Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Tibetan)/2010 NK's draft

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The purpose of this page is to offer some guidance to Wikipedia articles when titling articles or referring to persons, places, and things whose names are originally in Tibetan (Old Tibetan or any of the languages and dialects descended from it).

Preference of the subject

For a modern individual who has consistently used a particular spelling for his or her own names when writing in English, we should use that spelling. (There could in principle be situatons where this spelling would be at odds with a very widely accepted conventional spelling, but it's hard to imagine a realistic scenario where that would be the case. If it were revealed that Tsering Shakya always spells his own name “Cering Xagya” or somesuch, we might have an issue – but then it would be hard to imagine how the spelling “Tsering Shakya” became current in the first place).

Use the conventional spelling

Use the conventional spelling which is likely to most familiar to English-language readers. To the extent that this can be established, this is the primary romanisation.

Minor variations

If there are several common spellings with only minor variations between them, the minor variations should not lead us to declare that there is no primary romanisation. One of the variants should be chosen. For instance, bka’-brgyud can be spelled Kagyu, Kargyu, or Kagyud (or Kagyü, Kargyü, Kagyüd); we should choose one of these forms. Likewise, ’phrin-las can be found written as Trinley, Thinley, or Trinlay; these are also close enough that they can be considered variants.

Avoid strict transliterations

In general, using conventional spellings will mean avoiding the Wylie transliteration or other precise transliterations of the actual Tibetan spelling. Tibetan spelling includes many letters which have become silent or otherwise have a dramatically different sound in the major modern spoken forms. For example, the personal name of the current Dalai Lama is spelled བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ (bstan-’dzin rgya-mtsho) but the b, the s, the ’, the r, and, for some speakers, the m have become silent. Conventional English spellings most often exclude these silent letters and make other modifications reflective of a modern pronunciation. There may be some exceptions in which the Wylie spelling is the conventional; perhaps Stog Palace is an example, although that is a location in Ladakh and may reflect local pronunciation, which is not at all at odds with these naming conventions. The Wylie spelling should always be given at the start of the article on a subject or, if it does not have its own, at its first mention in another article.

No requirement to use a particular dialect

There is no requirement that a conventional spelling reflect the pronunciation of any particular Tibetan dialect. They may be based on pronunciations from Lhasa, Tsang, Amdo, Kham, etc., etc. They may include letters implying a somewhat archaic pronunciation, as in Chöd or Chagdud, where the final “d” is written although, per Tournadre and Sangda Dorje, it has been reduced to [ʔ] in Standard Tibetan. In practice, some conventional spellings need not bear any strict relationship to anyone's pronunciation.

Use the same spelling for different instances of the same name

Unless there is a particularly compelling reason to do otherwise, instances of the same name in different articles should use the same spelling. Normally, this should be the most common conventional spelling of whichever instance of the name is most widely known. For instance, this means Shigatse and Shigatse Prefecture (not Xigazê Prefecture) and Chamdo, Chamdo County, and Chamdo Prefecture (not Qamdo County and Qamdo Prefecture). There may be some cases where it is difficult to determine whether two subjects are named after each other or simply happen to have similar names; these will have to be decided on a case-by-case basis.

When no primary romanisation can be determined

Official media

For PRC political officials and appointees, the spelling of an individual's name in official media can be considered an example of that person's preferences for spelling his or her own name. For example, the name of former TAR governor byams-pa phun-tshogs is often spelled Qiangba Puncog in state media, even though this spelling apparently combines his Tibetan name, Qamba Püncog, with his Chinese name, Xiàngbā Píngcuò. Another example, with a more straightforwardly Tibetan name, is Gyaincain Norbu.

Name components

Many Tibetan personal names use a fairly small set of traditional names in various combinations. Most Tibetans do not use family names. Therefore, even if we are unable to determine the conventional spelling for a particular person's name, we might still be able to determine a conventional spelling for each of the components of his or her name. For example, if we make reference to an obscure historical person named ’phrin-las ngag-dbang, we might be unable to determine any conventional English spelling for this name in reference to him specifically. However, we can observe that, for the many individuals named ’phrin-las, this name is most commonly written Trinley and, for the many individuals named ngag-dbang, this name is most commonly written Ngawang; and so we can treat “Trinley Ngawang” as the primary romanisation for this name.

Place names and Tibetan Pinyin

With regard to the names of places in Tibet, for many more obscure locations, our main sources will usually be government publications or UN maps, which tend to use Tibetan Pinyin spellings. Therefore, in many cases, those will be the spellings we should use for those place names.

Refer to our sources

Generally speaking, any person or place which is mentioned in Wikipedia and in particular any that is the subject of a Wikipedia article will have been mentioned in at least one other reputable source. We can always simply use the spelling that is used in that source. If the only sources we have that mention a particular name are in Chinese or Japanese, we may have to resort to using transliterations from those languages, but we should prefer spellings used in English-language writings when possible. If the only sources we have use the Wylie spelling, we should use that but should switch to a phonetic spelling when one can be identified.

Qualifiers such "county" or "town"

It may sometimes be unclear whether to use a qualifier such as County or Town after a place name. It's worth noting that Chinese governmental units do not always match the expectation created by their descriptions as translated into English. For instance, many shì (cities) are in fact large areas consisting primarily of rural land (this is less common in Tibetan areas than in the rest of China). Some xiàn (counties) are rural areas or contain a mixture of rural land and small towns, but others are primarily urban. In general, if the subject of the article is a particular settlement (city, town, or village), then the title should not include an additional descriptor; otherwise, the descriptor should be included. None of the Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures or the Tibetan Autonomous Counties are individual settlements, so those titles should always include the full description: for example, Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture or Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. In cases where a government unit is named after a significant traditional region which existed beforehand, it would probably be ideal to have separate articles about the region and the government unit: for example, Ngari, Puhrang, Lhoka, Derge, Golog. However, in most cases, these separate articles have not yet been created.

Using Tibetan or Chinese names

Articles about places in the Tibetan areas of the People's Republic of China may have titles in Tibetan or in Chinese, depending on which name is more common in English. In cases where it is unclear which to use, benefit of the doubt should be given to the name preferred by the local population. For instance, Nicolas Tournadre writes that the Chinese names for both Shannan Prefecture and Kangding are used more commonly by Tibetans than are the equivalent Tibetan terms.

Systematic romanisation

It would good to have a standard romanisation system which we could use in cases where no conventional spelling can be determined, as well as for quotations of ordinary Tibetan words or phrases. However, no such standard system has been agreed upon so far by Wikipedia users.