Talk:Table of Montreal metro stations

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We should use English for the street names in this list. Our policy is to use the most commonly used English version of the name. - Efghij 07:55 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

That is for titles of articles. The official names of Montreal streets are in French, with very few exceptions. In the case of odonyms with articles (for example Mount Royal, University of Montreal), I have used an English name.) - Montréalais

This is the english wikipedia, so by definition we should call things by the names that english-speakers use. The fact that the official name is in French doesn't change that for "University of Montreal" or "Quebec City". I don't see why it should be any different for street names, just because none of them deserve articles (except maybe Saint-Laurent Boulevard). - Efghij 17:12 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It so happens that most of these are the most commonly used names in English. When I write a letter, I list my return address as Rue Saint-Whatever Ouest. Businesses list their addresses as 1000, rue de La Gauchetière, in their English materials.
In addition to being official, the French also has the advantage that we know what form it should be. This is not the case in English. (Verdun Street? De Verdun Street? Saint-Laurent Blvd.? Saint Laurent Blvd? Saint Lawrence Blvd? The Main? du Parc Ave? Park Ave? de l'Assomption Blvd? Assomption Blvd? Assumption Blvd? What are you going to do, take an opinion poll?)
I know this is the English wiki, but surely you wouldn't change "rue de Rivoli" to "Rivoli Street," nor would you expect the French wiki to refer to "Central Park West" as "promenade du Parc-Central ouest."
If we were talking about an officially bilingual city like Ottawa, I would agree with you. But we're not. An encyclopedia is supposed to be authoritative, and someone trying to find "Pine Avenue" or "Saint James Street" on a modern map of Montreal is going to have a long search, no matter what English speakers call them - or used to call them. - Montréalais

I'm not sure these are necessarily the most commonly used names. "Peel Street" and "Saint-Laurent Boulevard" are in my experience much more widspread among anglophones than "Rue Peel" or "Boulevard Saint-Laurent". But still, you have a point. English use of street names is mostly unofficial, and therefore somewhat haphazard. Still, I think in places were English is an official language we should use the proper English names. - Efghij 19:28 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

No question. However, Montreal is not one of those places. - Montréalais

Some boroughs are officially bilingual, including Westmount and Saint-Laurent. - Efghij 21:04 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I don't think that authority extends to street names. Anyway, there are no metro station street names in Westmount, and I really don't think any English speakers call them "du Collège Street" or "Cote-Vertu Road". - Montréalais

Boroughs have juristiction over street names. In Mount Royal, for example all the street signs say "BOULEVARD Graham BOULEVARD" or "CHEMIN Rockland ROAD" because both versions are official. Similarly in Saint-Laurent, street signs say "Cote-Vertu" not "Chemin de la Cote-Vertu" because Cote-Vertu Road is way more common than Chemin de la Cote Vertu among Saint-Laurent anglos. "Du College Street" is used too, believe it or not. Also, Atwater Avenue forms the border between Ville-Marie and Westmount, so it does have an official English name. - Efghij 21:59 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I just think it looks ridiculous to have 9/10 of the names in French and 1/10 in semi-English. - Montrealais

I guess so. I suppose this is one of this situations where we have to sacrifice strict acuracy for clairity. - Efghij 01:53 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I'm an anglophone Montrealer, and these are all the names I would use. I'd also be pretty p.o.'d if I was using this list as a reference and it had names that were different from the maps or street signs. -- ESP 01:51 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that all media outlets (or at least The Gazette, The Globe & Mail, The Mirror, CBC, CFCF, & CJAD) use the English form whenever they mention any Montreal street by name. Furthermore, they all seem to be pretty consistent on which form they use (Saint Laurent Blvd, l'Assomption Blvd, Saint Jauques Street, Park Ave, Pine Ave). - Efghij 22:39, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Well, see, that's not very consistent. Why Pine Ave. and not Des Pins Ave.? Why Saint-Jacques Street and not Saint James Street? Which was my point. - Montréalais

What I mean is that it's called Saint Jauques St. by The Gazette & The Globe & CBC & CFCF. There's no question of knowing what form it should be in. I suppose the reason they use these forms is that there's little phonemic difference between "Pins Avenue" & "Pine Avenue" and none between "Parc Avenue" & "Park Avenue". The point is that there is a standard English set of names, and it's used by Montreal's media and most anglophones, so I see no reason why we can't use it here. - Efghij 04:09, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Here's why: when my friend Hamish first moved to the city, at one point he asked for directions, and someone told him that something was on the corner of "Pine Ave." Needless to say, he got completely lost, since not being from Montreal, he had no idea that "Pine Ave." was the same as Av. des Pins. You have to be a Montreal anglophone for a long time to know that kind of thing, and the vast majority of our readers are not Montreal anglophones. If they're looking for Park Avenue on a map, they will not find it. - Montréalais 17:18, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

If you think wikipedia readers can't figure out that "Avenue du Parc" is the same as "Park Avenue" (even though The Globe obviously thinks their readers can), why not list it as "Park Avenue (French: Avenue du Parc)". Similarly you could have "St. Helen's Island (French: Île Sainte-Hélène )" and "University of Montreal (French: Université-de-Montréal)". That way wikipedia stays in line with the rest of the English-speaking world, and no one is left scrathing their head while searching on a map. - Efghij 20:06, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Why do it at all? I don't think it would put us in line with "the rest of the English-speaking world" at all.
In the main, the people who would use "Park Avenue" for Av. du Parc are Montrealers. But the English-speaking world extends beyond Montreal, and people outside Montreal do not know that "Park Avenue" is Av. du Parc.
The French names are the most commonly recognized ones for English speakers around the world simply because to actually find any of these places they will have to look at a map which will be labelled with the French names.
In sum, English Montrealers will find the English names unnecessary, and English non-Montrealers will find those names useless. There is no point in putting the English names on this list, not least because we can't agree on what they are. - Montréalais 20:21, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

It's not just Montreal. These are used by The Globe & Mail, The Toronto Star, The Ottawa Citizen, The Calgary Sun, The Edmonton Journal, The Vancouver Sun, CBC, and Global. I guess English-speaking Canada would be a better charaterization. Most maps don't even have street designations (which explains why I've herd tourists ask where "De Maisonneuve Street" is). If a Torontonian reads about "Park Avenue" in The Globe, and then sees this page, will he know that "Avenue du Parc" is the same thing? Wouldn't it be better to list both names? - Efghij 20:54, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Even if I thought that was a good idea, we still have the problem of what the "real" English name is, especially for less famous streets. De L'Acadie Blvd? L'Acadie Blvd? Acadie Blvd? D'Iberville Ave.? Iberville Ave.? I've seen them all. - Montréalais 22:30, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

That's easy, just search The Gazette archives. This gives you:

  • Verdun St.
  • de l'Église Ave.
  • Montigny St.
  • l'Assomption Blvd.
  • Cadillac St.
  • du Collège St.
  • de la Savane St.
  • Vendôme Ave.
  • Mount Royal Ave.
  • de la Concorde Blvd.
  • l'Acadie Blvd.
  • Castelnau St.
  • Iberville St.

- Efghij 03:11, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

And the Gazette is now the authoritative source? Frankly, I wouldn't consider the Gazette an authoritative source if it told me the sky was blue. "Castelnau Street" is just wrong - the man's name was De Castelnau. "Collège" would be much more correct than "Castelnau" - at least the "du" in "du" Collège" isn't part of another proper name. The Gazette is a pathetic excuse for a newspaper and an even worse one for a nomenclaturist. - Montréalais 04:43, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Well the other papers use the forms as them for the more famous streets, although that's probably because more famous streets are, well, more famous. At any rate, this shows the patern of use. If they get the details wrong we can fix them. - Efghij 04:58, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Yes, but to whose usage? This is the problem: there is no standard of English usage for these street names, because most of them do not have English names. - Montréalais

I really don't see what's so difficult about this. If a street is named after a person, than the street name is the same as the person's name (Cadillac St., de Castelnau St.). Same thing for a street named for a place (Verdun St., l'Acadie Blvd.). If a street has an English name used by local authorities, we just use that (du Collège St., de la Savane St.), and if a street is famous enough we just use the same form the media does (l'Assomption Blvd., Mount Royal Ave.). - Efghij 02:05, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)

We can't just make up a standard to use and pretend it's real, efghij. That's not fair and it's not encyclopedic. I could poke holes in a number of your examples but I don't feel like wasting the typing time; suffice it to say they betray their origin. - Montréalais 19:13, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)

How is that making up standard use? You said yourself that Castelnau St. would be incorrect because the guy was "de Castelnau". Does the same not apply to the rest of Montreal streets? Anyway, I give up. Go ahead, do what you want. Change Peel St. to "rue de la Peau" for all I care. - Efghij 21:21, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Here's a question. If I (an American) am walking around Montreal and looking at street signs, what language are they in? That's the language you should be using in the article. Chadloder 05:02, Aug 7, 2003 (UTC)

There's usally no "language" at all. Most street signs just say "Verdun" or "Sherbrooke". We can't just use these because the Metro Stations are named after Verdun Street & Sherbrooke Street, not Verdun, Quebec & Sherbrooke, Quebec. To confuse matters further, some parts of the city (mostly downtown) have French-only street signs (which usualy look like "av. du Parc") and some parts (prodominantly english-speaking areas) have bilingual street signs (which usualy look like "RUE SHERBROOKE ST.") - Efghij 05:14, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

And there are no areas which use only English on their street signs. - Montréalais 06:07, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

As a practical matter, if I'm riding the Metro, reading the signs or looking at maps or listening to announcements, the station names are in French. That means those are the names that will be useful to our readers. (And as a side note, the English for Ave. de l'Eglise would be "Church Avenue", which I hope nobody wants us to use.) Vicki Rosenzweig 11:32, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Heh, I don't think anyone's called it that since the fifties. - Montréalais 19:13, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)

well, for reference purposes only, canada post says that the proper way of writing an french address in english (or vice versa) is to translate only the street type and directional (except in the case of numbered streets, in which it is acceptable to translate them). that being said, "rue saint-jacques" becomes "saint-jacques street", not "saint james street". conversely, "water street" in vancouver becomes "rue water", not "rue de l'eau".

think of it this way: if you were sending a francophone tourist to the intersection of oak street and king edward avenue in vancouver, it's totally useless to tell them to go to the corner of "rue des chênes et avenue roi-édouard".

As explained, the problem is that there is NO extant standard for dealing with the problems that come up when we attempt it. Is chemin de la Côte-des-Neiges properly transliterated "de la Côte-des-Neiges Road," "De la Côte-des-Neiges Road," "Côte-des-Neiges Road," "Côte des Neiges Road"? I've seen all of them, plus variations.
Nobody says "des Pins Avenue" or "Pins Avenue," they say "Pine Avenue" if anything, but as you point out that's completely useless to anyone visiting Montreal. So if we try to translate we're trapped between silliness and incomprehensibility.
Not only are the French names the only official ones as determined by the relevant authority (the Commission de toponymie), but they're the only ones that we can be sure will be on maps and on the street signs, and therefore they are the most useful. Furthermore, as I pointed out, in other articles about cities, we put the street names in the original form (Straße des 17. Juni, not "des 17. Juni Street," "17. Juni Street," or "June 17th Street.")
As an anglophone Montrealer I can really only conclude that the appropriate thing to do is to leave the street names in French. - Montréalais 14:40, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
oh, i agree with you 100% (i mean, come on, it's montréal). it's just that, for clarification purposes, i was just letting people know how canada post does things. if anyone knows about the etiquette of translating canadian street names, it's them.
m.