Talk:Scheherazade

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WikiProject Central Asia Scheherazade is part of WikiProject Central Asia, a project to improve all Central Asia-related articles. This includes but is not limited to Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Xinjiang, Tibet and Central Asian portions of Iran and Russia, region-specific topics, and anything else related to Central Asia. If you would like to help improve this and other Central Asia-related articles, please join the project. All interested editors are welcome.
Start This article has been rated as start-Class on the Project's quality scale.
Low This article has been rated as low-importance on the Project's importance scale.
After rating the article, please provide a short summary on the article's ratings summary page to explain your ratings and/or identify the strengths and weaknesses.
Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on December 20 2006. The result of the discussion was speedy keep.

How did that 'c' get into Sheherezade's name? Will users be able to find her? User:Wetman

"Scheherazade" is generally accepted as the correct spelling of the name. And [[Sheherazade]] redirects here, so there shouldn't be any problem with people not finding her. —Paul A 01:26, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)
The spelling with a "c" is an obsolete one in English. It has no linguistic support from the original Arabic and Persian versions. Rather, it suggests a German tradition in translation. Burton used "Shahrazad" in his translations, and I think we should correct our entries to that. The fact that a form is "generally accepted" should not be an excuse for perpetuating an old error. Eclecticology 22:11, 2004 Nov 2 (UTC)

what if people don't really know how to spell it, or even who or what it is, i mean what if their teacer just hands them a list and says look this up? how are they supposed to know to spell it Shahrazad if their teacher spells it Scheherazade? airforce_rednekchiq_06

Contents

[edit] How did Scheherazade survive?

Quoting The Book of One Thousand and One Nights: "every night after their marriage she spends hours telling him stories, each time stopping at dawn with a cliffhanger, so the king will postpone the execution out of a desire to hear the rest of the tale. In the end, she has given birth to three sons, and the king has been convinced of her faithfulness and revoked his decree"

here it's written she survive by promising a new story and not ending the old one. what is the correct version? Nadavvv 21:03, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pronounciation

Can someone please ad a pronunciation key to this article? Thanks. --Selket Talk 22:34, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Done. --Philip Stevens 09:44, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling

In Persian and Arabic, as in many other languages girls' names usually end with vowels e.i. a, e. This is also applied to Shahrazade, while here it is spelled Shahrazad, in Persian names ending with -zad is a males name, while -zada is females' name. In Persian, the actual pronunciation is Shaherezada. When transliterated, it should at least be Shahrazada or Shahrazade, not Shahrazad. 63.243.152.99 15:18, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

  • It's spelt Scheherazade in the Oxford English Dictionary and I don't think you can get more official than that. --Philip Stevens 16:30, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Well thats better than Shahrzad... 63.243.152.99 22:20, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
      • I'm not sure why the name was changed with no discussion here. (It looks like it was brought up a few years ago, but never recently.) Scheherazade, for better or worse, is the most standard English definition. In Google it generates over a million hits, where Shahrazad generates 181,000. Merriam-Webster only lists Scheherezade. Amazon lists 3,219 books with the former spelling, and only 328 with Shahrazad. I think the article should be named with the most common spelling and there should be redirects from all common alternates. If there are scholars who are pushing for an updated spelling, perhaps this should be mentioned in the article (and appropriately cited).Taranah 23:22, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
  • agreed, revert per common English usage on the English language Wikipedia. Chris 03:39, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

It was brought up at WP:Requested moves by User:Eclecticology, but as an "uncontroversial move".[1] I didn't see the move until after the admin shifted it,[2] and since there hadn't been any discussion one way or another, I didn't press matters. However I left a note on the admin's talk page saying that I felt the nominator hadn't been entirely objective, and I also commented that a number of altered wikilinks done prior to the move gave an inaccurate impression of its most common use on WP.[3] You might want to go back through the user's edit history if you want to fix those wikilinks as well. --DeLarge 17:11, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

The result of the proposal was move (reconfirming close by Stemonitis). "Scheherazade" conforms to WP:NC(CN) and is the most common form in English (WP:UE may be thought to apply here). Move requests are usually open for five days. If you would like to continue discussion below the move request, please do so in a new section. Dekimasuよ! 08:47, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Shahrazad → Scheherazade — This is the spelling in the Oxford English Dictionary and is the most standard English definition. —Philip Stevens 16:58, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.
  • Support – Scheherazade is by far the most familiar spelling in English. Taranah 18:28, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Support - Why was this moved to this name in the first place? older ≠ wiser 12:55, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
    • The "Sh" spelling is more consistent with transliterations from both Arabic and Farsi. The "Sch" transliteration is not warranted. Even those who want "sch" don't seem to object to "Shahryar" without the "c". Eclecticology 04:09, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
      • Seems irrelevant pedantry to me. What is the most common use? That is the general rule. I've never seen it spelled as "Shahrazad", and presented with that term out of context, I'd have no idea what it meant. "Scheherazade" is familiar and easily recognized by mnay people beyond the rarified elite of those familiar with the current trends of ins and outs of transliteration. older ≠ wiser 12:14, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
  • support it was a unilateral move by a user unfamiliar with the English language convention. Chris 21:37, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
    • What English language convention are you proposing? Eclecticology 04:09, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose - "Shahrazad" is as established by Burton. Eclecticology 04:09, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

I agree with Eclecticology that "Shahrazad" is a better transliteration of the name. (In addition to Burton, the current Haddawy translation uses that spelling.) Nevertheless, Wikipedia's naming guidelines clearly state that an article should be titled with the most easily recognized spelling. Despite Burton and Haddawy, "Scheherazade" remains the most common, and thus most easily recognized spelling. Therefore it should be the article title with variant spellings (even better ones) redirecting to it. Taranah 05:07, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. 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.
There is no authority to suppress further discussion. Eclecticology 18:28, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
I also think there is a basic misunderstanding here. Nobody was trying to end debate on this topic. It was just the specific commentary leading up to reverting the primary article name back to "Scheherazade". It was left open for a few days, then the name was changed and the discussion about the move was closed (because the move already took place). These things get closed after the move so that an archive remains of the discussion prior to the move. Nothing prevents anyone from continuing the debate with a new heading on the talk page. –Taranah 20:20, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with the move back to Scheherazade. Scheherazade is by far the most common spelling. --- RockMFR 16:46, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
As much as "Scheherazade" may be the most commonly used spelling, I don't think that it is the role of Wikipedia to perpetuate obsolete and inappropriate spellings. It's not just a simple matter of adopting the most common spelling, but the fact that Wikipedia as a top ten website has the effect of influencing what spelling will be used by others on other sites.
For those who are stuck on blindly applying policy pages one also needs to consider Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Arabic), and when one moves from a primary to a standard transcription. (There is no question here of using strict transcriptions with all diacritics, nor has any problem been raised regarding whether the transliteration is from Arabic or Farsi.) There are other situations where over the years English has adapted away from inappropriate transliteration; thus the Russian "czar" has over the years been replaced by "tsar". Eclecticology 18:09, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
Support move. By your logic, we should be moving Achilles to Akhilleus, Hector to Hektor, and all sorts of other names and places to their "correct spelling." As this is the English Wikipedia, we should strive to use English and the most commonly used spelling. Please do not keep removing the closing tag, too. bibliomaniac15 21:59, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
I have said nothing about Achilles or Hector; nobody is even suggesting using old German forms of these names. You clearly did not read my reference to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Arabic). The use of traditional English spellings is not absolute.
As to closing tags, there is no justification for closing any talk page discussions. Eclecticology 04:47, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Support move There is no justification that can back up descibing this spelling as obsolete. For example no matter whether you are in your local book store where you will find Scheherazade in many different sections of the store (fantasy/sci-fi, young adult, fiction) or you are in a music store where you will find both Rimsky-Korsakov's and the group Renaissance composing music based on her tales this is the spelling that will be on the book, CD and DVD covers. If you are ever able to convince the major publishers in any industry to go with your spelling then come back and see us. Wikipedia users should be able to type the most common spelling into the search engine and get to the items that they are looking for. As to the tsar/czar spelling you will still find both in use if you look close enough. MarnetteD | Talk 00:13, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Burton himself said "As regards the transliteration of Arabic words I deliberately reject the artful and complicated system, ugly and clumsy withal, affected by scientific modern Orientalists. Nor is my sympathy with their prime object, namely to fit the Roman alphabet for supplanting all others." (Forward to his publication, p. xx) As to the others, including Poe, who have adopted the German title I can do nothing about them: their works are their own, and certainly in the course of changing links I have respected the fact that that is the spelling in their works, even if I only suspected it. Indeed, I even noted my uncertainty about whatever other spelling is used for the ballet(s). That sort of corpus builds up when strange transliterations have been in use for 200 years. I do note with optimism that there are also two items on the disambiguation page that use "Shahrazad". Being able to type in the form one knows and getting the right article is a non-issue; we have redirect pages to do that. Eclecticology 04:47, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Eclecticology's rudeness at my talk page

I didn't close the discussion, it was closed by someone else who was also unconvinced by your rant, thanks. I'm just the guy who replaced the rightful closing. You are just as impolite on there as I have seen you to be on here. When there's a group of people against your unilateral move of a page from a spelling, whether you believe yours is correct or not, it is not ever an excuse to be rude to those who disagree. Chris 01:31, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Do you really think that someone who calls the opinions of others "rants" can make accusations of rudeness with clean hands? Eclecticology 04:52, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] moved from User talk:Kintetsubuffalo

Please avoid arrogating upon yourself the right to pretend to close a discussion as a means of insisting on your point of view. There is not such right. Talk pages are for open discussion of a subject. Eclecticology 18:19, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

It seems that someone who makes up accusations that call others' expressions of opinions "rants" would know by experience about rude and impolite behaviour. Eclecticology 03:59, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Nobody has accused you of anything, and I didn't use "rants" until you had already been rude at my talk page. End this now. You won't convert anyone to your side in the naming discussion as long as you maintain the bad attitude. Read Wikipedia:No personal attacks, and keep your discussions to the topic, instead of us other editors. Chris 19:58, 17 June 2007 (UTC)