Talk:Kunya Urgench
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Why 'Kunya'?
This city was known as Urgench when it was inhabited, and is now universally known as Konya Urgench (whatever its official 'turkmenised' name may be). Kunya on its own just means 'old', and is too easily confused with Konya in Turkey (which comes from a different root, being a corruption of the Greek Ikonion. If no-one objects within a couple of months I shall move the page to Konya Urgench. Sikandarji 17:39, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
- I used a spelling preferred by UNESCO on their website, when starting the article hours after the WHS announcement had been made. If you feel that the title is not proper and needs to be turkecized, go on. --Ghirla | talk 13:08, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
It's not so much that it needs to be 'Turkicised' as 'un-Turkmenbashi'd'. I strongly suspect that 'Kunya' is an official re-naming by the current Turkmen regime, which is why UNESCO use it, but to travellers, archaeologists, historians and other scholars it is known as Konya Urgench. This makes sense, as when it was actually a city, it was called Urgench, and the 'Konya' prefix simply indicates that it is now old ie abandoned as there is a modern town of Urgench elsewhere. Sikandarji 05:43, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
I checked the UNESCO website using the link you gave, and they call it Kunya Urgench. That would be OK, wouldn't it? Sikandarji 16:44, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
