Talk:Sidon
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[edit] Spelling
This is just an alternative spelling for Sidon. Why not connect the two articles? There is plenty to say about modern Sidon in Lebanon Danny
Now we have two almost identical articles for the same thing with different spellings. BTW, Sidon is an important Christian town in Lebanon today, home of the Phalangist Party. It was very involved in the civil war and was a major arena for fighting during the Israeli invasion. Danny
That is not correct Danny, Sidon is not a christian city today. The majority are muslims now.
[edit] Incorrect statements
Sidon a Christian town? Where do you get your information? Sidon is NOT a Christian town. I am from a Christian village on the outskirts of Sidon. There are several such villages surrounding the city. Sidon is NOT a center for the Phalangist party. You are confusing it with some other place. Sidon is largely Muslim, with a slight majority of Sunnis although there is a substantial Shi'a population. THere are radical Islamist parties in Sidon, as well as a popular Sunni movement that is Communist, centered around a charismatic leader (I'll have to get the name later).
Up until the 1970s there were still Jews living in Sidon: my cousins and uncles had Jewish friends and classmates. According to my father, Jews began leaving the Sidon area as early as the 1950s, going to Beirut or emigrating, due to the political pressures after the foundation of Israel. THere had been a substantial Jewish minority in Sidon up until the mid-20th century. Edmond Safra of Bank Safra was a Sidonian.
Zidon and Tzidon are completely new spellings to me - I have been reading about SIdon in English for 35 years and never have I seen this spelling. It has no relationship to how the local people pronounce it, nor to any English variation I've ever seen. I guess this is a Hebrew variant? Has no meaning in English, and I fail to see its usefulness in an English language encyclopedia.
Why does this history entry start with the Crusades? Sidon is one of the most ancient cities in the world. Here's text from http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/900/910/919/saida1/history.html "There is evidence that Sidon was inhabited as long ago as 4000 B.C., and perhaps even earlier, in Neolithic times." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.122.35.170 (talk) 14:50, November 20, 2004 (UTC)
- I agree with the comment that immediately precedes this one. My folks are from Sidon, and to call it a Christian town is like calling, I don't know, New York a Mexican town or England an Indian country or something. Aside from that, don't you think there's an unsuitably Biblical slant to this entry? (1) The possession of the town ends with what happened around the time of Jesus; (2) half of the first two lines is in Hebrew, and (3) a quarter of the entry is about where Sidon showed up in the Bible.
- Regarding (1), it's probably important to mention the town being conquered by the Arabs during the Muslim expansion, since that's been the event that's given the town its predominant language, ethnicity, and religion and its political, economic, and social identity for the past fourteen centuries.
- Re: (2), I agree with the previous commentator that if this is going to be an English language entry, the only two parentheticals about the name, other than etymology, are what we call it in English---Sidon---and what the natives call it in their native language---Saida (or Sayda; possibly with the transliteration). I mean I'm sure it's got a name in Chinese or Lao or something but we can't be in the business of listing all that. That's why there are other-language Wikipediae. That said, I can imagine Biblical scholars might find it interesting to see how the name is written in some Biblical languages, but certainly that's not the front-and-center, inverted-pyramid, most important thing to say about it. I mean, cedars are important in the Bible, too, but see what you find if you look up cedar.
- And re: (3), this is interesting stuff, although not anything you can't get from going to one of the umpteen Bible sites and searching for Sidon, but perhaps it belongs in a separate entry on "Biblical Sidon." We don't want to confuse historical Sidon and especially the past two thousand years of Sidon with speculation---at least not in a main entry. This is not Wikibiblepedia.
- The point is, Sidon is an actual place, with an archeologically and otherwise documented past, two thousand years of history since the Bible, and a current population. It would be a misleading disservice to turn it into a flash-card from Bible study. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.6.170.62 (talk) 20:18, August 13, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Dubious passage removed
I've removed the following passage from the text:
- -In October 2006 the Israeli website DEBKAfile reported that Sidon had been taken over as a Russian-Syrian spy base and Hezbollah stronghold having had two Russian Chechen GRU platoons deployed to Southern Lebanon some time earlier.[1]. There was no confirmation of the item in any mainstream news outlet.
The last sentence of this seems by itself to provide sufficient evidence of why it shouldn't be included. (This is leaving aside the evident improbability, in current circumstances, of the Hariri hometown being "taken over as a Russian-Syrian spy base".) But even if better sources were found to support this, short articles on major cities aren't in any case the place for inclusion of every rumour or allegation about what particular paramilitary forces might have what level of presence there. Palmiro | Talk 21:14, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Hebrew name
A couple of queries:
- Is it necessary to give the Hebrew version of the name given here, when it is not a language of the country in question? How is it more relevant than, say the Latin or the French (both of which have considerable historic relevance), given that the general practice for cities is to include English-language and native names only?
- If the Hebrew should be included, is it neccesary that there be so many versions of it (Hebrew text given as "Hebrew", transliterations given as Standard Hebrew and Tiberian Hebrew), when even Tel Aviv (and for that matter, Hebrew) can make do with one?
For all I know there may be good reasons for this, but they aren't immediately obvious. Palmiro | Talk 12:57, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Having historical names at the top of city articles is common pratice on Wikipedia. You will find similar policies in other areas which have been governed or populated by many different language groups over time. For example:
- Also, if you know the Latin and French names for the city, please feel free to add them. Furthermore, to quote from Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names):
- The lead: The title can be followed in the first line by a list of alternative names in parenthesis: {name1, name2, name3, etc.}.
- Any archaic names in the list (including names used before the standardization of English orthography) should be clearly marked as such, i.e., (archaic: name1).
- Relevant foreign language names (one used by at least 10% of sources in the English language or is used by a group of people which used to inhabit this geographical place) are permitted and should be listed in alphabetic order of their respective languages, i.e., (Armenian: name1, Belarusian: name2, Czech: name3). As an exception to alphabetical order, the local official name should be listed before other alternate names if it differs from a widely accepted English name.
- However, I guess we can move the Tiberian Hebrew further down, perhaps in the "The Biblical Sidon" section. Tel Aviv doesn't have the Tiberian because it was founded in modern times. Regards, Khoikhoi 02:16, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- Indeed, having historical names is common, but as far as I know Sidon was never either governed or populated by any Hebrew-speaking group. This is why I posed the question. I have no problem with "relevant foreign language names"; it just wasn't very clear to me why these ones were relevant. Is it to do with the Biblical references? And if so, and if the Tiberian Hebrew is to go there, maybe all the Hebrew names should go there? I don't have any particular axes to grind here, except insofar as I dislike seeing too many alternative names (especially in alphabets unreadable to most English speakers) breaking up the first line of an article. Palmiro | Talk 02:44, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- Tiberian Hebrew is the vocalization of the Masoretic Text, the most authoritative surviving version of the Hebrew Bible. It uses vowels from the 9th century C.E., and older vowels are more difficult and more controversial to reconstruct. Besides, at the height of Phoenician Sidon, the whole of Canaan (including Phoenician, Canaanite, Philistine and Hebrew regions) spoke a dialect continuum. Hebrew settlement ended about as far north as just south of Sidon, and evidence shows that languages differed more by geography than by ethnicity/nationality of the time. As it's not trivial to reconstruct this ancient Hebrew or ancient Phoenician (the later Tiberian Hebrew and North African Punic languages had since evolved), it is typically most convenient to use the Biblical Hebrew names, as the Hebrew Bible is the most comprehensive surviving ancient text in a Canaanite language. Even when we refer to letter names of the Phoenician alphabet, we use Tiberian Hebrew names—aleph, beth, gimel, daleth, etc.—it is even common to use Hebrew letters for Phoenician names, as the Hebrew alphabet itself evolved from the Phoenician alphabet and is conveniently available to use in text. And since the reading "Sidon" itself came from later forms of Hebrew, it's relevant to mention at least in an ancient context. Unfortunately, the ancient vowels can only theoretically be reconstructed with comparative linguistics, and the exact vowels are lost to time. With an expanded spelling of צידון (ṢYDWN) and a "defective" alias of צדן (ṢDN) and occasional variants צידן (ṢYDN) and צדון (ṢDWN), then it is likely that Sidon's ancient name was one of six forms, and this was no guarantee that the pronunciation didn't vary even then; it could have conceivably been Ṣīdōn, Ṣīdūn, Ṣēdōn, Ṣēdūn, Ṣaydōn or Ṣaydūn (the latter two could only be written with צידון or צידן because of the /y/ consonant), or even Ṣīdān, Ṣēdān or Ṣaydān if the name's ending were substituted with a common alternative. Considering that First Temple Period Phoenician and Hebrew were dialects of the same language, and that Hebrew survived and Levantine Phoenician went extinct, it is not unreasonable to use Biblical Hebrew as representative of the ancient name. - Gilgamesh 04:41, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- Very enlightening, thank you Gilgamesh. Palmiro | Talk 14:13, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- Though it may be impossible to reconstruct the exact phonology of the dialect continuum, there is another possibility—we could also find and supply the Samaritan Hebrew and Punic forms of the name. Samaritan was another Canaanite language that survived in the Levant, and Punic persisted in North Africa until sometime after St. Augustine of Hippo (who himself still knew the language)—these languages are documented, but not as readily available for reference as Jewish Hebrew texts are. If we supply all three of these names, it could provide a reasonably balancing Canaanite representation of the name lacking its precise ancient pronunciation. - Gilgamesh 23:31, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
- Very enlightening, thank you Gilgamesh. Palmiro | Talk 14:13, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- Tiberian Hebrew is the vocalization of the Masoretic Text, the most authoritative surviving version of the Hebrew Bible. It uses vowels from the 9th century C.E., and older vowels are more difficult and more controversial to reconstruct. Besides, at the height of Phoenician Sidon, the whole of Canaan (including Phoenician, Canaanite, Philistine and Hebrew regions) spoke a dialect continuum. Hebrew settlement ended about as far north as just south of Sidon, and evidence shows that languages differed more by geography than by ethnicity/nationality of the time. As it's not trivial to reconstruct this ancient Hebrew or ancient Phoenician (the later Tiberian Hebrew and North African Punic languages had since evolved), it is typically most convenient to use the Biblical Hebrew names, as the Hebrew Bible is the most comprehensive surviving ancient text in a Canaanite language. Even when we refer to letter names of the Phoenician alphabet, we use Tiberian Hebrew names—aleph, beth, gimel, daleth, etc.—it is even common to use Hebrew letters for Phoenician names, as the Hebrew alphabet itself evolved from the Phoenician alphabet and is conveniently available to use in text. And since the reading "Sidon" itself came from later forms of Hebrew, it's relevant to mention at least in an ancient context. Unfortunately, the ancient vowels can only theoretically be reconstructed with comparative linguistics, and the exact vowels are lost to time. With an expanded spelling of צידון (ṢYDWN) and a "defective" alias of צדן (ṢDN) and occasional variants צידן (ṢYDN) and צדון (ṢDWN), then it is likely that Sidon's ancient name was one of six forms, and this was no guarantee that the pronunciation didn't vary even then; it could have conceivably been Ṣīdōn, Ṣīdūn, Ṣēdōn, Ṣēdūn, Ṣaydōn or Ṣaydūn (the latter two could only be written with צידון or צידן because of the /y/ consonant), or even Ṣīdān, Ṣēdān or Ṣaydān if the name's ending were substituted with a common alternative. Considering that First Temple Period Phoenician and Hebrew were dialects of the same language, and that Hebrew survived and Levantine Phoenician went extinct, it is not unreasonable to use Biblical Hebrew as representative of the ancient name. - Gilgamesh 04:41, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- Indeed, having historical names is common, but as far as I know Sidon was never either governed or populated by any Hebrew-speaking group. This is why I posed the question. I have no problem with "relevant foreign language names"; it just wasn't very clear to me why these ones were relevant. Is it to do with the Biblical references? And if so, and if the Tiberian Hebrew is to go there, maybe all the Hebrew names should go there? I don't have any particular axes to grind here, except insofar as I dislike seeing too many alternative names (especially in alphabets unreadable to most English speakers) breaking up the first line of an article. Palmiro | Talk 02:44, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
