Talk:Gent

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[edit] Should the article about the city be called Gent or Ghent?

(originally at Talk:Ghent)

As the city is in the Flemish part of Belgium, should the article use the Flemish not the French name?

Ghent is the English name. The French name would be Gand...

Although Ghent may be the name known outside Belgium historically, visitors to Belgium will now see it being refered to primarily by its Flemish name.

I was about to disambiguate Gent but I'm not going to now realising that there are countless links to the "wrong" spelling. However, the town's name is spelled Gent in both the German and the Dutch Wikipedia. <KF> 22:36, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Yep, because the city is called "Gent" inboth the German and Dutch language. It is called "Gante" in the Asturian and Spanish Wikipedias, "Gand" in the French Wikipedia, and "Gandavum" in the Latin Wikipedia, since that is the name for the city in these langauges. The article should definitely be called "Ghent", not "Gent", on the English Wikipedia (with "Gent" as a logical and necessary redirect of course). Fram (talk) 09:19, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Fine with me. However, I seem to be a bit slow on the uptake. Does that mean that Gent is Dutch and Ghent is Flemish?

If so—in other words, if cities have their entries under the name used by their respective inhabitants—wouldn't, say, Rome have to be at Roma? Or is Ghent the correct English spelling as well?

My main concern, however, is all those contributors who spell the city Gent and link it like this in their articles. There are so many links of that kind that it would be a tough job going through them all and correcting Gent to Ghent. The other alternative (which, I suppose, you have referred to) would be to move the Gent disambiguation page to Gent (disambiguation) and actually turn Gent into a redirect to Ghent.

What do you think? <KF> 17:34, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I seem to have expressed myself not clear enough. The article on Ghent is placed at the name used for it language X in the X Wikipedia. The Dutch (Flemish) and German name for Ghent is Gent, so the article is there at Gent. The Spanish name for Ghent is Ganda, and the Spanish Wikipedia has an article "Ganda". The French article is at "Gand". So cities have their article under the name used in the language of the Wikipedia (i.c. English), and not under the name used by the inhabitants.

As for Gent: I haven't checked, but if it clear from the incoming links that a large majority of the times Ghent is intended, then it may indeed be better to redirect Gent here and to create a Gent (disambiguation). However, this should be discussed at Gent, not here. Fram (talk) 20:36, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay. Comments, please. And there are still a few things I don't understand. If Ghent is the English spelling, why do so many people (in other articles) use Gent in an English language encyclopaedia? <KF> 05:39, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

For the same reason that Austrian people, when writing articles about Austria, will quite naturally make reference to Wien and not Vienna (for smaller cities, people are even more sensitive for the endonym/local name). If you look at the Special:Whatlinkshere/Gent page, you will see that there are only 70 to 80 links to Gent that should be Ghent, so correcting them might be the fastest way out. --Foroa (talk) 11:24, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Mosly done by fram. 15 or so links left over to be corrected. --Foroa (talk) 17:54, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Now finished. All incoming links now point to the correct article (mostly Ghent, sometimes the magazine Gent). Fram (talk) 11:06, 7 February 2008 (UTC)