Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Tibetan)

This
consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

WP:NC-TIBET

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 from

Burig

.

Under Wikipedia's

reliable sources and supported by consensus. Article names should be determined on the basis of recognizability, naturalness, precision, conciseness, and consistency. Alternative names are best suited as redirects and as content within the appropriately named article. Instances of alternative names and spellings, when required, should be piped

to appropriately named articles.

General guideline

Use the

reliable sources

.

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

Avoid transliterations

In general, using conventional spellings requires avoiding the Wylie transliteration or other precise transliterations of the actual Tibetan spelling, especially as article names. Tibetan spelling includes many letters which have become silent or otherwise have a dramatically different sound in the most widespread modern spoken forms.

For example, the

Stok 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.

Wylie spellings should be included in Wikipedia, especially when they disambiguate phonetic spellings; they are encyclopedic information, but not preferable article titles. Like internal links, they should be used when necessary, generally when a Tibetan name is first used, and should not burden prose more than the information is worth.

Use consistent spellings

Unless there is a particularly compelling reason to do otherwise, instances of the same name or term in different articles should use the same spelling. This will normally be the primary romanisation (e.g.

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.

This guideline also encourages orthography consistent with the primary romanisation within the same article, notwithstanding instances of a common term within an alternatively named article. For example, even if

Xigazê were independently notable such to merit an article name, references to modern Shigatse

should still be named as such.

Minor variations

If there are several common spellings of a term with only minor variations between them, such minor variations do not indicate a lack of primary romanisation. One of the variants should be used as the primary romanisation. For instance,

bka’-brgyud can be spelled Kagyu

, Kargyu, Kagyud, Kagyü, Kargyü, or Kagyüd – the first spelling is the primary romanisation, however its variants may be mentioned when appropriate.

Tibetan personal names may show equal variation but are treated differently (see below).

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

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.

Personal names

Many

reliable sources

.

Personal names in 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 their 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

.

Personal 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 it is not possible to determine the conventional spelling for a particular person's name, one might still be able to determine a conventional spelling for each of the components of their name.

For example, in making reference to an obscure historical person named ’phrin-las ngag-dbang, an author might be unable to determine any conventional English spelling for this name in reference to him specifically. However, for the many individuals named ’phrin-las, this name is most commonly written "Trinley" or "Thinley," and for the many individuals named ngag-dbang, this name is most commonly written "Ngawang." Thus, either "Trinley Ngawang" or "Thinley Ngawang" could be an appropriate primary romanisation for this name. If any

reliable source

providing a primary romanisation is available, the name should conform to that spelling.

Place names

Place names with qualifiers such as "county" or "town"

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.

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 municipalities are styled according to aggregate population, and may not correspond to readers' notions of a geographic area. For instance, many shì (

Tanggulashan Town

is a zhèn that is in fact a large expanse of land sparsely populated by Tibetan nomads.

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,

Golog

. However, in most cases, these separate articles have not yet been created.

Place names in Tibetan and Chinese

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.

Place names in 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 used for those place names.