Talk:List of ships of the Chinese Navy (1644–1945)

Starting the Page

I've compile the information here from multiple different sources, the list is probably not complete (I see some other ship names on the Chinese Wikipedia that I cannot verify with my sources).

I understand the definition of the article is a bit murky - "Chinese" navy including that of Qing & RoC but not of warlord cliques, Manchukuo, Wang Jingwei regime navy, etc., and the time period appears arbitrary but I cannot find a good way to separate 1644-1911/1911-1945 as many of the ships were passed over from Qing to the Nationalists so there will be a lot of overlap if I do that. If someone has a better idea of how to organize the page, feel free to do it. Rinbro (talk) 05:05, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• The inconsistent Chinese transliteration of English sources may also lead to duplicated entries in the list, though I have tried my best to eliminate them. Rinbro (talk) 05:11, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
  • This page is quite messy and I am looking to revamp it as more and more ships get their own articles. Also see User:Rinbro/Ships for some more information about the ships.. Rinbro (talk) 22:41, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Chinese Ship Naming Conventions

Apologies for any errors in understanding but I am new here.

As a suggestion as an improvement to this list I would propose that all Chinese ships names come with 5 key variables

Namely: Giles Wade, Pinyin, Chinese Traditional, Chinese Simplified, English Translation

A good example of the use of all 5 is here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_ironclad_Dingyuan

I have actually set up a spreadhseet for each ship in this list with each of these variables

As a secondary suggestion I would propose that all Chinese ship pages be titled with their Pinyin not Giles Wade. At the moment this is variable.

Regards

Lǐshìmǎn Lǐshìmǎn (talk) 01:47, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

I am not sure whether applying all of those variables to the ship names would be a good idea, since it makes the lead slightly unwieldy. Traditional Chinese, Giles-Wade, Pinyin and optionally an English Translation of the name might be the most appropriate, given that Simplified Chinese was not widely adopted until after the period of the subjects of the articles. I disagree with titling all of the names using the Pinyin romanisation, given that the names are derived from the names used by primary sources and thus would likely be the correct WP:COMMON name for the subject. Padgriffin ^{Griffin's Nest} 02:12, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

I understand your response, I think the issue for me is consistency(by the way I was not suggesting the title pages have all the variables just the introductory text as per Dingyuan)

I was of the same view that the title pages should be in the approriate form however confusion arises for the user when you have examples of Chinese ships from the 19th century which have title pages in Pinyin (Dingyuan - see above) and others that are in Giles Wade (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_corvette_Kwan_Chia) which put me in doubt. Further text which uses traditional forms and then in others text that uses simplified forms. For me the Dingyaun example gives the reader all the information and they can leave in no doubt.

There are many ships which have Giles Wade variants one being Kwan Chia / Kuang Chia (Guǎngjiǎ)

The 1945 table references only the name Kuang Chia (廣甲) and then links to a subject page "......Kwan Chia" which in turn doesn't reference Kuang Chia at all. It references Guangjia (however not in pinyin form) and then states a simplified form (广甲) not a traditional form (maybe that's correct in this instance?).

If you were searching for just "Kwan Chia" on the 1945 page it wouldnt exist. Of course if you searched using the Traditional language you would find it but I note not all ships on the list are described in the traditional form which you would expect in the main on a page that only goes to 1945.

Also with the many variants in some of the ships names it makes its a difficult table to sort.

I think adding a pinyin column to the 1945 table (albeit qualified) removes the issue of variables and at the same time makes the table easier to sort even if the ships has many as 5 Giles Wade interpretations (they exist!) it only has 1 pinyin name derived from the Chinese language. Lǐshìmǎn (talk) 06:52, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

According to MOS:PINYIN, articles should use pinyin by default unless a majority of modern sources still use Wade-Giles; for the vast majority of ships on this list (if not all of them), you're never going to have more than a source or two in English that discuss them in any detail, so it seems unlikely that you'll have enough sources to decide that the Wade-Giles name is preferred. Parsecboy (talk) 10:12, 30 January 2024 (UTC)