In wikipedia do they use formal or informal verbs conjugations?

derick78b · 29 Oct 2011

Hey guys,

I was searching on Wikipedia when I saw some verbs ending with ーた. As I suspected I used Rikaichan and found down that it was an informal conjugation.

But here's my question:

Please, do wikipedia use informal or formal verb conjugations?

Thank you.]

byebye

charusu · 29 Oct 2011

Can you give a link to the page to which you refer? The main Japanese page (Japanese language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) has a mixture of both the formal form and the informal form of verbs and adjectives.

derick78b · 29 Oct 2011

charusu said:
Can you give a link to the page to which you refer? The main Japanese page (Japanese language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) has a mixture of both the formal form and the informal form of verbs and adjectives.

I saw that too that's why I asked. I thought as being a "encyclopedia" site it would use polite form.

I searched for "The Legend of Zelda Series".

Thank you.

Toritoribe · 29 Oct 2011

Are you talking about the following page?

ゼルダの伝説シリーズ - Wikipedia

In this page, or most of all Japanese wiki pages the non-polite form is usually used.

charusu · 29 Oct 2011

Yeah a quick skim of the ends of the sentences on the page indicates that most if not all of the verbs are in the informal/non-polite form - and you wouldn't use the formal/polite form in the middle of the sentence anyway, so it's probably all in the informal/non-polite form.

And if you think about it, Wikipedia isn't a person, it seems kind of silly for a webpage to be polite (even though it is obviously written by a person). It's not like I've ever heard anybody say this or anything, but it kind of makes sense to me. Although I'm sure you could find many examples of pages that use the polite form, but I would imagine that they are written from the perspective of a human writer directly communicating with or speaking to a human user, as opposed to the knowledge-purveying nature of Wikipedia and other references.

nekojita · 29 Oct 2011

Wikipedia uses plain form verb endings, but it's a bit different to "informal" as you would write to a friend.
e.g. they use things like である , they often use masu-stem connectors instead of te-form.
It's the same if you look at newspaper writing - they don't use -masu forms, generally but they do use a very particular style.

The actual guidance on wikipedia says:
百科事典本体の記事については、常体（……である、……だ）で統一します。
「Wikipedia:」「Help:」名前空間の記事については、敬体（……です、……ます）で統一します。
e.g. direct style （……である、……だ) in encyclopedia articles, desu/masu in Help sections and similar.

derick78b · 31 Oct 2011

Thank you all.

Yeah, it seems that Wikipedia uses both.

Thank you all.

Toritoribe · 31 Oct 2011

Probably you're misunderstanding. Wikipedia uses ONLY non-polite forms in pages for articles, whereas polite forms are used ONLY in namespase pages or similar, as nekojita-san quoted. Thus, the pages you usually read are ALWAYS written in non-polite form. The two forms are not usually mixed.

only in non-pollite form
ゼルダの伝説風のタクト - Wikipedia

only in polite form
Help:名前空間 - Wikipedia

derick78b · 4 Nov 2011

Toritoribe said:
Probably you're misunderstanding. Wikipedia uses ONLY non-polite forms in pages for articles, whereas polite forms are used ONLY in namespase pages or similar, as nekojita-san quoted. Thus, the pages you usually read are ALWAYS written in non-polite form. The two forms are not usually mixed.

only in non-pollite form
ゼルダの伝説風のタクト - Wikipedia

only in polite form
Help:名前空間 - Wikipedia

Ah... now I understand.
Thank you..

In wikipedia do they use formal or informal verbs conjugations?

derick78b

先輩

charusu

先輩

derick78b

先輩

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

charusu

先輩

nekojita

先輩

derick78b

先輩

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

derick78b

先輩

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