Talk:Braunschweig

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62.158.3.142 wrote: "Brunswick was founded by Bruno II (died before 1017 AD), a saxonian count." I didn't know, what to do with this sentence, but it seems to be wrong. The Brunswick website says, that the origins of the town are unknown, and that it may be founded by traders. So do other websites. No word about a Bruno. Instead of deleting the sentence I turned it to the version: "Legend says, that..." But actually I don't know about such a legend. Does anyone else know more? - Cordyph 15:56 Nov 6, 2002 (UTC)

I am bothered by this paragraph as well. The Bruno/wik info would explain the etymology behind the English name Brunswick, but I have always been under the impression that Brunswick was just an anglicization of the German Braunschweig. Olessi 2 July 2005 16:48 (UTC)

Why is this article not simply at Brunswick? The other places listed there don't seem to be important enough not to have that page at Brunswick (disambiguation). - Sandman 09:36, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Why don't we move this page to Braunschweig, which is the city's name and is the most common way English speakers refer to the place (in my experience)? --Robert Merkel 06:02, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Is it? Google returns 1,450,000 results for Brunswick+Germany and 339,000 for Braunschweig+Germany. - Sandman 10:35, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
That's not my direct experience. Also, my Lonely Planet guide lists the place as "Braunschweig" with (Brunswick) in brackets. However, if you don't think it should be moved to Braunschweig, I definitely agree it should be moved to Brunswick.--Robert Merkel
While you get lots of hits on "Brunswick Germany", many are not relevant. First, I used the advanced search feature and searched only for the exact phrase - only 3,640 hits, some of which are Wikipedia. Second, even of those, many refer to the historical Duchy which, while related, is not the same as the city. Third, a quick review showed that most of the relevant google hits were listing Brunswick in brackets or parentheses after the more commonly recognized "Braunschweig". A search on the exact phrase "Braunschweig Germany" finds 208,000 hits. (Note that searching for Germany instead of Deutschland will filter it down to the english language sites so we have a fair comparison.)
The Rand McNally World Atlas index lists "Brunswick, Germany" but the entry says see Braunschweig. Even the Wall Street Journal uses "Braunschweig" instead of "Brunswick".
I propose to move the contents of this page to Braunschweig, expand the disambiguation page to make the issue clear to everyone, redirect "Brunswick" to the disambiguation page and then run a "what links here" and start cleaning up all the links. Rossami 02:51, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Copy from Votes for Deletion

  • Delete Brunswick to make it possible to move Brunswick, Germany there. - Sandman 16:41, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
    • Keep - very full disambiguation page. Andy Mabbett 22:00, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
    • We need disambiguation instead for other Brunswicks, like New Brunswick, Canada, perhaps, or New Brunswick and East Brunswick, New Jersey. Or Brunswick, Australia. Wiwaxia 06:08, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)
    • I support moving Brunswick, Germany into Brunswick, rather than redirecting Brunswick to a disambiguation page. Brunswick, when used alone, almost always refers to the city in Germany so I see no problem in doing this. Maximus Rex 11:19, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)
    • Brunswick, Germany, should be at Braunschweig. The English name has fallen out of use for the present city (compare Google results for "Brunswick Germany" vs "Braunschweig Germany"). --Wik 18:30, Nov 25, 2003 (UTC)
    • Agree with Wik: keep redirection page, consider using Braunschweig for the German place since I personally believe the Brunswick anglicisation is rarely used anymore --Morven 02:10, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)
    • That's not true. Google results limited to English: ~1,900,000 for Brunswick Germany and only ~330,000 for Braunschweig Germany), so it's clearly the dominant form in English. --Delirium 08:38, Nov 26, 2003 (UTC)
      • You have to include the quotes, otherwise you get a lot of pages relating to the historic duchy, or to one of the U.S. Brunswicks, or New Brunswick. With quotes you restrict the search to the present city: "Brunswick Germany" - 2,430; "Braunschweig Germany" - 135,000. --Wik 12:54, Nov 26, 2003 (UTC)
    • Keep. Add to Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links and give me some time to clean them up. (I should be able to get to in next week.) By the way, I strongly recommend that the correct location for the "Brunswick, Germany" content is under "Braunschweig". I can find no recent reference to "Brunswick, Germany". Rossami 03:14, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)
    • Always looking for lebensraum, aren't they? orthogonal 14:08, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)
    • Brunswick must be a disambiguation page for all Brunswicks. How can that really be questioned? Kingturtle 03:21, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)
    • Brunswick, Germany should not be at Braunschweig if Brunswick is the more common name in English. The city's own website calls itself Brunswick on the English pages. [1]. Angela 04:00, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)
    • I agree. Wikipedia policy is not to have the english version of a name but the most common version used in english. That clearly is Brunswick, not Braunschweig, so Brunswick is where the page belongs on the english wikipedia. German wikipedia, would needless to say be different. Sorry. FearÉIREANN 03:33, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)
      • In addition, remember even if Braunschweig is used increasingly in American english, that does not mean the same phenomenon is happening in other forms of english. AE has tended to adopt nativised forms of names, eg, Turino, Milano, Roma, but that simply is not happening in British English, Hiberno-English or Indian English and I wonder if it is happening in Canadian English or Australian english. This is english wikipedia, not American English wikipedia and we must use forms of names that are internationally recognised. Google searches throw up largely American websites as most websites are American. That is no evidence that worldwide Braunschweig is either used or even recognised by people. The only people I have heard ever use that name are (i) Germans, naturally, and (ii) some users of American English on the web (never even in person). I have never heard it used by anyone else. We would want pretty clear evidence of its universal usage before opting for it. FearÉIREANN
    • I respect the theory but I'm not sure I agree that this is an American English only trend. For example, the Wikipedia article on the capital of China is at Beijing - Peking is a redirect. In the case of Brunswick, I'd like to see some evidence that the anglicized version is still in wide use. The objective evidence the other way is starting to appear pretty compelling (see below). The only countervailing evidence presented so far is the personal experience of Wikipedians. I don't want to discount personal experience but, based on the reports above, it appears about evenly split so ... well, I guess I do discount it in this case. :-) What more research can I provide to convince you that Braunschweig has become the more common usage? Rossami 03:21, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)
      • Well-filtered google searches find Braunschweig over Brunswick at > 50 to 1.
      • BBC.com (which I have to assume is written using British English) had 4 hits for Braunschweig and only one hit for Brunswick that refers to the city in Germany (and that one is in context of WW2).
      • FT.com (Financial Times) (again, safe to assume in British English) returned 20 articles for Braunschweig Germany and zero for Brunswick Germany.
      • CNN.com had one hit for Braunschweig and five for Brunswick, but none of the five refer to the city in Germany.
      • Factiva all dates/all sources finds 1423 articles with "Braunschweig Germany" and 195 with "Brunswick Germany".
      • Two atlases checked so far use Braunschweig as the primary name (though they both list Brunswick as an alternate usage).
      • The city's official website has an English translation page that uses "Brunswick".
        • Personally, I discount this as the opinion of one webmaster with unknown English experience and possibly dated information. (I know I wouldn't trust Cleveland's official website to tell you anything useful about my hometown.)


Hold on, Wik. There is not the necessary percentage of people advocating the renaming of the page to justify a move of the page from its current location. Please follow the rules. FearÉIREANN 21:32, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

What is the necessary percentage? It seemed to me that after Rossami's summary no one was really arguing for Brunswick any more. If you want to do so, how do you explain away the 50-to-1 Google ratio? --Wik 21:38, Dec 4, 2003 (UTC)

65% is now seen as representing something of a consensus for making a major change, such as a dramatic renaming or a deletion.

I don't see all those opposing Braunschweig. Andy Mabbett, Wiwaxia, and Kingturtle have only commented on the disambiguation page. Delirium has not further responded after I told him how his search method was flawed. Sandman's argument seems to have been based on the same mistake. --Wik 23:58, Dec 4, 2003 (UTC)
  • unclear, but tone suggests not a Braunschweig supporter: -

As to google, google also says that the Prince of Wales's surname is Windsor (wrong), proves completely inaccurate facts about W.E. Gladstone are correct, confirms elementary factual errors about Ireland are true, and contains many other such howlers. It is a thoroughly unreliable standard against which to measure facts, as I found when double checking information on it time and time again. FearÉIREANN 22:08, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Yes, but still it is the default unless you have a better authority to base your claim on.
It should never be the default. If it was wikipedia's default, wikipedia would be a laughing stock. It is at best a secondary source notorious for its unreliability. FearÉIREANN 15:47, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Google may not be a reliable source for many kinds of factual information, but as a polling device to provide evidence of general usage of language or the degree of importance or interest in a topic, I believe it to be quite credible. Granted, there is risk of a systemic sampling bias because the internet population is still skewed toward educated and affluent participants compared to the general population, but that is only a risk of sampling bias, not evidence that a biased result occurred. Wikipedia uses google searches as evidence all the time. As a single example, look at how often google is mentioned in support or rebuttal of an entry on the Wikipedia:Votes for deletion page. The internet may not be perfect but it's better than relying solely on personal opinion. Rossami 21:56, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

And I don't think AE/BE is an issue here. Where do you get the idea Americans say Roma? "Rome Italy" - 2,060,000. "Roma Italy" - 207,000. So that's 10-1 for the English name. With Braunschweig it's 50-1 for the German. So the frequency of using the local form is 500 times higher for Braunschweig than for Rome. --Wik 23:58, Dec 4, 2003 (UTC)

I didn't say Americans use Roma. I said that there is increased usage of native language names of European cities in the US. Such a phenomenon simply does not exist in the rest of the English speaking world. So whereas some academic and broadcasting organisations in the US opt for Milano, in the rest of the english speaking world exclusively uses Milan.

By the way the earlier mention of Beijing/Peking by Rossami is irrelevant. It is nothing to do with english vs native language names, but to do with different linguistic methods of creating an english name. Everyone uses Beijing and have done for decades. It has no relevance to this debate. FearÉIREANN 15:47, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. Beijing/Peking is not merely a choice of written transcription. It is also an example of the difficulty of phenome matching - some sounds have no easy parallel in the target language. Before long-distance travel became cheap and easy, the experience of most english-speakers with german phenomes was quite limited. Brunswick was a reasonable transliteration of word by a non-german speaker. We now have greater exposure to more phenomes. If you heard someone say Braunschweig today, I dare say you would write down something other than Brunswick. As for "everyone [using] Beijing... for decades", I can personally vouch for the use of Braunschweig by Americans for over a decade. Braunschweig/Brunswick is merely an older example that has gone uncorrected longer, not fundamentally a different problem from Beijing/Peking. Rossami 21:56, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Lexis-Nexis suggests Braunschweig is more in use: A search for "Braunschweig" and "Germany" on European news sources for the past six months gets 25 hits, most appear relevant, whilst "Brunswick" and "Germany" gets 10 hits, most irrelevant. --Robert Merkel 05:46, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

European news sources aim their content at multilingual audiences and so make considerable usage of native language names. That is irrelevant here as this wikipedia is exclusively an english language encyclopædic source aimed at english language speakers and has to use a form recognisable in english. Braunschweig would mean absolutely nothing to millions of english language speakers except those belonging to special subcategories; people of German descent, people with direct cultural and business links to the city, people with regular access to, and fluency in, non-english language sources, etc. Wikipedia policy is to use the most common accurate name. For the generality of readers worldwide that is Brunswick. Braunschweig 's usage is not recognised by the generality of readers but those attached to subgroups who have specific reason why they would use or hear the german language name, not the english deriviative. (By the way, BBC news carried a story some days ago which started "A trial in the German city of Brunswick . . . ") FearÉIREANN 15:47, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

So we should put ourselves out of step with European and US news sources? Who is left that we will be in-step with? We agree on the policy - most common english usage. We obviously still disagree on the conclusion. I've presented my facts. I believe they overwhelmingly support Braunschweig as the more common usage. I disagree strongly with your statement that Braunschweig is limited to special subcategories. So prove me wrong. What facts or measurable behaviors support your belief that Brunswick is still the more common usage? Rossami 21:56, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)
(And yes, BBC is inconsistent in their usage. With your one new data point, BBC is now at 4 Braunschweigs to 2 Brunswicks.) Rossami 21:56, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Just to put my own two cents in (of course, just because it's me, Jtdirl will probably oppose it) I would favor "Brunswick" being a disambiguation page and "Braunschweig" being the listing for the German city. But there clearly is an AE/BE problem; I rarely hear Americans use "Brunswick" for the German city, but in part that may be because I live in Maryland and "Brunswick" means "Brunswick, Md." when used alone. Brits tend to anglicize (they would say, of course, "anglicise") more than Americans; Americans tend to use native names more, but the real statistic varies from place to place. Nobody even America calls the Italian capital "Roma," but you do hear "Milano," and I suspect that "Livorno" is used 1000 times as much as "Leghorn." (of course, the chicken is a Leghorn, but that's another story!) - BRG 16:34, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Just to put my own two cents in (of course, just because it's me, Jtdirl will probably oppose it)'!!! absolutely not. If you are right, you are right. If you are wrong, you are wrong. It is arguments that matter, not who makes them. :-) FearÉIREANN 22:35, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

To add my US$0.02, I don't think it makes that much difference either way. I'm personally more familiar with the name "Brunswick," but I can't say with absolute confidence that that's not because of the other cities named "Brunswick" ("New Brunswick" and so on). As long as there are redirects from one to the other, and both are mentioned at the very beginning, I don't think anyone looking for one or the other will end up confused. And, unlike Gdansk/Danzig and related disputes, this isn't an ethnic dispute, so I think people looking for one are unlikely to be offended if they find it at the other. My slight preference in borderline cases is for local names, perhaps because I prefer things like Thessaloniki and Peloponnesos to their Latinized or Anglicized versions. Cases of overwhelming English usage like Rome (Roma) and Athens (Athina) excepted of course. --Delirium 22:47, Dec 8, 2003 (UTC)

I support using English names wherever available. The fact that the name of a city was translated into another language is a sign of its importance. Hence using Brunswick means treating this city with the same respect as Bruxelles, The Hague, or Vienna. -- 134.169.99.111 10:45, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Just a quick explanation for my vote - it seems that from the evidence we've been able to find, and my personal experience, Braunschweig is now by far the most common way the place is referred to in English.

It's not a huge deal either way, however. --Robert Merkel 23:41, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I voted for "don't care" because I'm not a native speaker and have no idea what the more common English name is. I thought it was Brunswick, but seem to have been proven wrong. However, if the article is moved to Braunschweig, I think that Brunswick should stay a redirect and not be turned back into a disambiguation page - if it is, it will only continue to collect links, all of which will refer to Braunschweig. That's how this whole debate was started, after all. - Sandman 19:34, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Requesting an unambiguous vote:

I think this vote was wrong. My search led to about 1,150,000 English pages for Brunswick Germany[2] and about 286,000 English pages for Braunschweig Germany[3]. Wik's previous search depended on the city name being followed immediately by the word Germany, but there is no reason why it should. --Henrygb 15:02, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I don't think this is worth bringing up again. Please drop it. Google is not definitive besides: there is also the argument based on mentions in English-language media, which favored Braunschweig. —Morven 18:09, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Gdansk vote

How does Braunschweig fall under the definition of share a history between Germany and Poland? It's even west of the Oder. While there is some Wendish history there (hence the suburb of Wenden), Braunschweig is much too far from Poland to fall u

[edit] confused pronouns

"It was also the Garrison Town of the 31st Infanterie Division, which took part in the invasions of Poland, Belgium, France, and Russia. It was one of the units that was destroyed during the withdrawal from Russia at the end of the war. As a result, it was severely damaged by Anglo-American aerial attacks."

"It" seems to refer to both the town and a military unit. I understand that the town was severely damaaged by bombing, but don't see how that obviously follows from a unit based in the town being destroyed during withdrawal from Russia. Presumably the unit was destroyed somewhere between Russia and its garrison, no? Mike Linksvayer 21:45, 25 February 2006 (UTC) Maybe it also means the garrison buildings in the east of the city which have been the target of many aerial attacks.

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