Talk:Zürich/archive1

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You have new messages (last change).

Note: There is a new poll here on this page. The old straw poll has been archived at Talk:Switzerland/Archive_3 Nobbie 12:52, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC).

There is also a related poll on a naming conventions Talk page. Dpbsmith (talk) 15:17, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Previous discussion

Following the lengthy discussion at Talk:Switzerland (see page history), I moved it back to Zurich. -- User:Docu

I don't see any consensus for Zurich on Talk:Switzerland, so I reverted it. --Wik 17:49, Jan 25, 2004 (UTC)

The discussion is archived. See: Talk:Switzerland/Archive_2 for arguments and Google- tests.

[edit] Who uses what

  • Zurich is used by the governments of Switzerland, the Canton of Zurich and the city of Zurich. The airport and the two universities also use this spelling. Others: Swiss Federal Office of Topography?, Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names, Google.ch  ;-)
  • Zürich is used by the tourist board of the city (in conjunction with "Tourismus"). Britannica uses this spelling, and this is the correct version in the local language (German).
  • The screens in the Swiss Stock Exchange use the "Locale" variable in the user settings to display in English, Italian, French or German. There was a big debate about how to write Zurich. In German if no umlaut is used them it should be written Zuerich. In the English documentation the word Zurich was accepted as the English Standard.

[edit] History

We'll need a History of Zürich main article soon, Lupo... dab 09:31, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I don't think so :-) That whole article could do with some re-shuffling (the "History" section should be moved up, before "Transportation") and expansion, both in the "History" and the "Geography" section, which is abysmally poor—it doesn't even have full sentences. Lupo 09:44, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
well, I have a tendency of "history first" myself. But this article is supposed to be about present-day Zurich first and foremost, so placing two pages of history before information about the present city may seem weird to non-historians. That's not to contradict you on the present below-par quality of the other sections though:
The biggest railway station, Zürich Main Station (German: Zürich Hauptbahnhof) is one of Zurich's several stations, with others situated at Zürich Oerlikon, Zürich Stadelhofen, and Zürich Altstetten (to name a few). Zurich Main Station has trains from foreign countries such as Italy, France, Germany and Austria come into the station.
That's really silly, if not outright provincial (Zurich has many trains! They go to foreign countries!) dab 10:10, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Move (Zürich -> Zurich)

Zurich is the most common spelling used in English, and since en.wikipedia.org is the English Wikipedia and not the German one, the most common English spelling should be used.
Both Zürich and Zurich are correct in English, but Zurich is much more common. That's a fact.
A native speaker is much more likely to search for Zurich with the spelling Zurich. In Wikipedia, there are redirects, but what about a Google search...?
Before you cast your vote, think about the following (especially the non-native speakers):
The English Wikipedia is for everyone, not just English native speakers. However, English usage on the English Wikipedia should follow English native speaker practices. Imagine German non-native speakers insisting on uncommon foreign spellings in articles on the German wikipedia, just because they prefer them... like Japanese editors insisting on Tokyo in the German article about Tokio. Natürlich ist es verständlich, dass die meisten deutschsprachigen Nutzer Zürich als die einzig richtige Schreibweise ansehen. Aber ist es angemessen, angesichts der im Englischen bevorzugten Schreibung "Zurich" auf die Schreibung "Zürich" zu bestehen? Nobbie 14:57, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think Tokyo is a good example, because I am sure there is a discussion on Tokyo in the German wikipedia aswell. I as a Native German speaker rather write and search for Tokyo and not Tokio. However I think the most common variant should be used. Important is that the article can be found.
I'd like to point out that "u" and "ü" are in fact different letters, not the same letter with an emphasis mark. According to our own article, "each [letter] roughly represents a phoneme of a spoken language", and just as "a" and "e" represent different sounds, "u" and "ü" also represent different sounds. "ü" is not a letter in the English language (although it happens to look a lot like one that is). If you wanted to spell the name of Zurich so that that the average English reading/speaking person said it roughly the way the natives said it, you'd have to write it "Zuerich". Like many other European cities, like Rome (Roma) and Cologne (Köln) - and not just in English, the French name for London isn't "London" - the name of this city is spoken, and spelled, differently in English from the native pronunciation/spelling. Noel (talk) 17:14, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Add #Support or #Oppose to the appropriate section followed by an optional one sentence explanation and sign your vote with ~~~~. To comment, use #: to avoid messing up the numbering.

[edit] Support

  1. Support - Nobbie 09:46, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  2. Support - let's move it back to Zurich and let's not use the German language name in the English language Wikipedia. -- User:Docu
  3. Support; see "zurich" and "zürich". --Merovingian (t) (c) 10:14, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
  4. Support. Use the English name not German name. Dmn / Դմն 12:07, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  5. Support. It's an English encyclopedia and the English spelling is normally without the umlaut. Also I didn't realise that the Swiss, Canton and City governments used that spelling. Many thanks to whoever added this to WP:W. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:09, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  6. Support. The naming conventions call for the use of the most common name; not the most "correct," official, up-to-date, or native name; "Zurich" is the most common name, as evidenced by the American Heritage Dictionary's choice of spelling. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:25, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  7. Support: my order of preference is Zurich then Zürich then Zuerich. English pronunciation of the word differs from Swiss-German in two or three places. And English tends not to use diacritics, especially for important places. --Audiovideo 13:07, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  8. Support -- I consider "Zurich" the English name of the town, not merely a strip-the-diacritics version; I think it's as English as, say, "Munich" or "Hanover" or "Florence" or "Athens" or "Moscow". The English name for a place can be very close to the local name (cf. en "Hanover" and de "Hannover"). So I agree that the page should be at "Zurich" (with "Zürich" being a redirect). (The English pronunciation of "Zurich" is also not simply a best-try at the German or French pronunciation of the local name, IMO.) -- pne 15:05, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  9. Support - "Zurich" is the name in English, that's where the article should be. Noel (talk) 16:53, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  10. Support - I'm a Swiss who lived half of my life in Zurich (and now not far away), very fluent in English, and I'd never even think about using the Umlaut in English. (The article should, though, say how Zürich is pronounced correctly in Switzerland (not with ck but with ch like the Scottisch loch) --Irmgard 19:31, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  11. Support weakly. Not a major problem, so far as I'm concerned. RickK 22:07, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
  12. Support older≠wiser 22:23, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
  13. Support. The usual English language form is Zurich and that's where it should be. Same for all other non-English forms which need transliteration. Jamesday 02:53, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  14. Support for the reasons laid out above. →Raul654 06:26, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)
  15. Support, for an umlaut and diacritic free English Wikipedia. I wanna see the Ü-supporters on maintaining hundreds of articles about vietnamese places written double, with wrong redirects, missing article links for existing articles ... Cần Thơ, Đà Nẵng, Hải Phòng, Thành phố Hồ Chí, Bắc Giang, Bắc Kạn, Bạc Liêu, Bắc Ninh, Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu, Bến Tre, Bình Định, Bình Dương, Bình Phước, Bình Thuận Tobias Conradi (Talk) 09:45, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  16. Support. I've not changed meaning since the previous poll. Zurich is more than sufficiently wellknown from English texts. In other cases, I might suspect PBS's quest against umlauts and diacritics in article names to be exaggerated. Here not so. The matter seems undisputable to me. Ruhrjung 15:25, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)
  17. Support. Philip Baird Shearer 08:58, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  18. Support. Use the most common English spelling. Jonathunder 20:02, 2005 Apr 10 (UTC)
  19. Support. In addition to the points above, it's hard to type the letter "ü", making it harder to use the "Go / Search" box to get to an article with that character in the name. - Bantman 18:53, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)
    ???? And a redirect wouldn't take care of this? I voted "support," but I don't understand this particular reason. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:31, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  20. Weak support, as I think Zurich, with its well-established English pronunciation, is a case in analogy with Munich; thus using the English form is reasonable. However, the fact that Zürich is used in e.g. the EB makes it clearly borderline, and can not be used as a test case for names with diacritics in general. Names of smaller and less widely known places should still (as far as technically possible) use the native spelling with diacritics in the title. Stripping diacritics in those cases does not create English names, it just results in a loss of information. In any case, diacritic-less redirects should always be created for the diacritically challenged. / Tupsharru 19:40, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  21. Support. The name in English for the city is Zurich, and this version of Wikipedia is in English. The Chicago Manual of Style (which is my standard style manual thanks to my academic discipline) calls for using the English language version, even when the difference is "just" a diacritic. For instance, Chicago calls for English texts to use Montreal, not Montréal. Remes 03:32, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  22. Support. Zurich is the most common name in English for the city that is called either Zurich or Zürich by its inhabitants, depending on which source you use. Zuerich is just a mistake in this context: use the umlaut if you want that usage. -- Karada 10:53, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  23. Support. Zurich is more common in English. If you live in an English speaking country you don't even have the Umlauts on the keybord to type Zürich. Matteo 12:51, 2005 Apr 13 (UTC)
  24. Support. This is English WP, use English names. Zurich and Munich, not Zürich and München. Lysy 09:17, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  25. Support as above, esp. dpbsmith. Diacritics are (generally) not a part of 'common English [language] names'. Montreal and Quebec have had their diacritics removed for that very reason--no reason to 'special case' Zurich. Niteowlneils 04:51, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  26. Support. I'm changing my vote because the article was originally created as Zurich[1]. Both Zürich and Zurich are acceptable spellings in English, and where that is the case, WP:MOS says to use the spelling of the first major editor. --Angr/comhrá 12:41, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  27. Support --Henrygb 17:38, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  28. Mikkalai 03:53, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  29. Support Peter Farago 07:34, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  30. Support using most common English name. CDThieme
  31. Support The name in one language doesn't have to be the same as in a different language. In English I use Zurich, Geneva, Basle, Moscow, Lisbon, etc.; in German Zürich, Genf, Basel, Moskau, Lissabon, etc. -- Tonymec 21:16, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Oppose

  1. Oppose. I, as a native English speaker, have always spelt it Zürich. Zurich just looks wrong. And I would dispute that the latter spelling is much more common in English - not in the UK at least. If there's an accepted English version of a name then we should use it (Venice, Cologne etc), but in this case I don't think so. -- Necrothesp 10:09, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  2. Oppose - since both versions are mutually comprehensible, differing only in accents (like Guantánamo Bay), I believe that the native spelling should be kept, with a redirect from Zurich; I would not support moving Moscow to Moskva, however, because many anglophones do not understand "Moskva". Andrew pmk 01:37, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  3. Oppose I see that articles such Cologne, Florence, and Nicosia use the standard English version of those cities' names. With regard to the use of umlauts, the articles on Baden-Württemberg, Düsseldorf, and Münster use them, while the article on Munich doesn't (see Category:Cities in Germany for other examples). It looks, then, as though the de facto rule is that the umlaut is kept unless a name has an English version that differs in other ways too. . Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:51, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  4. Oppose. Articles about cities should be named with the city's native name, except for cities whose native name is not known outside the country. This exception certainly does not apply here as both "Zürich" and "Zurich" are well known. — JIP | Talk 10:21, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  5. Oppose. Umlauts are used in English. Zürich is how it's often spelt. James F. (talk) 10:39, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  6. Oppose - See comments below in #Use Local spelling Urhixidur 14:23, 2005 Apr 8 (UTC)
  7. Oppose - no misunderstanding could occur... —Gabbe 04:54, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)
  8. Oppose the change from Zürich to Zurich (Zürich is more accurate), and Oppose this new poll as well, which seems to me to be specifically designed to support the change with its POV wording, and which looks like it is designed as an attempt to subvert the "old" poll. BlankVerse ∅ 07:56, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  9. Oppose. As long as there is a redirect from Zurich to Zürich there is absolutely no reason it can't stay. Ben W Bell 10:48, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  10. Oppose - That some people can't find the umlaut when type-setting doesn't mean we shouldn't forget it too. Also, the "ü" is pronounced differently from the "u", so keeping it is important for pronounciation. Thue | talk 12:34, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    And how do you pronounce Zurich/Zürich in English? --Audiovideo 12:55, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  11. Oppose - With Zurich as a redirect is already sufficient. — Instantnood 15:14, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)
  12. Oppose Agree with Andrew_pmk and Μελ Ετητης: While I generally support the rule to use English names, i find that diacritics are a different case: They only add information. Having them in the topic title doesn't hurt. — Sebastian (T) 04:16, 2005 Apr 10 (UTC) — PS: I just found that there is another vote about just this generalized rule.
  13. Oppose. I'll use the ubiquitous argument at WP:RFDA - this is a solution searching for a problem. ugen64 05:38, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  14. Oppose. What is the justification for starting a new vote? This was decided previously. NoPuzzleStranger 11:35, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • There wasn't in fact a poll deciding to move it, it was first moved, than we had a poll. -- User:Docu
  15. Oppose. The spelling that reflects the local pronunciation is a little, well, quaint, rather than incorrect in English, and presents no problem in comprehension or pronunciation to English mono-linguals, who are entirely comfortable in just pretending that the umlaut makes no difference. And the omission of the umlaut is ugly and jarring to those whose awareness rises above the regrettable norm (though note that that regret is not a sufficient reason to use the umlaut!): In fact, that ugliness and jar is probably the best reason for the umlaut: its absence doesn't look like an editorial policy (as using "Rome" for Roma or "Munich" for München does), it looks like an ignorant mistake resulting from an often willful blindness to the umlaut's presence. --Jerzy (t) 15:51, 2005 Apr 11 (UTC)
  16. Oppose - Lack of diacritics doesn't make a toponym more English - and it certainly makes it less correct. Halibutt 22:18, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)
  17. Oppose. The move would not simplify things a single bit but will certainly create confusion. The proper spelling is Tsoorikh, writing it as Zurich would not give a slightest hint on this. In cases like this one, when the name is effectively unaltered in English, the best policy is to keep both native writing and spelling, as per contermporary trends of maintaining phonetics in both geographic and personal names. DmitryKo 22:36, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  18. Oppose google results are skewed because people don't know how to write umlauts. BrokenSegue 23:36, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  19. Oppose. I'm guessing a significant part of the reason the English form appears without the umlaut is because English speakers typically don't know how to produce it in typing. The umlaut certainly will not cause confusion or misunderstanding, and could only help. Just because the form without the diacritic occurs more commonly in English text doesn't mean we ought to omit it as well. For example, façade seems to be more commonly spelt without the cedilla in English texts (compare [2] and [3]). — Ливай | ☺ 23:37, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  20. Oppose, agreeing with Mel Etitis. The current policy is to use English names (see e.g. Brussels) where they exist and are well known. However, in this case, the English name can be seen to essentially follow the local name as closely as possible, which means the umlaut is often, but not always, omitted in English contexts. Having the umlaut present does not cause confusion and is more accurate. See São Paulo and Málaga for other precedents (it doesn't matter whether English speakers are generally aware of the phonetic effects of diacritics, as long as they don't get confused due to their presence). --MarkSweep 01:18, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  21. Oppose, there is not much difference between Zürich and Zurich. In either case the reader is able to understand and comprehend that it is the Swiss city. Its not comparable for example between Moscow and Mockba where there is a major difference in the structure of the name. I would oppose Mockba, but in the instance of Zürich I have no objection to its usage. Leanne 09:43, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Oppose. The only reason "Zurich" is well-known in English is because English speakers tend to ignore diacritic marks they don't understand. Wikipedia has an obligation not to promulgate ignorance. (The fact that "Zurich" is also the French spelling is irrelevant; the sound [y] is spelled <u> in French. If the German name were *Zurich the French would probably spell it *Zourich (cf. Strasbourg for Straßburg).) --Angr/comhrá 15:17, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC) Changed my vote; see above.
  22. Oppose. The presence of the diacritic does not confuse readers. -- Emsworth 14:32, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  23. Oppose. As long as Zurich redirects to Zürich, what's the problem? We can eat our cake, and have it too. —wwoods 07:22, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  24. Oppose. As it is now (with redirect) is good. I use this technique with Czech cities. Pavel Vozenilek 00:28, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  25. Oppose. Zürich is fine. -Lethe | Talk 22:39, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
  26. Oppose per Mel Etitis, MarkSweep, Lord Emsworth. --Tydaj 23:37, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  27. Oppose. Keep Zürich and also a redirect from Zurich. There are many people (and not just from Germany) who would prounounce it falsely otherwise. — Pt (T) 20:33, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  28. Oppose. In general I am fine with moving articles to a spelling more common in English (although I would rather see [almost] all geography articles under their native name), like München -> Munich and Göteborg -> Gothenburg, but only removing the umlauts is just plain stupid. I don't agree with the naming conventions in this case. -- Elisson | Talk 23:20, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  29. Oppose. Zurich already redirects here. --pile0nadestalk | contrib 29 June 2005 00:25 (UTC)
  30. Oppose. There seems to be a precedent of using the umlaut, like in Düsseldorf, unless the English and German names differ (Munich v München.) I do not know why we should be inconsistent (or be ignorant of diatrics.) |IINAG 03:23, 31 August 2005
  31. Oppose. Of course. --User:Sweets (talk) 12:59, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Other

  1. weak oppose, see comments abstain, changed my mind, prefer to stay neutral on this. dab (ᛏ) 13:15, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  2. Again? How many times do we have to vote about the presence or absence of two little dots? Are there no more pressing things in life? (i.e. neutral vote) Kokiri 20:05, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC) (we've got redirects for some reason)
  3. Sheesh. Whatever. If all the people who have spent so much thoughts on "ü" vs. "u" would have worked on the article instead, it'd be featured by now! Lupo 12:09, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Comments & Discussion

I don't think it is the native speakers who voted for Zürich above. The question boils down to, is Zurich an English variant of the name (like Lucerne for Luzern), or is it just a lazy spelling of the native name. In the former case, we would move to Zurich. In the latter case, we would applaud the effort to get the diacritics right. As it turns out, historically English took over the French spelling of Zürich, and surely, if we're to choose between the French and the local spelling, we choose the local one? I wouldn't compare the situation to a move from de:Tokio to de:東京, but from de:Tokio to de:Tokyo, because the English spelling gained currency in German. It remains a borderline case. I will not revert any moving to and fro, but I suggest to avoid edit wars over this. dab (ᛏ) 15:07, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think it's much more than a 'lazy spelling'. By the way, I didn't have the Kanji version of Tokyo in mind, but rather Tokyo -> Tokio, just as you pointed out.
so how is this comparable? we would be looking at two different transliteration schemes, not a German vs. a native spelling. dab (ᛏ) 15:35, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Both Tokio and Tokyo are acceptable in German, but Tokio is more common. Japanese editors would prefer Tokyo, no doubt about that. But just as the majority of Germans would write Tokio when asked to spell the word, English speakers would generally write Zurich and rarely Zürich. Nobbie 08:59, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • comment I'm sorry, but have you even noted the poll above? It was never closed, and you may technically still vote there. Since it's at 16:16, we may as well start over here (but why should we?). dab (ᛏ) 15:08, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The poll above is a straw poll. The poll down here is a poll concerning a move. Nobbie 15:33, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 ? . The result above for the move is currently 16:16 -- User:Docu
Correct. But it's quite old and just a straw poll. According to Wikipedia:Requested moves, the new poll (yes, I do suggest that we start over here) might lead to a page move. I doubt that the straw poll will achieve anything. Nobbie 08:53, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
ok, so we should probably archive the old poll. Also you may want to put a deadline on the new one, or it will peter out like the old one did. I don't feel strongly about it, but I may idly vote oppose just to make the point that there are titles that legitimately have diacritics, and that Z(ü)rich may or may not be one of them. dab (ᛏ) 10:04, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • "note: it's really a poll about moving it back to "Zurich" (were it initially was). I didn't want to restore the previous situation without. A person listed under "Zürich" went to great lenghts to move it to "Zürich". -- User:Docu
    • If that's correct, the move should be reverted as a general policy of resisting POV-motivated moves. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:25, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment It is simply not true that "articles about cities should be named with the city's native name. The naming convention is perfectly clear: "Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things." Not the most strictly correct. Not the most official. Not the "native" name. The most common. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:25, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment Contrary to what James F. (talk) says, the umlaut is not used in English; he is confusing it with the dieresis, which was formerly used in words such as coöperative but is now all but obsolete. Although computers allow for it, English-language typewriters never had any provision for typing a dieresis; in fact they provided no "dead keys" for any diacritical marks. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:25, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Comments Dpbsmith (talk) 17:25, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Merriam Webster says: Main Entry: Zu·rich Pronunciation: 'zur-ik Variant(s): or German Zü·rich /'ts[UE]-ri[k]/
    • As noted above, the American Heritage dictionary contains only the spelling Zurich without the umlaut, and a single pronunciation consistent with that spelling.
    • The Guardian: 667 hits for Zurich without an umlaut, 19 for Zürich.
    • The BBC: 731 hits for Zurich without an umlaut, 66 for Zürich
    • The New York Times, online search available via my local library, 2000-2005, appears to use Zurich without an umlaut. Searches for Zurich or Zürich turn up same articles, articles do not use umlaut. A spot check of actual page images from 2001 confirms that the printed page does not use the umlaut.
Encarta Austalia and Encarta UK use Zurich: [4], [5]
Encarta USA and Encarta Canada use Zürich: [6], [7].
Go figure... Nobbie 04:07, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • As noted below, the Britannica also uses Zürich. It looks like Zurich is an Americanism. Urhixidur 13:55, 2005 Apr 9 (UTC)
      • The BBC, the Guardian and Encarta UK use Americanisms? Dpbsmith (talk) 14:20, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Despite the name, Britannica is predominantly an American encyclopedia. Zurich is definitely not an Americanism of any description. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:32, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] suggested change of intro

so, if we make the move, how do you suggest the intro will read? At present, we have

Zürich IPA [ˈtsyːrɪç] (in English often Zurich, which is also the standard French form of the name)

How would this look after a move to Zurich? maybe

Zurich (in German Zürich IPA [ˈtsyːrɪç])

in this case we would lose a convenient way of expressing

  • both spellings are common in English (although admittedly Zurich is more common)
  • The English spelling is taken from the French
  • it's a matter of spelling ("forms"). "Zurich" is really a celtic name, and we're just looking at different orthographies and pronunciations. Just the spelling Zurich doesnt make it "English"

Whether I will keep abstaining, or change my vote back to oppose, will depend on whether a satisfactory change of intro is proposed. dab (ᛏ) 13:21, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Zurich (in German Zürich IPA [ˈtsyːrɪç]) looks ok to me.
You could include infomation on the orthography of Zurich/Zürich in the second paragraph of the lead section. There is already some information on the name. Nobbie 07:28, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Out of curiosity, how is it pronounced in French? /ˈzu.ʁiʃ/? I think in English, many people say /ˈzə.ɹɪk/. —Michael Z. 2005-04-7 02:35 Z

No, it's /ˈzy.ʁik/, approximately. Aha! this proves that it is neither a French nor an English spelling, since it is not pronounced in accordance with French or English phonological rules. This hadn't occurred to me, a truly French / English spelling would have to be Zurik, or if it was an English spelling, the pronunciation of Zurich would need to be /ˈzə.ɹɪtʃ/. I think this establishes that we are looking at the native spelling with just the diacritics dropped. I recommend voting oppose for this (linguistic) reason, but I'll keep recusing as we are voting on my home town here dab (ᛏ) 07:56, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

But in English, Zurich and Munich rhyme - no-one seems to be saying Munich is a non-English spelling, just an English attempt to give a place a name based on what they heard or saw some locals use. The original "Munichen" also seems to be missing an umlaut. --Audiovideo 13:26, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
you have a point, but is there any genuinely English word where -ich is pronounced [-ik]? The [k] seems to be an effort to render the [x] phoneme. This makes Munich really a weird case of hybrid spelling (somewhere halfway between the native spelling and a proper anglicized form). Note that the Munich, Lucerne and Zurich spellings all reached English through French. It is also inscructive to look at the interwiki links on both Munich and Zurich; the Scandinavian languages all seem to give the umlaut, even if the letter does not exist in their native alphabet (it should be Zyrich in Finnish). As far as I can see, the Zurich case is really as exactly on the borderline as you can get, and once we do have some solid consensus on it, it should be featured on the policy page. dab (ᛏ) 13:40, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
This is a mildy interesting etymological history discussion, but fundamentally it's not relevant to the question here. Whatever the path was by which the English-speaking world came to use (and pronounce) Zurich (and the French connection stuff you point out above is interesting), the fact is that it's now a "done deal". I am very much in favour of educating people that the native spelling is "Zürich", and the native pronunciation is "Zuerick" (hope I got that right - sorry, don't know/have IPA available). However, alas, history has written, and having written, moved on - just as the name of my native country is now (and always will be) Bermuda, which is rather a hash-up of the name of the person whom it's named after (Juan de Bermudez - whose name I have undoubtly given without the appropriate diacritics, since I don't know them). Noel (talk) 17:30, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j31/satires.php ;-) -- Philip Baird Shearer 18:50, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] English "Zürich" is more common than "Zurich"

  • comment. I, as a native English speaker, have always spelt it Zürich. Zurich just looks wrong. And I would dispute that the latter spelling is much more common in English - not in the UK at least. If there's an accepted English version of a name then we should use it (Venice, Cologne etc), but in this case I don't think so. -- Necrothesp 10:09, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • I believe Airplane is much more common than Fixed-wing aircraft, should we rename the latter? Oh, don't answer please... DmitryKo 22:55, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Zurich" is more common but this is not a good reason for moving the article there.

(E.g. not worth the bother; do not agree that naming policy requires it to be there; assert de facto policy that when common and native names differ only by diacritical marks the native name should be used; do not agree with naming policy).

Umlauts are used in English. Zürich is how it's often spelt. James F. (talk) 10:39, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Umlauts in English? Böllocks! --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:11, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
What about "naïve", then? James F. (talk) 18:39, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
That's a diaeresis, not an umlaut.Grace Note 09:55, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Use Local spelling

The first argument (the claim that the spelling is used by the various government levels) is plausible, and should be looked into. The « government of Switzerland » exists in four languages, so careful examination may be required. The second argument (that the most common English spelling should be used) is irrelevant: the English spelling is mentioned in the article, and there is a redirect from it. Wikipedia ought to use the native name as closely as possible. The third argument (that Zurich is much more common) is again irrelevant: frequency of use does not make correctness. The fourth argument (of Wikipedia redirects vs. Google searches) is irrelevant, because of the redirect; Google also does not care about diacritics (it is smart enough to see through them).

Looking into local usage, we see that the Zürich Airport uses the umlaut prominently on the buildings (see image). The city/canton/state pages also use Zürich: [8]. So does the University of Zürich. It looks like the first argument was mistaken. Urhixidur 14:23, 2005 Apr 8 (UTC)

See: Official web site of the city (only in GERMAN!) Nobbie
Official web site of the canton (only in GERMAN!) Nobbie
Search through the federal government's web site (Zurich is the FR spelling, Zürich the DE)
The Britannica spells it Zürich as well --the canton, the city, the lake, the Agreement (1959), the Consensus (1549), the ware. So there.
Urhixidur 23:29, 2005 Apr 8 (UTC)
The city and the canton don't offer English tranlations. The Swiss goverment uses both Zurich and Zürich. The airport [9] seems to favour Zurich, Greater Zurich Area as well. Zurich tourism [10] uses both, but seems to favour Zürich. Nobbie 04:25, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Note, Nobbie, that Zürich airport uses "Zurich" only on its EN pages (probably does on the FR pages as well). See the image in the background --those umlauts must be several metres tall! Urhixidur 13:54, 2005 Apr 9 (UTC)

[edit] Other thoughts

That some people can't find the umlaut when type-setting doesn't mean we shouldn't forget it too. Also, the "ü" is pronounced differently from the "u", so keeping it is important for pronounciation. Thue | talk 12:34, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

And in English, it is pronounced "Zurich." See American Heritage Dictionary]. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:54, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Do you think, then that all the articles whose titles include umlauts, etc., should renamed? (See my explanation of Wikipedia practice above.) Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 13:42, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Yes, actually I do. I put more emphasis on correctness than tradition, and following the spelling and pronounciation convention of the city inhabitants therefore makes sense to me. Besides, in the case of Zürich a google search shows a good deal of precedens for using the umlaut, though it may not be the most common spelling. I assume the people who spell it with umlaut also pronounce it with umlaub.
Note that I don't think we should use the national spelling unconditionally - using Copenhagen instead of the Danish København is fine with me. Thue | talk 13:30, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
You seem to have confused me with Dpbsmith, of whom I was asking the question. I agree with you, if not for precisely the saem reasons. (It's umlaut, by the way). Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 13:35, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Your reply was indented as an answer to me, not to Dpbsmith, so I assumed the answer was for me. And since you seems to disagree I assumed it was me you were disagreeing with and you thought all umlauts should be removed :). (spelling of umlaut fixed, thanks) Thue | talk 17:31, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Support, for an umlaut and diacritic free English Wikipedia. I wanna see the Ü-supporters on maintaining hundreds of articles about vietnamese places written double, with wrong redirects, missing article links for existing articles ... Cần Thơ, Đà Nẵng, Hải Phòng, Thành phố Hồ Chí, Bắc Giang, Bắc Kạn, Bạc Liêu, Bắc Ninh, Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu, Bến Tre, Bình Định, Bình Dương, Bình Phước, Bình Thuận Tobias Conradi (Talk) 09:45, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The regrettable neglect of these Vietnamese names reflects lack of editors who can easily edit them correctly, not a policy to slight them. (However, i don't know if there are coding/server problems with using them in article titles.) Inevitably the English-speaking world's willingness to speak English loud enough to be understood, rather than learn foreign languages, will mean lags in the quality of en: re the more ignored languages, but we can count on improvement, as our traffic continues to rise and our editor community extends more into even these areas that we presently underedit; surely no one believes we should feign inability to cope with "popular" European languages, as the direction we should move toward handling the rest "equally". --Jerzy (t) 17:56, 2005 Apr 11 (UTC)
I would want to learn about correct Vietnamese transliteration, if there are editors able to maintain them. This poll is about prohibiting people from maintaining a properly spelled article title. On a technical note, ü is ISO-Latin, while the Vietnamese diacritics are not, so unlike ü they may not be supported by the software right now (but they will be in the forseeable future). dab (ᛏ) 20:03, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It is not "correct" or incorrect to use diacritics on names in English. There is common usage though. Philip Baird Shearer 21:03, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)


Support. I've not changed meaning since the previous poll. Zurich is more than sufficiently wellknown from English texts. In other cases, I might suspect PBS's quest against umlauts and diacritics in article names to be exaggerated. Here not so. The matter seems undisputable to me. Ruhrjung 15:25, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

Comment on at least #10 and #16 [support] above: I say this with great respect for and valuing of the category of colleagues i am about to discuss. I mean those German-speakers whose English facility is far better than mine in German (and that is not entirely a platitude from me, even though i don't claim diligence for grasping that -- stated from most of my readers' point of view -- Meinung, which should mean "meaning" (as in "not changed meaning"), in fact means "opinion").
It is tempting to assume that being a native speaker of German should make one an expert on this question, but rather, IMO, the task of studying a (foreign) language -- even at earlier, more susceptible, ages than most Americans do -- requires one to erect barriers against false cognates, and thus a resistance to recognizing how willing languages are to accept words, especially names, from one another. (I began to get this point, for example, when a German friend mentioned that rather than try to sell VW Rabbits to Australians who regard the corresponding animal as vermin, the same car was marketed in their market by its German model name Golf. "And what does Golf mean in German?", i asked, sure that that German word had not been adopted into English. "It means 'golf'." "But i don't know what Golf means!" "Yes you do; golf, the game!", which forced me to realize that even when pronounced with a German accent, there is every reason that the word should have the same meaning. Now, i don't mean to suggest that my colleagues are as thick-skulled as i was, but logically similar effects should be pervasive and hard to spot.) The task of not jumping to conclusions about similarities, and the closely related one of not expecting native speakers to know anything about your own native language, may well cause even highly skilled English-as-a-second-language speakers to underestimate how tolerable the native spellings of terms and names from their native language will be to, e.g. en: readers. --Jerzy (t) 17:56, 2005 Apr 11 (UTC)
For the record they were sold as "Golfs" in Britain where for the 97% of the population who are not farmers and in a nation which has just banned fox hunting, rabbits are are seen as Beatrix Potter or Watership Down bunnies not vermin. Philip Baird Shearer 21:03, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

As above, esp. dpbsmith. Diacritics are (generally) not a part of 'common English [language] names'. Montreal and Quebec have had their diacritics removed for that very reason--no reason to 'special case' Zurich. Niteowlneils 04:51, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

These are a different case, because they're in a bilingual country. Despite this, many English-speakers write Montréal and Québec, and the Canadian government uses Montréal in both languages. —Michael Z. 2005-04-18 15:19 Z

[edit] It's a façade

I'm guessing a significant part of the reason the English form appears without the umlaut is because English speakers typically don't know how to produce it in typing. The umlaut certainly will not cause confusion or misunderstanding, and could only help. Just because the form without the diacritic occurs more commonly in English text doesn't mean we ought to omit it as well. For example, façade seems to be more commonly spelt without the cedilla in English texts (compare [11] and [12]). — Ливай | ☺ 23:37, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

façade is only 1/3 as common as facade using http://www.google.co.uk with an English flag set:
  • about 2,220,000 English pages for facade
  • about 739,000 English pages for façade
Wack a Rat! --Philip Baird Shearer 17:52, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree it should be facade. It's a loanword, Zürich otoh is a proper name, so while I agree it should be facade, that doesn't in the least support a move to Zurich (not sure why you even bring it up here). dab (ᛏ) 18:46, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It is ssssoooo wrong to write "facade"! It changes the sound to a hard c, as in "fack-ade", and I wouldn't be surprised if that's how it were pronounced by an English speaker who came across it in print without having encountered it in speech first.
Urhixidur 23:37, 2005 Jun 17 (UTC)
It does no such thing. A c between two vowels in English is typically pronounced as an s sound. You don't pronounce macerate as mackerate, or facial as fackial, do you? --Delirium 08:37, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
No. In English, as in many Western languages, "c" is usually pronounced "soft" (as s) before e, i or y, but "hard" (as k) before a, o, u. You don't pronounce "macabre" as "massabre" or "decorum" as "dessorum", do you? Hence the cedilla to force the soft pronunciation of c before a, o, u in French and Portuguese words, also when used as loanwords in languages like English. Similarly "garçon" which, in English, is pronounced à la française and not as if it were "garken". — Tonymec 09:50, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Please vote in this straw poll regarding names with diacritical marks

(Note: following a suggestion by Philip Baird Shearer I've moved the ongoing discussion to what seems to be a more appropriate page and updated the links here to correspond. Dpbsmith (talk) 17:55, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC))

I've added a proposal to the naming conventions to the effect that

Whenever the most common English spelling is simply the native spelling with diacritical marks omitted, the native spelling should be used.

Please discuss and vote there. Dpbsmith (talk) 15:12, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[the following comment is left over from the removed discussion and appears out of context] dab (ᛏ)

It doesn't appear to be relevant to Zurich. -- User:Docu

[edit] "Zürich Tourism" or "Zürich Tourismus" or "Zurich Tourism" ?

There is a link in the article to the website of the Zurich tourist office. Should it be labelled "Zürich Tourism" as it's now, or changed to "Zürich Tourismus"? Options

  1. Use German version "Zürich Tourismus" as used on the website
  2. Use English version "Zurich Tourism" as used on the website, the Zurich spelling would also match that used by the (City of Zurich)
  3. Use "Zürich Tourism" derived from the two former.

-- User:Docu

[edit] Another tie...

We're looking at another tie. What shall we do? It is really a matter of coincidence if the poll comes out 45:55 or 55:45 now. I do not care, we can move the article to Zurich for now, or rotate it in monthly intervals, this is not a solution. We must look for a compromise! Obviously, a compromise is not possible for the specific question of which should be the title for this particular article. The compromise must be carved out at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English) of which our question here should just be a corollary. The current suggestion there of

"Whenever the most common English spelling [of proper names/place names] is simply the native spelling with diacritical marks omitted, the native spelling should be used."

seems (strangely) to be getting support of roughly 2:1 so far. We need to further specify the details of that suggestion to make it even more widely acceptable. I ask everyone, be flexible. Compromise, don't insist of getting your way exactly! The present situation is not satisfactory for anyone. We may have to differentiate between various languages, especially between spellings that are Latin natively, and transliterations. I ask everyone to continue the discussion over at the policy page, and most importantly, make productive suggestions, don't just criticize other people's. dab (ᛏ) 08:08, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In the absence of a consensus to change policy, we will stick with the current policy, which is to use the most common unique name, and to use English rather than local names. This leaves a little ambiguity with respect to diacritics, but that can be dealt with on an article-by-article basis as at present. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 10:06, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
This particular vote is not, can not and should not be about policy, but about the issue of Zurich vs Zürich. / Tupsharru 10:09, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
sure, I am talking about the poll over at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English).
Tony, you may be late to this debate, but it has been going on for ages because of different possibilities as to how to apply current policy to the present case. Kindly review the archives. I think it is undisputable that a process of policy development is desireable that will regulate such cases more clearly, so that not as much effort will have to be wasted on discussions about individual cases. dab (ᛏ) 10:15, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I agree with the general thrust but not the form of Tony's approach:
  • I don't consider our policy statements to be inviolable rules, but
  • policy needs considerably more respect than it is being accorded here, whence:
  • If indeed Tony has stated current policy accurately, we can't make an exception without
    • a consensus for an exception, resulting from
    • a poll stated in a form like
      Shall Zürich be moved to Zurich, as an exception to the policy generally accepted as opposing such a move?
    • addition of a "Pending exceptions" section to the Wikipedia:-namespace policy page, with a lk to this talk page, and
    • orderly documentation, easily accessible from the policy page, of any such exceptions made.
Thus, (assuming Tony has the policy straight) i would regard any move claiming to be based on support votes in the current poll to be vigilantism.
--Jerzy (t) 18:44, 2005 Apr 13 (UTC)

When I've look at the many place name article naming surveys, the conclusion that I've drawn is that Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) does not have consensus support of the Wikipedia editors. Even that page's most ardent supports seem to have come to the same conclusion (see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)#Time to discard this policy). I think that guideline needs its own survey to truely guage how much support it does or does not have. For examples, you can look at the surveys for Côte d'Ivoire, Mumbai and others where the choices were almost always for the official local name and spelling. The only recent survey that I know of that hasn't followed this pattern was the Mecca->Makkah survey. 4.232.141.68 13:01, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] IPA

The article says, immediately after its title,

Zürich? (in English often Zurich, IPA [ˈtsyrɪç]) is [...]

This is misleading: it seems to imply that IPA [ˈtsyrɪç] applies to the spelling "Zurich" without umlaut. According to the "New Oxford English Dictionary, © Oxford University Press 1998-2001", the English spelling is Zurich, pronounced ['zjʊərɪk]; the pronunciation [ˈtsyrɪç] is also mentioned there but as the "German" pronunciation. The fact that the NOED lists Zurich without umlaut is IMHO "a sign that the umlaut-less form has become an English word" rather than "a result of a general anti-diacritics policy", since some other well-known cities like Liège and Düsseldorf are listed with diacritics in their names. -- Tonymec 21:40, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

The IPA in the lead is meant to give the pronunciation in Standard German, not in English. Since this is an English-language encyclopdia, we don't need to give pronunciation guides except for very obscure and unintuitive pronunciations of English-speaking people and places. I don't feel we should start adding English pronunciations for places in non-English speaking countries, since this is bound to open a can of worms. We'll just wind up with, like, four different English pronunciations crammed into the lead, all of which will be disputed by someone who speaks an obscure dialect and no one will be happier for it. I'm therefor removing the English pronunciation IPA.
Peter Isotalo 17:11, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
The pronunciations in the OED are not from "an obscure dialect" of English. I still believe that [ˈtsyrɪç] for Zurich in English is an overcorrection. IMO the article should clearly state that it is the German pronunciation and not the English pronunciation. — Tonymec 11:47, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
Tony, please reread my post more carefully. You're very obviously misquoting me. We don't assign English pronunciations to cities in non-English speaking countries and we shouldn't encourage it by specifying the language unless it could be confused with any language other than English. I've already explained why it can become a major nuisance to start listing English pronunciations of non-English placenames. The foreign language pronunciations are to me merely a bonus to let people get a feel for languages other than English, not a first step to becoming a general pronunciation guide. We have our Wiktionaries for that.
Peter Isotalo 07:30, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
I did read your post carefully. You did mention "obscure dialects" before I did, didn't you?. I bowed to the extent of not reintroducing the received English pronunciation. I thought I had found an acceptable wording. Why did you reintroduce ambiguity by removing "German pronunciation"? And talking of ambiguity, why don't you sign with your login name? I first thought "Karmosin" and "Peter Isotalo" were two different people. — Tonymec 21:10, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Tony, please stay on topic and stick to the factual discussion. First off, don't accuse someone of vandalism merely because you disagree. It's very uncivil and doesn't add anything to the discussion. As for the misquote, if you actually read the entire sentence in which the phrase "obscure dialects" is contained, and compare it with your statement, you'll notice that they have only one thing in common; namely the quoted phrase. If not an actual misquote, it's a very obvious misrepresentation of my words.
I'll repeat my arguments once more and I would appreciate if you adressed them directly:
  • All pronunciations of place names in non-English speaking countries here at Wikipedia are in the native language of the place name. The English pronunciations are not relevant since we're not a dictionary and because it will invariably lead to pointless conflicts between speakers of different variants of English or needless clutter of the lead section. There's also the risk of editors speaking obscure dialects protesting on the grounds of NPOV.
  • Defining pronunciations as "XXX pronunciation" when there is only one language option encourages people to think that there should be an English transcription or pronuncuiation file. This should be avoided even if it may occasionally lead to misunderstandings. So far, you're the only one to object.
Peter Isotalo 21:50, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
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