Talk:Ramesses
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I guess Ramses is the right spelling to use for these guys, although most Egyptologists now seem to be using "Ramesses", with some using "Rameses". However, according to Google, for pages in English we have:
Ramesses - 22,600
Ramses - 75,000
Rameses - 22,100
Sigh... Noel 21:52, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)
- I made a similar check myself sometime ago, for similar reasons. I'm more familiar with the spelling Ramesses too. The British Museum uses Ramesses. The Louvre use Ramsès (note the accent). The Metropolitan Museum of Art use Ramesses. The google results seems odd. Mintguy 22:24, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)
OK, just so everybody knows the facts of the case... The spelling Ramesses is that used most widely (and for a long period of time, i.e. not a recent scholarly change) by Egyptologists, museums and semi-popular publications in English alike. This, of course, is a convention and a compromise based on the Greek Manethonian writing, given that a). it is difficult to transliterate Egyptian names from the glyphs into the Latin script, and b). we are not entirely sure how the name was pronounced at all times.... The spelling Ramses derives directly from the French transliteration Ramsès - nothing wrong with that, also a compromise as outlined above, but it is the French convention, not the English one (which is what we work for in Wikipedia.....). The very simple reason that the pseudo-French spelling Ramses appears so often in Google searches is the baleful influence of the inexplicably popular Ramses series of ancient historical novels penned by the French writer Christian Jacq, widely available in English translation and that sell like hotcakes..... So there's the explanation - I think it's fairly obvious from this that we should be using Ramesses as the primary English spelling, noting the variants, and remaining fairly cautious when using Google searches to make decisions. Pjamescowie 09:38, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Is that what popularsed it, Christian Jacq's books? Oh dear. A quick glance at my bookcase reveals "Ramses" predominating in the travel guides (LP, Rough Guide), etc. with "Ramesses" in the more serious publications. Looks like we have some renaming to do... (Not that it has much, or indeed anything, to do with what we should use here, but isn't the Arabic closer to the French? I'm thinking of mahattat ramses, but that could just be my lousy ear for Arabic vowels, to say nothing of the lousy Arabic vowels themselves.) –Hajor 20:54, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Hey, like I said above, I'd have preferred to use Ramesses anyway originally, so it's no skin off my nose. (I personally am not really crazy about the Wikipedia naming policy I quoted, and still have scars on my back from its application to the Medici pages, but that's the way it goes.) I'll cheerfully help with renaming the pages into consistency. Noel 14:35, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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- Before anyone decides to take the time & effort to rename all of the relevant articles, I'd like to mention that a consensus was reached by some of us at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ancient Egypt to standardize the spelling of Egyptian personages on the example of Ian Shaw's The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (published 2000), which transliterates this name as Rameses -- if the opinion of 3 people mean anything. Personally, I like Ramesses best, but in the hope of bringing of some hope of standardization to the names & dates of this subject, I'm willing to submit to the decisions of this authority -- unless someone can present a better one. -- llywrch 03:32, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Hunh. I thought I'd already done them all (after the disambig page was moved). Guess not.
- If Shaw really is an out-lier in the field in this particular case (and I expect it's too much to hope for that he explains why he went with "s" and not "ss"), maybe we need to tweak the "always use Shaw" rule.
- But what I most wish is that we pick something, and stick with it! We started at "Ramses", moved to "Ramesses", and now are apparently contemplating a move to "Rameses". Pfui. Noel (talk) 18:34, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Request for comments: Ramses/Rameses/Ramesses
Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ancient Egypt#Ramses/Rameses/Ramesses. –Hajor 18:05, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I think you'll find that, given the general ambiguities and amorphous nature of 'people' in regard to the Akhenaten image of indefinite gender, that these spelling *reflect* both male and female spellings as with French which is a derivative of the Coptic language.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ian Chattan (talk • contribs).
