Hi, Tomohiko, I think you explained very well.
Here is my thougghts: Quotation from Tomohiko Kubota and Osamu's comments. > From: Osamu Aoki <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ... > > When I saw my name in document maintainer section in English with first > > and my last name in one piece, I felt strange. I posted here and since > > no one replied, I fixed that page. > > Ok. I posted the mail because the comment with cvs commit may > mislead non-Japanese people who don't know Japanese custom. > (The comment can read that Japanese name uses spaces everywhere > in every contexts; which is not true. I'd like Chinese translation > of DWN not to use spaces.) I think you are right about situation. I was not careful about CVS message. Sorry. > I think a space may be used for Japanese name in English sentences. > Also, I added spaces even for Japanese translations if the name > is written independently in "()". Intersting detail :-) > However, I didn't add spaces when the names appear in ordinary > sentences because such a expression is apparently strange. ... > Right. Your explanation is consistent with mine, and I expect > non-Japanese members of this list will trust us. The keypoint > seems whether the name appears independently (i.e., book author, > sign on government/bank documents, name tags, and so on) or in > ordinary sentences. Very good summary. Trust Kubota-san, he lives in Japan, speaks Japanese, and very well informed. ... > > My intent of adding space in the English was to clarify splits > > between first and last name. > I understand your intent. However, I am afraid that many people > will misunderstand that "Osamu" is "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" and "Aoki" is "?$B=$", > while the truth is opposite. (I guess you are using 7 bit encoding JIS codes in the above) Yes, true. This is actually interesting topics. Most Japanese names are spelled as following order in Japanese: Last-name First-name (spelled in Japanese/chinese characters) But for most common way of spelling Japanese name in romanized format is: First-name Last-name (spelled in Roman characters) Japanese flip word order to conform to the expectation of English/Frenche/German/... speakers. (This is kind of officialized by the convention used in the Japanese Passport.) At least, some chinese (or maybe all of chinese) do not do this. So the "Mao Tzuo-tong"(maybe wrong spell but I hope you understand me.) I think some Europeans have names with the so-called "Last name" coming first. (Hungary?) Anyway, name order and its translation convention are very deep topics with much emotion: "which culture dectates the way you are called?" > > I do not care which way to write, IMHO. But it has to be consistent. > > Ok. Since it is I who modify English version of DWN for Japanese > names (by a semi-automatic small Perl script), I can change the > policy and the script hereafter. > > > Also, getting opinion of Chinese person's preference in English context > > may be interesting. I see most chinese names in Japanese web pages do > > not use a space between last and first name in Japanese. > > I am also interested. Also, I can add items for my script for > Chinese, Korean, Russian, Greek, Thai, and any other > non-Latin-alphabet people. Suggestions are welcome. Cheers :) -- ~\^o^/~~~ ~\^.^/~~~ ~\^*^/~~~ ~\^_^/~~~ ~\^+^/~~~ ~\^:^/~~~ ~\^v^/~~~ + Osamu Aoki <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, at the gateway server +