Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daoism–Taoism romanization issue

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 no consensus. Sandstein 08:50, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Daoism–Taoism romanization issue[edit]

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Not a notable topic. The topic "Daoism–Taoism romanization issue" is not a significant topic, just an example of a something that arises with Chinese and many other languages that have non-Latin alphabets: how different Romanisations lead to different ways of writing them in English.

With Chinese it arises because Hanyu Pinyin is a relatively modern standard, so something that was transliterated into English before 1950 often has a different Romanisation to the modern one. It’s not an "issue", none of the sources seem to identify it as such. It’s just a consequence of how transliteration between languages works. JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 18:37, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. – TheGridExe (talk) 20:44, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. – TheGridExe (talk) 20:44, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete For the reasons I have expressed in Talk, i.e. no issue, dispute or controversy exists about romanisation; one pundit contends for a linkage between the choice of romanisation and variance in theology but no other has shown any interest in the idea which is little wonder because it suggests that if one decides to use one form of romanisation one has chosen one's theology, which is close to a crackpot suggestion and patently incorrect in this specific instance. sirlanz 22:28, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete The romanization of the word is no more an issue than thousands and thousands of other Chinese words, and no more noteworthy. Fails WP:GNG. Hzh (talk) 22:49, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. MarginalCost (talk) 23:52, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep "Taoism" has become the accepted standard way of writing the name in English, as Wade-Giles has been the standard way of transcribing Chinese names for over a century now. Although the modern use of the name based on pinyin - "Daoism" - may be easily understood by English-speakers with some background in Chinese, I have found it is a common cause of confusion for many ordinary English-speaking people. Often, it seems, they just don't have any idea of what is being spoken about - unless it is specifically made clear that "Dao" = "Tao". This is not a matter of clarifying a simple noun - but making the name of a major religio-philosphical system clear.John Hill (talk) 05:57, 18 May 2018 (UTC).[reply]

The article is not about a matter of confusion of there being two ways to romanise (spell) the word; it's about that there is an issue or controversy and that that controversy goes to the root of two streams of theology. So your concern is not dealt with by this page; it can be dealt with by a sentence or two on the Daoism page itself. sirlanz 06:25, 18 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

According to WikiBlame, this article never mentioned a "theological" issue. However, article content you deleted did mention issues of linguistics, lexicography, and Chinese borrowings, as we discussed in Talk:Daoism–Taoism romanization issue#Sixty-two percent deletion? Keahapana (talk) 21:50, 18 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep but broaden or merge to already broader page. This is sufficiently sourced, but it is not really an encyclopedic topic in its own right. Rather, conflicting/shifting romanizations of Chinese names/terms more generally is the topic, including to what extent they're being assimilated and accepted by scholarly writers and the general public. E.g., Beijing has almost completely replaced Peking except in the context of certain food items (Peking duck), while the vast majority of published material on Mao Tse-tung, Lao Tzu, the Tao Te Ching, and other such matters (in English) still use those spellings, despite the preference of some for somewhat more phonetically accurate renderings like Mao Zedong, Laozi. and Daodejing. Indeed, the moving of our own articles toward the latter types of names is controversial and should probably be undone, because the results fail the WP:RECOGNIZABLE policy for most readers. Anyway, this has nothing to do with Tao/Dao in particular; it's just one example. The tidbit that at least one scholar is trying to draw a distinction between "real" Chinese Daoism and heavily Westernized "Taoism" is faintly interesting, but is insufficient to establish the Tao/Dao spelling divergence as a distinct encyclopedic topic from the broader class of such Chinese romanization matters. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 10:42, 18 May 2018 (UTC); updated: 15:07, 18 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Broader articles already exist, such as Romanization of Chinese for the general topic, Comparison of Chinese transcription systems for more detail on the differences between them, Standard Chinese phonology for the distinctive features of Chinese that make it hard to Romanise. Individual articles cover names like Beijing, Laozi, and of course Taoism. This is just one example and not an especially interesting one, unlike e.g. Beijing where earlier Romanisations reflect changes in language usage and the name of the city – see Names of Beijing.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 11:38, 18 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Then the stub being AfDed can merge to one of those. There's no rationale to delete the sourced content from the encyclopedia entirely. It's not a good stand-alone page, while the material is in fact encyclopedically relevant and sourced well enough to keep it. I updated my !vote to account for a merge. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 15:04, 18 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Restore and keep As seen here, this article's current contentious version is an evisceration of the last consensus version. I suggest reexamining or restoring the relevant, sourced content that was deleted before deciding what to do. Keahapana (talk) 21:50, 18 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: The article conflates or confuses two things: the specific issue of how to write what is generally known in English as Taoism, with the general problem of different approaches to romanising Chinese in particular, and languages with a different set of aspiration/voicing distinctions. If all of these linguistic issues are included in this article, there would then be licence in principle for a corresponding article on the romanisation of any Chinese word known in English. Imaginatorium (talk) 12:34, 19 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Reasonably full discussion so far has resulted in no consensus, but has not yet been re-listed, and there is every reason to believe that further discussion could see a consensus develop.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Steve Smith (talk) 01:05, 25 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete This is not an issue of indepdent encyclopedic importance. The whole issue of how to romanize this word can be covered in the article on the subject itself.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:02, 26 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Article is well sourced. Deletion arguments that it's "just not notable" are not sufficient enough to warrant deletion.Egaoblai (talk) 13:28, 26 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- if it’s a notable topic can you find a source where the "Daoism–Taoism romanization issue" is discussed in sufficient depth for notability ? As far as I can tell none of the sources discuss this "issue" at all, They just use one or the other, or perhaps both with the suggestion they are the same.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 06:32, 27 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  - Carr (1990) in References discusses it in detail, but almost all of the content from this article was deleted. Come to think of it, should we restore the Lexicography section to better inform this AfD discussion? Keahapana (talk) 23:49, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comment This article is really more about what the accepted English spelling of a religion should be and why, rather than the actual process of romanisation. After over 150 years of use, "Taoism" has become the accepted standard spelling in English, with the pinyin transcription, "Daoism", only becoming an acceptable variant in recent times. See, for example, the entry on "Taoism" in the online (and up-to-date) version of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).John Hill (talk) 02:58, 27 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: You seem to have !voted twice, which is against the rules. Please amend your second comment with an appropriate label like "Comment". ¶ Of course you are right that "Taoism" is an English word, and the accepted name of a religio-philosophic system whose name originates in the Chinese word written 道. I guess there is a campaign to rename it as "Daoism", based on a confusion between romanising a Chinese word or name (like Beijing) and trying to change English words based on different ways of writing part of them in the original language. As though we changed all -ation words to spell -azione, because of changes from Latin to modern Italian. But anyway, there really is no coherent "topic" here: alternative spelling of Taoism can be dealt with in Taoism, the difference between aspiration and voicing can be described in a linguistics article. And your comment here simply says nothing about why this article is needed. Imaginatorium (talk) 06:24, 27 May 2018 (UTC) Thanks so much for pointing out that I should have headed my last note as a "comment" rather than as another attempt at voting. I hadn't realised that was what I was doing - so I have changed the heading as you suggested. Cheers, John Hill (talk) 06:48, 27 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 14:05, 1 June 2018 (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.