[Wikipedia-l] Biography as a discipline

Tue Nov 27 21:17:12 UTC 2001

From: "Lars Aronsson" <lars at 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