Talk:Mauritania

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Where does the information that Wolof is an official language of Mauritania come from?

Does anyone see the need to delete the individual pages of the Mauritanian regions? Vincent Gray 01:30, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 regions 2 Military coup, August 2005 3 Contradicting voting results 4 Official Languges 5 Spelling in Romanisation 6 Economy 7 Possible Racial Bias of Article

[edit] regions

Why have the regions being listed on this page now? Every other country has an individual page for each of it's regions - why should Mauritania be any different. Granted, they may not be full of detail, but that's beside the point. They may not look much, but maps will be added soon enough for each region in the same vein as Lesotho or Djibouti. Besides, the move is pointless without the deletion of the individual region pages. I'm tempted to remove the regions on this main page, but I'll wait for a reply first.

- sdrawkcab

"The Bafours were primarily agriculturalist, among the first Saharan people to abandon their historically nomadic lifestyle."

So were they agricultural or nomadic? Can someone clear that up thanks.

[edit] Military coup, August 2005

This is the communiqué issued by the coup leaders on 3 August. I wasn't sure where it belonged in the article so I'll link it here. --Cam 16:16, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Contradicting voting results

The poll results for the 2003 election for Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya show 66.69% compared to the 67.02% on Mauritania. Laundrypowder 20:50, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

• The original result reported by the Interior Ministry on 8 November 2003 was 66.69% for Taya [1]. However, the final official result as certified by the Constitutional Council on 12 November 2003 was 67.02% [2]. --Cam 23:24, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

Well that makes sense. I suppose then that the issue is at Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya and not here. However, as the numbers apparantly can be confused maybe a distinction or source would help. Thanks for the clarification! Laundrypowder 16:15, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Official Languges

Does anyone know what the official languges are? Before it sayed that Arabic, French, Hassaniya, Pular, Soninke, and Wolof were all official languges. – Zntrip 04:20, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Article 6 of the 1991 constitution says [3]:
".اللغات الوطنية هي العربية والبلارية و السوننكية والولفية. اللغة الرسمية هي العربية"
"Al-lughât al-watanîyah hîya al-`arabîyah w-al-bulârîyah w-as-sûninkîyah w-al-wulufîyah. Al-lughah ar-rasmîyah hîya al-`arabîyah."
(I probably botched the above romanization, use with caution.)
French translation [4]: "Les langues nationales sont l'arabe, le poular, le soninké et le wolof ; la langue officielle est l'arabe."
My English translation of the French: "The national languages are Arabic, Fula, Soninke, and Wolof; the official language is Arabic."
Hope this helps.
--Cam 05:35, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks :) that helps alot. – Zntrip 20:09, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

I would really like to know more about the status of French in Mauritania. I mean, the gouvernements official sites are written in French, the national motto is in French, the political parties have French names et cetera. French was co-official with Arabic untill 1991. Maybe one should call it de-facto official? Aaker 09:42, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling in Romanisation

I note Wikipedia renders the ancient Roman province as Mauretania and the modern state as Mauritania. While this is convenient (and has much to recommend it in some ways for clarity), unfortunately modern English usage also uses Mauretania for the modern country's transliteration into roman characters, especially a UK usage (see, e.g. http://www.immigrationexpert.com/uk/embassyPage.asp?letter=m ). While the US influenced usage Mauritania seems to dominate, it would be incorrect to imply that the second spelling is not used in standard usage for the modern country. A disamgiuation page for both spellings is needed. (Collounsbury 18:45, 1 March 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Economy

Is there a reason that the economic section is being treated as a seperate article? I think it would make more sense to include the economic article as part of the Mauritania article.

Most countries have separate articles on their economies, called "Economy of X". For example, Economy of Mali, Economy of Niger, Economy of Senegal etc. --Cam 00:41, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I can understand that being the case if the article on the economy is rather long, but wouldn't it be more sensible to include shorter articles within the main country article? Even if the economy is to be kept as a separate entry, wouldn’t it at least be better to include a short overview of the economy in the Mauritania article as is the case with some other countries? scotsboyuk 14:29, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I hadn't noticed that there was no economy info here. Yes, someone should add an overview here as you suggested. --Cam 15:11, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Merged. Standalone article was far too short to merit separation. I've read every nation article on wikipedia, and was annoyed by the lack of economic info in this article. If there's much more to say about the economy of Mauritania, feel free to expand a standalone article, but a mere link under "Economy" in the main article is unacceptable. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.39.182.234 (talk • contribs).

I randomly (literally) came across the Economy of Mauritania article, and found when I went to the parent there was no link to it. Have added the link, someone might want to crosscheck the two are in sync (i.e. one isn't using older data for the same economic metric etc.), I doubt you can really merge it in fully as the subarticle has a large template which would look out of place in a section imo. I agree that the subarticle is on the short side, but equally agree with the above that there should be at least one paragraph overview in the main article if it had all previously been removed to the subarticle. Sfnhltb 20:34, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possible Racial Bias of Article

Where is this information coming from that the Blacks were Slaves of White North Africans? In addition this article is written with a slanted POV. There is a difference from Mauritania and Mauretania as well. When was there a name change and why? In adition Mauretania refers to Maure or Moorish Africans of Ethiopic origins.--Gnosis 06:44, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I think that [5] may have been the source of the statement that "white" Moors enslaved "black" Moors. I assume that "white" means Berber/Arab. Regards, Rodney Boyd 18:50, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be better to describe the implied racial meaning of the terms. It would be better to say lighter skinned because the term white and black have varied meanings. To be honest the best thing to do is not bring up the race meme and just focus on the groups of people. Since the caste system is really based on light to dark skin color. We should keep the rece terms from this article to prevent debate. Berbers were not all light skinned or "white" and "black" these terms hold no value in terms of true meaning. As race is an ideology or concept created which has been proven to not exist. I have removed the tag however. In addition, the US government is a poor source to provide proof. As the terms of race are continuously being defined and actuality didn't exist before the creation of the American government.--Gnosis 19:31, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Just to add to Gnosis point, defining by race can bring nothing productive. The american government has changed its meaning of who is what race. Up until the 1960's the us government considered egyptians black, but that is not really in practivce anymore. As well race definitions seems to change from country to country, eg any black ancestry means your black in america, simply looking black or having dark skin means your black in latin american countries, and europeans seem to say anyone who is not white is black but they don't seem to have a very definitve system as we do. Point is race is subjective and unhelpful unless you are talking about absouluts. Eg. hitler was white and shaka zulu was black, which is still not helpful, what kind of culture were the two would be the questiion most would ask