Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Chinese exonyms for places in Japan

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. While Atitarev is correct that an article on Chinese exonyms and orthography might an interesting article make, the list doesn't have the value needed. WP:NOT. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 13:25, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

List of Chinese exonyms for places in Japan

The article contains merely Chinese pronounciation of the same kanji names. As Chinese and Japanese share part of the writing system, these are not considered exonyms. People seeking this information should simply consult a kanji dictionary. o (talk) 01:24, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. This ain't the chinese Wiktionary. Equendil Talk 03:23, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Seems open and shut; this is not a dictionary and this article is pretty unencyclopedic. Chris Picone! 04:27, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Japan-related deletion discussions. —Fg2 (talk) 10:49, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete How is this encyclopedic? To begin with, why Chinese? -- Taku (talk) 12:23, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: I wonder if this thread is failing to consider the rationale which informed the work of editors whose names are recorded in the edit history? I would have thought that whether or not this article is "encyclopedic" can only be assessed within the ambit established by its categories and by the ranges of similar articles which are encompassed within those categories, e.g.,

Category:Exonyms --> List of English exonyms for German toponyms; English exonyms of Arabic speaking places

Category:Language comparison --> List of foreign place names in Japanese

Category:Toponymy --> List of foreign place names in Japanese

Category:Transliteration --> Anglicisation

The perceived problem is somewhat misconstrued in wiki-terms of deletion or inclusion. In my view, a better way of framing an arguable issue would focus on whether List of Chinese exonyms for places in Japan should have been expected or required to explain the contexts of its unfamiliar categories? --Tenmei (talk) 14:29, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: The articles you listed are useful and encyclopedic because they address pertinent topics. The problem with this article in question is that 1. per TakuyaMurata, why Chinese? And 2. since the overwhelming majority of Japanese kanji has its correspondance in Chinese, and that the overwhelming majority of Japanese placenames are written exclusively in kanji, there is virtually no "real" Chinese exonym for Japanese places. I'd suggest changing this article into List of exonyms in East Asia, and listing placenames in China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, etc., all of which used the Chinese writing at one point, making real exonyms (e.g. Seoul) of particular encyclopedic interest. But in any case there's nothing in this article now that's worth keeping. o (talk) 13:46, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: According to the Exonym and endonym article: "Some languages use the same spelling as the endonym but change the pronunciation, thus making it an exonym." Therefore using the Chinese pronunciation of the kanji/hanzi normally pronounced with the Japanese reading makes it, contra the nomination, an exonym. —Quasirandom (talk) 17:10, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: That statement is not a dictionary or academic definition of the term, and I think it should be removed. If that statement is indeed the case, then one could argue that virtually all place names in foreign languages are exonyms, since names that match exactly in pronounciation across languages are relatively rare. One could go as far as claiming that almost all placenames in Scotland are exonyms when pronounced in American English. o (talk) 13:38, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Administrivia: The templates seem to have not been completely applied to this AfD -- I've attempted to fix them, but if a full-time wikignome could check my work, that'd be wise. —Quasirandom (talk) 22:49, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Copy to Wiktionary, and someone has already placed that template on the article. I recommend waiting for the copy to happen, then deleting the article. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 18:25, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I'm not even sure what Wikitionary needs with this.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 06:22, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep :There is so little in the English Wikipedia about the topic about how the foreign names are transcribed into Chinese and so much can be done to make the article useful.

Japanese and Chinese transliteration mutual comparison can be of special interest, since there are many factors:

Modern Japanese and Chinese names have very different phonetical values, thus the names convey the same meaning but do not retain or render the original pronunciation. The analogy with European languages doesn't exactly work, as the spelling is not phonetical. So a stop sign may mean the same thing in any language but doesn't have to be written or pronounced the same way. It's worth noting that apart from the character orthography, standard romanisation should be taken into account, which again proves that Chinese and Japanese geographical names are true exonyms.

The simplification in Japan and mainland China developed differently, thus sometimes creating a variety of version for the same name - Japanese, Chinese simplified and Chinese traditional.

To user o, who initiated the deletion: There is a big number of monolingual lists in the Wikipedia. You might to review them before trying to delete someone's efforts. You suggested to improve, why not instead of being destructive be productive and improve the article instead? I suggest Korean and Vietnamese may be a candidate for a separate article, as they don't have a Kun'yomi concept, which makes Japanese and Chinese so different (more different than modern Chinese vs On'yomi. --Atitarev (talk) 06:28, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, seems like it might be appropriate to Chinese Wiktionary or possibly Wikibooks, but not here. Stifle (talk) 08:57, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.