Template talk:Bo

older comments

In most instances where they occur in English Wikipedia shouldn't single words in Tibetan script be entered without a final (terminating) tsheg (་) or shad (།)?

In most Tibetan and Dzongkha dictionaries published in Asia the headwords appear without a final tsheg ཚེག (་) or shad (།)- and native Tibetan and Bhutanese experts I've asked tell me this is the correct practice. However many westerners writing Tibetan words seem to always include terminating tsheg or shad punctuation. Right now there is no consistent practice where words in Tibetan script appear in Wikipedia - nor is there any guideline on this. Chris Fynn (talk) 08:23, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up. I have been in the habit of punctuating words and phrases with the shad, but I'll make a point of leaving it out in the future.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 17:08, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Language code

Hi. All multilanguage templates should specify the language change using the {{lang}} and {{transl}} templates for web accessibility reasons. The problem with this template is that it doesn't specify languages but scripts, and this is not usually the correct approach. Can't this template add parameters for each language instead of for the script, i.e. for Tibetan, Dzongkha and Ladakhi? Best regards —surueña 09:33, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

In English Wikipedia most instances of words occurring in Tibetan script are either names of persons or places or they are Buddhist religious terms. Usually this sort of word in a written context will be identical or near identical in Tibetan, Dzongkha and Ladakhi languages (though they may be pronounced very differently). We don't want to have to write the same thing three times. Anyway "bo" is the ISO 639-1 language code for the Tibetan language not the ISO 15924 script code.

Another problem may be that the most widely used (outside of China) transliteration for Tibetan is "Wylie" - but this transliteration scheme does not seem to be covered by an ISO, ALA or DIN code – which is what the {{transl}} template apparently expects. Chris Fynn (talk) 09:14, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Good point, Chris. In this regard, writing in the Tibetan script is quite like writing in Chinese characters. The same set of Chinese characters can be used by people who speak Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, etc., plus ancient and medieval dialects, plus wenyanwen, plus Japanese and Korean. They would all pronounce the characters differently, but they would be written the same way and would mean the same thing. I'm sure the creators of the Chinese language-related templates must have dealt with this before, but I don't know what the result was.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 17:08, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Resized

I've changed the template code around a bit, so that the params are now <span lang="bo" style="font-family:Jomolhari,'Tibetan Machine Uni'; font-size:180%">. This makes the text slightly larger so that it is now legible to the human eye (how on earth was the previous setting even readable? the text was so small...)

• Previously:དྲི་མེད་བཤེས་གཉེན་
• Now: དྲི་མེད་བཤེས་གཉེན་

This matches the Template:Bo found on the Chinese Wikipedia as well. The text size now also matches the default font size used on the Tibetan Wikipedia. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 14:51, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Reduced size back as was ridiculously large. Pages in other texts will have different formatting.

If Latin characters will never be displayed in that field, it wouldn't look as bad and could be increased to 140 or sth (but don't include the Latin characters in your example template); but should simply use normal text if Latin ever goes in that field. The translit should not appear larger and more prominent than the article title. — LlywelynII 00:35, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Tibetan font when rendered by computers with default western encoding (e.g. International versions of Windows 7) is ridiculously tiny. Unless someone has the Chinese version of Windows 7 installed, Tibetan font is barely legible, even for a 20 year old with 20-20 eyesight, let alone someone slightly more aged or with sight impairments (WP:ACCESSIBILITY). I'd rather not need a magnifying glass in order to read Tibetan. Latin characters should not be used within the "t=" parameter, and those who do that are at fault. Also, the resized font makes the Tibetan text in uniform with standard Tibetan websites in mainland China (such as the Tibetan-language section of People.com.cn, the Tibetan AR official website, and Tibetan news portals), the Chinese Wikipedia, and the Tibetan Wikipedia. In addition, regarding your other edit, Wylie is not recognised as the "sole universal romanization" for Tibetan. Zangwen Pinyin is the official romanisation in China and Wylie is the standard used outside China. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 04:18, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

The default western encoding for Arabic font is also tiny. But because most people reading articles on en.wp with Tibetan words probably can't read Tibetan, the annoyance of seeing walls of Tibetan disruptively larger than the English (by contrast, the Chinese is usually the same size as English) outweighs the benefits for the Tibetan-literate. Quigley (talk) 01:16, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

However at 12-point font both the Latin alphabet and Chinese characters, in addition to Cyrillic, Greek and many other scripts is 100% legible to any human being with healthy eyesight. This is not particularly the case with Tibetan. Why should the WP:ACCESSIBILITY of one language be sacrificed for the "prettifying" of the majority? In addition, having the Tibetan font at 180% default size a) does not make the paragraph line vertically wider (in regards to whitespace) so that an increase in font size is that obvious, and b) doesn't actually appear as being "larger" at all, if we ignore that the glyphs are slightly longer horizontally (but not larger than other scripts' height vertically). The "tallest" of Tibetan glyphs when using the 180% are not that much taller than your average 12-point font "f"s, nor depressed as your average 12-point font "q"s. Even if users may think 180% is overkill, still 160% or even 140% is a much better choice than leaving the text at the default 100% 12-point.

See དྲི?? The main part that looks a bit like a reversed ㄱ should be roughly the same size of a Latin "a", whilst the part that resembles a reversed つ should be treated as an overtype, e.g. in Ǟ, and the curve at the bottom should be treated as an undertype, so that the main glyph portions are in line with lowercase Latin letters and I could perfectly draw two parallel lines when underlining and overlining both the main portions of the Tibetan glyphs and Latin letters. However, computer rendering does not treat Tibetan this way; it treats the whole of the glyph as the central part of the letter. ས and བ should be the same size as an "a", and not have whitespace above and below it when compared with the letter "a". Also, look at this very paragraph. In this line, does the inclusion of ས add significant whitespace above and below the line in comparison to the lines that don't have Tibetan text, that is blatantly obvious to the human eye? I'm pretty sure it doesn't. Having the Tibetan font larger is a non-issue as it does not "disrupt" the other text in the paragraph, and it's not that the text looks "larger", but that the main portion of the glyphs become in line with lowercase Latin letters. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 01:52, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

The issue isn't whether the Tibetan glyphs add more whitespace to the lines or are objectively larger than extended Latin glyphs (although on the first question, I see that it does), but that 180% Tibetan text in the middle of 100% Latin text immediately and dramatically draws readers' eyes away from meaningful content and towards writing that is, for most readers of articles that contain it, meaningless. The article text on Tibetan Wikipedia seems to be smaller than 180%; 140% seems reasonable. I read Wikipedia on a small screen resolution where such differences are exaggerated, and that is also an accessibility issue. Quigley (talk) 02:34, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

As a compromise I've changed the param values to 140%. How does it look on your display now? (I'm assuming you're on a netbook?) -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 02:47, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

You're right, and it looks fine now; thanks. Quigley (talk) 02:50, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

• 100% 12-point: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. དྲི་མེད་བཤེས་གཉེན་ 天地玄黃　宇宙洪荒　日月盈昃　辰宿列張　寒來暑往　秋收冬藏　閏餘成歲　律呂調陽　雲騰致雨
• 180% 12-point: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. དྲི་མེད་བཤེས་གཉེན་ 天地玄黃　宇宙洪荒　日月盈昃　辰宿列張　寒來暑往　秋收冬藏　閏餘成歲　律呂調陽　雲騰致雨
• 140% 12-point: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. དྲི་མེད་བཤེས་གཉེན་ 天地玄黃　宇宙洪荒　日月盈昃　辰宿列張　寒來暑往　秋收冬藏　閏餘成歲　律呂調陽　雲騰致雨

Sample text above for comparison. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 02:53, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Wylie, Semicolons

As at the {{zh}} template, this one mishandles semicolons. They should go between languages, not within them. This template previously made Wylie look like a language on par with Tibetan and Nepali, which is ridiculous.

Also, as Wylie is a transliteration system and not a separate language, shifted display to linked small "tr" per the Russian example. The transliteration page is available if the user wants it without being intrusive, distracting, or misdisplayed. — LlywelynII 00:35, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Like how Chinese history articles use Pinyin (Hanyu Pinyin) and Wade-Giles (and yes, like it or not Wade-Giles is an accepted standard amongst Chinese-history circles in the English speaking world), Wylie and ZPWY are two completely different romanisation systems, and neither one is more "superior" or "accepted" than the other (see discussion in section above). It just happens to be that Tibetology academics tend to use Wylie more often, whilst the Chinese Government uses ZWPY administratively. Like how the Kangxi Emperor is rendered as (Chinese: 康熙帝; pinyin: Kāngxīdì; Wade–Giles: K'ang-hsi-ti), Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture is rendered as (Chinese: 甘南藏族自治州; pinyin: Gānnán Zàngzú Zìzhìzhōu; Tibetan: ཀན་ལྷོ་བོད་རིགས་རང་སྐྱོང་ཁུལ་, Wylie: Kan-lho Bod-rigs rang-skyong-khul, ZYPY: Gainlho Poirig Ranggyong Kü). As for the use of semicolons at Template:zh, this has been the standard WP:CONSENSUS for many years here at Wikipedia without anyone having a major problem over it; if you would like to dispute that usage, take the discussion there, or to NC-ZH or something. I personally don't see why the bo template has to be in uniform with the Russian template (Russian only uses one main romanization system anyway; it's apples and oranges). the zh, bo and ug (for Uyghur language) templates all use semicolons to separate params.

You won't find a sinologist from the University of Chicago (or something) specialising in Qing history that will not use K'ang-hsi to refer to Kangxi, since it's effectively become a de facto standard in Western academia over the years. Hell, many people in America don't even know who the hell Mao Zedong is, since they know him as "Mao Tse-tung", having used that romanisation and name their whole life. However, Wade-Giles is practically non-existant in China itself; the standard for government administration and language education in schools is Hanyu Pinyin. This is a similar relationship between Wylie and ZWPY to romanise Tibetan. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 04:34, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

On second glances, it even appears that you have tried to bring the issue up at Template talk:Zh earlier this year and have failed to gain consensus on this issue. In that case, you should not be trying to force changes as you see fit here, upon failing to do so elsewhere. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 04:54, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

It's not lack of consensus. It's just a mistaken template maker and indifference. (You're right, I should probably raise the point at some of the more visited style sections since template talk pages are generally pretty dead places.)

In any case, it remains a mistake here. Everything you said above has nothing whatsoever to do with my point: romanization isn't a separate language and shouldn't be treated as such, which is what {{zh}} and this template currently do.

I was just being bold since I could understand this template's formatting. I'd've done the same to {{zh}} if it weren't such a thicket. In any case, you pushed back here, so we can await consensus here or at {{zh}}, even with the Wrong Version restored. Currently, the vote seems 1-2-1. (You seem indifferent and deferential rather than supportive of the treatment of romanizations as a separate language.) — LlywelynII 09:20, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

The semi-colons are really disturbing, as they should indeed go between languages and not within them. This is especially disturbing when you have different languages for the same name (e.g. Tibetan, Chinese, Nepali in Shishapangma). The average English reader doesn't know any of these three languages, and doesn't know what Wylie or Pinyin means. As a result, three languages looks like six. This guideline is quite clear regarding the use of semi-colons. It would be nice if someon could fix the template. --Pseudois (talk) 16:06, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I totally agree, semicolons within languages creates confusion, espaecially when multiple languages are involved, and so I have changed the template to use commas instead of semi-colons (you may need to purge pages to see the changes). BabelStone (talk) 17:38, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Do you think it would be possible to have the common english spelling back together with Tibetan? In the example, "Drime Shenyen" is considered like another language. In the previous editions of the template, the formatting was somehow different.--Pseudois (talk) 18:11, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I guess that is a whole new topic of discussion. I think it would need a new parameter for the traditional or common-use spelling; but as that is not standardised I can understand the argument for keeping it outside of the template. BabelStone (talk) 21:34, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

PUA problems

Sakya has Tibetan script w PUA characters, which gum up the works. They display beautifully with the fonts I have installed, but I suspect that will not be the case for others. The problem is with Tibetan: ལ་མ་་ང༌།, ZYPY: Zhöma Pochang. Now, if we need those characters, I can substitute them so they no longer cause a problem with AWB etc., but it would be better if we could Unicodify them. — kwami (talk) 22:52, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Y Done. I have utility (BabelPad) that converts Tibetan PUA characters to proper Unicode, so let me know if you encounter this problem again (I have previously fixed a few pages with Tibetan PUA characters). BabelStone (talk) 23:19, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Great! Can you do the same for Mongol? (Traditional script.) We have 3–4 articles that could be converted.

I think that was the only one. Got a dump of WP-en, and only (!) 132 articles had raw PUA. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Check Wikipedia, Unicode checks at the bottom, if you want to help out. — kwami (talk) 06:28, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Ah, there was also Tang Rimochen Lhakhang. That looked like a superfluous character, so I just deleted it, but you might want to verify. — kwami (talk) 06:51, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Done (there was a missing Tibetan letter in addition to the anomalous PUA character). The only article with Mongolian PUA that I can find is Uyghurjin script, but that is a problematic article created by a problematic user, and I don't really want to touch it. BabelStone (talk) 15:00, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

There's Urad Rear Banner. I deleted the Mongol script from Ayding Lake, since it's in a Uighur area, but we give the Mongol name so that could be restored. [Now restored.] — kwami (talk) 21:28, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't know the mapping between Menksoft PUA Mongolian and Unicode Mongolian, so I can't do the conversion automatically as I do for Tibetan PUA (which is a published Chinese National Standard), but with a little help from List of administrative divisions of Inner Mongolia I'll start adding Mongolian text for all Inner Mongolia administrative districts. BabelStone (talk) 09:53, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Ha! And here I've been copying from WP-zh, which is surprisingly incomplete. That list won't help with the lake or towns, though, so probably best just to delete those. (And it would be nice if we could have the Cyrillic for those who know it.) — kwami (talk) 18:06, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

THL Simplified Phonetic Transcription

Is there any way we could agree to add THL as a switch to {{bo}} since it's increasingly used? Certainly it (or forms like it) is more common in English than the Tibetan Pinyin forms, which have z=. Ogress _smash! 22:06, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes this is English language Wikipedia and so the transcription system most widely used in current English and Western language scholarly publications should be preferred. The Tibetan Pinyin form might make sense on Chinese language Wikipedia. Chris Fynn (talk) 10:58, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Order of Fonts

The order of the Tibetan fonts in this template probably needs changing. If a user has a number of Tibetan fonts installed the template currently (Sept. 2018) seems to prioritize some fonts with very poor glyph shapes. Those fonts should preferably be at the end of the list.
Chris Fynn (talk) 03:15, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Oh, I see the fonts are specified in Bo-textonly. I'll try to fix it there. Chris Fynn (talk) 11:06, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Tag the transliterations

Just as the template generates an HTML span with lang="bo" for the Tibetan text, shouldn't it generate spans with lang="bo-Latn" for the transliterations (lang="bo-Latn-pinyin" for Tibetan pinyin)? --Error (talk) 00:30, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

ZWPY or ZYPY?

This template currently uses the abbreviation "ZYPY" for (I guess) "zangyu pinyin," but links to the Wikipedia article for Tibetan pinyin which uses exclusively "ZWPY" for "zangwen pinyin." Either the Wikipedia article should mention "ZYPY" as an alternative name, or the template should be updated to use "ZWPY." 12.246.51.122 (talk) 15:11, 16 June 2022 (UTC)