From: "Lars Aronsson" <lars(a)aronsson.se>
I just added a note at the end of the article about
Danish author
[[Hans Christian Andersen]] about the Danish use of initials in
personal names. In Denmark, this author is called H. C. Andersen.
Even if these initials are short for Hans Christian, the full name is
almost never used in Denmark. This is as common in Denmark as the
U.S. use of a middle initial (e.g. George W. Bush), but all English,
French, and German sources that I have found use the full name Hans
Christian. Since Wikipedia is in English, it is just fine that it
follows the established English convention.
Yes, I agree with this.
This makes it just like a translation. The Danish
words "smørrebrød",
"København", and "H. C. Andersen" are translated into English
"sandwich", "Copenhagen", and "Hans Christian Andersen".
We are used
to translating nouns and city names, but this is a case where also
personal names are in fact translated. I find that fascinating.
Yep!
This sort of knowledge should be written down
somewhere, but where?
Sure, that would be a useful bit of information to put in biographies:
"In Denmark, he is known as 'H. C. Andersen.'"
Is there a science, school or discipline that teaches
how to document
a person's name or life? Shouldn't there be?
I imagine there are books written about it both by historians and by lit
professors.
I know we discussed
this in May in [[Biography/Talk]]. I stated that biography is a
scholarly discipline, which Larry doubted, and I had no hard evidence.
Well, if I recall correctly, I was asking for evidence that there was
such a thing as a biography subdiscipline of any other field, or if
there were biography departments at universities. I've never heard of
either. Of course, scholars in history, literature, philosophy, and
other fields are constantly writing biographies.
I have observed that books titled "biographic
dictionary" never list
people that are still alive. Is this a rule or just a coincidence?
I doubt there even is such a coincidence. In any dictionary of
biography important living people will be listed.
Are there any handbooks (or useful websites) that
explain how to write
biographies, biographic dictionaries, or encyclopediae? Is there a
Wikipedia page that lists suchs references?
There is a Nupedia page :-) :
http://www.nupedia.com/policy.shtml
Larry