Talk:Hisarlik

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

N Not done - no consensus to move the article from Hisarlik to Hisarlık. Neil ☎ 13:01, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

At the moment, the page "Hisarlık" (the currect Turkish spelling of the name) is a redirect to "Troy", while this page is stuck at the transliterated spelling, "Hisarlik". Administrator assistance is required to change this. I propose that this page be moved to "Hisarlık", with "Hisarlik" redirecting to the new name. SeL (talk) 00:05, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose, the lead makes it quite clear that "Hisarlık" is the correct name (which should probably redirect here, rather than Troy) but the "ı" is a special character which is usually avoided in article titles because it makes it difficult to type for the general English-speaking audience (who would be using this EN Wikipedia). See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). Axem Titanium (talk) 03:17, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
• Support most accurate spelling carries "ı". Represents no problem whatsoever for users typing "Hisarlik" because we have redirects. Húsönd 10:17, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose. Change the redirect by all means (in fact, I'll do that now). On the other hand, I wouldn't know what sound the proposed special character is meant to represent, and it seems to me that changing it would make the article illegible to the general readership. This is not a problem of diacritics, where less well-informed readers can simply ignore the extra strokes. Dekimasuよ! 10:32, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Dekimasu, such a non educational approach! This article right here on Wikipedia provides all information on how to read this letter, therefore granting the accurate English speaker knowledge on how to pronounce this Turkish name (among many others) correctly. "ı" is a valid letter of an extended Latin alphabet, thus perfectly acceptable in English. No difference between this and e.g. "Å" in "Åland". Húsönd 13:20, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Yes, there is one major difference: Åland is the customary English spelling. We are not here to ladle educational squiggles down our readers' throats; we are here to communicate with them. (One of the things to be communicated is that Turkish spelling differs.) For some readers, the proposed spelling will fail twice, since Hisarlık will contain a little square box as the penultimate letter. When (and if) English adopts it, we shall follow suit; and one sign that English has adopted it is that this move will be uncontroversial. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:18, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose as per WP:UE. Google Books searches of "Hisarlık" don't seem to be returning English language results. Similar searches of "Hisarlik" do, hence the current title seems a very adequate transliteration. If Britannica uses Hisarlik, I see no reason why we can't. --DeLarge (talk) 17:39, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose as per WP:UE: use the most commonly used English version of the name for the article, as you would find it in other encyclopedias and reference works. I think Hisarlik is the most commonly used English version, not Hisarlık, per evidence above, reinforced through crude google search:
  • Hisarlik 15,700
  • Hisarlık 832

Having the page at Hisarlik does not stop any user from educating themselves with our wonderful article on ı if they so desire. Having the English spelling for our article in English is more accurate than having a Turkish spelling.Erudy (talk) 21:24, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose This is the correct English spelling; it was established in English before the present Turkish alphabet was adopted, probably before it existed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:07, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral I suppose I should have found WP:UE before making my proposal, sorry if this was a waste of Wikipedians' time. My gut feeling would have been to have it the other way, but I can understand the majority position, and having Hisarlık redirect here is acceptable to me too. I don't know what to do now, shall I withdraw my request or just let the debate run its course? SeL 02:13, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I should add that when I found this article, it didn't mention the Turkish spelling anywhere at all, so before making my move request I made this change as well (just to explain, in response to the first opposing comment, why I thought the change was called for). And I still wonder if the article shouldn't use the Turkish spelling more often, or even all the time, regardless of the spelling used in the title. SeL 02:27, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

• Support. I don't know why User:SeL is self-flagellating over this one. The first sentence of the article reads: "Hisarlık ... is the modern Turkish name for the ancient site of Troy." "Hisarlik" is not the modern Turkish name. No evidence has been given that the usage of "Hisarlik" is anything but an inability or unwillingness of other sources to use the "ı." Since Wikipedia can and does use Turkish letters (e.g., İzmir, not Izmir) why is there an exception here? I strongly support WP:UE and if "Hisarlik" is really English (like Istanbul seems to be considered), please establish this and I will follow the crowd. — AjaxSmack 05:36, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I am wondering if you considered the evidence given above insufficient or if you simply didn't notice it? The Google Books comparison of "Hisarlık" and "Hisarlik" posted by DeLarge seems convincing to me: a wide swath of all sorts of English language books, from scholarly works to AP prep to travel guides to Britannica, using Hisarlik, with no English sources using Hisarlık (a number of books are shown, but they're all Turkish). I myself posted a more crude analysis of Google hits on the internet at large, showing a vast majority for Hisarlik rather than Hisarlık. It seems to me that the burden of proof should rest on those trying to show that Hisarlık is common usage in English, rather than the other way round, as you seem to suggest.Erudy (talk) 22:25, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
    • I did consider that evidence but I repeat that no evidence has been given that the usage of "Hisarlik" is anything but an inability or unwillingness of other sources to use the "ı," i.e., that it is truly an English toponym and not merely sloppy transliteration or a victim of typset limitations. Such evidence might hypothetically be a citation such as "Hisarlik, called Hisarlık in Turkish, is the modern name for the site of ancient Troy" clearly setting the English name apart from the Turkish. The web and literature abound with spellings such as Milosevic, Izmir, and Hue, but that's not where the articles are located because Wikipedia doesn't suffer the limitations of many other sources. There's no reason this article should do so when others such as Elazığ, Iğdır, or Kırıkkale do not. — AjaxSmack 06:48, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
      • Hisarlik is not a misspelling of the Turkish; as this usage, from Sir Richard Francis Burton, and therefore dating from when Turkish still used the Arabic alphabet, should make clear. English still uses Hisarlik, as it uses Istanbul, as our data shows. We probably should use Milosevic; we should certainly use Halys; failures to do so are improper concessions to nationalist POVs. I don't think any other Wikipedia has any problem ignoring English spellings of English names in favor of their own; this WP should do the converse. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:33, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
        • This is the most valid argument yet but minor "English" toponyms used prior to the early to mid 20th century have largely been jettisoned for native spellings or closer transliterations (e.g. Kossovo, Nish, Galatz). You're right that the modern Turkish alphabet did not exist in Burton's time but it has since 1928 and nearly all toponyms but Istanbul are at their Turkish names and we've seen the end of Smyrna, Trebizond, Angora, etc. Why is Hisarlık any different? I realize the issue here is clouded by the two spellings differing only by an "ı" but it brings me back to my original point that no evidence has been given that the usage of "Hisarlik" (since 1928) is anything but an inability or unwillingness of other sources to use the "ı," — AjaxSmack 04:25, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
          • Crude Google searches are admittedly crude; but this is 50-1. What evidence would you accept? What evidence do you have that English has changed? (And if the problem is typographical, so what? If it is still what English readers are used to, will be least surprised by, and will use as a search term, it is policy to use it.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:52, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
            • The consensus at Wikipedia seems to be that minor toponyms (i.e., those without a clear exonym) in countries using the Latin alphabet be titled with their non-English diacritics. This is the case with all other Turkish places that I can find so why not here? I admit I don't have evidence of an English change for reasons given above -- it's more a case of the dog that didn't bark (no source contrasts "Hisarlık" and "Hisarlik" leading me to the conclusion of sloppy transliteration or a victim of typset limitations) -- but this is true for most other Turkish toponyms as well. — AjaxSmack 04:54, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
              • As below, what matters is not obscurity, but English usage (except for places so utterly obscure, like the hamlets of the South Tyrol, that there is no usage in English to check). But I am a classicist, and do not think Hisarlik obscure; will you next object that Troy is too obscure for us to use its exonym? ;-> Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:30, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

I guess I find it frustrating that "Hisarlık" is called more correct in English than "Hisarlik", even in the face of evidence presented. Ajaxsmack says that "English" toponymns have been jettisoned in favor of native spellings, but presents no evidence that "Hisarlik" has been so jettisoned in favor of "Hisarlık". Perhaps that is why Hisarlik "is different". The fact is "ı" is not an English letter, and the English speaking community is entirely within their rights to "domesticate" Hisarlık into Hisarlik to make it more readily understandable. The Turkish speaking community is likewise well within their rights to call Washington DC Vaşington DC, London Londra, Texas Teksas etc. etc. etc. Are there Turks who feel a pressing need to move these to their more "correct" or "accurate" titles? Are their English speakers who are "offended" that these titles have been misspelled, or are disgusted at Turkish sloppyness or carelessness at so misspelling them? I doubt it. I don't think we need to be to worried about following general English usage and our own guidlines for using "common names", and keeping this at Hisarlik.Erudy (talk) 16:07, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Precisely. The reason for the difference is clear: Hisarlik is most widely discussed in contexts which do not refer to modern Turkey at all; therefore English has not adopted the modern Turkish spelling, any more than English uses Bozcaada for Tenedos. Neither, after all, is a modern city. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:59, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Once again, the first sentence of the article reads "Hisarlık ('Place of Fortresses'), spelled Hisarlik or Hissarlik in many other languages, is the modern Turkish name for the ancient site of Troy..." (my emphasis). I did not write that and it has read roughly that way for over a year. I'm not arguing that either "Hisarlık" or "Hisarlik" is English. The place (in this context) is too minor to have a true English exonym and should therefore be treated as any other Turkish place would be. This is not in the same league as Washington, London, or Istanbul. Many non-English letters are used for Wikipedia article titles for almost all toponyms in Turkey, Poland, Serbia, and Hungary to name a few. I'm just wondering why an exception is being made here. — AjaxSmack 04:54, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Please supply a source for this alleged consensus. In all countries, there are a handful of editwarring nationalists who will not acknowledge that English gives its own names to foreign places. I cannot think of any foreign language, or any foreign WP, which spells all English names (or even all of London, Britain, New York, and California) as English does; but a few editors insist that this should only work one way. Consensus and practice, per WP:NCGN, is to spell as English does; often (as with Besançon) English spelling includes diacritics. It is a question of fact in each case; to be determined by evidence. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:25, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

My evidence for such a consensus is the overwhelming majority of Turkish, Serbian, Polish, &c. toponyms with a few notable exceptions that are clear English exonyms. If there is a true English exonym in current use, I almost always support it (please see my move requests of Ivory Coast, Celebes, Podolia, Polesia, Moravian Slovakia, and Budjak among others) but I question the evidence in this case and am still not convinced as none has been given. — AjaxSmack 04:31, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

We have such names for two reasons: Once, English does often use the local spelling. The other is the extent of Turkish, Polish, and Serb nationalism; we have such names (including places actually in, say, Lithuania or the Republic of Macedonia) because editors have insisted on them, and outnumbered the (often equally nationalist) opposition. Thus, for example, we use Kraków, instead of English Cracow, because of lobbying by Poles; I await the adoption of Warsawa. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:40, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Data

From the tests in WP:NCGN:

• Google Books.
  • Hisarlık: 88, and just looking at the results shows how many are in Turkish.
  • Hisarlik: 634.

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.