Talk:An-chʻing
I see An-ch‘ing/An-ch'ing and Ch‘ien-t‘ang/Ch'ien-t'ang (see Talk:Ch'ien-t'ang) as parallels to Hawaiʻi/Hawai'i. In both the case of Wade-Giles and the ʻokina, there is an orthodox apostrophe (or a full-fledged letter, in the case of the ʻokina) which the author intends to use (when they use it). Then, there is a degraded form where "any old apostrophe" will work. As I see it, it's just too much of a burden for English to use any apostrophes (see 隔音符號／隔音符号 (géyīn fúhào), Xian, Tiananmen Square, etc), and when you add on a requirement to use a particular type of apostrophe (to indicate a particular, high-level meaning), at that point it's just impossible for the publishers and the authors to keep up. From what I've seen so far, it may even be true that some authors were using whatever apostrophe they were using for their work's "'s" apostrophe as their Wade apostrophe from a very early period (late 19th century)- see the An-ch'ing cites. (I know that people were throwing all the dashes and apostrophes out of Wade from the early period, and still do- see the names of the Administrative divisions of Taiwan for instance- Hsinchu, Taipei, etc.) Following Wiktionary's descriptivism policies (Wiktionary:Descriptivism), I can not deny the authorial intent of the people who used the formally correct apostrophe, hence I create An-ch‘ing and Ch‘ien-t‘ang. Those authors really meant to write it a certain way that meant something particular to them concerning pronunciation of the initial, as is evidenced by their usage of different apostrophes in other parts of their works. But, again following descriptivism, it would be a mistake to deny that the degraded form (with degraded apostrophes) exists too and is really the more common form of Wade spiritus asper, being used (it seems to me) far more than the intended formal apostrophe form. I anticipate that if I look closely, I could find more like An-ch‘ing and Ch‘ien-t‘ang among the pages I've listed as examples at Citations:ʻ. But I doubt all that meet three cites (Wiktionary:Attestation) for a degraded apostrophe will meet three cites for the intended Wade apostrophe. So I just urge the Wiktionary community to not combine An-ch‘ing/An-ch'ing and Ch‘ien-t‘ang/Ch'ien-t'ang or similar, because I think that doing so is a violation of the descriptivism ethic, which requires us to document the language as used. To me it is prescriptive to say that 19th century authors' exacting notions of their apostrophes indicating certain pronunciations are really "the same thing" as the degraded forms that came later (or simultaneously) just because we today (2023) DGAF. Do the authors using Hawaiʻi today think that Hawai'i is the same thing? It's all 'bout that descriptivism to me. Authorial Intent. I would also say that this apostrophe, universally hated since the inception of its use, is a minor part of the Western world's interaction with the late Qing/Ching dynasty particularly. As Wiktionary:Descriptivism says: "I would like to generalise this to imply that a descriptive source "describes" what it sees." (See also Talk:Chungnanhai.) This is just my experimental, preliminary opinion. I may go back on it later, and I understand if the community doesn't accept it. But I feel like I've got a somewhat good idea (albeit perhaps unwieldy or too idealistic) that will be an add to the value of Wiktionary for the users. It may "make things confusing", but the whole field of romanization from Chinese languages to English is nothing BUT confusion and chaos. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 16:30, 6 April 2023 (UTC) (Modified)