Talk:Switzerland/Archive 1

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Archive
Archives

Contents

Federal Council?

RE Federal Coucil or only this year's president?

Naming only the president of the Council would disregard the core function of the Federal Council as such.

The format of the template table is such that those positions are reserved for the head of state and the head of government, both of which are represented by the president, even if only for a year. You can edit the text next to it to further elaborate on the exact position, but the table need only contain the current president IMO. -Scipius 22:37 Feb 2, 2003 (UTC)


I think there is difference between confederation and federation???.

How to bring in, that the german part of Switzerland is talking Swiss German, not German? The whole question of languages is under represented in the article --Diftong 14:21 22 May 2003 (UTC)

"www.about.ch is brought to you by TRAMsoft GmbH

The company for hi-tech watches, global positioning systems (GPS) and mobile computing"

not sure if i like this link (although it lists a lot of information). --Diftong 06:59 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

deleted link * http://www.about.ch - about Switzerland, because all the information is available on other links.--Diftong 09:18 11 Jun 2003 (UTC)

It appears that the Economy section of this article is copied directly from the CIA Factbook. Should it be deleted? Tevi 22:11, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)

No! The CIA factbook is public domain. Check the copyright information on this page. diwiki 22:01, 13 Sep 2003 (UTC)


I've just noted that this poor little country has no culture... can anyone bother with a (structured) stub to which we can add till it's a perfect article? Kokiri

Or alternatively, I've just done it myself. Please add. Kokiri 09:47, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)


Moved discussion on the spelling of Swiss cantons from Talk:Switzerland.

Spelling of Towns/ Cantons

Is there somewhere a page on the spelling of Zurich/Zürich; Berne/Bern; Aargau/Argovia etc.? Kokiri 22:46, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

see Talk:Z�rich and Talk:Cantons of Switzerland -- User:Docu

OK, I've read these now. What about spelling it out (i.e. a list of preferred spellings on Wikipedia)? I thought we use the English spelling where it was common use (e.g. Zurich). So we use Aargau rather than Argovia since Argovia is rare.

I've started this here because User:Wik changed the Canton of Berne into Canton of Bern, changed the spelling in the Swiss Council of States article and the one of Berne. Fair enough... but what we really need is consistent spelling. Kokiri 23:15, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The entry in the Manual of Style: Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(use_English). Kokiri
I'm not sure if MoS helps much. As you wrote about the topics, I found your choices reasonable (and I liked the articles).
A fairly simple solution would be to use the official name in the (main) local official language and just note variations in English and other local languages. Swiss Alps and the related 1911 imports could use more updates in this field (some are old German spellings, some are import errors, some are .. ).
BTW Let's get rid of Argovia. -- User:Docu

I suggest the following. First of all a ban on editing the names till we've resolved this. Secondly, the following three steps. Step one: list all names where there is a (possible) disagreement. Step two: discuss the advantages of each spelling. Step tree: vote (if necessary). I think we can do all this here. Kokiri 09:22, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Possible Disputes

I've now queried the terms on ATW. I've used the term in question together with the word Switzerland and the language set to English. I've found that some of the results are nevertheless in German, so I suggest that we enjoy the results with care, particularly where there's no big gap. Kokiri 18:26, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I've now added results from Google. I've used "Term Switzerland" to query.

Aargau/Argovia

We currently use Aargau. Is Argovia there because of the outdated 1911 entry? Kokiri

Aargau 23,277; Argovia 839
(Google:) "Aargau Switzerland" 1,410; Argovia 62

Appenzell Inner Rhodes/Appenzell Innerrhoden

Currently in the English spelling Inner Rhodes. Kokiri

Inner Rhodes 743; Innerrhoden 1,046
(Google:) 7; 15

Appenzell Outer Rhodes/Appenzell Ausserrhoden

ditto Kokiri

Outher Rhodes 644; Ausserrhoden 1,644
(Google:) 4; 31

Basel-City/Basel-Stadt/Basle Town

We currently use Basel-City. I think we once decided against using the Basle spelling as it's not common (despite being English). Kokiri

Basel 727,646; Basle 75,153
(Google:) 190,000; 6,280

Basel-Country/Basel-Landschaft/Basle Country

ditto Kokiri

Berne/Bern

Until recently the entry was using Berne. The articles are about split on the two different spellings (what links here). The official web site of Switzerland uses Berne. There's the Berne Convention where we can't really change the spelling, I suppose. Kokiri

Berne 203,408; Bern 451,189
(Google:) 23,700; 74,400

Fribourg/Freiburg

We currently use the French spelling Fribourg. Kokiri

Fribourg 99,617; Freiburg 159,457
(Google:) 13,400; 779
Which is good, because Freiburg is also the name of a German town. (And becase the Swiss Fribourg Canton is in the French language part of Switzerland). -- till we *) 22:24, Jan 9, 2004 (UTC)

Geneva/Genève

We currently use the English version Geneva. Kokiri

Geneva 1,812,876; Genève 184,266
(Google:) 580,000; 3,710

Grisons/Graubünden/Grischun/Grigioni

We currently use the English spelling Grisons. Kokiri

Grisons 13,629; Graubünden 14,969; Grischun 5,536; Grigioni 575
(Google:) 737; 459; 15; 24

Lucerne/Luzern

We currently use the English spelling Lucerne. Kokiri

Lucerne 191,693; Luzern 89,433
(Google:) 13,300; 5,840

Neuchâtel/Neuchatel

We currently spell it with an accent.

Search engine doesn't seem to discriminate. Tried Google: Neuchâtel 47,900; Neuchatel 39,000
(Google:) 4,930; 5460

Nidwalden/Nidwald

The Nidwald spelling is not really used on Wikipedia. Is it from the 1911? Kokiri

Nidwalden 6,891; Nidwald 133
(Google:) 97; 1

Obwalden/Obwald

ditto. Kokiri

Obwalden 7,618; Obwald 159
(Google:) 148; 5

Solothurn/Soleure

We currently use the German spelling Solothurn. Kokiri

Solothurn 34,686; Soleure 911
(Google:) 2,070; 56

St. Gallen/Sankt Gallen/St. Gall/ Saint Gallen/ Saint Gall

We currently use the abbreviated German form St. Gallen. Kokiri

St. Gallen 116,310; Sankt Gallen 6,317; St. Gall 11,102; Saint Gallen 20,750; Saint Gall 31,355
(Google:) 15,900; 369; 653; 316; 135

Thurgau/Thurgovia

See Argovia. Kokiri

Thurgau 15,964; Thurgovia 190
(Google:) 587; 4

Valais/Wallis

We currently use the French speling Valais. Kokiri

Valais 48,545; Wallis 1,745,034 (Alltheweb, English, + Switzerlnad)
"Wallis Switzerland" 998; "Valais Switzerland" 5220 (Google, English)
(Google:) 4,230 (Valais; 827 (Wallis)

Zurich/Zürich

The entry is right now under the German spelling with umlauts Zürich. Most links are to Zurich without umlauts, though. Kokiri

Zurich 1,411,839; Zürich 325,385
(Google:) 354,000; 58,800
I think the Google results for Zürich are misleading, because English speakers don't generally consider accents very important, and there's no easy way to type them on an English keyboard, so they usually just leave them off (when working on a computer). All English reference books I've looked at spell Zürich with an umlaut. --Zundark 13:30, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Spellings by the Swiss Government

  • [1]: Appenzell Inner-Rhodes, Appenzell Outer-Rhodes, Argovia, Basle-Country, Basle-Town, Berne, Fribourg, Geneva, Glarus, Grisons, Jura, Lucerne, Neuchâtel, Nidwalden, Obwalden, Schaffhausen, Schwyz, Solothurn, St. Gall, Thurgovia, Ticino, Uri, Valais, Vaud, Zug, Zurich Kokiri 18:10, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  • [2]: Aargau, Appenzell Inner Rhodes, Appenzell Outer Rhodes, Basel-City, Basel-Land, Berne, Fribourg, Geneva, Glarus, Grisons, Jura, Lucerne, Neuchâtel, Nidwald, Obwald, Schaffhausen, Schwyz, Solothurn, St. Gall, Thurgau, Ticino, Uri, Valais, Vaud, Zug, Zurich
The differences between those two already show that there are no fixed official English spellings for the cantons, so we should simply do a Google test to find the most common version. Then we will find that the preferred version is generally the one in the most spoken language in the respective canton, with the exception of Geneva, which is the only English name here that is still regularly used. --Wik 14:45, Dec 31, 2003 (UTC)
Thanks for this list. As for the Google test, I don't think it's a good idea. Just take Bern/Berne: Bern is also a name; there are other Bernes in the world; or Zurich/Zürich: there's that large insurance company spelling themselves Zürich in German and Zurich elsewhere on the planet afaik. Also, I've tried some of the terms and never was able to get reliable results (i.e. pages that really are only in English). Kokiri 16:50, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)
You just have to combine it with the word "Switzerland", e.g.:
"Bern Switzerland" - 130,000
"Berne Switzerland" - 40,500
--Wik 17:03, Dec 31, 2003 (UTC)