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These guidelines are still being developed. Feel free to improve them, or discuss them on the talk page.
The purpose of this manual is to create style guidelines for editing Ethiopia-related articles in the English Wikipedia to conform to a neutral encyclopedic standard, as well as to make things easier to read by following a consistent format. The following rules do not claim to be the last word. One way is often as good as another, but if everyone follows minimum standards, Wikipedia will be easier to read and use, not to mention easier to write and edit. This manual is open to all proposals, discussion, and editing.
Ethiopians commonly use their fathers' given namesaspatronymics after their own, e.g. Abiy Ahmed means Abiy, the son of Ahmed. Sometimes their father's father's name appears in third place, but this style is usually for official documents; only in rare circumstances would Ethiopians adopt their grandfather's name as a last name for common usage. Note that if the name is Amharic, it does not imply that a subject is a member of the Amhara people, as many other groups also use Amharic names.
Many Ethiopian names are compound nounsinGe'ez, for example "Zara Yaqob" which means "Seed of Jacob". He should not be referred to as "Zara" or "Mr Yaqob" -- unless this unusual usage can be verified in a reliable source, which then needs to be added to the relevant article.
Ethiopians, especially in the West, will frequently adopt their own transliteration scheme for styling themselves, that does not always correspond to any of the various schemes employed by linguists. Whenever proper names become notable under such ad hoc spellings, they should be preferred as the most common searchable term, e.g. songstress Manalemosh Dibo. Articles about musicians with stage names are listed at their more familiar name, e.g. Teddy Afro and Gigi (singer), with the legal name given in the article lead sentence.
This also applies to names of albums, songs, etc. that are sometimes transliterated directly as proper names. The name of an album is italicised, and if desired, the English interpretation could be given in parentheses and quotation marks ("like this").
For guides on how to transliterate names, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethiopia/Transliteration. When transliterating a name, the article should first be at the name most commonly used in English. If no such common spelling exists, or if there are conflicting very common spellings, then the "Simple transliteration" of the adopted transliteration system takes precedence for the naming of the article and of the subject throughout the article.
Articles should begin with this common name (in bold), followed with a parenthetical notation containing the following:
The term '''Habesha''' ([[Ge'ez alphabet|Ge'ez]] ሐበሻ ''ḥabašā'', [[Amharic language|Amh.]] ''hābešā'', [[Tigrinya language|Tgn.]] ''ḥābešā''; sometimes Amh. '''Abesha''', አበሻ ''ābešā''), while sometimes described as...This edition of Wikipedia is in English, so do not use the Ge'ez alphabet or its transliteration excessively, such as for common nouns. Also, bear in mind that such entries will appear as squares or question marks on any computers that lack the supporting font (GF Zemen Unicode).
If a common noun does not have an established English translation (that is, has multiple translations or none), the Ge'ez spelling may be given in parentheses, followed by an italicized complex transliteration. For example, in Great Oromo migration, the term luba is not easily translated. The relevant portion of the text therefore reads "... until the luba (Ge'ez ሉባ lūbā, an "appointed" head of one of the five groups of an Oromo clan) of Meslé."
Furthermore, within the text, proper nouns in the Ge'ez alphabet may be supplied if known, unless the noun is hyperlinked and the target article in the English Wikipedia provides the characters. Where it is used, the name in Ge'ez letters, followed by its complex transliteration, both in parentheses, should directly follow the first (and only the first) mention of the name. Translation is optional, but not entirely necessary unless it contains some significance to the article.
If there is a term you have trouble translating, please bring it up on the Ethiopia-related Manual of Style talk page. You may also drop a note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethiopia if you wish.
Again, to help establish a simple and clean appearance, if a term is already hyperlinked to an article with Ge'ez text and romanization, please do not provide the characters or romanization again. For example, the following is redundant:
Because the hyperlinked article already displays the name in Ge'ez. It should instead be rendered as:
which simplifies the article. If readers wish to see the name in the native text, they can simply click on the Tewodros link (where editors may insert the Ge'ez text, transliteration, etc., if not already present).
If, however, there is no article for a proper name, then it is permissible to insert a Ge'ez text and transliteration of it in the text. These can be removed later once a stub or article has been created.
In general, non-English insertions should be in parentheses to minimize interruption to the flow of reading. For example:
is okay, but
is not a readable English sentence.
Note that Ge'ez insertions to list and table entries can be done without parentheses.
Ethiopia is a land of many ethnic groups – one authority has counted over 80 of them. As a result, most of these groups are known by two names: that by which other groups refer to them, and that which members of their group use to refer to themselves – an exonym and an endonym. While the exonym is usually the more familiar name to English speakers and thus would otherwise be the preferred name, most of them are either obviously derogatory (e.g., the Yem people are called by their neighbors Janjero, "monkey") or considered derogatory by its members (e.g. Galla for Oromo). Out of sensitivity to these ethnic groups, preference should be given to the endonym as the article name, unless it is needlessly confusing (e.g., not "Kingdom of Yem" but Kingdom of Janjero, which is the established name of this monarchy).
Redirects should exist for all reasonable exonyms, and variants for each ethnic group, when known.
