Talk:K'iche' language

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[edit] Renaming to "K'iche"

Given that the K'iche Academy of Languages in Guatemala favors "K'iche'" rather than "Quiché," shouldn't Wikipedia follow suit? It, of course, makes sense to use the latter in the introductory sentence but most linguistic work done on the language will use the spelling "K'iche'" and for consistency, it makes sense to me for Wikipedians to go along with this. Interlingua 23:44, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

On the other hand, the language and the people are well-known to non-linguists because of the Popol Vuh, and the name has been spelled "Quiché" in English literature for so long that one may consider it as "the" English name of the language. Just as the article on "Portuguese" is named "Portuguese", in spite of what the Portuguese Literary Academy has determined.
Moreover, "Quiché" has got a standard English pronunciation too (I don't know whether it matches the native one, but that is not the point), and readers who have a minimal familiarity with Spanish will know how to pronounce that word; whereas the apostrophe in "K'iche" is likely to leave them confused.
So my opinion is that it is better to consider "Quiché" to be the English name of the language (and therefore the article's name per Wikipedia rules), at least for the time being.
In fact, I see that the article still considers Tedlock's edition as the de facto standard, even though he calls them "Quiché" and does not use the official spelling. I will try to add a reference to Sam Colop's K'iche-only edition, but I suspect that Tedlock's will continue being the de facto standard for most non-Quiché-speaking people.
Fortunately Wikipedia's redirect mechanism reduces this sort of question to a mere issue of internal efficiency and editor's conenience. So it makes little difference, really.
All the best, Jorge Stolfi 03:19, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

On the other other hand, Interlingua rather has a point, and there is an increasing (and quite deliberate) trend among researchers who produce the materials we'd be referencing to use the orthography for Mayan languages as has been standardised since the late 1980s by the Academia de las Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala. And I think the more apt comparison would be with the way we mostly nowadays in english refer to Mumbai (not Bombay ) and Beijing (not Peking ), changes which have found acceptance not that much longer than the proposed standard K'iche has been on the table. Some further, minor points, the reader would indeed be mislead if they attempted to pronounce the name as in the dish, it would be easier to dab from the food and it's easier to type directly for those not used to accented chars. I think the case for renaming is good, and bears consideration.--cjllw | TALK 08:30, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Please, if you're going to rename it, make it K'iche', with the apostrophe (glottal stop) at the end. This is missing in most mentions on this page, including in the title. It's never missing, as far as I can tell, in references to the language elsewhere. — MikeG (talk) 03:17, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move proposal (Aug 2006)

An article rename is proposed for this page and a number of other Mayan language articles. Please see and comment at the centralised discussion for these at Talk:Mayan languages.--cjllw | TALK 05:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

The requested move to K'iche' language has now been completed, per consensus reached at talk:Mayan languages.--cjllw | TALK 00:41, 21 August 2006 (UTC)