Talk:Porvoo

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[edit] merge from Suomenkylä

A part of city, unless hugely noteworthy (like Brooklyn, NYC), should be included in the article on the city.--Esprit15d 16:18, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suomenkylä should be cleaned up

.. or edited to match its importance (or rather lack of.)

Should remove this or edit to some standard regarding language, etc. This seems more like graffiti to me.

[edit] POV

At present, there is nationalist POV in the article, inserted by User: Jaakko Sivonen. He repeatedly inserts the name Viipuri for the Russian city of Vyborg, with the argument that at that time in history the city was Finnish although it is now Russian. By the same logic, we should use the Swedish name Borgå for Porvoo, as the town was a part of the Kingdom of Sweden until 1809 and still had a Swedish speaking majority only 40 years ago.JdeJ 17:14, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

We use names that are most suitable and consistent for the period and context of the issue. It is of course undeniable that these areas of Finland have always used Finnish language, as majority language, also when they belonged to another, multi-ethnic political entity. It is vital to know what anglophones tend to use. I have seen no evidence that English speakers use Borgå over Porvoo in any periods of history. There is no such logic for naming in English Wikipedia as JdeJ alleges - that claim can be ignored outright. Regarding the specific question of what names to use in text when speaking transfers between two towns at a time when both regions had a Finnish-speaking majority, I tend to accept that both names could and should be in Finnish - particularly as the context speaks of these two in side of each other (you know, consistency in that piece of text). I am relatively certain that anglophones did not use "Vyborg" of that town at that time. Russia herself in those periods did not regard Viipuri as Russian town, but called and administered it chiefly in German. Vyborg for that context enjoys no mentionable support in sources. Marrtel 06:30, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

We use the correct names. That Marrtel does not see the logic is not something I can do much about, nor is it anything that concerns me. This is the official rule given for all Finnish towns. During all the time Vyborg was known as Viipuri and had a Finnish speaking majority, Porvoo was known as Borgå and had a Swedish speaking majority. Please be consistent and stop nationalistic POV-pushing. JdeJ 09:30, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Viipuri was and is a Finnish city, although it is today occupied by Russia. --Jaakko Sivonen 01:48, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Meanwhile, the WP:NC policy commands us to use the English name, which is Vyborg. So you should stop inserting non-compliant names into the article... -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 01:52, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Wrong, Vyborg is the Russian name, English does not have an own name for the city. Viipuri was the only official name when the city belonged to Finland and the area was inhabited by Finns earlier than any Russian occupier even existed. And in this context we are talking about a unilingually Finnish city too, it would be non-sense to use the Russian name. --Jaakko Sivonen 02:01, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Vyborg is the Russian name, and for that reason it is also the international name since the town belongs to Russia. We all know that you don't like that fact, but that does not change a thing. Countless regions, cities and towns have changed hand as a result of war and we use the names they are known under today. So please stop this nationalist nonsense of trying to insert Finnish names all over the place. JdeJ 09:05, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

The German, official, name of Munich is München, why does Wikipedia not use that name? --Jaakko Sivonen 22:55, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't we call the historic Vyborg as "Wiborg" or "Viborg" (the official name of the town in 1721, which Viipuri as a Finnish name certainly wasn't, even if it was the form used by the majority), and the Diet of Porvoo as the "Diet of Borgå" (the town was not "Porvoo" even in Finnish back then, the document is annettu Borgåsa (given in Borgå)? This should conform with WP:NC, at least if the article about Constantinople or the Free City of Danzig are in line with the WP:NC principles. And Borgå is used also in English context at least in Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911, see here: http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Borga Ultrix 19:27, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

No, we should not. I'm sorry to let you down, Svecomaniac, but we use the language of the majority, therefore f.ex. Helsinki instead of Helsingfors and Vaasa instead of Vasa. --Jaakko Sivonen 22:53, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

And that why we have Vyborg and not Viipuri.JdeJ 23:23, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

So why are you not writing Hamina as Hamina but with the Swedish name??? --Jaakko Sivonen 06:50, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Hamina should always be written as Hamina. But 'The Treaty of Fredrikshamn' is a name of a treaty not of a city. We don't speak about the 'Free state of Gdansk' or the 'Free state of Rijeka', instead we say 'Free state of Danzig' and 'Free state of Fiume' even if the names of the two cities should be Gdansk and Rijeka when writing about them.JdeJ 12:24, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I'm a svecomaniac, Jaska, ok then if you say so. But anyways, Vyborg should be Viborg (or Wiborg) in that historic context, as it was the name in all international contexts of that time, and even long after that (see 1911 Encyclopedia. During the first 30 years of our independency it was first called Viborg, but then gradually Viipuri began to be more and more common. After the WWII though USSR made the city Vyborg, a name I first heard a few years ago. Ultrix 12:51, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

It was a Finnish city and its Finnish name is Viipuri. Therefore it ought to be Viipuri everywhere. --Jaakko Sivonen 02:15, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Are you telling me that for example Ekenäs and Nykarleby are not Finnish towns but rather Swedish ones when we use the majority language (Swedish) names for those towns? Should we also call Haparanda with its Finnish name, Haaparanta, because it was a Finnish town in a sense (Finnish-speaking majority until late 20th century). Or would you suggest calling Haaparanta as Haparanda (just as they do) because it lies in Sweden (Swedish speaking majority in the rike) and calling Ekenäs as Tammisaari because it lies in Finland, where the majority of the nation speak Finnish as their mother tongue? I don't apparently see your point here. Ultrix 12:24, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

These are all very good questions. I would like to remark that Haparanda didn't have a Finnish-speaking majority at all. It is completely true that the rural areas around Haparanda were once entirely Finnish-speaking. But Haparanda, which was founded as a new town in the mid-19th century, attracted a great amount of people from many other areas in Sweden as well (this is very well illustrated in Olof Hederyd's Haparanda efter 1809: Tornedalens historia III). Therefore, the population was mainly Swedish-speaking already in the 19th century, making Haparanda unique in Tornedalen. Knowing about the contrast betweeen a new, mainly Swedish-speaking town and the old Finnish-speaking rural areas is quite important for an understanding of this area's history. In the last decades, however, a great amount of Sweden Finns have moved to Haparanda, making it more of a "Finnish-speaking" town today than it was 100 years ago. // 83.183.124.123 19:52, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Good point, and thanks for correcting me on that issue. I based my earlier writings on assumptions without any sensible references. I saw a Swedish school map from late 19th century which had a town "HAAPARANDA" next to "TORNEÅ", and Mikkeli / S:t Michel was labelled as "MIKKEL". Your writings about Haparanda (why on Earth can't it be "Aspstranden" in Swedish? :)) explained a lot about why almost everyone on the Swedish side of the Torne river talk Swedish and why practically nobody in the Finnish side of the river talks it.

So, in short it appears that the Swedish-speaking burgers from Torneå either switched to Finnish or moved west to Haparanda, which in turn became mainly Swedish-speaking. Haparanda then started to "radiate" Swedish language around the Torne valley, and in the late 20th century the Sweden Finns around the Sweden began to move to Haparanda so that they could enjoy the best properties of Sweden (such as social security and farmer-Volvos ;)) and visit Finland more rapidly than eg. from Stockholm. But still it remains mainly Swedish-speaking, and Tornio/Torneå remains strictly Finnish-speaking. Am I right now? Ultrix 12:36, 30 January 2007 (UTC)