Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aramaeans in the Netherlands

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to Assyrians in the Netherlands. Maxim_(talk) 12:55, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Aramaeans in the Netherlands

Aramaeans in the Netherlands (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

POV-pushing original research, unsourced, and a redundant copy of Assyrians in the Netherlands. There is no need, and it certainly is not notable enough, to have two different articles about the exact same people in the exact same part of the world. There is an Assyrian naming dispute, and a minority of Assyrians identify as "Aramaeans", a long since vanished people mentioned a few times in the bible. We can't create two or three different articles for all Assyrians who identify as something other than Assyrian in whatever country.

• Speedy Redirect and merge whatever valuable content into Assyrians in the Netherlands article. — EliasAlucard|Talk 19:54 23 Aug, 2007 (UTC)
• Redirect - POV fork. --Vonones 20:27, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
• Redirect & Merge the useful content to Assyrians in the Netherlands, unless someone can tell me why we should have two articles on more or less the same subject. I'm not sure about POV (although I can understand why the nominator said that), but considering the claims made and potential original research in the article, it needs extensive and reliable citations, and at this point, there are none. And almost none in the Assyrians article. Both need a lot of work. Any issues about the name (Aramaeans vs Assyrians) and any cultural differences can be addressed there. This will not be a simple merge, requiring reconciliation and balance between the two (or three) camps. What ever happens, I suspect there will be some unhappy editors. To merge and do no sourcing will result in one larger un-sourced article that will have to be handled at some point. — Becksguy 04:49, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
• merge -- the majority of Syriacs in the Netherlands appears to identify as "Aramaeans" rather than "Assyrians", so it may be preferable to hat the merged article at Aramaeans in the Netherlands. All subject to WP:RS and Wikipedia:Naming conventions of course. This is an abuse of Afd procedure, btw, since not even the nominator is voting "delete". dab (𒁳) 07:52, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Actually, the majority of all Syriacs in the Netherlands identify as Assyrian. Doesn't matter though, all the articles about Assyrians in the diaspora, this and that country, are titled Assyrians in _country_ and this one shouldn't be different. I just asked a guy from the Netherlands I know via MSN about this, and he had never heard of "Aramaeans". He knew about Assyrians though. We can mention the naming dispute in the Assyrians in the Netherlands article. — EliasAlucard|Talk 11:40 24 Aug, 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment Another reason for picking Assyrians is that the term is better known in the US, and maybe in The Netherlands as per EliasAlucard. See this article for some information on Assyrians, Syrians, Syriacs, Assyrians or Chaldaeans as ethnic identifiers. Of course, redirects can take care of the various versions. — Becksguy 00:41, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Reply That article is a joke. It's written by a Kemalist-Turk who hates Assyrians because of the Assyrian Genocide Turks committed, and one of my favourite articles of his, is this one. Obviously, he shouldn't be taken seriously. Problem is, some Assyrians, believe what he says and those are the ones who call themselves "Aramaeans". He's just trying to erase the Assyrian identity, and to some extent, he is succeeding, which is why articles like this one pop up every now and then. — EliasAlucard|Talk 10:05 25 Aug, 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per nom- bad article--Sefringle^Talk 05:18, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ethnic groups-related deletions. —Sefringle^Talk 05:18, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
• Move: the article should be called Syriacs in the Netherlands, since Syriacs is the proper translation of the self-appelation Suryoye, which is used by all subgroups. There are among the Syriacs many who do not wish to be identified as Assyrians, see for example Platform Aram, SCV Baradaeus, Syriac Aramaic European Youth Committee, there are other who do not wish to be called Aramaeans. This move request is a sneaky way to impose the self-appelation Assyrians on all Syriacs. --Benne ['bɛnə] _(talk) 10:30, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment The "Aramaean" faction is a tiny minority. Syriac, means Assyrian. We all know this. And a majority of all the Syrian Orthodox Church, identify as Assyrians. It's just some of them in northern Europe who are insisting that Syria means Aram and not Assyria. Also, why should this one, be different than all the other articles in the Assyrian diaspora? Oh and by the way, this is founded by members from the Syriac Orthodox Church, and so is this. — EliasAlucard|Talk 15:19 25 Aug, 2007 (UTC)

The majority of the Syriac Orthodox who call themselves Assyrian? Have you got any evidence for that nonsensical statement?

Let me refresh your memory, Suryoyo does not mean Assyrian (Othuroyo), it means Syrian/Syriac. --Benne ['bɛnə] _(talk) 13:56, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Suryoyo/Suraya, means, Assuraya. Source: Simo Parpola, page 11 to 14.[1] Oh and lest we forget, Cinekoy inscription. Case closed. — EliasAlucard|Talk 16:25 25 Aug, 2007 (UTC)

Othuroyo, or Athuraye, means Assuraya. It's just an SH sound that has phonetically been changed to a TH sound. — EliasAlucard|Talk 16:25 25 Aug, 2007 (UTC)

• Keep it seems obvious that there are nationalistic POV issues here. If Arameans self-identify as such, they're separate enough for a distinct article. DGG (talk) 05:18, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah and it is the "Aramaean" claim. --Vonones 06:21, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

The nationalistic POV comes from the "Aramaean" side. Not the other way around. And again, it's not notable to have two different articles about the same group of people. — EliasAlucard|Talk 12:27 26 Aug, 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree with that first sentence, but I wholeheartedly agree that there should be one article: Syriacs in the Netherlands, or Suryoye in the Netherlands, if you like. This can deal with both Aramaean and Assyrian factions. --Benne ['bɛnə] _(talk) 11:09, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

All articles, are Assyrians in _country_ so why should this one be different because it's in the Netherlands? Don't exaggerate the Aramaean faction in Europe. Wikipedia is not about appeasing Aramaeanist movements. They are extremists, historical revisionists, and should not wield influence on Wikipedia because they are not the least NPOV. http://www.aramnahrin.org/English/index_en.htm Just look at their site, Assyria was never called Aram-Nahrin. That site and the entire Aramaean movement is a joke and shouldn't be taken seriously on Wikipedia. — EliasAlucard|Talk 14:14 26 Aug, 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - Partly as a result of Turkish policy over many centuries, the various orthodox churches of the east have been endogamous, and have thus become almost become separate ethnic groups. This ethnicity is quite distinct from nationality in the modern sense, in that these religious groups are trans-national but largely within the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire. The terms "Syriac", "Aramaean" or "Aramaic", and "Assyrian" are essentially the names of churches (i.e. denominations), transliterated into English, in some cases via other languages (such as Latin or Greek). The picture may be confused by the English Bible's use of Syria as a translation of Aram. WP needs to be careful about lumping differnet eastern orthodox churches (which have been separate for 1500 years) together as if they were the same. However there needs to be clarity over nomenclature, so that the same term is used throughout WP for each denomination, with redirects foir others. I not that the present article tagged for possible merger with one on Assyrians; I do not know enough to comment. There is no reason why there should not be articles on each eastern denomination in each country or alternatively a general article about all Eastern Christians in each country. In my view, WP should be very wary of treating one denomination as a subgroup of another (when it is not). Many eastern Christians have moved to the West, some following the Turkish genocide of Christians (principlally Armenians) during WWI, others from Turkey because they were caught in the crossfire between Kurdish separatists and the Turkish government, others from otehr parts of the Middle East due to Muslim persecution. Unless it is clear there are two parallel articles about the same subject (one called Assyrian and the other Aramaean) both should be kept. If they are about the same subject they should be merged. In either case the AFD procedure is not the proper one, hence Keep. Peterkingiron 10:34, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Reply I don't think you understand, Peter. This is the exact same group, it's not about different Church denominations. We have in the exact same ethnic group, from the exact same Church, Assyrians who say they are Aramaeans, or Assyrians. They all call themselves Syriacs in the form of Suryoyo (which is derived from Assuraya), even the "Aramaean" group calls itself Suryoyo. Their Church has never been called "Aramaean". This naming dispute, started around 30-40 years ago. Before that, they were all Assyrians. — EliasAlucard|Talk 14:47 27 Aug, 2007 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, CitiCat ^♫ 02:06, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

• Merge and Redirect to Assyrians in the Netherlands per nomination, as a POV fork. If this is considered to do violence to the naming preferences of an substantial group of people, then merge both articles to Syriacs in the Netherlands, as explained above. There aren't two sets of people here; there is one set of people and a dispute over how that set of people should be named in English. Moreover the present article has no reliable sources at all; the merge will presumably fix that. If there is a genuine naming dispute about 'Aramaeans' I trust that will be documented using reliable sources. (For a bracing dose of nastiness, and use of the term 'genocide' regarding naming issues (!) check out one of the sites mentioned above). Note that our own article on Aramaeans seems reasonably well written and sourced but it says nothing about this naming dispute. All it says is "Aramaean" is used interchangeably with Assyrian by some Syriacs, primarily in Northern Europe.

For the historical problem of finding a good name for this group of people, see Assyrian naming dispute. 'Syriac' seems to be an excellent name, but for some reason 'Assyrian' seems to be used more in Wikipedia, as evidenced by the template {{Assyrian communities}}. The name of the Syriac Orthodox Church preserves the name Syriac. In fact our article on that church uses the word 'Assyrian' very little, suggesting that Assyrian may not necessarily be the most obvious choice in English for this group of people. Note this comment from Names of Syriac Christians:

During the 2000 United States census, Syriac Orthodox Archbishops Cyril Aprim Karim and Clemis Eugene Kaplan issued a declaration that their preferred English designation is "Syriacs" [note 1] The official census avoids the question by listing the group as "Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac". [note 2]