 05:04, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
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