Talk:Chinese postal romanization

message: Postal System Pinyin is not a good name for this page, I will go and check the library and get back with a suggestion.--Niohe 15:50, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good idea. Thanks for looking into this.—Nat Krause(Talk!) 02:37, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Great! As I see it now, "Chinese Postal Map Romanization" is probably the most appropriate name for the article. "Imperial" only covers the Qing dynasty. I'll see if I can get more feedback and then I'll make a move in the next couple of days or so.--Niohe 03:19, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Chinese Postal Map Romanization seems like the best name to me as well. john k 13:45, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Yeah, that is a possible name as well. The reason why I chose "postal map" is because the romanization is often referred to as "postal map spelling" or "postal atlas spelling" in the literature.--Niohe 00:57, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Page move suggested

message: I just moved the page, I have also changed the romanization template accordingly. Please let me know if this move has caused any double redirects or broken links, and I will take care of it.--Niohe 20:23, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixing all broken redirects is the onus of the editor moving a page (though one almost always ignored).  Badagnani 00:01, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I know and I'm working on it.--Niohe 00:58, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page moved 

message: I have located the original source for this article; there is a Chinese article on the "postal system spelling" in the volume on language and writing in the great Chinese encyclopedia, Zhongguo da baike quanshu. Unsourced transcripts of this article has circulated on-line for a while, and eventually ended up here.--Niohe 15:32, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Source of this article

message: The reference to Zhongguo da baike needs tone marks, at the very least, if not characters; & an English version of the title would certainly be useful!  And the publisher should probably be translated as well: how on earth is a non-specialist reader meant to understand "chubanshe"?
Incidentally, it would be a good thing if citation templates were used for the references. NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 16:42, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Encyclopedia reference 

message: I find this article dissatisfying in several ways. The most serious problem is that there is no image of the actual map. So what was on it? According to Harris, who is cited at the bottom of the article, postal Romanization was based on a system called "Nanking syllabary" which was created by Herbert Giles (of Wade-Giles fame). Harris doesn't mention the French EFEO system, although this article does make an unsourced claim in this regard.
Here is some more information I dug up that's not currently in the article: The first edition of the postal map was the China Postal Working Map published in 1903. This was followed up in 1907 and 1919 with a China Postal Album. The literal Postal Map of China was an enclosure published as part of an annual Postal Guide in 1918-1921. (I gather Harris went to the archive and found maps for other years as well.) The Nationalists published a China Postal Atlas in Nanjing in 1933 and 1936. Any modern reference to a postal map likely refers to one of these two editions. Earlier editions are much harder to get access to.
Examples of irregular spellings given on the postal map:
:Peking (Beijing), Canton (Guangzhou), Amoy (Xiamen), Foochow (Fuzhou), Woosung (Wusong), Soochow (Suzhou),  Chinkiang (Zhenjiang), Shasi (?), Chefoo (Yantai), and Chinwangtao (Qinhuangdao).
Examples of regular spellings:
:Tientsin (Tianjin), Shantung (Shandong), Kiangsu (Jiangsu), Shansi (Shanxi), Hupeh (Hubei), Kirin (Jilin), Heilungkiang (Heilongjiang), Honan (Henan), and Kansu (Gansu). Tasty love salad (talk) 07:12, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Concerns

message: Does anyone off Wikipedia call this subject "Chinese postal map romanization"? In Encyclopedia of China (2013), Perkins calls it "postal system of romanization." Harris calls it "Postal Romanization" right in the title of his article. The 1961 ROC book, which I take to be the finalized version of this standard, is titled Postal Romanization. I don't see a reason to call it anything else. From looking the discussion above, I gather that the current name is not based on English-language sources, but is rather a loose translation of the Chinese name. This seems a poor way to pick a name. The Chinese version of the name doesn't use the word "map" anyway. Tasty love salad (talk) 06:33, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Per my point on the template page a few days ago just “postal romanization” is unclear as a title, as it could be referring to any of a number of countries in theory, a reader would not know which without reading the article or finding out elsewhere. The sources mentioned above may not mention China but that is implicit in the “Encyclopedia of China” and the others. We are not just an encyclopaedia of China, so need to be more precise. I have therefore moved it to restore “Chinese” to the title.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 23:30, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: You can put more information into any title. Where is Xi'an anyway? Shouldn't it be Xi'an, China? Tasty love salad (talk) 08:14, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Xi'an is not ambiguous. Nor is Beijing or Shanghai. Durham is, so we have Durham, England and Durham, North Carolina among others. The general rule is to be as precise as necessary so someone reading the title can know what it stands for without reading the article. There are exceptions, such as for US place names, but this is not covered by any of them. See WP:PRECISION for more details and examples.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 15:32, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Title of article

message: There's a public domain copy of these books. They've been in the public domain for decades. — LlywelynII 02:09, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Surely

message: This is such a good article, good work everyone 🙏🏻 toobigtokale (talk) 18:34, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good job 

message: Can I remove the additions of fou to the city names in the D'Anville column of the ? Those just stand for 府 - ancient administrative divisions or capitals of prefectures; such information belongs into the articles about these administrative divisions. In one case - 西安 - the 府 may have had a reappearance from 1919 to 1947, according to our table, if that is even true. (The map given as reference just shows “西安市”, and our Chinese sister project, in its article :zh:西安府, says it was abolished in 1913. So I think we should delete that as well.) Still, conceivably an argument could be made for at least mentioning that one. At any rate, that's worth no more than a footnote.
Back to D'Anville: Was that even really a postal romanization? In that case, we would have to change the introduction, according to which they were not developed until the late 19th century. Otherwise, it probably can remain in the table, but it should be clarified that that's only for the sake of comparison. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 14:32, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remove foo-lish additions?