Talk:Chlothar I

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was Move. I'm not particularly convinced with reasons for move (but then, for oppose as well), but at least it would bring the article in line with the other two. Duja► 09:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Chlothar is more common in the scholarly (English) literature. All variant spellings should (and will) be mentioned, but this one ought to predominate. I have already moved the Clotaire II and Clotaire III articles. Srnec 06:17, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

• I am unconvinced; the policy on matters like this is: Names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors; and for a general audience over specialists. Here that would mean Chloderic. I will check works of general reference. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:45, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see your point. Chloderic is certainly not the most recognisable English form. That would be Chlothar, as suggested. Clotaire it is certainly not. That's French. Works of general reference will vary, but Clothar, Chlotar, and Chlothar will predominate. Srnec 05:00, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Please provide evidence for the respective choices. —  AjaxSmack  19:15, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Survey

Add "* Support" or "* Oppose" or other opinion in the appropriate section followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

• Support- Chlothar seems to command a bare plurality of usage in the results given below but Clothar or others would be fine if a definitive work on the subject is shown to use it. —  AjaxSmack  04:14, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Add any additional comments

I think an effort to distinguish between the various persons of this name before Charlemagne would be pointless; they should be named consistently, so I have not attempted to differentiate them below.

This version of Gregory uses Clothar and Chloderic. Scholar.google.com reports almost entirely German results for Chlothar (and a physicist named Chlothar Roth), the few exceptions being mostly reviews of a translation from the German which calls Guntram of Burgundy Gunthchramn. Clothar would be acceptable; Clothaire may be less than desirable, although as commonly used in English as Clothar; but Chlothar and Gunthchramn are right out. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:22, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Hm. This is going to be more difficult than I presumed. When I noticed a comment stating that Chlothar was more common Clotaire, so why was Wikipedia using the latter? It agreed with my personal experience, so I moved to change things. Now I see that Clotaire is the form used in Encarta and Columbia, while Chlotar is the formed used in Britannica. A simple google test ignoring Wikimedia sites proves the prevalence of Chlothar over other forms. I do not trust this or the google scholars searches, however. In fact, a close look at your searches clearly shows that Chlothar predominates in English at Googles Scholars! A search for "Clotaire Franks", "Chlothar Franks", "Clothar Franks", "Chlotar Franks", "Clotar Franks", and "Clothaire Franks" clearly gives Chlothar the lead and there is no preponderance of foreign-language articles. Because there is so little available about the Merovingians in general works, it is impossible to determine what form is most common there. My experience tells me Chlothar, Clothar, or Chlotar. Scholarly English works are no different. Frankly (pun intended), I think that my original contention stands, though it is clearly a closer contest than I originally thought. Srnec 23:43, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Please link to those searches, and you may convince me. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:14, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

See "Clotaire Franks" with 30, "Chlothar Franks" with 43, "Clothar Franks" with 30, "Chlotar Franks" with 28, "Clotar Franks" with 4, "Chlothaire Franks" with 4, and "Clothaire Franks" with 10. Chlothar beats the next closest alternatives by 13 hits. Try it for yourself without the "Franks" part and the results are the same, only then Clotaire comes up highest by far, though none of the links on the first three pages are relevant. Srnec 02:13, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Look more closely at "Chlothar Franks": Two of the results on the first page are the same book; one is the physicist; three are citations of Horst Ebling, Prosopographie der Amtstriiger des Merowingerreiches von Chlothar II; three more are in German; two are translations from the German; one in a Scandinavian tongue; and one is "... Chlothar fiának vallotta magát egy bizonyos Gundovald, aki erre hivatkozva ... viszont nem morális okokból volt fontos a frank királyság stabilizálása ... "; "Clothar Franks", and "Clotaire Franks" have very few false positives.

I really think that Chlothar is as markedly German as Clotaire is French; I'm tempted to settle for Clothar for now; how about it? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:51, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Are we looking at the same page at "Chlothar Franks"? None of those hits are anything but English and written by scholars whose books are the premier sources on the Merovingians. I am not sure what you're talking about. There are no false positives on the first page. Chlothar is the form the Germans use, but it is most close to the Chlotharius of the original sources. I have no desire to Germanise the English Wiki. Srnec 03:31, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

All of the results have a few false positives (e.g., foreign language soures) but particularly "Clotaire Franks" -- with Clotaire showing up as an unrelated a given name and Frank as a guven name or Franks a surname. —  AjaxSmack  04:14, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

No, I'm looking at all the results for "Chlothar Franks". Using the whole sequence: 8 and 9 are the same book. 17 is irrelevant. 14 and 15 use Chlothar in citing Ebling's German paper, 25 cites a different German paper; 22 is in Hungarian; 33,39,40,and 43 are in German, 41 in (I think) Swedish. 16 and 20 are translations from the German, retaining the names of the criginal. 20 is Jussen, who uses Gunthchramn. A similar analysis of the hits for Clothar and Clotaire reveal a much smaller number of false positives. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:19, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I didn't mean to imply that you accused anybody of German nationalism. Sorry. I misunderstood your comment above to refer to the first page only. Also sorry. Nevertheless, it does not change the fact that the results are still in Chlothar's favour. At the most, you removed fourteen hits for "Chlothar Franks" and it was already thirteen hits ahead. Unless the others have no false positives, Chlothar still wins. If we remove "Franks" from Clotaire it has far and away the most false positives and "Clotaire Franks" has quite a few false positives too. As to your comment on my talk page, I have no problem personally with any form (even Clotaire), but I do not see why Clothar is less jarring than Chlothar. In fact, I do not see why Chlothar is even jarring. It looks commonplace to me. I think the lack of general reference sources (of worthy calibre) covering the Merovingians is enough to force us to look at scholarly usage. My experience reading both general and specialist literature favours Clothar, Chlotar, and Chlothar over Clotaire and the last (Chlothar) more than the others, which is not surprising considering its proximity to the original Latin Chlotharius, giving way to Hlotharius and thence Lothair (French Lothaire, German Lothar). Srnec 21:11, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.