Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Writing systems

Naming consistency

archived at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (writing systems)

Good article reassessment for Sinhala script

Sinhala script has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Onegreatjoke (talk)

Requested move at Talk:Gugyeol#Requested move 10 August 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Gugyeol#Requested move 10 August 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Векочел (talk) 09:12, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

Angle brackets

Does the project feel that angle brackets around letters around letters are beneficial, e.g. ⟨A⟩? Courtesy ping: Aerrapc. Certes (talk) 21:51, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

In what context?★Trekker (talk) 08:11, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

When discussing individual letters (or digraphs), it's customary in linguistic notation to surround the characters with chevron brackets, eg. ⟨A⟩ to clarify that the letter itself is the thing being discussed (see Bracket#Uses_of_⟨_⟩ for a better explanation). The articles about letters are currently inconsistent as to whether or not this is done. Currently, I'm hoping to reach some sort of consensus or at least a consistent method. ⇒ Aerrapc they/them, 15:02, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

I see. Personally I think it would make sense to use the brackets for clarity.★Trekker (talk) 22:57, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. Pinging JMF who may also have useful comments. Certes (talk) 11:06, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

In the intro to articles about letters, I believe that the current practice of using bold like every other article (A, a is the first letter ... etc.) is the appropriate one. In the body of the text, after Template:Orthography notation has been used to introduce it, then yes {{angbr}} should be used as it is the conventional notation.

See also MOS:WAW (but the italics notation is definitely not suitable for single glyphs).

(Btw, chevrons are horizontal, so not the same thing). 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:51, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

Some chevrons point up, some point down, why not sidewise? —Tamfang (talk) 03:47, 22 August 2025 (UTC)

Pinging @Nardog:, who has a lot more expertise in this area than I do and may have better advice. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 12:01, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

(retrospectice clarification: template:Infobox grapheme (as used by A, B, C etc) already includes a box to explain the IPA notatipns, so that meets my criterion already. template:Orthography notation would only be needed if an article didn't use the usual template.) --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 02:28, 22 August 2025 (UTC)

• I have pretty consistently used quotation marks for Latin letters as in «The letter "X" is written with two strokes». That having been said, this does not extend to letters of other scripts, which I have not marked in any way as far as I can tell. I think before you can talk about recommendations for style, you need to define the intended purpose. By my pattern of usage, it would appear that my sole consideration is about not confusing mentions of a letter with an intended word in prose. This has two beneficial effects in clarifying for the reader that the quoted letter is not intended to be read as a word, and marking the letter as not being a typographic error to be edited. The discussion above seems to be taking the purpose farther into concepts of linguistic documentation, which is certainly a legitimate end, but I'm not convinced that stylistic prescription to the needs of that purpose is necessarily justified outside of specific instances. I'd need to be convinced that bold and "quotation marks" are lacking before I would support requiring ⟨angle brackets⟩, which are not accessible on standard keyboards. VanIsaac, GHTV ^contr_about 18:52, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

  I agree with you that an intended purpose should be defined before discussing the method of identification. For context, I've been looking to standardize angle brackets because of a complete lack of consistency across articles, and even throughout different sections of some individual articles.

  While you may have consistently been using quotation marks, not everyone has been. I've seen double quotation marks, single quotation marks, angle brackets (or chevrons as I call them), parenthesis, italics, bold, code format, asterisks, and more.

  My reason for supporting chevrons, and disproving of quotation marks, seems to ironically be the very reasons you've been using quotation marks. I feel that using quotation marks around letters may lead the reader to feel that it is being referred to as a word, not a letter. Quotation marks are often used to reference words or phrases. The only function that chevrons serve in modern English is specifically this purpose -- identifying graphemic content -- which is why I think it's the best solution. I'm fine with exceptionally allowing the lede sentence to bold it with no chevrons though. ⇒ Aerrapc they/them, 17:08, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

My concern is that angle brackets are functionally WP:Jargon and disrupt reader understanding by introducing a learning curve of linguistic documentation to general purpose articles. I also disagree that quotation marks imply the unit of a word in any sense - they are just as freely used to indicate a clause, phrase, word, letter, or any other linguistic unit that is treated as a single entity. VanIsaac, GHTV ^contr_about 16:15, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

The current MoS recommends double quotes or italics for letters and words used as words, defaulting to italics (see also Talk:Timeline_of_the_name_Palestine/Archive_2#Requested_move_18_July_2021). Angle brackets are not discussed, but they are standard for orthography and for bra–ket notation and expectation value in physics. Therefore, I'd recommend consistently using either italics or angle brackets for letter articles. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 17:20, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

There are two different contexts here: (a) the letter as given in the lead sentence and (b) the letter as subsequently used in the article. For context (b), I agree completely: the subject needs to be clearly identified and angle brackets are the best known convention.

But for context (a), the relevant MOS is Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#Bolding of title and alternative names, amplified at Wikipedia:Writing better articles#First sentence content: "The article should begin with a short declarative sentence, answering two questions for the nonspecialist reader: "What (or who) is the subject?" and "Why is this subject notable?". To me, the key message there is that the wp:principle of least surprise applies. The visitor is expecting an article about A, not ⟨A⟩. If they are not familiar with IPA, they are immediately confronted with an unfamiliar notation that immediately questions if this is the right article. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 18:12, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

So: italics for the lead and angle brackets for most of the body. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 07:31, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

Italics in the lead is overkill to me. The topic is already highlighted in bold, it hardly needs both. Also, it doesn't scale: there are other glyphs where the italic form sufficiently unfamiliar as to confuse.

But I see that the notation ⟨A⟩ has been pushed into many of the articles anyway without reversion, so I guess the question is now moot. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:54, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Hangul orthography#Requested move 23 September 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Hangul orthography#Requested move 23 September 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. grapesurgeon (seefooddiet) (talk) 20:43, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Are these changes legitimate?

New editor with 3 edits, one was vandalism. [1] Doug Weller talk 07:38, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Ṣa (Indic)#Requested move 15 October 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Ṣa (Indic)#Requested move 15 October 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. --pro-anti-air ––>(talk)<–– 19:02, 22 October 2025 (UTC)