Wiktionary talk:Votes/pl-2009-12/Treatment of toneless pinyin syllables

This vote is needlessly complicated. I do not understand how and where to vote.

Why doesn't a simple Support Option 1, Support Option 2, Support Option 3, Support Option 4, Retain current situation, Oppose all do? -- Prince Kassad 01:03, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I posted the notice for it in the beer parlor weeks ago - no one has said anything about it since, so I figured at was clear enough. That discussion lays out the options in more detail, so I'll copy it here, but basically you should support the option or options you think best, oppose the option or options you think, and abstain from the rest. bd2412 T 03:35, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Here is the Beer Parlor discussion:

I am preparing the a vote at Votes/pl-2009-12/Treatment of toneless pinyin syllables, regarding our options for the presentation of toneless pinyin syllables, discussed above at.

A fundamental feature of spoken Chinese is the use of tones - four specific variations in pronunciation which can impart different meanings on any of the ~410 basic syllable combinations which make up the language. Chinese characters are romanised using pinyin, these tones are usually represented as either accents over the affected vowel, or numbers next to the syllable (for example mā and ma1). There are numerous instances of "toneless pinyin" out there in the wild - that is, instances where someone has used words that should have a tone, but left the tone out. This is particularly prevalent in the names of Chinese cities (like Beijing, which is bei and jing), with Chinese street signs, on Chinese currency, in certain official documents, in Chinese Restaurant names, and in certain common menu items (e.g. kung pao chicken and wontons), as well as in some books and bibliographies discussed earlier. I made entries for all 410 or so toneless pinyin syllables in 2007. We have four basic options on how to treat these, with examples set forth below.

The first is to continue using the format that I used in making the initial entries. From gang:

Pinyin syllable
gang


 * 1) A transliteration of any of a number of Chinese characters properly represented as having one of three tones, gāng, gǎng, or gàng.

Usage notes
English transcriptions of Chinese speech often fail to distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Chinese language, using words such as this one without the appropriate indication of tone.

The second option is to treat them as misspellings. From chan:

Pinyin syllable
chan



Usage notes
English transcriptions of Chinese speech often fail to distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Chinese language, using words such as this one without the appropriate indication of tone.

The third option is to treat them as alternative spellings. From zhen:

Pinyin syllable
zhen



Usage notes
English transcriptions of Chinese speech often fail to distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Chinese language, using words such as this one without the appropriate indication of tone.

The fourth option is to exclude them altogether. A side issue is, if they are retained in any form, whether to also include the usage note which I added when I made the initial entries.

Cheers! bd2412 T 03:37, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Template:nonstandard spelling of
That would be my #1 choice. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:17, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I wish you had suggested that before the vote started - that's somewhere between an alternate spelling and a misspelling, and fits just right. Then again, these really are used like alternate spellings in terms of the street signs and currencies. bd2412 T 17:11, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * On second thought, I could have done more to promote discussion of this vote before it began, and since voting has been light so far, I've added this option and informed previous voters of the addition. Cheers! bd2412 T 00:50, 3 January 2010 (UTC)