From Wikitravel

Romanization is the process of mapping a script into the Latin alphabet used for English. This page attempts to provide guidelines for romanization on Wikitravel.

As a rule of thumb, romanization should allow the casual reader to guess at the pronunciation, and the expert to pronounce it right.

Contents 1 General 1.1 Places 1.2 Terms 2 Languages 2.1 Chinese 2.2 Hebrew 2.3 Korean 2.4 Japanese 2.5 Thai 2.6 Vietnamese

General

• For article titles, use the most common English name for a place, regardless of character set. See Wikitravel:Article naming conventions for details.

• In article content, use the correct diacritics at least the first time the name is given.

Places

The following guidelines apply to any places in listings (See, Do, Eat, Drink, Sleep, etc.)

• If a place has a common English name use it, but always provide the local script and correct romanization in parentheses.
  • Example: Xilin Pagoda (西林塔 Xīlíntǎ) ...

• If a place has no English name at all, which is unusual but not impossible, use the romanization as the name and give the script in parentheses.
  • Example: Tunguta (トゥングタ). A rice field in the middle of the island...

• For places without signs in Latin latters, italicize the romanization and give the script in parentheses:
  • Example: Khrob Khreung (ครบเครื่อง), Ari Samphan Soi 10. Famous for its kuay tiow yam bok rice noodles...

Terms

The following guidelines apply to any local terms used in other content (the introductory glosses of any section, cultural coverage, etc.)

• If you want to give the local name of any term, place both local script and romanization in parentheses after the English name.
  • Example: One Japanese specialty worth seeking out is eel (うなぎ unagi) ...

• If using a romanized term in text, italicize it and provide the local script in parentheses. If you want to include a literal translation, this can also go within the parentheses, but in quotes.
  • Example: In Thailand, Western-style black tea is known as chaa ron (ชาร้อน, lit. "tea hot") ...

Languages

Chinese

Chinese romanization is complicated by the vast variety of dialects used and some intractable political difficulties. Rules of thumb are:

• For articles about mainland China, use Hanyu pinyin romanization and simplified form Chinese characters.

• For articles about Hong Kong and Macau, use Cantonese with Yale romanization and traditional Chinese characters. However, if the most commonly used name is under a different system, use that and not Yale.

• For articles about Taiwan, use Wade-Giles romanization (without the necessary apostrophes) for older and well-known place names and either Hanyu pinyin or Tongyong pinyin for lesser known placenames (depending on which political party is controlling the locality, but we won't delve into that mess here). The Chinese characters included should be in traditional format.

• Use tone marks, not tone numbers. Use the tone converter if necessary.
  • 中国 is Zhōngguó, not "Zhong1 Guo2"
• Write syllables together and in lowercase.
  • 南大街 is Nándàjiē, not "Nan Da Jie" or "NanDaJie"

See also: WikiPedia:Wikipedia:Manual of Style (China-related articles)

Hebrew

Hebrew romanization is highly nonstandard and complicated by the existence of numerous dialects with varying pronunciations. The closest to an official standard is the United Nations romanization, which is particularly useful for the traveller as it is widely used in maps.

• Use United Nations romanization, with the following two exceptions:
  • Use "ch" for het (ח), not ẖ (h-underscore)
  • Use "tz" for tzadi (ץ צ), not ẕ (z-underscore)

The surrogates above are widely used in Israel itself, and are better supported by PCs for display and entry.

Korean

Korean romanization is comparatively straightforward.

• For South Korea, use the Revised Romanization of Korean, officially adopted in 2000 for governmental use in signs etc and widely used elsewhere too.
  • Use Hong's Hangul Conversion Tools to convert hangeul to Revised Romanization and back.
  • Note the McCune-Reischauer form in content and add a redirect if the old form is well known (eg. Pusan→Busan, Inchon→Incheon, Cheju→Jeju)

• For North Korea, use McCune-Reischauer, which remains the country's sole official system.
  • Omit breves and apostrophes from article titles (eg. Pyongyang), but leave them in content (P'yŏngyang).

• Personal names on both sides should still written according the nameholder's preference or common convention (eg. Kim Il-sung, not "Kim Il-sŏng", and Syngman Rhee, not "I Seung-man"). The same applies to Hangul, kimchi and taekwondo.

Japanese

For Japanese, Hepburn (written by an American for foreigners) has been the de facto standard of romanization for the past 100 years esp. in publications geared to foreigners, while official standard Kunrei (written by Japanese for Japanese) is used very little. Thus:

• Use Hepburn romanization.
• Indicate long vowels with macrons, except in article titles.
• Always romanize ん as n, but create a redirect from the m form if common. For example, 群馬 is Gunma, but you can still search for Gumma.
• Syllabic n ん is written n' (with apostrophe) when followed by a vowel or y, but not when followed by another n. Hence 山陽 is San'yō but 新橋 is Shinbashi.

See also: WikiPedia:Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)

Thai

Thai romanization is generally a mess, with several incompatible 'standards' and lots of completely nonstandard off-the-cuff attempts. In general:

• Use the most common English name for article names.

• When in doubt, use the Royal Thai General System of Transcription (RTGS), used in road signs, time tables and government publications, and the closest thing there is to an official standard.
  • Hence Khao San Road, not "Kao Sarn", and Ayutthaya, not "Ayodhya"
  • In particular, Ko (not Koh) for islands
  • Always use RTGS if providing the pronunciation after a Thai name, eg. กรุงเทพฯ Krung Thep for the city known in English as Bangkok

See also: WikiPedia:Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Thailand-related articles)

Vietnamese

Vietnamese is actually written in the Latin alphabet, but the vast slew of tonal diacritics make handling it a little difficult.

• Strip diacritics from article titles, but include them in the article body.
  • Hanoi (Hà Nội) is the capital of Vietnam...

• Syllables should be separated in article titles and content, but included the combined form in the article body if it's a reasonably common alternative.
  • Nha Trang is a nice town and xe om motorbikes are dangerous
  • Ha Long Bay (Halong Bay) is pretty
  • Five exceptions to the rule: Dalat, Danang, Hanoi, Saigon and Vietnam itself