Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Indic)
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[edit] Policy
In naming Indic-related topics and article titles in the English language Wikipedia, please follow these conventions. The term Indic is used here to refer to names and words that originated in one of the languages of the Indian subcontinent, and that are written in Brahmi derived scripts. For infoboxes, templates, and other style issues, see also Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Indic-related articles).
[edit] Scope
[edit] Languages of origin
This convention should be applied to any language spoken in the Indian subcontinent that is written in an Indic script. The major languages are: Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Konkani (when written in Kannada or Devanagari scripts), Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Pali, Punjabi (when written in Gurmukhi script), Sanskrit, Sinhala, Tamil, Telugu.
The following languages are of Indic origin, but will usually be written in non-Indic scripts, usually derived from Arabic (see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Arabic). This convention will normally apply to them only when transliterating from writings in an Indic script: Urdu, Kashmiri, Punjabi (western), Sindhi.
Several languages may be written in Indic scripts, but are not themselves Indic languages. Some aspects of this convention may apply to them, but they may have their own conventions. They include Tibetan, Burmese, Thai, Khmer, Lao, Javanese.
[edit] Subject matter covered
This standard is recommended for use in articles in the following fields;
- Religions originating in South Asia, including Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism. Articles on Buddhism may follow this convention, or that of other languages, depending on the language of origin.
- Mythology of South Asia.
- Historical articles and historical place names of South Asia, including especially history prior to 1800.
[edit] Modern names and terms
Personal, organisation, and company names in current and recent usage should generally be romanized according to the nameholder's preference, if that can be established. However, this convention may be appropriately applied to them in certain contexts. These include;
- when it is necessary to accurately or unambiguously transliterate from original text, or to indicate original pronunciation,
- when it is necessary to maintain consistency in the article
[edit] Titles and honorifics
Generally, titles and honorifics should not be used either in the article body or when naming an article. However, exceptions may apply to individuals who are widely known by an honorific name or with a title.
Examples are Mahatma Gandhi where Mahatma is an honorific, Sri Chand where 'Sri' is a title, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada where Swami and Prabhupada are honorific, and Chandrasekharendra Saraswati Kanchi Mahaswamigal where Kanchi Mahaswamigal is an honorific.
Redirects should be used for other forms of an individual's name.
[edit] Naming and transliteration
Each Indic article should be named according to its primary transliteration, if this can be clearly established. If a primary transliteration cannot be clearly established, then the article should be labelled with a simplified transliteration.
Informal transliterations should not be used for article titles, unless they can be justified as being the primary transliteration used in English. If a transliteration's status as primary cannot be justified or verified, then it should be corrected and replaced by a simplified transliteration. A redirect should then be left in its place. Redirects should also be created for the more common alternative spelling forms.
Where alternative spellings or informal transliterations are in widespread use, a limited number of the most common ones should be listed at the top of the main article.
The formal transliteration should not be used excessively in the body text. It is generally distracting to users and some users with older browser may not even be able to read it. Point needs discussion - when to use what and where?
[edit] Primary transliteration
A word has a primary transliteration if at least 75% of all references in wider usage have the same transliteration. Primary transliterations may sometimes be less accurate than other transliterations.
[edit] Formal transliteration
A formal transliteration is one that is written using the standardised ISO 15919 transliteration scheme for Indic scripts. This system uses the Latin alphabet (the Roman script) with additional diacritic symbols to represent Indic scripts accurately. It is virtually identical to IAST but has minor changes to accommodate all major scripts used in the Indian subcontinent.
[edit] Simplified transliteration
A simplified transliteration scheme is used to produce an easy-to-read version of the formal transliteration. The simplified transliteration aims to convert the formal transliteration into a Latin script form that complies with English phonemic rules. This means that Indic letters that have no English equivalent are merged with the closest English equivalent.
Although the formal transliteration can be used across all wikis, the simplified transliteration is suitable only on the English Wikipedia.
[edit] Formatting
Ideally, when introducing an article that is covered by this policy, IPA pronunciations (with audio pronunciation if possible) and transliterations of the Indic script should be included. The format is:
- Simplified Transliteration ([English IPA text]; Language: Indic Text, ISO Transliteration, [Indic IPA text] [?]) ...
A special {{indic}} template has been made to take care of formatting issues. Read the instructions below to start using it!
[edit] Preferred format
Use this format when you have the original script text, transliteration, IPA and audio pronunciation file.
'''Simplified Transliteration''' ({{indic | lang=Language code | defaultipa=English IPA text | defaultaudio=Audio file.ogg | indic=Indic Text | trans=ISO Transliteration | indicipa=Indic IPA text | indicaudio=Audio file.ogg }}) ...
- Example
'''Sikhism''' ({{indic|lang=pa|defaultipa='siːkɪz(ə)m|defaultaudio=Seekism.ogg|indic=ਸਿੱਖੀ|trans=sikkhī|indicipa='sɪk.kʰiː| indicaudio=Sikkhi.ogg}}) is a...- Sikhism (['siːkɪz(ə)m]; Punjabi: ਸਿੱਖੀ, sikkhī, ['sɪk.kʰiː] [?]) is a...
[edit] Without audio
Use this when you have the original script text, transliteration and IPA but do not have the audio pronunciation. This is likely to be the most used format.
'''Simplified Transliteration''' ({{indic | lang=Language code | defaultipa=English IPA text | indic=Indic Text | trans=ISO Transliteration | indicipa=Indic IPA text }}) ...
- Example
'''Mumbai''' ({{indic|lang=mr|defaultipa=mumbəi|indic=मुंबई|trans=mumbaī}}) is a...- Mumbai (IPA: [mumbəi]; Marathi: मुंबई, mumbaī [?]) is a...
[edit] Other versions
If both the English and Indic pronunciation are the same (likely if the Indic word isn't used in English) then ignore the indicipa parameter. If you don't have audio files, you can simply leave those parameters out. For full details of what the template can do, see Template:Indic.
[edit] Transliteration
All transliterations should be from the written form in the original script of the original language of the name or term. The original text in the original script should also be included near the start of the article for reference and checking.
A concise table is provided to aid transliteration.
