Talk:Ch'ien-t'ang
I have just added "|head=Ch‘ien-t‘ang|head2=Ch’ien-t’ang" to the page in this diff. It is not immediately certain to me that Ch‘ien-t‘ang / Ch'ien-t'ang / Ch’ien-t’ang are anything more than typographic variation (diff, diff), but I would like to explore what it means to be alternative form or a mere typographic variation here. To me, the issue must turn on authorial intentionality and not modern day internet age standards or the Chicago Manual of Style. Descriptivism means you describe language the way the language user uses it, and if there's intent to write a word in a certain way X and not to write it a certain other way Y, then you've reached alternative form status between two forms X and Y (and then you prove the variants via Wiktionary:Attestation rules).
Typographic variation would be haphazard and uncoordinated. There would be no rhyme or reason.
It is prescriptivism to label as typographic variants (1) what the authors specifically and intentionally meant to write and (2) what the authors certainly did not want to write and would have rejected if they saw it printed.
Do not judge the requirements of the English language in the 19th and 20th centuries by those of 2023.
My case shall be made in parallel to Hawaiʻi argument. (See it's variant Hawai'i.)
Firstly, we see Citations:ʻ.
Secondly, I feel that one piece of evidence in favor of one form being a mere typographic variation instead of a variant would be that the entire work uses only one type of apostrophe, regardless of the situation. Is this the case for the Ch‘ien-t‘ang cites? Is this the case for the Ch’ien-t’ang cites?
(1) In his 1898 article, staying only on page 300, T. Watters uses a ‘ in T‘ang immediately before he uses it in Ch‘ien-t‘ang. He later switches to ’ for several normal 's and then back to ‘ for Kun-tê-pan-t‘an and Kun-t‘ou-p‘o-han (君頭波漢). So I see an authorial intent to specifically use ‘ in Ch‘ien-t‘ang, because it is adhereing to the Wade-Giles rules. If Watters had seen 'Ch’ien-t’ang' in his work, or 'Kun-tê-pan-t’an' and 'Kun-t’ou-p’o-han' or 'T’ang', he would not have accepted it. So the difference between T‘ang and T’ang and etc is a variation not of a typesetter's fancy but of an author's will and intent. Furthermore, page 300 is absolutely littered with a grotesque array of absurd marks that Wiktionary should not ignore, if this is to be a descriptivist dictionary.
(2) In the 1903 book at this page, Shiichi Tajima uses ‘ in Ch‘ien-t‘ang. (Keep in mind, this is an authorial intent so particular and exacting that the title of the work includes a circumflex in 'Kôrin'!) Immediately before and after Ch‘ien-t‘ang using ‘, there are 's with ’. Could this author - Shiichi Tajima - mistakenly switch around two apostrophes in Ch‘ien-t‘ang and then return to ’ for the other words, while having all these pecuilar circuflexes and such? Seems like intent more than typography.
(3)In the 1953 work on pages 712 and 713, we see again the same pattern: attention to details of diacritics that would confound the internet age with its blasted keyboards.
So I conclude that it is the self-same case for Hawaiʻi and Hawai'i that means Ch‘ien-t‘ang and Ch'ien-t'ang are alternative forms and not variants. I assume that the same is probably not true for Ch'ien-t'ang and Ch’ien-t’ang, so I don't create Ch’ien-t’ang. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 17:38, 2 April 2023 (UTC)