Hi,
I'm planning to work on a number of articles related to Irish, Scottish and Welsh localities on the Romanian Wikipedia. I am currently in a dilemma as to what name to use - the Celtic variant or the English variant. I have realised that most non-English Wikipedias use the English variant - so that place names such as "Cork", "Dublin", "Edinburg" and "Cardiff" are used. For the exception of Dublin, perhaps, many of these place names, particularly smaller towns, do not have native variants in languages such as Romanian, German, French, etc.
So, why should the English name be used in this situation? Wouldn't the Celtic name be more appropriate? Celtic languages are co-official in Scotland and Wales, while in Ireland, Irish is the first official and national language. Due to this, I would prefer to use placenames such as "Corcaigh", "*An Uaimh*" (for Navan), "*Chill Dara" *(for Kildare), etc. However, this sounds quite odd and are not frequently used, even though they are the first official name. What do others think? I am inclined to use them so that people are actually educated that there exists an Irish language as the first official language of Ireland. Too often, people in Romania say "the Irish speak (just) English" and stop it at that. They're surprised, for example, when I tell them about Irish names such as "Baile Atha Cliath" for Dublin, etc.
Thanks,
Ronline
"Wikipedia Romania (Ronline)" rowikipedia@gmail.com wrote in message news:648f108b0603100121k2d9e159fw19f370215b94b095@mail.gmail.com...
I'm planning to work on a number of articles related to Irish, Scottish and Welsh localities on the Romanian Wikipedia. I am currently in a dilemma as to what name to use - the Celtic variant or the English variant. I have realised that most non-English Wikipedias use the English variant - so that place names such as "Cork", "Dublin", "Edinburg" and "Cardiff" are used. For the exception of Dublin, perhaps, many of these place names, particularly smaller towns, do not have native variants in languages such as Romanian, German, French, etc.
[snip]
Your best bet in the first instance is to start your articles using the English name. If there is a good article in :en: then link to that.
Also link as appropriate to corresponding articles on :ga: (http://ga.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Gaeilge/Irish) :gd: (http://gd.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Gàidhlig/Scots Gaelic) and :cy: (http://cy.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Cymraeg/Welsh). You would hopefully find these links in the English article.
It might be helpful if you create REDIRECTs for the "Celtic variant" to the English version; if you discover that you want to use the Celtic variant later, you can move the article on top of the REDIRECT.
The priority is to get the information into an article somehow: the name can be changed later if necessary.
HTH HAND
On 3/10/06, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) rowikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
I'm planning to work on a number of articles related to Irish, Scottish and Welsh localities on the Romanian Wikipedia. I am currently in a dilemma as to what name to use - the Celtic variant or the English variant. I have realised that most non-English Wikipedias use the English variant - so that place names such as "Cork", "Dublin", "Edinburg" and "Cardiff" are used. For the exception of Dublin, perhaps, many of these place names, particularly smaller towns, do not have native variants in languages such as Romanian, German, French, etc.
So, why should the English name be used in this situation? Wouldn't the Celtic name be more appropriate? Celtic languages are co-official in Scotland and Wales, while in Ireland, Irish is the first official and national language. Due to this, I would prefer to use placenames such as "Corcaigh", "*An Uaimh*" (for Navan), "*Chill Dara" *(for Kildare), etc. However, this sounds quite odd and are not frequently used, even though they are the first official name. What do others think? I am inclined to use them so that people are actually educated that there exists an Irish language as the first official language of Ireland. Too often, people in Romania say "the Irish speak (just) English" and stop it at that. They're surprised, for example, when I tell them about Irish names such as "Baile Atha Cliath" for Dublin, etc.
Thanks,
Ronline
I'm impressed you know so much about Irish placenames - I don't think that many people even in Ireland would know where "An Uaimh" is.
And that, I think is the point - in Ireland (as in Scotland and Wales), the undisputedly *main* language is English, whatever about the *official* situation. I regret to say this, but it's true - this is coming from an Irishman who feels daily guilt about not speaking Irish properly. These languages are in various states, with "revival" as the key word, and Wales being the most successful in this regard.
But this doesn't really answer your question, and I think that it comes down to the local community's decision. On the Romanian Wikipedia in general, do you use local names of all places? What about placenames of a country that has more than one local, or even official language? Phil's solution seems pragmatic enough. What do other Wikipedias do?
Cormac
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
I'm impressed you know so much about Irish placenames - I don't think that many people even in Ireland would know where "An Uaimh" is.
Thanks :) I have a personal interest in "Celtic Europe" and the ongoing revival of Celtic languages in these areas.
On the Romanian
Wikipedia in general, do you use local names of all places? What about placenames of a country that has more than one local, or even official language?
When there is a Romanian name, we would use the Romanian name - for example, "London" is called "Londra" in Romanian, so we use that name. Same for "Moscova", "Varsovia", etc. But, on the whole, the Romanian language tends to not "naturalise" foreign names. My dilemma is that cities like Cardiff/Caerdydd, Cork/Corcaigh, and even smaller ones, have no Romanian equivalent. Therefore, we would use, as any Wikipedia would use, the local variant. When there are two official variants, we would use the most suitable one. For Basque placenames, for example, we would use the Basque variant (though in recent times, the Basque government has legislated that cities be named in the form SpanishName-BasqueName, so we get names like SanSebastian-Donostia, and Vitoria-Gasteiz).
The difference with Ireland is the Irish is the first official and national language. To me at least, using English seems a bit inappropriate, even though I do realise that English is (unfortunately) the "main" language of Ireland. In areas like Wales, I would also be tempted to use the native name (i.e. Comitatul Ddinbych instead of Denbighshire, Comitatul = shire in Romanian), since Welsh is increasingly seen as the "national language" and is quite widely used, particularly in the north.
The Polish Wikipedia places the article on Cork at Corcaigh: http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corcaigh
No other Wikipedia does, they all use English names.
I say go with the most common name. The point is that people should find the articles, not that they are placed under the most "official" name. In that case, for example, articles about countries should be placed under their official names. To my knowledge, they never are.
/Andreas
On 3/10/06, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) rowikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
I'm impressed you know so much about Irish placenames - I don't think that many people even in Ireland would know where "An Uaimh" is.
Thanks :) I have a personal interest in "Celtic Europe" and the ongoing revival of Celtic languages in these areas.
On the Romanian
Wikipedia in general, do you use local names of all places? What about placenames of a country that has more than one local, or even official language?
When there is a Romanian name, we would use the Romanian name - for example, "London" is called "Londra" in Romanian, so we use that name. Same for "Moscova", "Varsovia", etc. But, on the whole, the Romanian language tends to not "naturalise" foreign names. My dilemma is that cities like Cardiff/Caerdydd, Cork/Corcaigh, and even smaller ones, have no Romanian equivalent. Therefore, we would use, as any Wikipedia would use, the local variant. When there are two official variants, we would use the most suitable one. For Basque placenames, for example, we would use the Basque variant (though in recent times, the Basque government has legislated that cities be named in the form SpanishName-BasqueName, so we get names like SanSebastian-Donostia, and Vitoria-Gasteiz).
The difference with Ireland is the Irish is the first official and national language. To me at least, using English seems a bit inappropriate, even though I do realise that English is (unfortunately) the "main" language of Ireland. In areas like Wales, I would also be tempted to use the native name (i.e. Comitatul Ddinbych instead of Denbighshire, Comitatul = shire in Romanian), since Welsh is increasingly seen as the "national language" and is quite widely used, particularly in the north.
The Polish Wikipedia places the article on Cork at Corcaigh: http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corcaigh
No other Wikipedia does, they all use English names. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
For purely practical considerations, I would suggest using the English name for a Romanian audience. Chances are, if they have happened to hear of these places before, they would be more familiar with the English name, and, in addition to that, English pronunciation is more intuitive when reading Romanian than that of most Celtic languages -- imagine how horribly most Romanians would mangle Caerdydd, An Uaimh, or Corcaigh.
Mark
On 10/03/06, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) rowikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
I'm planning to work on a number of articles related to Irish, Scottish and Welsh localities on the Romanian Wikipedia. I am currently in a dilemma as to what name to use - the Celtic variant or the English variant. I have realised that most non-English Wikipedias use the English variant - so that place names such as "Cork", "Dublin", "Edinburg" and "Cardiff" are used. For the exception of Dublin, perhaps, many of these place names, particularly smaller towns, do not have native variants in languages such as Romanian, German, French, etc.
So, why should the English name be used in this situation? Wouldn't the Celtic name be more appropriate? Celtic languages are co-official in Scotland and Wales, while in Ireland, Irish is the first official and national language. Due to this, I would prefer to use placenames such as "Corcaigh", "*An Uaimh*" (for Navan), "*Chill Dara" *(for Kildare), etc. However, this sounds quite odd and are not frequently used, even though they are the first official name. What do others think? I am inclined to use them so that people are actually educated that there exists an Irish language as the first official language of Ireland. Too often, people in Romania say "the Irish speak (just) English" and stop it at that. They're surprised, for example, when I tell them about Irish names such as "Baile Atha Cliath" for Dublin, etc.
Thanks,
Ronline _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
-- "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
On 3/11/06, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
For purely practical considerations, I would suggest using the English name for a Romanian audience. Chances are, if they have happened to hear of these places before, they would be more familiar with the English name, and, in addition to that, English pronunciation is more intuitive when reading Romanian than that of most Celtic languages -- imagine how horribly most Romanians would mangle Caerdydd, An Uaimh, or Corcaigh.
Mark
To be honest, I agree - that's what I was thinking too.
Cormac
On 10/03/06, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) rowikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
I'm planning to work on a number of articles related to Irish, Scottish and Welsh localities on the Romanian Wikipedia. I am currently in a dilemma as to what name to use - the Celtic variant or the English variant. I have realised that most non-English Wikipedias use the English variant - so that place names such as "Cork", "Dublin", "Edinburg" and "Cardiff" are used. For the exception of Dublin, perhaps, many of these place names, particularly smaller towns, do not have native variants in languages such as Romanian, German, French, etc.
So, why should the English name be used in this situation? Wouldn't the Celtic name be more appropriate? Celtic languages are co-official in Scotland and Wales, while in Ireland, Irish is the first official and national language. Due to this, I would prefer to use placenames such as "Corcaigh", "*An Uaimh*" (for Navan), "*Chill Dara" *(for Kildare), etc. However, this sounds quite odd and are not frequently used, even though they are the first official name. What do others think? I am inclined to use them so that people are actually educated that there exists an Irish language as the first official language of Ireland. Too often, people in Romania say "the Irish speak (just) English" and stop it at that. They're surprised, for example, when I tell them about Irish names such as "Baile Atha Cliath" for Dublin, etc.
Thanks,
Ronline _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
-- "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On 3/11/06, Cormac Lawler cormaggio@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/11/06, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
For purely practical considerations, I would suggest using the English name for a Romanian audience. Chances are, if they have happened to hear of these places before, they would be more familiar with the English name, and, in addition to that, English pronunciation is more intuitive when reading Romanian than that of most Celtic languages -- imagine how horribly most Romanians would mangle Caerdydd, An Uaimh, or Corcaigh.
Mark
To be honest, I agree - that's what I was thinking too.
Cormac
But the weird thing is that the Irish name will have to be listed first in the infobox, since it's the first official verison. In that case, won't it be a bit odd to use the English variant for the title, which is really the "secondary" variant?
So far, most admins on the Romanian Wikipedia seem to favour English names. I do see their point of view. I've had many personal experiences where I've told Romanians about visiting "Caerdydd" and they correct me "Cardiff", as if I didn't know how to pronounce English! My point was that such ignorance is really unfortunate, and should be reversed in such way. I'm not saying that Wikipedia should become a hotbed of Gaelic revivalist rhetoric, but we can at least try and teach people that there's more to these regions than just English!
Another thing - could someone please do some recordings of Irish names. Celtic languages are really hard to pronounce, but they are really beautiful and unique languages. It would really help a lot if people could just go to Wikipedia to find out how to pronounce key Irish (Welsh, Scottish) toponyms. Hopefully we'll come back in 20 years and see a great deal more use of these languages.
Go raibh maith agaibh!
Ronline
PS: Another can of worms is created by Basque toponyms. For example, should one use San Sebastian, Donostia, or San Sebastian-Donostia for that respective Basque city? How about Catalan toponyms? I think most Wikipedias have just taken the easy way out and chosen Spanish names, but to me at least, that sounds awfully superficial and ignorant.
If the English name is the most common name in Romanian, use that one and vice versa. It's all about the least possible surprise for the readers. They want to find an article where they except it to be. We don't have the article about Germany under "Deutschland" on enwiki, even less under "Bundesrepublik Deutschland", or "United Kingdom" under "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" (rowiki: "Regatul Unit"). Just use the common names and write the official ones in the info box, just like with all the countries and cities with local (Romanian) names.
I'm Swedish and would be extremely surprised and confused if the enwiki article about Sweden would be under the official name "Konungariket Sverige" (The Swedish Kingdom), and would in that case very much suggest a move of the article.
/Andreas
On 3/11/06, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) rowikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/11/06, Cormac Lawler cormaggio@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/11/06, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
For purely practical considerations, I would suggest using the English name for a Romanian audience. Chances are, if they have happened to hear of these places before, they would be more familiar with the English name, and, in addition to that, English pronunciation is more intuitive when reading Romanian than that of most Celtic languages -- imagine how horribly most Romanians would mangle Caerdydd, An Uaimh, or Corcaigh.
Mark
To be honest, I agree - that's what I was thinking too.
Cormac
But the weird thing is that the Irish name will have to be listed first in the infobox, since it's the first official verison. In that case, won't it be a bit odd to use the English variant for the title, which is really the "secondary" variant?
So far, most admins on the Romanian Wikipedia seem to favour English names. I do see their point of view. I've had many personal experiences where I've told Romanians about visiting "Caerdydd" and they correct me "Cardiff", as if I didn't know how to pronounce English! My point was that such ignorance is really unfortunate, and should be reversed in such way. I'm not saying that Wikipedia should become a hotbed of Gaelic revivalist rhetoric, but we can at least try and teach people that there's more to these regions than just English!
Another thing - could someone please do some recordings of Irish names. Celtic languages are really hard to pronounce, but they are really beautiful and unique languages. It would really help a lot if people could just go to Wikipedia to find out how to pronounce key Irish (Welsh, Scottish) toponyms. Hopefully we'll come back in 20 years and see a great deal more use of these languages.
Go raibh maith agaibh!
Ronline
PS: Another can of worms is created by Basque toponyms. For example, should one use San Sebastian, Donostia, or San Sebastian-Donostia for that respective Basque city? How about Catalan toponyms? I think most Wikipedias have just taken the easy way out and chosen Spanish names, but to me at least, that sounds awfully superficial and ignorant. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On 3/11/06, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) rowikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/11/06, Cormac Lawler cormaggio@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/11/06, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
For purely practical considerations, I would suggest using the English name for a Romanian audience. Chances are, if they have happened to hear of these places before, they would be more familiar with the English name, and, in addition to that, English pronunciation is more intuitive when reading Romanian than that of most Celtic languages -- imagine how horribly most Romanians would mangle Caerdydd, An Uaimh, or Corcaigh.
Mark
To be honest, I agree - that's what I was thinking too.
Cormac
But the weird thing is that the Irish name will have to be listed first in the infobox, since it's the first official verison. In that case, won't it be a bit odd to use the English variant for the title, which is really the "secondary" variant?
So far, most admins on the Romanian Wikipedia seem to favour English names. I do see their point of view. I've had many personal experiences where I've told Romanians about visiting "Caerdydd" and they correct me "Cardiff", as if I didn't know how to pronounce English! My point was that such ignorance is really unfortunate, and should be reversed in such way. I'm not saying that Wikipedia should become a hotbed of Gaelic revivalist rhetoric, but we can at least try and teach people that there's more to these regions than just English!
Another thing - could someone please do some recordings of Irish names. Celtic languages are really hard to pronounce, but they are really beautiful and unique languages. It would really help a lot if people could just go to Wikipedia to find out how to pronounce key Irish (Welsh, Scottish) toponyms. Hopefully we'll come back in 20 years and see a great deal more use of these languages.
Go raibh maith agaibh!
Ronline
PS: Another can of worms is created by Basque toponyms. For example, should one use San Sebastian, Donostia, or San Sebastian-Donostia for that respective Basque city? How about Catalan toponyms? I think most Wikipedias have just taken the easy way out and chosen Spanish names, but to me at least, that sounds awfully superficial and ignorant.
I suppose the main point for me is that English is the 'lingua franca' of Ireland, while Irish is the official language. (It should be pointed out here - and you probably already know - that Irish had been in decline before it was made the official language - an attempt to revive it from the top down.)
I really appreciate your efforts to educate the Romanian Wikipedia (and people), Ronline. However, i still think it would be best (or least confusing) if the names were referred to by the names people are familiar with - If someone saw a link on the Romanian Wikipedia to somewhere called "Baile Átha Cliath", they probably wouldn't know where it was, which is a shame, because they *do* know where Dublin is (I hope :-)). One way of keeping it less confusing while maintaining your desire to educate people about Irish would be to include the Irish name in each article, at the very beginning. Most English names of places in Ireland come from the Irish anyway, so it would be a way of giving people some context. For example, you could have: "Ballymore, ("Baile Mór" in [[Irish]], meaning "big town) is a town in [[County Kildare]], [[Ireland]].."; and "Kildare ("Cill Dara" in [[Irish]], meaning "oak forest") is a [[county]] in [[Ireland]]..." Ok, so you've never heard of that place, but you get the picture?
Likewise for the Basque names, how many people are going to have heard of "Donostia"? But they might well have heard about San Sebastian, and, when they go to that article, they can find out about the Basque region, language, food etc.
Mmm, Basque food..
And also, in case you're wondering, that place is actually called Ballymore Eustace, and it's where i'm from :-)
Is mise, le meas,
Cormac
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
How about for towns with two names which are similar, but spelt differently:
e.g. Cwmbrân (Welsh) and Cwmbran (English) in Wales.
(In case that 'a' didn't come out correct it is an a-circumflex)
Should the name /with/ diacritics be the name of the article or the name without ?
Fran
PS. My gut reaction would be to have the English names, its whats in all the guide books etc. But I know that its wrong, we should be using the local names and I try to myself - even if my friends brand me pretentious! :) I wonder if there is any guidance on this we could take from other organisations?
On Sat, 2006-03-11 at 13:10 +0000, Cormac Lawler wrote:
On 3/11/06, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) rowikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/11/06, Cormac Lawler cormaggio@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/11/06, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
For purely practical considerations, I would suggest using the English name for a Romanian audience. Chances are, if they have happened to hear of these places before, they would be more familiar with the English name, and, in addition to that, English pronunciation is more intuitive when reading Romanian than that of most Celtic languages -- imagine how horribly most Romanians would mangle Caerdydd, An Uaimh, or Corcaigh.
Mark
To be honest, I agree - that's what I was thinking too.
Cormac
But the weird thing is that the Irish name will have to be listed first in the infobox, since it's the first official verison. In that case, won't it be a bit odd to use the English variant for the title, which is really the "secondary" variant?
So far, most admins on the Romanian Wikipedia seem to favour English names. I do see their point of view. I've had many personal experiences where I've told Romanians about visiting "Caerdydd" and they correct me "Cardiff", as if I didn't know how to pronounce English! My point was that such ignorance is really unfortunate, and should be reversed in such way. I'm not saying that Wikipedia should become a hotbed of Gaelic revivalist rhetoric, but we can at least try and teach people that there's more to these regions than just English!
Another thing - could someone please do some recordings of Irish names. Celtic languages are really hard to pronounce, but they are really beautiful and unique languages. It would really help a lot if people could just go to Wikipedia to find out how to pronounce key Irish (Welsh, Scottish) toponyms. Hopefully we'll come back in 20 years and see a great deal more use of these languages.
Go raibh maith agaibh!
Ronline
PS: Another can of worms is created by Basque toponyms. For example, should one use San Sebastian, Donostia, or San Sebastian-Donostia for that respective Basque city? How about Catalan toponyms? I think most Wikipedias have just taken the easy way out and chosen Spanish names, but to me at least, that sounds awfully superficial and ignorant.
I suppose the main point for me is that English is the 'lingua franca' of Ireland, while Irish is the official language. (It should be pointed out here - and you probably already know - that Irish had been in decline before it was made the official language - an attempt to revive it from the top down.)
I really appreciate your efforts to educate the Romanian Wikipedia (and people), Ronline. However, i still think it would be best (or least confusing) if the names were referred to by the names people are familiar with - If someone saw a link on the Romanian Wikipedia to somewhere called "Baile Átha Cliath", they probably wouldn't know where it was, which is a shame, because they *do* know where Dublin is (I hope :-)). One way of keeping it less confusing while maintaining your desire to educate people about Irish would be to include the Irish name in each article, at the very beginning. Most English names of places in Ireland come from the Irish anyway, so it would be a way of giving people some context. For example, you could have: "Ballymore, ("Baile Mór" in [[Irish]], meaning "big town) is a town in [[County Kildare]], [[Ireland]].."; and "Kildare ("Cill Dara" in [[Irish]], meaning "oak forest") is a [[county]] in [[Ireland]]..." Ok, so you've never heard of that place, but you get the picture?
Likewise for the Basque names, how many people are going to have heard of "Donostia"? But they might well have heard about San Sebastian, and, when they go to that article, they can find out about the Basque region, language, food etc.
Mmm, Basque food..
And also, in case you're wondering, that place is actually called Ballymore Eustace, and it's where i'm from :-)
Is mise, le meas,
Cormac
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Now it's time to close and delete that problem for good. People voted there, decision is taken. People want to delete that wikipedia.
Respect the result of the vote taken there. Once and for good.
--------------------------------- Brings words and photos together (easily) with PhotoMail - it's free and works with Yahoo! Mail.
On 3/11/06, Francis Tyers spectre@ivixor.net wrote:
How about for towns with two names which are similar, but spelt differently:
e.g. Cwmbrân (Welsh) and Cwmbran (English) in Wales.
(In case that 'a' didn't come out correct it is an a-circumflex)
Ironically, I have seen the town written with the Welsh spelling in English and (once or twice) with the English spelling in Welsh.
I'm not quite sure what the moral of this story is.
-- Sam
Sam Korn wrote:
On 3/11/06, Francis Tyers spectre@ivixor.net wrote:
How about for towns with two names which are similar, but spelt differently:
e.g. Cwmbrân (Welsh) and Cwmbran (English) in Wales.
(In case that 'a' didn't come out correct it is an a-circumflex)
Ironically, I have seen the town written with the Welsh spelling in English and (once or twice) with the English spelling in Welsh.
I'm not quite sure what the moral of this story is.
Never start a linguistics war in Britain? Never go up against a Gael when a wiki is on the line?
In message 648f108b0603100121k2d9e159fw19f370215b94b095@mail.gmail.com, "Wikipedia Romania (Ronline)" rowikipedia-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org writes
Hi,
I'm planning to work on a number of articles related to Irish, Scottish and Welsh localities on the Romanian Wikipedia. I am currently in a dilemma as to what name to use - the Celtic variant or the English variant. I have realised that most non-English Wikipedias use the English variant - so that place names such as "Cork", "Dublin", "Edinburg" and "Cardiff" are used. For the exception of Dublin, perhaps, many of these place names, particularly smaller towns, do not have native variants in languages such as Romanian, German, French, etc.
So, why should the English name be used in this situation? Wouldn't the Celtic name be more appropriate? Celtic languages are co-official in Scotland and Wales, while in Ireland, Irish is the first official and national language. Due to this, I would prefer to use placenames such as "Corcaigh", "*An Uaimh*" (for Navan), "*Chill Dara" *(for Kildare), etc. However, this sounds quite odd and are not frequently used, even though they are the first official name. What do others think? I am inclined to use them so that people are actually educated that there exists an Irish language as the first official language of Ireland. Too often, people in Romania say "the Irish speak (just) English" and stop it at that. They're surprised, for example, when I tell them about Irish names such as "Baile Atha Cliath" for Dublin, etc.
Writing from the point of view of the Welsh Wikipedia, I'd suggest using the English name for simplicity, with the Welsh equivalent listed in the introduction, so that your readers both know that there is a Welsh name and what it is. Have a redirect from the Welsh name to the English one, as I presume most Romanians are more likely to know the English name. If you're doing a thorough list of Welsh place names the problem is fairly limited, because most villages will only have a Welsh name, it's just the cities and towns which may have two. There are a few places where the Welsh name has now supplanted the traditional English name, even in English usage - "Caernarfon" rather than "Carnarvon", and "Conwy" rather than "Conway".
We had a similar problem in the Welsh Wikipedia - most countries in Europe and the Commonwealth, and a few other countries, have a traditional Welsh name, but we got into a dispute over how to name or spell more obscure places - apply a Welsh transliteration to the English name or not? Wsbecistan or Uzbekistan (using two letters which aren't even in the Welsh alphabet!!). Eventually we settled on using the country names used in the only Welsh-language atlas ever published - which generally uses English country names! I'm not totally happy with that decision, and some of our articles are consequently in a horrible mess - China is at "Tsieina" with a redirect from "Tseina" which is another popular spelling, but "Peoples Republic of China" is at "Gweriniaeth Pobl China". Traditional city names are used where available - Paris, Llundain/London, Brwsel/Brussels, Rhufain/Rome, but we had to get creative with Moscow and finally settled on "Moscfa", as the local name transliterated. Russian names are "interesting" - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - should that be Tsaicofsgi? Should we change Pyotr to Pedr? Should we change Ilyich to ap Ilia? Actually we decided to keep the usual English spelling, recognising that few music lovers are likely to bother trying anything else, though we did include a redirect for Pedr I.T.! We're very aware that as we're putting a fair volume of text online in a language which doesn't have a very large web corpus that any wrong decisions we take may stick, and affect the direction the language develops in the future, so we tend to be a bit hesitant about taking these decisions...
Writing from the point of view of the Welsh Wikipedia, I'd suggest using the English name for simplicity, with the Welsh equivalent listed in the introduction, so that your readers both know that there is a Welsh name and what it is. Have a redirect from the Welsh name to the English one, as I presume most Romanians are more likely to know the English name. If you're doing a thorough list of Welsh place names the problem is fairly limited, because most villages will only have a Welsh name, it's just the cities and towns which may have two. There are a few places where the Welsh name has now supplanted the traditional English name, even in English usage - "Caernarfon" rather than "Carnarvon", and "Conwy" rather than "Conway".
In this case would it be more trouble to standardise on Welsh (with English redirects) or English (with Welsh redirects) regarding cities/places with two names. You are right though, it is mainly big places (relatively speaking) that have two names, small villages tend to just have a Welsh name (i.e. [[en:Mwnt]] or [[en:Blaenau Ffestiniog]]).
There are even some like Wrexham, Wrecsam which are fairly mutually intelligible and in fact the Welsh would probably be easier for Romanians to pronounce.
Anyone fancy doing a numerical count of all the places in Wales with names in 1. Welsh, 2. English & Welsh, 3. English :))
Fran
So, why should the English name be used in this situation? Wouldn't the Celtic name be more appropriate? Celtic languages are co-official in Scotland and Wales, while in Ireland, Irish is the first official and national language. Due to this, I would prefer to use placenames such as "Corcaigh", "*An Uaimh*" (for Navan), "*Chill Dara" *(for Kildare), etc. However, this sounds quite odd and are not frequently used, even though they are the first official name. What do others think? I am inclined to use them so that people are actually educated that there exists an Irish language as the first official language of Ireland. Too often, people in Romania say "the Irish speak (just) English" and stop it at that. They're surprised, for example, when I tell them about Irish names such as "Baile Atha Cliath" for Dublin, etc.
The classic answer is that you should use whatever is currently most popular with Romanian speakers, if that can be determined. Wikipedia is descriptive, not prescriptive, about the use of language.
In some situations this will presumably not be very helpful. Romanian is probably not such a difficult case. But for some very small languages, particularly those without a strong written tradition, it will perhaps be impossible to say what the X-language word for Y "really is" based on existing usage. (Because there is no existing usage, or there is not enough written existing usage.)
Probably in such cases, "standard patterns" can be followed. That is, in an African language from a French colonial area, it might make sense to use a French name for a city, whereas in an African language from an English colonial area, it might make sense to use an English name. (This is presuming there is no obvious choice based on existing usage.)
--Jimbo
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