Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Mongolian)/Archive 01

message: But why 'j' for 'ж' and not 'ch' or 'č' ? It is after all /ʧ/ and not /ʤ/ (at least according to Mongolian language). - Francis Tyers · 12:49, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, so I just looked again, and 'ch' is already used for 'ч', /ʧʰ/. Omniglot at least has 'ч' as /ʧ/ and 'ж' as /ʤ/ and /ʧ/  I guess in this case it is ok to use 'j' (as Tajiks do). But it's still wierd why our Mongolian language page doesn't mention /ʤ/. - Francis Tyers · 12:55, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The actual choice for ж is between J, č, and Zh. č is is only comprehensible for linguists and Czech language speakers, so I'm ruling it out. And as far as I know the pronounciation in Mongolian is with more voice than in Russian, which would justify the J instead of Zh. As you may have noticed, I'm not a linguists, so this may or may not make sense... --Latebird 13:40, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually iirc 'č' is quite widely used as /ʧ/ in transliteration into Latin for other languages, e.g. Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Russian etc. I agree with you that we should use 'j'/'J' for the letter, but what I was wondering is why the page on Mongolian language does not mention the /ʤ/. - Francis Tyers · 13:45, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't know, do we? How would they be written in Mongolian? - Francis Tyers · 13:54, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm afraid I can't speak for the authors of Mongolian language. As a non-scientific addendum: J is simply the most commonly used replacement for the Mongolian ж, inside and outside of en:WP. That may serve as yet another reason for us to agree on it. ;-) --Latebird 13:59, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: /ʧ/ is usually written as "ch" or "č" only when it is in opposition to /ʤ/. When /ʧ/ is in oppostion to /ʧʰ/, it is often treated as equivalent to /ʤ/ and there written "j" (or "dj", possibly "zh").—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 19:23, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Choices for ж 

message: Also, it would be good to have the IPA in the romanisation table. - Francis Tyers · 12:56, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that listing IPA would be of much use in a WP-internal romanization guideline. That rather belongs into article space. --Latebird 13:40, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it would be useful to describe on what we are basing this. - Francis Tyers · 13:53, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

text:  As the proposal says, it's based on a compromise between BGN/PCGN and Wikipedia:Romanization_of_Russian. I don't think the guideline needs to specify the linguistic rationale for each indivual character. We can do that here in the discussion for the non-trivial cases. -Latebird 14:03, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  IPA 

message: (subheading for editing convenience)
In other words, the Ь gets treated no different than any other vowel at the end of a word. This peculiarity of the Mongolian pronounciation rules can't be solved by a romanization system. We just have to live with the fact that most of our readers will pronounce the ending vowels in Erdene, Selenge, Chandmani, Soyombo, etc., where a Mongolian would not.
We could, however, give pronounciation hints (where known) in the introduction to individual articles.
*The Soyombo script (, soyombo bichig; pronounced: Soyomb)...
*Dariganga (; pronounced: Dar-gang)...
This should only be necessary with ending vowels or some special cases of composed words like Dariganga/Darganga. Of course, adding IPA would be even better, for those who are fluent enough in it. Is this a reasonable approach? --Latebird 09:44, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Generally speaking, any romanisation which requires you to routinely respell it for pronunciation is questionable. Also, I wasn't aware that Mongolian never pronounces vowels and the ends of words. That does put things in a different perspective.—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 00:08, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the ending vowels are not completely ignored, but they become very short. In some cases, if you do not know an exact pronounciation of a word, it is better (understood if you) clearly pronounce the ending vowels than completely ignore them. Temur 07:20, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Do many articles for other places with foreign (like french) names have spelling hints? I think anyone who knows how to pronounce "sain baina uu?" (btw. I strongly prefer writing 'I' for 'Й') or "bayarlalaa" has a clue that you don't really pronounce all vowels, and the other probably don't really need to. Plus they would still need to know where the stress is to pronounce the word entirely correct. Yaan 14:11, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ending vowels and pronounciation hints 

message: In the section Use conventional names there is still an open question about composite words, where we have a conventional english name for one of the parts. Currently, we have two prominent examples that are treated differently. For names that contain the word Khan, the english translation is used quite consistently (with the Chinggis Khaan International Airport as a noteable and justified exception). On the other hand, we have the Gobi desert, but many place names where the transliteration "Govi" (or even "Govĭ") is used instead.
Personally, I'd prefer to always use the translated english form in such cases, unless there are specific reasons against it. This would result in titles like Dornogobi province (, translit.: Dornogovi aymag, pronounced: Dornogov), Dundgobi, Gobi-Altay, Gobisümber etc. For what it's worth, the german language WP also handles it that way (even if I'm not aware of an explicit guideline about composites there). Any opinions? --Latebird 11:31, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: IMO not a good compromise, it makes -gobi look like the correct mongolian form, when it should be -govi. It's like using Nord Rhine-Westphalia instead of either Nordrhein-W. or North Rhine-W. Yaan 14:10, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Yaan on this. It's better not to mix Mongolian and English forms together like that.—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 21:46, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Latebird on using Gobi, but translating the word inside a composite word seems to be going too far. Should Dornogovi be written as Eastgobi? Temur 22:03, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Translated words in composites 

message: It seems that within the transliteration table, the soft sign is the last open point. I don't see any strong opposition against i anymore, but there are some arguments for an apostrophe. Personally, I think that an apostrophe stands in the way of making linking to those articles easy and second nature, so I'd prefer the i for the article name. But it probably makes sense to give the apostrophe version as an alternative:
Ь (ь)	I (i) / '	Дарьганга = Dariganga (also Dar'ganga)
Example:
:Dariganga (; also Dar'ganga).
This should make it clear that there's something funky going on in the cyrillic original, and that the soft sign is not just a regular vowel. At the same time, I've come to the conclusion that the "pronounciation hints" were probably a silly idea. The pronounciation rules for ending vowels are not part of ortography, neither in cyrillic nor in latin, so they shouldn't be part of this guideline. Of course, if someone can figure out (or look up) the accurate IPA form, then that would be very welcome anyway. --Latebird 12:00, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Could we find an article where "pronounciation hints" are useful and move them there? Temur 16:49, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What I would like to see is a system of romanisation which will show all of the linguistically relevant information contained in the Cyrllic spelling. It's still not clear to me whether there is a relevant distinction to made between и and ь in Mongolian.—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 20:32, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Somewhat simplified: If last consonant palatalized: Two word-final consonants -> i, One word-final consonant -> soft sign. However, new syllabification rules: arhi syllabifies as a-r'<V>h. Thus, the difference is linguistically irrelevant. G Purevdorj 20:46, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Soft sign and pronounciation hints, second round 

message: I've added a short section to mention that historic names may take different forms than what the modern cyrillic Mongolian version would suggest. --Latebird 12:07, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is good idea to create historic names list. About Ulaanbaatar: it looks like Ulan Bator cames from Russian Улан-Батор, but in Russian this name (diffrent fron Mongolian Улаанбаатар) is the same pronounciation (as it possible in Russian) like in Mongolian (unaccented "о" in Russian is spelled "a"). Bogomolov.PL 12:25, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Yes, but I mean existing WP articles texts: is it possible to give OUR latinization in brackets? Or we will use only traditional form? What will be with latinizations realy in use in other sources? Gobi - gov' - govi or other forms? Ulaanbaatar - Ulan Bator - Ulan-Bator? I think is reasonable to use traditional form with other, our also, forms in brackets. Bogomolov.PL 16:16, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historic names 

message: I've been bold, remaned the page to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Mongolian), and declared it an official guideline. Let's hope it will be as useful as it is intended to be! --Latebird 09:15, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Now an official guideline