Yogesh Khandke (talk | contribs) →How to present the Google news results: Globally there are more instances of Ganga than Ganges. |
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::::::::Yes, it is constructive to weed out the nonsense. We should be presenting legitimate arguments pro and con, not falsehoods. We're trying to convince each other, not hoodwink each other. If I said it should be called Ganges because it's in England, that argument should simply be deleted, not debated for as long as I feel like making it. And what do Japanese deities have to do with anything? (In Japanese, BTW, the river is known as Ganges (Ganjisu).) What does Garuda have to do with it? Even if foreign names were reason to support an argument, and they're not, this has nothing to do with the river. — [[User:Kwamikagami|kwami]] ([[User talk:Kwamikagami|talk]]) 08:27, 6 December 2010 (UTC) |
::::::::Yes, it is constructive to weed out the nonsense. We should be presenting legitimate arguments pro and con, not falsehoods. We're trying to convince each other, not hoodwink each other. If I said it should be called Ganges because it's in England, that argument should simply be deleted, not debated for as long as I feel like making it. And what do Japanese deities have to do with anything? (In Japanese, BTW, the river is known as Ganges (Ganjisu).) What does Garuda have to do with it? Even if foreign names were reason to support an argument, and they're not, this has nothing to do with the river. — [[User:Kwamikagami|kwami]] ([[User talk:Kwamikagami|talk]]) 08:27, 6 December 2010 (UTC) |
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::::::::*(1) I did not state that Japanese call the river Ganga, the reason for the inclusion of the influence of Sanskrit is that it makes Ganga closer than Ganges, are you sure that Ganjisu is derived from Ganges and not from Ganga? If the Thai king has a Sanskrit name, and the Indonesians call their language Bhasha and the Malaysians call locals Bhumiputra, they would not be uncomfortable with Ganga, a palace is called Tirthaganga, "the holy water of the Ganga in Bali. Mongolia caries Garuda on its flag, which is a demonstration of the influence of Hindu" culture, of which Sanskrit is an unseparable part, which would make Ganga perfectly easy to understand and as a corollary Ganges alien, notwithstanding what it is called in English/American English. (2)What was the reason to delete the argument that Chinese learn foreign English, but have their own system of English as far as proper names go, which Wikipedia accepts, pinyin, but we see these arguments against Ganga. (3)Calling arguments nonsense is easy, but an inadequate counter-argument. (4)Having a Kupamanduka view does not mean that a wider perspecitve isn't there.[[User:Yogesh Khandke|Yogesh Khandke]] ([[User talk:Yogesh Khandke|talk]]) 02:21, 7 December 2010 (UTC) |
::::::::*(1) I did not state that Japanese call the river Ganga, the reason for the inclusion of the influence of Sanskrit is that it makes Ganga closer than Ganges, are you sure that Ganjisu is derived from Ganges and not from Ganga? If the Thai king has a Sanskrit name, and the Indonesians call their language Bhasha and the Malaysians call locals Bhumiputra, they would not be uncomfortable with Ganga, a palace is called Tirthaganga, "the holy water of the Ganga in Bali. Mongolia caries Garuda on its flag, which is a demonstration of the influence of Hindu" culture, of which Sanskrit is an unseparable part, which would make Ganga perfectly easy to understand and as a corollary Ganges alien, notwithstanding what it is called in English/American English. (2)What was the reason to delete the argument that Chinese learn foreign English, but have their own system of English as far as proper names go, which Wikipedia accepts, pinyin, but we see these arguments against Ganga. (3)Calling arguments nonsense is easy, but an inadequate counter-argument. (4)Having a Kupamanduka view does not mean that a wider perspecitve isn't there.[[User:Yogesh Khandke|Yogesh Khandke]] ([[User talk:Yogesh Khandke|talk]]) 02:21, 7 December 2010 (UTC) |
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::::::Just in regard to the comment above, no, I don't think the list is bad as such. The problem is that I don't think the list helps. If you want to work through a complex problem like this, you need to either summarise the arguments succinctly or bring the attention of those involved to the core issues, removing from the discussion the points which detract from the those issues. This list method, creating a complex summary of a complex discussion, does neither. I can't get a quick summary of all the issues, nor can I quickly see what issues I need to focus on. When faced with this problem, I would suspect that most editors will choose just to go with the status quo - there is no clearly compelling reason to change, and if there is a compelling reason it is hidden in the distracting and non-core issues being listed. If this is to be pursued now, I'd suggest trying to get an agreed short summary from each side (perhaps with a fixed word limit), or some other approach that brings the focus back to the material that matters. |
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::::::That said, I still think this is being pushed at the wrong time. I don't see the urgency for change - the RFC seems to have come to a consensus for Ganges, so I'd normally recommend stepping back for a bit, letting the emotions recede a tad, then returning to it when everyone is fresh and willing to reevaluate the arguments. You're welcome to disagree, and this is fine, but it seems to me that the best bet after a heated discussion is to let things cool off before reengaging. Anyway, that's just one person's opinion, for what it's worth. - [[User:Bilby|Bilby]] ([[User talk:Bilby|talk]]) 06:55, 7 December 2010 (UTC) |
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===How to present the Google scholar results=== |
===How to present the Google scholar results=== |
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Let's do some work on how to present the google scholar results. I had added them as follows: |
Let's do some work on how to present the google scholar results. I had added them as follows: |
Revision as of 06:55, 7 December 2010
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Ganga vs Ganges
Opinions sought. =Nichalp «Talk»= 09:41, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
Ganga
- Ganga is the correct name. Ganges is a colonial British corruption of Ganga. While Ganges may be used, it is becoming antiquated especially among Indian speakers of English. A search for 'Oxus' on Wikipedia redirects to Amu Darya, even though Oxus was the name used for centuries in the Western world. Therefore, the article should be under Ganga, with Ganges ridirecing to Ganga.
- The name Ganga is prevalent among anglophones too, and as noted below, a google search indicates that it is more widely used than 'ganges'. The argument that more Indian pages using the name 'Ganga' overwhelms the non-Indian pages proves nothing. India has a large population that uses English as a first language (And if we're counting everybody who speaks english, first language or not, this number is likely to surpass even the population of the US) and is, therefore, correctly labeled a (partly) anglophone country. Why should Indian English be relegated to a status below that of American or British English? Spanish spoken in South America is still Spanish.
- As for other arguments, Germans do not speak English, nor do they refer to their country as Deutschland when speaking in English, whereas many if not most Indians do, in fact, use the name Ganga in English.
- Most Japanese (who do not speak English) use Wikipedia in their own language and therefore use the term Nippon, although the name Japan is almost always used in English, even in Japanese governmental bulletins issued in English. Indians who primarily use English as their first language (and I believe most users of WIkipedia fall in this category) may refer to the river as Ganga or Ganges, so 'Ganga' isn't the name of the river ONLY in Indian languages.
- Yes, why compromise on actual and original name which is quite prevalent as well, Ganges can always redirect to Ganga. --Vjdchauhan 09:15, 26 February 2007 (UTC).
- I prefer Ganga as per the reasons given by the above two users .--Shyamsunder 13:16, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
- "Ganges" should redirect to "Ganga" and not the other way around. The title of the article should be "Ganga." There is no reason to pollute Wikipedia with the arrogant stupidity of 19th-century British imperialism. It was not their prerogative to rename the river. Nor is there any linguistic reason why native English speakers cannot pronounce "Ganga." After all, it is part of the name of Kipling's famous poem "Gunga Din." The word "Ganges," however long ago it was invented, is a simple error. Wikipedia should work to eliminate ignorance, not exalt it.--Dieresis (talk) 01:23, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I don't understand why is it so difficult to name the article Ganga, instead of Ganges. It is an 'Indian' river. It is being called Ganga from ancient times. Its a no brainer really. All that is achieved by naming it 'Ganges' is that most Indians are going to get irritated about it. Its but natural. --Sidace (talk) 14:33, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
- Ganga not Ganges, Its a name of river, Name never changes in any language. So its not rocket science to understand whether its should be Ganga or Ganges. Its just simple name from ancient times. KuwarOnline Talk 14:53, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
- The Indian Ministry of waters and Central Water Comission refers to the river as 'Ganga'. There is also a 'Ganga Flood Control Commission (GFCC)' a subordinate office of the Ministry of waters. --SpArC (talk) 08:33, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
- Bombay redirects to Mumbai as Calcutta redirects to Kolkata; therefore we should follow that lead and have Ganges redirect to Ganga. Plus reasons above, especially the Indian government's name for it. It's as clear as day. Elizium23 (talk) 04:56, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- Ganga is the correct name.. Ganges is a colonial mispronunciation of Ganga. It is always best to keep the name in the way the local people call it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.113.47.66 (talk) 11:10, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
Ganges
- As a person whose ethnic origin is Indian but who lives in a English-speaking country, I believe Ganges it still by far the notable name. Ganga may have entered Indian English, but it is still essentially the name of the river only in the Indian languages. GizzaChat © 07:13, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, the article should be moved to "Ganges". Ganges river, Ganga river should redirect there. In fact, at present Ganga is a dab page that enumerates all Ganga stuffs. IMO, Ganga should also redirect to Ganges, with an otheruses template for Ganga added in Ganges. Ganga and Ganges both primarily mean the river to the worldwide audience. Thereafter comes the meanings such as the goddess, or the dynasty etc. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 08:00, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
- I opt for Ganges. The river is referred to by that name. I assume the official Indian govt name is also Ganges, right? --Ragib 09:46, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
- Obviously not. The official Indian govt name is Ganga. This article should be called Ganga, and Ganges must redirect to Ganga. But hey, this website is mainly by (and for) English-speaking white (bespectacled) male Caucasians, that may be more comfortable with "Ganges" (and were probably taught that in their school) anyway, so let's stick to Ganges for all I care. :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.200.95.130 (talk • contribs)
- Please don't add such racist comments about the demographics of Wikipedia readers. --Ragib 05:38, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
- I also opt for Ganges. This is an English-language encyclopedia. As an English speaker of South Asian origin, I can say I've only heard "Ganges" (in English). Similarly, I would opt for calling the "Germany" article "Germany" on en-wiki, not "Deutschland", and the "Japan" article "Japan", not "Nippon". --SameerKhan 08:15, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
- Objectively, Google has 557,000 results for "ganges river" and 236,000 results for "ganga river". Thus, since I believe the primary term used should reflect what people most often encounter or use to find it, I vote Ganges. —CodeHydro 14:00, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
- See this http://www.google.com/trends?q=ganga%2C+ganges. Shows Ganga is more popularly searched for than Ganges. --SpArC (talk) 07:38, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Comments
- I partially agree with DaGizza. Although the word "Ganga" is used both as English and Hindi word for the river, but other English speaking countries predominantly use "Ganges" for the river. However, a googlefight between the two confuses me as "Ganga" gets 1.5 times ghits as compared to "Ganges". — Ambuj Saxena (☎) 07:26, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
- may be this googlefight result is because of (a) Most Websites in India usually call it Ganga, and number of Indian websites mentioning Ganga outnumbers foreign/Indian websites using Ganges. (b) The other Gangas are also included in the fight. In fact, this googlefight of Ganga river vs Ganges river gives opposite result!--Dwaipayan (talk) 08:04, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
- I'm neutral =Nichalp «Talk»= 09:41, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
- Question Does anybody else think inviting Wikipedia:WikiProject Rivers members would be a good idea? We should therefore get more people from all around the globe who are interested in rivers to comment on this. Ah... I have also found the official river naming policy here in case anybody wants to see. GizzaChat © 11:03, 27 February 2007 (UTC
- India has more English speakers than the United States. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a website that reinforces stereotypes. The people of India, where this river runs though, call it Ganga. Even the English media in India call it so. It is its English name. But it seems that here in Wikipedia, its only "English" if people in the United States call it "Ganga" rather than "Ganges." I support Ganga because its what the Indian people call it in English. The difference with Germany is that the government says that their country's English name is Germany. In India, however, the official name is still Ganga for English. I would consider this a bias to English speakers living in India.
- [ellusion begin] While I fully agree with Shyamsundar that it should be indeed named Ganga, I do not think that it can be done due to the more notable name. Yes, it was erroneously named Ganges in lieu of Ganga (or my preference gangA/gangaa), but that error must first be corrected before Wikipedia can change the name. Wikipedia after all is an encyclopedia that strives a neutral position, naming article based on the most notable name.
- I would also like to point out that the current naming of Ganges does not necessarily serve to foster or remove ignorance, it is merely a representation of current naming conventions. However, this does lead one to believe that were the page renamed to Ganga, that obviously people would be initially stumped when they get redirected to "Ganga" while searching for "Ganges". However, it is not that difficult to visualize the thought process that could occur. Namely "oh, so that's what it's called!" or on the flip-side "oh... maybe they got the page title wrong" Of course, a short blurb on the naming variants at the beginning would easily alleviate any doubts. I believe this type of name change would actually help educate the community on the proper name. As a side benefit, nobody would be harmed by the name change as it seems the main group of people negatively affected by the current name are Indians and I doubt any non-Indian would have issues finding the article either way.
- My personal stance is that the correct name (Ganga) should be used, however I actively promote correct naming and pronunciation in all walks of life, in every language possible. I am not Vietnamese, but I refuse to pronounce "Nguyen" as "Win" considering that I now know how the right way sounds, albeit I cannot make it sound perfect. I encourage everybody to learn as much as possible, and actively promote the correct way as well as repair erroneous ways of the past. I suggest changing the current mindset of people from Ganges to Ganga. Now whether wikipedia should reflect current understanding (Ganges), or encourage proper understanding (Ganga) is a question for debate. [ellusion end]- ellusion - (talk) 18:10, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
There has been an extensive discussion on this here. So, until a consensus is reached, I urge LordSuryaofshorpshire not to change every mention of Ganges to Ganga. --Ragib (talk) 19:58, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
Once again, I urge User:LordSuryaofShropshire to stop changing the river name spelling without reaching a consensus here. This topic has been discussed a lot here, and no consensus favoring the spelling Ganga has been reached. --Ragib (talk) 20:02, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
- For how many decades we want to wait to reach a consensus here?? its more than been 3 years. What I can see that its already reached consensus to rename it to Ganga. KuwarOnline Talk 15:07, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
- There is no consensus. Though Ganga does have a majority vote, consensus requires solidarity or near if not 100% agreement. As per WP:NOCONSENSUS, the [[status quo, or current name of Granges shall continue. —CodeHydro 14:09, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, consensus is not a vote, but a debate. "Ganga" may be the name in Indian English, but "Ganges" is global, as well as being traditional. When maps, documentaries, and geography and history books in the rest of the world start using "Ganga", then we will too. As long as it's a provincial name, we should not. — kwami (talk) 19:14, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
- You cannot use a 'foreign' colonial name for a river or town or whatever. See Alappuzha for instance. The name Allepey is the colonial/English name given to the city but Alappuzha is the actual name which has a meaning to it in Malayalam. Be accurate and original. 'Ganges' should redirect to 'Ganga'. Ganga is the name of the river. --SpArC (talk) 07:28, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
- I suppose we must move India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh as well, since all of those are foreign names. — kwami (talk) 07:37, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
- Sir, Those are official names for those countries. Indian constitution refers to the country as India. If it were to change the name to Bharat, then would the article not change the name accordingly? Despite India being more commonly used. See Chennai for instance. It's colonial name was Madras. Similarly, the ministry of waters/central water commission refers to the river as 'Ganga' [1]. There is also a 'Ganga Flood Control Commission (GFCC)' a subordinate office of the Ministry of waters. --SpArC (talk) 08:26, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
- If India officially changed its name to Bharat, we would not follow suit unless the majority of the English-speaking world did so first. China is not known by that name in China, but we use that term because that's how it's known in English. I see that Hindi Wikipedia calls it चीन, meaning that they also violate this supposed rule that we should use local names.
- The Ganges is a fairly unusual case of a major river with a single name along its entire length. (Note that "Ganges" is just "Ganga" with the Greek grammatical ending -s, much like "Moses" from Moishe and "Jesus" from Yeshua.) But what about the Brahmaputra? That river is called Yarlung, Yalu, Dihang, and Jamuna. We have it under Brahmaputra because that is the conventional name in English. Or the Indus, which is known variously as Sindhu, Sênggê, etc. Similar cases are the Nile, Yangtze, Amazon, Niger, Mekong, and Congo. Following local names doesn't work in general, because there are often multiple local names. We follow WP:Common instead. — kwami (talk) 09:14, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
- Sir, Those are official names for those countries. Indian constitution refers to the country as India. If it were to change the name to Bharat, then would the article not change the name accordingly? Despite India being more commonly used. See Chennai for instance. It's colonial name was Madras. Similarly, the ministry of waters/central water commission refers to the river as 'Ganga' [1]. There is also a 'Ganga Flood Control Commission (GFCC)' a subordinate office of the Ministry of waters. --SpArC (talk) 08:26, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
- I suppose we must move India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh as well, since all of those are foreign names. — kwami (talk) 07:37, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Ganga not Ganges the correct spelling
The text of the move template reads "It has been proposed that Ganges be renamed and moved to Ganga. Please discuss it at Talk:Ganges.", wonder why it was taken off without discussion. This editor has proved that
- The word Ganga is internationally understood. White-Christian authors writing in English (The ultimate test of scholarship?) also use the word, Web links given above.
- The word Ganga is commonly used internationally. ADB site search gives 471 results for Ganga. Web links given above.
- From Indonesia to China the word Ganga is used. Web links given above.
- Ganga is how the sound is spelt in Indian English which means English of the Indian sub-continent.
- Wikipedia uses pinyin spellings for Chinese names, why follow a different rule and use archaic non Indian spellings for Indian names? Do you use Ghandi for Gandhi or Dacca for Dhaka or Cawnpore for Kanpur or Campoli for Khopoli? Are there different rules for China because they have a bigger nuclear arsenal, and a stronger hand in culling dissidents and erasing occupied cultures? Or is it because of the billions of USDs Apple, Google and others have invested there?
- The world's largest circulating English and Roman script newspaper uses the spelling Ganga.
Ergo please move this article to Ganga. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:41, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
- As I explained, the tag was removed after several days when there was no discussion by the proposer.
- You have not proved some of the points above (such as Ganga being internationally understood), and others (such as pinyin) are irrelevant.
- [I've explained several times how pinyin is irrelevant; the fact that you are still bringing it suggests that you don't consider what other people have to say.] :I have brought this very question up on the naming discussion boards: should we go with regional English (Ganga) or international English (Ganges)? The response was that it should so obviously be at Ganges that it was hardly worth discussing, much to my annoyance. I would prefer more clear-cut coverage in the MOS.
- Counter-argument: "Ganga" is not part of the vocabulary of English in English-speaking countries distant from India, whereas "Ganges" is used within India, including by the Indian government. The argument for "Ganges" is the same as the argument for "India" or "China". Since we're an international encyclopedia, we should go with the international rather than regional form.
- — kwami (talk) 07:08, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
I will repeat my replies to your points
- Several examples are given as proof that Ganga is internationally used and understood, see links above.
- Pinyin is the way English spellings are used to spell Chinese words as they would prefer to spell them, the same should be also used for Indian names, proper nouns, it is not irrelevant, it is one of the supporting arguments, though not the only one.
- I have no argument that Ganges is used in English and American English, but they are not standard English, they are merely dialects of English, . Perhaps Ganges could be used when an article uses the English English or the American English dialect, that too perhaps. But in this article Ganga should be the spelling.
- Ganges is a minority use and not international, limited to a fast shrinking English dialect (in relation to Indian and other English dialects - see the largest circulating English paper is written in the Indian English dialect), it is not regional it is very much international. The facts are there in all the weblinks referenced.
- Earlier editor Kwami had written that Ganga (as in ganja cannabis) was pronounced gun - guy, I saw a Hollywood movie, it is clearly pronounced gun - ja (ja as in jam). There is no confusion.
- I have not understood the reference to naming discussion boardsYogesh Khandke (talk) 09:17, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
- India is how the name is spelt by Indians, the country is called India and not Indoi.
Yogesh Khandke (talk) 09:24, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, you've repeated yourself several times. Repeating incorrect statements does not make them correct. That's why there's no discussion here: there's nothing new to discuss. — kwami (talk) 19:37, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
- My earlier edit starts with "I will repeat my replies to your points...", the points have been clearly stated, with proof from good sources, I have stated facts with supporting proofs, please prove otherwise, point by point or admit that the facts are well facts and then the proposed move can be done. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 02:02, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
- You're being ridiculous. I've already responded your "proofs" (you may wish to look up what that word means), and am not going to repeat myself just because you do. Discussion over, until you provide something to discuss, or someone else joins in. — kwami (talk) 05:59, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
- In the dialect I am using proof has the meaning provided in this article Proof. I hope that my usage has not been out of place. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 03:46, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- Ah, okay. I only know the term as what that article calls 'formal proof'. For you, 'proof' only means 'argument'? I accept that you've provided arguments. — kwami (talk) 05:17, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- A definitin of proof is sufficient evidence or argument for the truth of a proposition, that it is sufficient is my opinion, if others agree, it will be our opinion. I only know perhaps does not constitute the boundaries of human knowledge. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 06:08, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- Ah, okay. I only know the term as what that article calls 'formal proof'. For you, 'proof' only means 'argument'? I accept that you've provided arguments. — kwami (talk) 05:17, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- In the dialect I am using proof has the meaning provided in this article Proof. I hope that my usage has not been out of place. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 03:46, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- You're being ridiculous. I've already responded your "proofs" (you may wish to look up what that word means), and am not going to repeat myself just because you do. Discussion over, until you provide something to discuss, or someone else joins in. — kwami (talk) 05:59, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
- My earlier edit starts with "I will repeat my replies to your points...", the points have been clearly stated, with proof from good sources, I have stated facts with supporting proofs, please prove otherwise, point by point or admit that the facts are well facts and then the proposed move can be done. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 02:02, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
Move Ganges to Ganga
Ganges → Ganga — Fixing unlisted move request (see below), not expressing an opinion myself. —SpacemanSpiff 08:19, 16 November 2010 (UTC) The proposer provides the following arguments. ("proof" for all the following statements have been given above)
- Ganga is the spelling used in Indian English it is not a Hindi or Bengali word but a standard Indian English word.
- Ganga is the spelling used and understood in Asia.
- Together 1 and 2 make about 3 billion people with varying degrees of proficiency over English.
- The subject of this article is Indian and so Indian English should be the dialect used.
- Wikipedia uses pinyin to spell Chinese names and following a precedent should use Indian English spellings for Indian words.
This is what other editors have on the issue which comes across as pro-move.
- "Actually, there's a nontrivial WP:ENGVAR question here. If Ganga is really the name used in Indian English, then per the "strong national ties" clause, perhaps we should use it. One question, maybe, is whether India counts as an "English-speaking nation" for these purposes — as I understand it, an awful lot of Indians speak English, but very few natively; mostly, they learn it in school. But I could be wrong about that. The other question is whether Ganges is actually wrong in Indian English. If it's a reasonably frequent usage, then we might still use it per "opportunities for commonality". --Trovatore (talk) 18:37, 22 October 2010 (UTC)" It has been proved that Ganga is how the word is spelt in English, QED for Trovatore's query.
"Ganga (the river) and Ganja (marijuana) are pronounced completely differently, the former uses g as in green, the latter uses j as in James. I'm not sure where you got the /ˈɡɑːŋɡə/ for Ganja. I can only state this for Bengali and Hindi ... but I assume other South Asian languages also use the j-sound. --Ragib (talk) 19:42, 22 October 2010 (UTC)"This editor has given his consent for the move,"Ok, personally I don't have a big problem with this. I think way too much time on Wikipedia is spent bickering over page names. That said, for now I abstain from one side or the other here.Pfly (talk) 04:45, 24 October 2010 (UTC)"
Yogesh Khandke (talk) 03:39, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- Please don't misrepresent my words. I did not say I consented. I said I abstained. Pfly (talk) 03:47, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- That is why I have written "come across". The editor wrote, I do not have a big problem with this, he won't oppose the move, that is good enough, he is on the side of those who wish to move, unless of-course he has changed his mind. A few more views which look like pro-move.
- Like Pfly, I also request you not to misrepresent my comment. The comment you quote above is neither pro nor anti move ... rather it is merely a statement on the pronunciation of a different word. I'm striking out the comment above since you blatantly misrepresented it here. --Ragib (talk) 09:55, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- Please don't misrepresent my words. I did not say I consented. I said I abstained. Pfly (talk) 03:47, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- "For how many decades we want to wait to reach a consensus here?? its more than been 3 years. What I can see that its already reached consensus to rename it to Ganga. KuwarOnline Talk 15:07, 5 July 2010 (UTC)"
- "You cannot use a 'foreign' colonial name for a river or town or whatever. See Alappuzha for instance. The name Allepey is the colonial/English name given to the city but Alappuzha is the actual name which has a meaning to it in Malayalam. Be accurate and original. 'Ganges' should redirect to 'Ganga'. Ganga is the name of the river. --SpArC (talk) 07:28, 13 September 2010 (UTC)"
Yogesh Khandke (talk) 04:42, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose: (1) The Indian govt uses both "Ganga" and "Ganges" it its publications, often in the same paragraph. (2) The term "Ganga" is local, being virtually unknown outside south Asia and countries culturally influenced by India. It is not listed in US or UK geographic dictionaries that I can find, whereas "Ganges" is. (3) "Ganges" is not a "colonial" form, unless by "colonial" you mean Alexander. (4) Once again, what the hell does pinyin have to do with anything? We're not talking about spelling, we're talking about form, like Bombay/Mumbai. If "Ganges" is good enough for the Indian govt, and is the internationally recognized form, then of course it's what we should use in an international encyclopedia. We use pinyin because the US, UK, and other anglophone govts follow the Chinese govt in using pinyin for transliteration. If the India govt has a preference for romanization, which you have not shown, it has nothing to do with whether we use "Ganges" or "Ganga". (5) I suppose we should change "colonial" Indus River to unassimilated Sindhu as well? — kwami (talk) 05:31, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- Argument against opposition(1)What does it prove? That two spellings are used. The argument is which to use here. Many links above clearly and unambiguously demonstrate that Ganga is the predominant preferred spelling. (2)The statement Ganga is not unknown outside South Asia is false and has been demonstrated as such; is China South Asia? Is Indonesia South Asia? Is Africa South Asia[[1]]?(3)Does editor Kwami intend to suggest that the spelling Ganges written in the Roman script was decided by the Greek alphabet using Alexander? (4)Is wikipedia an international encyclopaedia or an Anglophone encyclopaedia that is the crux of the argument? Will Wikipedia follow US, UK governments in its spelling conventions, please editor Kwami prove that Wikipedia follows US/UK spelling rules for non US/UK names. Editor kwami is wrong, it is not about form it is about spelling, is not about Bombay x Mumbai it is about Cawnpore x Kanpur. (5)Ganga is what the river is spelt in Indian English, Indus is how the river is spelt in Indian English, wrong analogy given by editor Kwami. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:51, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- Support to the extreme extent The arguments against it are ridiculous/utterly hypocritical. Why does the wiki page for Persia redirect to Iran? Or how about this - Which of these names are known/recognized better? Bombay or Mumbai? Obviously Bombay! Why is the wiki page named Mumbai? And Bombay made to redirect? Same goes with Madras and Chennai, the latter being the correct name. I can list more examples. You don't name an article as one just because it's more well known or recognized that way. You have to use the right name and redirect all the other names it is known by. This is an encyclopedia. Please see these discussions for the name changes for the cities above
- Mumbai vs Bombay http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_policy_poll#Bombay.2FMumbai
- Chennai vs Madras http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Chennai/Archive_3#City_Name
- Iran vs Persia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Iran#Persia
- Kolkatta vs Calcutta http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kolkata/archive2
--SpArC (talk) 08:13, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- Opinion solicited by Yogesh Khandke --JaGatalk 19:56, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
- If the point is to be encyclopedic, then perhaps we should follow the lead of the Encyclopedia Britannica, which has their article under "Ganges River", with the explanation, Although officially as well as popularly called the Ganga, both in Hindi and in other Indian languages, internationally it is known by its Anglicized name, the Ganges. — kwami (talk) 09:13, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- When they say 'other Indian languages' do they also include English? Because English is an official language of India as well. That's an ambiguous statement. So, no. Copying another encyclopedia wouldn't help here kwami. --SpArC (talk) 09:38, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- Don't pretend you can't read. You know full well what they're saying. And it does help: international sources use "Ganges", not Ganga. The only question is whether we follow international usage, or local/regional usage. — kwami (talk) 09:54, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- The quoted statement is ambiguous. Why do you call this issue international vs local? English is not international to India. And in Indian websites which are in English, it is referred to as Ganga. In your own terms 'Internationally' the word Bombay is clearly more popular. Why is Mumbai the name of the wikipedia article? Please see the links I've posted above for your reference and research. I'm done repeating myself here. I've made my points. I wish you a good day, Sir. --SpArC (talk) 10:21, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- Don't pretend you can't read. You know full well what they're saying. And it does help: international sources use "Ganges", not Ganga. The only question is whether we follow international usage, or local/regional usage. — kwami (talk) 09:54, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- When they say 'other Indian languages' do they also include English? Because English is an official language of India as well. That's an ambiguous statement. So, no. Copying another encyclopedia wouldn't help here kwami. --SpArC (talk) 09:38, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- If the point is to be encyclopedic, then perhaps we should follow the lead of the Encyclopedia Britannica, which has their article under "Ganges River", with the explanation, Although officially as well as popularly called the Ganga, both in Hindi and in other Indian languages, internationally it is known by its Anglicized name, the Ganges. — kwami (talk) 09:13, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- Support per nom --Extra 999 (Contact me + contribs) 11:24, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- Support the move It should be Ganga, 1.2 billion(may be more) people in India knows as Ganga so it would be better to move to Ganga than Ganges. I agree with User:SpArC comments. KuwarOnline Talk 11:27, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose. User:Yogesh Khandke has taken up fully half of this talk page with persistent and repetitive comments about the name of this article. It's becoming disruptive. If there was a clear consensus for this, he or she would not have needed to start so many separate discussions. Powers T 13:16, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- Comments I really didnt got why you opposed? from above comments what I understood is you opposed due to Yogesh started another discussion? please be clear why you want to oppose with proper comments. thanks KuwarOnline Talk 15:05, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- Editor Powers this editor had to repeat because arguments fell on deaf ears. The opposing editor has failed to counter arguments based on facts supported by evidence. Editors supporting the move, the move is not based on the logic Bombay --> Mumbai, but Dacca --> Dhaka, or Cawnpore --> Kanpur, which spelling should be used. Obviously the Indian spelling. Encyclopaedia Britanica has not dropped from heaven, there is no need that Wikipedia follow Britica, on the other hand we can make Wikipedia so good that Britinaca goes out of business. More over I found one mistake there check the entry for Mahabaleshwar, its location is wrong.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 15:21, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- It is my perception that this is a personal crusade of one editor, whose main method of arguing his case has been to repeatedly assert that the page must be moved. That's not very convincing. Powers T 15:41, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- That if you may allow me, is a baseless allegation, there have been many editors as have been quoted above, who have argued for the move, I have provided my arguments, please prove them false, or quote rules or conventions just as Johnchapple has below. Please stick to the point.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 16:06, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- The last five discussion sections on this page all begin with a statement from you. I see other people agreeing with you, but no one else who is remotely as adamant about this change as you are. Remember, in the grand scheme of things, this is not an important issue, and nothing bad will happen if your preferred change doesn't happen. Powers T 16:47, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- And the article's text will remain just as desperately in need of improvement. If a quarter of the effort spent on name change arguments was spent on improving the text we might have a semi-decent page instead of the mess it is. Pfly (talk) 16:54, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- This name change will affect many articles that refer to Ganga as a river, just as one article that I have started does, and where suddenly the name changed from Ganga to Ganges. Which brought me here in the first place. It is a generic change. I am not alone can be seen from comments above and below. If the issue is so unimportant and benign, why not move and then move on? Moreover it is not a matter of preference, it is a matter of what is standard to wikipedia, the move fits into the standards of Wikipedia as I interprete them Yogesh Khandke (talk) 17:08, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- And the article's text will remain just as desperately in need of improvement. If a quarter of the effort spent on name change arguments was spent on improving the text we might have a semi-decent page instead of the mess it is. Pfly (talk) 16:54, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- The last five discussion sections on this page all begin with a statement from you. I see other people agreeing with you, but no one else who is remotely as adamant about this change as you are. Remember, in the grand scheme of things, this is not an important issue, and nothing bad will happen if your preferred change doesn't happen. Powers T 16:47, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- That if you may allow me, is a baseless allegation, there have been many editors as have been quoted above, who have argued for the move, I have provided my arguments, please prove them false, or quote rules or conventions just as Johnchapple has below. Please stick to the point.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 16:06, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose, per WP:COMMONNAME. Jonchapple (talk) 15:20, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- Argument against refering to wp:commonname
- I am quoting commonname here:
National varieties of English Further information: Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English: All national varieties of English spelling are acceptable in article titles; Wikipedia does not prefer any national variety over any other. An article title on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the variety of English appropriate for that nation (for example Australian Defence Force). American spellings should not be respelled to British standards, and vice versa; for example, both color and colour are acceptable and both spellings are found in article titles (such as color gel and colour state). But when local usage is itself divided, we do not necessarily follow the majority or plurality of local English usage against the consensus of the rest of the English-speaking world: Ganges, not Ganga. Occasionally, a less common term is selected as an article title because it is appropriate to all national varieties, for example Fixed-wing aircraft. So the nomenclature for Ganga is mentioned as a specific exception to the rule. What is this based on? The reason given is that local usage is divided. This is simply baseless. There is no proof. I can provide evidence to the contrary, government of India website uses Ganges 20 times[2], and Ganga 1100 times[3]. For advanced search with the region specifier on India there were 2,180,000 results for Ganga[4] and 233,000 for Ganges,[5] less than 10%, that is no division. Another mistake is that Ganga is not local to India but is understood in Asia and elsewhere as shown above. So wp:commonname is wrong here on two counts and should not be refered here. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 15:31, 16 November 2010 (UTC)See
- Just a quick comment re the above: those statistics are misleading, and shouldn't be given any weight in this discussion. Ganga is also a name given to people and companies, and thus the number of Google hits on "Ganga" don't necessarily equate to the number of hits referring to the river. For example, when I click the above, out of the first ten hits on the worldwide search for Ganga, only four of the first ten hits relate to the river, and all four also use the name "Ganges" in the articles. Google hits really don't work as a meaningful measure. - Bilby (talk) 02:27, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Being a common name in India does not make it a common name. As an American, I've never heard it called the Ganga and wouldn't have recognized it. I'm guessing that's true in most Western English-speaking cultures. The question is, then, would your average English-speaking Indian recognize the Ganges as referring to this river? If so (which I'm guessing is true), we should keep Ganges as the international common name. We don't want to give this very important article a name only reasonably recognizable to one continent. --JaGatalk 19:06, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- Is Mumbai well known in Western English-speaking cultures? Or is it Bombay? Obviously, everyone in India and the entire world recognize Bombay better than Mumbai. Then why does Bombay redirect to Mumbai? --SpArC (talk) 13:49, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
- Our present placement of Mumbai is based on the observation that Mumbai is now better known in the world at large than Bombay - and that its appearances in the world news show this. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:04, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
- Exactly. A decade or so ago, Bombay was the better known name by far. But more recently, use of the name Mumbai has become common in international media. Perhaps in the next decade or so, the same will be true for Ganga. But Wikipedia is not a crystal ball; we follow the trends in the media and popular culture, not try to create new trends. --JaGatalk 01:39, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
- And therefore we wait and see. Perhaps Mumbai will elect a different municipal government and change back. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:10, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
- Exactly. A decade or so ago, Bombay was the better known name by far. But more recently, use of the name Mumbai has become common in international media. Perhaps in the next decade or so, the same will be true for Ganga. But Wikipedia is not a crystal ball; we follow the trends in the media and popular culture, not try to create new trends. --JaGatalk 01:39, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
- Our present placement of Mumbai is based on the observation that Mumbai is now better known in the world at large than Bombay - and that its appearances in the world news show this. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:04, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
- Strongest possible oppose per WP:COMMONNAME, ie the English common name. – ukexpat (talk) 19:39, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- English is also a language in India or are you referring only to the English spoken in the west? Please change Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkatta to the "English" common names as well then. If you oppose this, you should oppose that as well. Be fair.--SpArC (talk) 13:49, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
- Support (or, if you wish, ultra-strongest possible hypersupport to offset some of the ridiculousness above) per WP:TIES. We use British English for British topics; Canadian English for Canadian topics; American English for American topics; Indian topics should get the same courtesy. Ucucha 21:07, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose per User:JaGa's comments above. Although WP:ENGVAR is a strong argument here, Ganga is largely unrecognisable outside of South Asia while "Ganges" is recognisable both within and outside of the region and has vastly greater usage over the sweep of time and space. — AjaxSmack 02:24, 17 November 2010 (UTC) This is addressed formally at WP:COMMONALITY. — AjaxSmack 23:09, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- How about Mumbai as against Bombay? Which is better known? --SpArC (talk) 13:49, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose WP:ENGVAR has several sections; one of them recommends that opportunities for commonality, for using words understood in all English-speaking countries, should be taken when available. I should add that colonial here is a meaningless term of abuse; English=speakers were using Ganges (as here, from The Wounds of Civil War) before they owned a foot of land in India - following Pliny the Elder and Claudius Ptolemy. This effort to be more Indian than Nehru (see the moving quotation in the article itself) should be rejected. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:59, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
- Arguments against opposition to move:
- wp:commonname uses premises that are invalid as pointed out above
- JaGa: The argument is not what Americans call the river, but what it is called in India in English, what the Indian English spelling is, and whether it is fringe? The spelling Ganga is used in Indian English, and is clearly understood in Asia, Africa and even in white-English nations as demonstrated above. Every one may not know it. For them it would be knowledge, one thing that an encyclopaedia provides.
- Anderson: Nehru wrote eighty years ago, we are referring to contemporary use, his quotation cannot be taken as a contemporary. Also the same quotation has the spelling Ganga used, see the African link above, so perhaps it is not accurate.
- Indians have a way for Romanisation just as the Chinese have. The Chinese system has been accepted on wikipedia. There have to be sound reasons why India should be treated by a different yardstick. Examples: Cawnpore x Kanpur, Poona x Pune, Jubblepore x Jabalpur. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 12:54, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
- AjaxSmack's assertion that Ganga is unrecognisable outside South Asia (a name for the Indian sub-continent) is untrue and baseless as demonstrated by various links above, Ganga is used and recognised in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, has been used by white scholars, and in Africa too. All arguments against move are based on baseless assumptions so far wheras those for the move have solid proofs as demonstrated above, please go through the many links provided as proof. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 13:00, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose Ganges is the English name of the river (Ganges delta, Ganges dolphin, etc.). --RegentsPark (talk) 14:59, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
Reply to above opposition: The Ganges is the name in the English English dialect and not universal as per evidence given above.
- Oppose Common name in US, British and International english, also used in Indian english, so we should use the opportunity to commonise. Outofsinc (talk) 15:46, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
- Support the move to Ganga. Both Ganga and Ganges are recognized in Indian English by the Indian government but Ganga has been the traditional name going back to ancient times, much before the arrival of the English language. Zuggernaut (talk) 17:23, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
- Opinion solicited by Yogesh Khandke 15:07 November 17 Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:02, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
- I got here from Wikipedia_talk:Noticeboard_for_India-related_topics#Ganges_-.3E_Ganga and I would have participated in this discussion regardless of the talk message as I'm watching this page. User:Yogesh Khandke should however limit posting to relevant projects instead of selectively soliciting participation. Zuggernaut (talk) 20:10, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
- Opinion solicited by Yogesh Khandke 15:07 November 17 Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:02, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
- Comment I saw at WP:COMMONNAME the suggestion of checking "geographic name servers", so I checked some entries at the US federal GeoNames Search. I realize this is hardly an international authority, rather a set of standards for spelling "foreign names" within the US federal government. So although it hasn't gotten me to decide to either support or oppose, I found the results interesting. I'd link directly via {{GEOnet2}}, but the template isn't working right for me at the moment. To verify you'd have to search for the terms via the search link above. The term "approved" means approved for use by the US federal government, sometimes with a qualifier for the nation for which the usage is approved; "short" means an approved shortened form; "conventional" means "in widespread usage" but not necessarily approved; "variant" names are recognized but not "officially approved", etc--it's a fairly intuitive system. Anyway, here's the results of Ganges, Ganga, and other terms mentioned in this thread:
- Ganges River (Conventional). Ganges (Short). Ganga (Approved - India). Ganges River (Approved - Bangladesh).
- Ganges Delta (Approved - India); Ganges Delta (Approved - Bangladesh); Ganges, Delta of the (Variant); Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta (Variant); Gangetic delta (Variant).
- Ganges, Mouths of the (Conventional); Ganga, Mouths of the (Approved - India); Ganges, Mouths of the (Approved - Bangladesh).
- Mumbai (Approved); Bombay (Conventional).
- Kolkata (Approved); Calcutta (Conventional).
- Chennai (Approved); Madras (Conventional).
I'm posting this merely as another bit of data, not to weigh in on one side or the other. I found it curious how "Ganga" is approved for India but not Bangladesh, and that even for India "Ganges Delta" is approved, with no mention of "Ganga Delta". Also there seems to be no issue with the city names mentioned above--Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai, all "approved", with Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras described as "conventional". It would be interesting to see if truly international organizations, like the UN or Red Cross, have similar naming standards. Pfly (talk) 17:30, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
- GeoNet must be used with care. In particular, "Approved" forms belong to an "approved" systematic transliteration, whether the forms themselves are common or not; thus, Moskva is Approved; Moscow is Conventional. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:58, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks for the correction, I misunderstood the terms. I do wonder though, is the term "Ganga Delta" used in India? What about the Gangetic Plain, Ganges Fan, Gangetic basin, and other similar terms? Pfly (talk) 02:20, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
- Comment A remark here neatly sums up my position and the arguments for move Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles#.E8.99.9E.E6.B5.B7.27s_comments In Wikipedia, we should have a global view, rather than a western viewpoint. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:11, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
- Comment Yes we should see global view not only western viewpoint, as I said earlier Ganga is known by larger population (at least 1.2 billion or more) so if we talking about majority then this is good example to consider. KuwarOnline Talk
- <banned>
- Oppose, per WP:COMMONNAME. Flamarande (talk) 22:54, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
- <banned>
- Comment Please do not invoke WP:COMMONNAME, common name makes a special exception for Ganga wrongly assuming that Ganga is a divided issue locally, which has been proved as false. Those who quote WP:COMMONNAME should not be counted here, or they should be prepared to discuss and examin the reason why WP:COMMONNAME makes a special exception for Ganga. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 04:29, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
- <banned>
- Answer to the comment above. Even those who don't agree with you should nevertheless be allowed to speak their honest opinion in all matters and vote according to their conscience ("should not be counted here"). IMVHO Commonname is more than a simple question of numbers. It's also a matter of use by international English-speaking media like TV channels like CNN, BBC News, Sky, Euronews, etc. These international channels overwhelmingly use the name 'Ganges' and don't use 'Ganga' at all. The same happens with English-written books and encyclopaedias, etc. IMHO 'Ganga' is not an English name at all, but seems to be a transliterated name, probably coming from Urdu and all but all but unknown outside of India. Flamarande (talk) 20:01, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
- Support, raname article title from Ganges to Ganga. I this goes through we should attempt for all Historical/Mytological figures as well e.g. Rama to Ram, Ravana to Raavan, Bheema to Bheem, Arjuna to Arjun, Ashoka to Ashok etc. Vjdchauhan (talk).
- Opinion solicited by Yogesh Khandke --JaGatalk 05:54, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
- This editor has hit the nail on the head. It is about spellings. If I am off track or if I am breaking any wikirules please forgive me. Even though India does not have a committee for Romanisation like China and people sometimes use alternate ways of writing Indian names, there is a clear consensus regarding how Ganga is spelt. Is it India's fault that it is democratic and does not put those who break spelling rules to death like other despotic governments who have made rules for Romanisation? I have been using English for 38 years and live in India. Ganges fits into Indian English as well as a person in a top hat would in India. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:20, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose - English common name - Ganges. Off2riorob (talk) 14:32, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose - Ganga is not used across the English speaking world (in contrast to Mumbai and Beijing), and it is not Wikipedia's job to promote it. Kanguole 14:45, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose Common name in the English-speaking world (possibly with the exception of India, but for everybody else it's still the Ganges). Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 14:47, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
- Comment How would the advocates of this move react if it did pass, and we had to add a hatnote saying,
- This article is about the river generally known in English as the 'Ganges'. For the drug, see Cannabis.
- — kwami (talk) 14:54, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
- If Ganga is truly a popular search term for cannabis, then in all honesty, why should anybody mind? From my limited experience with "for the <name_here> see <link_here>" have been with pages that have one overwhelming disambiguation, such as LSD-25. But again, I have limited experience. - ellusion - (talk) 04:08, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
- Comment: It could be Ganga also spelt Ganges, Ganga is pronounced gunja, and is a minority issue, the disambiguation page could take care of it. English speaking world is not synomyous with US/ UK please see several links above. Wikipedia is not promoting its use, it is an India interest article using the Indian English dialect, and Indian spellings, such as colour, Ganga. Please see links above, it is used in Africa, and other parts of Asia. A substantial use. Asian Development Bank uses it 471 times. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 15:31, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
- You keep calling it a "spelling" difference, despite being corrected several times. Is this willful ignorance? Honour / honor is a spelling difference. Ganges / Ganga are two different, though related, names. — kwami (talk) 22:34, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
- It is like Poona x Pune. I would request you to back your assertion with a wp:rs before accusing me of ignorance. It is how to spell a non-native sound. Please do not call names. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:23, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- You keep calling it a "spelling" difference, despite being corrected several times. Is this willful ignorance? Honour / honor is a spelling difference. Ganges / Ganga are two different, though related, names. — kwami (talk) 22:34, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose Per Seb az86556. It's... MR BERTY! talk/stalk 15:55, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
- Comment: I don't understand why this article is not called River Ganges, as it is a river —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr. Berty (talk • contribs) 17:19, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
- Because English is divided between the forms represented by River Thames and Mississippi River; since this is (unlike either of them; see Thames (disambiguation)) the overwhelmingly most obvious meaning of Ganges anywhere in the world, we don't need to disambiguate and don't need to choose between them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:58, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose A quick google news search shows Ganges to be more popular. Ganges and Ganga get similar amounts of hits, however Ganga also seems to be a family name as several of the first page news results are about people with that name. This doesn't seem to occur with Ganges, so it would seem Ganges is a more popular name.--Crossmr (talk) 00:39, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- Strongly Oppose. It is common practice to have generally accepted Anglicised names for many well-known places (such as Rome for Roma, Paris is pronounced as it looks - not as the French say, "Paree", etc., etc. This process happens in many other langauages as well - for example, Spanish speakers say "Londres for London", the French give Angleterre instead of England, and so on. There are thousands of such examplesw. Ganges is certainly bny far the most common name for the river in English. To try to change it at this point would only be unnecessarily confusing. Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 00:55, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose. "Ganges" is the most common name internationally, and the most common name among native speakers of English. That is the name we should use. — Gavia immer (talk) 03:43, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- Comment I have to repeat because others repeat the same incorrect (imo) logic. And suddenly the red flag for being tendentious is raised. Unfair. One cannot clap with one hand. It is not like Roma X Rome, do the Italians spell Rome as Roma in English, or is Cologne spelt Koln in English by the Germans, Indians Romanise the Ganga as Ganga in English, For advanced search with the region specifier on India there were 2,180,000 results for Ganga[6] and 233,000 for Ganges,[7] less than 10%. (Although an editor says that even 10% is a division, can we have a discussion on that) Another editor says that some ghits are because of words like Ganga ram hospital, or Ganga das as a name, that does not make the argument any worse on the other hand it supports the arguments, it is an example of the Indian system for Romanisation of the Sanskrit Ganga, their names are derived from the river, like those of the Bombay Duck, which is derived from Bombay which is now fading into history, but Bombay Duck will always, as also Ganges River Dolphin, that cannot be considered a division.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:23, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- There is no argument about the fact that the use is divided globally, that should not sway the opinion, what is important is whether it is suffitiently common in India - it is, is it recognised globally the answer is it is. Lots of references given above. Hundreds millions of English users Romanise the name as Ganga, in scores of countries. Lots of references given above. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:23, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- Support per Ucucha, above. India has a greater English-speaking population than Britain, and just like we use British English spellings and usage in articles on Britain, we should use Indian English spellings in articles on India. Ganga is vastly more common than Ganges in Indian English. [8][9] We are a worldwide and neutral encyclopedia. --JN466 06:25, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- The article Indian English clearly states that "Fewer than a quarter of a million people speak English as their first language" (the article might be mistaken?). That is certainly more that the whole population of the UK but less than the population of the USA. Furthermore both the British and American English-speakers use the name Ganges ('Ganga' is all but unknown outside of India). Please don't forget that while Indian English is also taught as a secondary language (in India itself besides other countries) American and British English are taught (as a secondary language) to a wider extent (e.g.: Germans will learn British or American English; Brazilians will learn British or American English, Chinese will learn British or American English, etc). A worlwide and accurate encyclopedia should use the common spelling: Ganges. Flamarande (talk) 08:23, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- Pardon me, but I think you forgot to read that values were 9 years back. In 2001, 90 million people speak English as there secondary language, India is second largest English speaking country in world It says that India has 223 million people who speak English as secondary and 8.77 million as third language. It also says that "Had the English user number been included, then the total number would be well over 750 million". If we consider English user then it has 750 million far more than US + British population. KuwarOnline Talk 09:21, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- If we are going to include number of users (secondary, third, fourth, etc language) I propose that we include Europe (where American or British English is taught at school - not in all countries). The same goes for Australia, South America, Africa, etc. You have to realize that in the overwheling majority of countries where English is taught as a secondary (or third, fourth, etc) language it is British English or American English but not Indian English. Flamarande (talk) 12:23, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- Pardon me, but I think you forgot to read that values were 9 years back. In 2001, 90 million people speak English as there secondary language, India is second largest English speaking country in world It says that India has 223 million people who speak English as secondary and 8.77 million as third language. It also says that "Had the English user number been included, then the total number would be well over 750 million". If we consider English user then it has 750 million far more than US + British population. KuwarOnline Talk 09:21, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- The article Indian English clearly states that "Fewer than a quarter of a million people speak English as their first language" (the article might be mistaken?). That is certainly more that the whole population of the UK but less than the population of the USA. Furthermore both the British and American English-speakers use the name Ganges ('Ganga' is all but unknown outside of India). Please don't forget that while Indian English is also taught as a secondary language (in India itself besides other countries) American and British English are taught (as a secondary language) to a wider extent (e.g.: Germans will learn British or American English; Brazilians will learn British or American English, Chinese will learn British or American English, etc). A worlwide and accurate encyclopedia should use the common spelling: Ganges. Flamarande (talk) 08:23, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- If I remember correctly, the Times of India is the most widely read English-language newspaper in the world. English is an official language of India, a country of well over a billion people, in which dozens of languages are spoken, and in which English is widely used as a lingua franca. --JN466 11:05, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- Are you talking about the newspaper which often uses the names 'Ganges' and 'Ganga' (showing yet again that both names are widely used in India)? Just go to its site [10] and type 'Ganges' in the search-field and hit enter. CNN and BBC World are the most widely watched international TV channels of the world and they use the name 'Ganges' (but don't use the name 'Ganga' at all). We can on and on with this line of argument if you wish. Flamarande (talk) 12:23, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- The argument is not whether Indian English is the largest dialect in the world, the issue is whether Ganga is how the word is written in this language, it is as proved above. And whether it sufficiently common, it has been proved it is. Another is whether it is internationally understood, the answer is it is across Asia, and even in Africa, UK/US scholars too use it, the US government acknowledges its use. For references to above please see links aboveYogesh Khandke (talk) 15:20, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- It is true that the ToI uses Ganges as well as Ganga, though the latter predominates. It is not true that CNN and BBC don't use the name Ganga at all. CNN examples: [11][12][13][14]. BBC examples: [15][16][17][18][19]. If we can make the change from Bombay to Mumbai, we should take the plunge (pun intended) with the Ganga too. There is no use fighting the inevitable. Given that according to Alexa, Wikipedia even today receives 50% more site traffic from India than it does from the UK, for example, it feels appropriate that Indian visitors to the site should see their country described in their version of English. --JN466 17:17, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- I'm truly surprised by the evidence that CNN and BBC used the name 'Ganga'. However this use is surely extremely rare (and I challenge you to prove the contrary). The statement about Alexa is IMHO a pitiful red herring: Wikipedia receives more site traffic from India (where 'Ganges' and 'Ganga' are used) than the UK (where 'Ganga' is virtually unknown) but way less than the USA (where 'Ganga' is virtually unknown). Let's not forget Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the other countries of the Commonwealth and the rest of the world (where British English and American English are more popular and that's a fact). And don't compare this with Mumbai/Bombay (or Peking/Beijing or whatever). Such changes might and undoubtedly will happen again and again. But Mumbai and Beijing had to wait a couple of decades and the name 'Ganga' is not there (yet?). Ganga might become the most common name for this river as far as the whole English-speaking world is concerned (in the future). When that day comes the name of this article will change, but not before and if we have to wait a couple of of decades waiting then so be it. We do not fight the inevitable, but we will patiently wait until it happens. Flamarande (talk) 20:26, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- Here a statement from the World Bank, referring to the "Ganga (Ganges) River", reported in the UK Independent: [20] Here an interesting article by a Western writer on the quality and national importance of India's English-language newspapers, referring to the "Ganga Plains": [21] [22][23][24] Here an example from the UK Telegraph, referring to the "Ganges – or Ganga". UK Guardian: [25][26]. I wouldn't call it extremely rare. --JN466 01:25, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
- I'm truly surprised by the evidence that CNN and BBC used the name 'Ganga'. However this use is surely extremely rare (and I challenge you to prove the contrary). The statement about Alexa is IMHO a pitiful red herring: Wikipedia receives more site traffic from India (where 'Ganges' and 'Ganga' are used) than the UK (where 'Ganga' is virtually unknown) but way less than the USA (where 'Ganga' is virtually unknown). Let's not forget Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the other countries of the Commonwealth and the rest of the world (where British English and American English are more popular and that's a fact). And don't compare this with Mumbai/Bombay (or Peking/Beijing or whatever). Such changes might and undoubtedly will happen again and again. But Mumbai and Beijing had to wait a couple of decades and the name 'Ganga' is not there (yet?). Ganga might become the most common name for this river as far as the whole English-speaking world is concerned (in the future). When that day comes the name of this article will change, but not before and if we have to wait a couple of of decades waiting then so be it. We do not fight the inevitable, but we will patiently wait until it happens. Flamarande (talk) 20:26, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- In our version of English. That is what is proposed here short and sweet. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 17:56, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- It is true that the ToI uses Ganges as well as Ganga, though the latter predominates. It is not true that CNN and BBC don't use the name Ganga at all. CNN examples: [11][12][13][14]. BBC examples: [15][16][17][18][19]. If we can make the change from Bombay to Mumbai, we should take the plunge (pun intended) with the Ganga too. There is no use fighting the inevitable. Given that according to Alexa, Wikipedia even today receives 50% more site traffic from India than it does from the UK, for example, it feels appropriate that Indian visitors to the site should see their country described in their version of English. --JN466 17:17, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- The argument is not whether Indian English is the largest dialect in the world, the issue is whether Ganga is how the word is written in this language, it is as proved above. And whether it sufficiently common, it has been proved it is. Another is whether it is internationally understood, the answer is it is across Asia, and even in Africa, UK/US scholars too use it, the US government acknowledges its use. For references to above please see links aboveYogesh Khandke (talk) 15:20, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- Are you talking about the newspaper which often uses the names 'Ganges' and 'Ganga' (showing yet again that both names are widely used in India)? Just go to its site [10] and type 'Ganges' in the search-field and hit enter. CNN and BBC World are the most widely watched international TV channels of the world and they use the name 'Ganges' (but don't use the name 'Ganga' at all). We can on and on with this line of argument if you wish. Flamarande (talk) 12:23, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- If I remember correctly, the Times of India is the most widely read English-language newspaper in the world. English is an official language of India, a country of well over a billion people, in which dozens of languages are spoken, and in which English is widely used as a lingua franca. --JN466 11:05, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose - Common name in English is Ganges. There are many, many cases in English where we have a different name for a geographic region than the "real" name used by the locals. For example, we call it Germany instead of Deutschland, we call it Greece instead of the Hellenic Republic, and we call it the Ganges instead of the Ganga. It may be ignorant, but it's English common usage and dat's dat. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:14, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- I respect your opinion, but the reasoning seems faulty, because there is no local variety of English anywhere in the world where "Deutschland" is the English word for "Germany" in the local variety of English. In India, on the other hand, Ganga is the normal English name of the river. --JN466 01:40, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
- Comment (I've already !voted above) I'm not sure what the big deal is. Within India, both terms are used and understood. Several hotels in Varanasi, for example, use 'Ganges' in their name (The Taj Ganges, Ganges View Hotel) with little confusion and no angry mobs on their doorsteps. So, concerns about Indian visitors to wikipedia being flummoxed, or concerns about offending Indians, or concerns that the 'Indian view' is not being reflected, or concerns that a 'western view' is being thrust upon Indians, by using the term 'Ganges' seem a tad over-rated. --RegentsPark (talk) 20:37, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
OpposeNeutral - Ganges is used in Indian English as well as being the common international name. The assertion that Ganga is used in other Asian countries besides India must be substantiated. Do you say that because it is the name in Bengali and other Indian languages? That is irrelevant if it is the name is not used when writing in English in those countries. Quigley (talk) 02:17, 21 November 2010 (UTC)- Substantiated: Dawn of Pakistan search for Ganga = 728 results[27], Nepal[28], Malaysia[29], Indonesia[30], Asian Development Bank site search gives 446 result[31], Bangladesh[32], Sri Lanka and south Asia(this site also informs that this region covers an area of approximately 42,916,000 km2, same as that of the continental United States but with four times the population, it is already one of the most densely settled regions of the world.)[33], China[34], Philippines[35], Republic of South Africa[36], Africa[37], International[38]
- Support: I can not seem to find the reason why Mumbai is in use instead of Bombay (or the other examples given up above), but if the reasons for name changing those is the same as for Ganga vs. Ganges, then by all means I support the change. Also, the change I do not think would necessarily add confusion to the mix, and if anything may help alleviate some. There is much confusion that results from pronouncing it "gun-gaa" while seeing it spelt Ganges. - ellusion - (talk) 04:08, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose This issue is like the wars at WP:MOS where some editors want to educate readers by using kibibyte instead of kilobyte when describing amounts of computer memory, or by using cm3 instead of cc in articles describing motorcycle engines. All these are good ideas, and they will happen just as soon as reliable sources in the English speaking world lead the way and adopt that terminology. It is not Wikipedia's role to tell people the correct title is Ganga and not Ganges. Johnuniq (talk) 07:46, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose with some reluctance. I'm generally supportive of using local names where reasonable, but I don't really think this is one of those cases. The name "Ganga" is not well-recognised outside the Indian subcontinent. I acknowledge that WP:ENGVAR might be taken as support for this move, but in honesty, I think WP:COMMONNAME needs to trump ENGVAR here. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 09:28, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
- I am glad you used the term Indian subcontinent.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 09:33, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
- Comment: I would like to make a small comment on the use of the "Indian" card here. Ganges is not limited to India only, rather it is a transborder river that flows through Bangladesh as well. In Bangladesh, "Ganges" is overwhelmingly used to refer to the river in English language media as well as in Government websites [39]. In fact, the joint river commission (between India and Bangladesh govt) website exclusively uses the name "Ganges" [40]. --Ragib (talk) 17:37, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
- Actually for its length in Bangladesh it is called Padma, so the India card is valid[41], also please see that Britannica uses both the spellings Ganga/Ganges[42], and this treaty uses the terms Ganga/Ganges[43].Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:54, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
- Kwami Encyclopaedia Britannica uses both the names.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 15:03, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
- Britannica uses 'Ganges' as the English name and 'Ganga' as the Hindi name. (Quote: Ganges River, Hindi Ganga, [44] --RegentsPark (talk) 17:24, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
- It is easier to be prejudiced than to read and be informed. Of course quote (57) has been seen, Kwami has quoted that earlier. The above comment referred to quotes (55), which reads Padma River, main channel of the greater Ganges (Ganga) River in Bangladesh. For some 90 miles (145 km) the Ganges River forms the western boundary between India and Bangladesh before it enters Bangladesh at the northern edge of the Kushtia district as the upper segment of the Padma River.,Yogesh Khandke (talk) 18:11, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
- Perhaps. But Britannica uses Ganges as the primary English spelling and, explicitly, states that Ganga is the Hindi name of the river. I'm just saying the Britannica example does not support your point.--RegentsPark (talk) 18:39, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
- We all knew what Britannica said, we now know that it too refers to the river as Ganga, so Britannica is divided over the use and so ambivalent, both here and there. Not something that can be used to block the move with. Kwami??Yogesh Khandke (talk) 18:45, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
- Do you want me to repeat myself, again? You haven't said anything of substance. We all know Ganga is another form of the name; that's why we include it in the article! The EB uses 'Ganges' primarily. It files the article under 'Ganges'. They are not divided or ambivalent. You twist everything to support your POV. That isn't research, it's propaganda. No-one else is buying it. So, do you have anything of substance to say? Do you have anything new to say? Or are you merely going to repeat the same bullshit over and over and over and over and over until everyone else gets tired of your nonsense and drops out of your non-discussion, and then claim that you have "consensus" to dictate the English language? — kwami (talk) 22:12, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
- (1)We know that there are two forms of the name. (2)We know that Britannica uses the name Ganges primararily, and also uses Ganga in English and not Bhojpuri or Rajasthani, so it acknowleges another Romanisation of the word (3) Count the oppose votes they are based on logic Paree, Wien or Mount Everest, which has been countered or wp:Commonname which has seen edits and reverts, or some who fear Balkanisation of the language, nothing to the point against the move. Any way wikipedia is not a democracy, we should look at the argument for and against, there are strong reason all over the place for move, one only has to look. I have seen Zuggernaut making great tables, a table would look great here.(6) Is there a policy that Wikipedia follow Britannica, Where ever that Britannica went Wikipedia was sure to go? I have not seen it anywhere. On the other hand encyclopaedias are not considered first class sources, see wp:rsYogesh Khandke (talk) 13:50, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- Do you want me to repeat myself, again? You haven't said anything of substance. We all know Ganga is another form of the name; that's why we include it in the article! The EB uses 'Ganges' primarily. It files the article under 'Ganges'. They are not divided or ambivalent. You twist everything to support your POV. That isn't research, it's propaganda. No-one else is buying it. So, do you have anything of substance to say? Do you have anything new to say? Or are you merely going to repeat the same bullshit over and over and over and over and over until everyone else gets tired of your nonsense and drops out of your non-discussion, and then claim that you have "consensus" to dictate the English language? — kwami (talk) 22:12, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
- We all knew what Britannica said, we now know that it too refers to the river as Ganga, so Britannica is divided over the use and so ambivalent, both here and there. Not something that can be used to block the move with. Kwami??Yogesh Khandke (talk) 18:45, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
- Perhaps. But Britannica uses Ganges as the primary English spelling and, explicitly, states that Ganga is the Hindi name of the river. I'm just saying the Britannica example does not support your point.--RegentsPark (talk) 18:39, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
- Britannica uses 'Ganges' as the English name and 'Ganga' as the Hindi name. (Quote: Ganges River, Hindi Ganga, [44] --RegentsPark (talk) 17:24, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
- Kwami Encyclopaedia Britannica uses both the names.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 15:03, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
- Actually for its length in Bangladesh it is called Padma, so the India card is valid[41], also please see that Britannica uses both the spellings Ganga/Ganges[42], and this treaty uses the terms Ganga/Ganges[43].Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:54, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
- Support. I think we really should leave the days of colonialism behind us, don't you? This is not a Gdanzig dispute, the name used in India is Ganga. It is far form being the only change to commonly used Indian names - Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata and so on are all now at their locally-correct names, and rightly so. A redirect will fix anybody looking in the wrong place and we can actually show the world that we care more about knowledge and education than about enforcing a WASP perspective on the world. Oh, and I'm one of the old colonial oppressors (a Brit), if that makes any difference. I have also conducted a comprehensive linguistic analysis that supports the move. Guy (Help!) 17:53, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
- If India wants to leave the days of colonialism behind, they should drop the English language altogether. Anyway, "Ganges" is not a colonial, or even originally an English, name: it's Greek. India has fully incorporated their Greek imperial heritage. — kwami (talk) 22:15, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
- If I had said something like that I would have been called a troll. Greek - Yavans? Empire?Yogesh Khandke (talk) 13:50, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- If India wants to leave the days of colonialism behind, they should drop the English language altogether. Anyway, "Ganges" is not a colonial, or even originally an English, name: it's Greek. India has fully incorporated their Greek imperial heritage. — kwami (talk) 22:15, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
- Support. As English is one of India's official languages, the usual practice per MoS would be to use Indian English spelling. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 18:10, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
- We're not talking about spelling, so your argument is irrelevant. — kwami (talk) 22:15, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
- But it is about Romanisation and the above reads he supports the Indian Romanisation of the name.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 13:50, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- I m kind of agree with SlimVirgin, if we change the spelling to Ganga and other people want to read it as Ganges I dont think anybody will have problem. Its upto them how to read it as Ganga or Ganges. KuwarOnline Talk 10:00, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- We're not talking about spelling, so your argument is irrelevant. — kwami (talk) 22:15, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
OpposeNeutral. Why do so many Indians use the word Ganges when talking to non-Indians? Because they want to be sure we understand exactly to which river they are referring. Ganges is the most common usage in the global English-speaking world. Oh, and also oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. — SpikeToronto 07:16, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- Changing !vote from oppose to neutral. This change is not because of JzG/Guy’s comments below, whose diatribe directed at me was unnecessary and indicates a lack of knowledge about the multicultural nature of Toronto and of its enormous South Asian community and my interaction with it. Moreover, it characterized my previous position inaccurately, a position which had always leaned toward neutral. (I can only imagine what his position on Burma versus Myanmar would be!) No, my change from oppose to neutral comes as a result of sober dicussion elsewhere with Jayen466 that pushed me into the neutral camp where I had already placed a foot anyway. — SpikeToronto 19:39, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- That's a bogus argument. Many Indians also use the names Calcutta, Poona and Bombay, because they know that some in the West don't realise the newer romanisations. Incidentally, Bengaluru is coming down the pike at you as well. "We've always spelled it that way" is simply not a good argument for continuing to use a spelling that is now considered incorrect. The only two possible outcomes to this debate are "yes" and "not yet but soon". I'm guessing you don't work with many people from India, if you don't I would encourage you to do so. They are polite, clever and hard-working. They are also masters of their own culture after a colonial past, and this is all part of that calm assertion of a wonderfully rich national identity. Guy (Help!) 14:02, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose, primarily due to WP:COMMONNAME. Perhaps in the future the common name will change, as Bombay changed to Mumbai, but as this hasn't happened yet I think we're just making it harder on our readers to change it to the lesser used name. That doesn't mean that "Ganga" shouldn't be mentioned very prominently early in the article as a local name, of course. Lankiveil (speak to me) 11:02, 23 November 2010 (UTC).
- FWIW, I've searched google news for the past month for "Ganga + river" and for "Ganges + river", and you get more hits for Ganga. So how does WP:COMMONNAME here work in favour of Ganges? Of course, you may say, "But those are mostly Indian sources ...", but are we now discriminating against Indian sources on the Indian national river? On what basis? And per WP:TIES, we should be using Ganga. --JN466 11:42, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- FWIW I've made a Google-search with the words 'Ganges river' and got "About 3,290,000 results (0.07 seconds)". Then I made a search with the words 'Ganga river' and got "About 959,000 results (0.24 seconds)". So how does WP:COMMONNAME here work in favour of Ganga? Of course, you may say, "But those are mostly non-Indian sources ...", but are we now discriminating against non-Indian sources on this international river (which also enters Bangladesh)? On what basis? Per WP:Commonname, we are using Ganges. Flamarande (talk) 13:02, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- I am sorry, when I click on your links, I get 538,000 for Ganges river and 7,510,000 for Ganga river. Perhaps we need to refine our searches a little. --JN466 13:08, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- Weird, when I click upon them I get the my written results (I changed the language settings from Portuguese to English but nothing more). Perhaps the google returns to the original settings. Flamarande (talk) 13:47, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- Basically, you can't trust google counts as far as you can throw'em. You used Portuguese google; here are the UK google results: 813,000 for ganges river, 962,000 for ganga river. It's not for nothing that our guidelines warn against using raw google counts. At least with google news you can see what you have, and you can narrow it down to recent sources reflecting present-day usage. (And just in case you're wondering, I am German living in the UK.) --JN466 13:27, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- I am sorry, when I click on your links, I get 538,000 for Ganges river and 7,510,000 for Ganga river. Perhaps we need to refine our searches a little. --JN466 13:08, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- FWIW I've made a Google-search with the words 'Ganges river' and got "About 3,290,000 results (0.07 seconds)". Then I made a search with the words 'Ganga river' and got "About 959,000 results (0.24 seconds)". So how does WP:COMMONNAME here work in favour of Ganga? Of course, you may say, "But those are mostly non-Indian sources ...", but are we now discriminating against non-Indian sources on this international river (which also enters Bangladesh)? On what basis? Per WP:Commonname, we are using Ganges. Flamarande (talk) 13:02, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- FWIW, I've searched google news for the past month for "Ganga + river" and for "Ganges + river", and you get more hits for Ganga. So how does WP:COMMONNAME here work in favour of Ganges? Of course, you may say, "But those are mostly Indian sources ...", but are we now discriminating against Indian sources on the Indian national river? On what basis? And per WP:TIES, we should be using Ganga. --JN466 11:42, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- Hey, you started to use the Google-counts. I honestly made searches in the international Google-site (which I copied) and got the written results. The UK results which you presented are as twisted as the Portuguese results (as matter of fact when I click upon your links I get the 3,290,000 for Ganges river and 959,000 for Ganga river - perhaps your setting are in German?). Tell me Jayen, what name (Ganges or Ganga) is taught in the English classes in the German school system? Did you learn American, British or Indian English? Flamarande (talk) 13:37, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- Comment. The problem with a Google search that uses Ganga, is that the results include the ubiquitous slang word for marijuana, ganga. Google.com is the international search engine for Google, not Google.co.uk or Google.pt. When one goes to Google.com, and searches Ganges + river, one gets 811,000 results. (See here.) When one goes to Google.com, and searches Ganga + river, one gets 448,000 results. (See here.) Jayen, one cannot initiate an argument based on Google counts, and then, when it is shown that the results are diametrically oppopsite to what one had interpreted, dismiss that methodology. One cannot have it both ways. — SpikeToronto 19:16, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- Spike, I presented an argument based on google news here. This is different from an argument based on google web hits, because you can actually view and count the hits, and limit them to current publications. FWIW, when I click on your google.com links, the numbers I get are again completely different: 3.4m for ganges river, 967,000 for ganga river. These numbers mean nothing, just like the 538,000 for Ganges river and 7,510,000 for Ganga river I got above clicking on Flamarande's links, and google.com is not any better or "more international" here than any country version of google web. --JN466 00:16, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
- I learnt British English, and that was standard in the school system then. Basically you have to balance two interests here: the principle of least surprise for non-Indians, and that Indians should feel as at home here as any other group of English-speakers. A key part of the latter is having articles that are closely tied to your home country reflect your language and spelling. (As someone who speaks Portuguese and German, you'll appreciate this situation isn't unique to English.) American editors wouldn't stand for it, for example, if we insisted on spellings like United States Department of Defence or Centre (basketball), arguing that this is the spelling that middle-aged Europeans would have learnt in school, and that defence and centre are the dominant spellings across the English-speaking world (which they are). That is fine. Basketball is bigger in the States than in any other country. Now, the Ganga is bigger in India than in any other country. It's the national river, and I think it's churlish to insist on putting what English students in Germany or Serbia would have learnt in school 15 or 35 years ago. To those students, the Ganga was and is just one of many rivers in the world they will probably never see. And if they have a moment's cognitive dissonance because they get to Ganga when they type in Ganges, it's no big deal; they'll learn something about India in the process. Just like the people looking for Bombay or Peking learn something. And I know that school kids in Britain today do learn the name Ganga; this is a BBC page that helps kids prepare for their GCSE exam. --JN466 15:55, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- You have learnt British English as AFAIK that was the standard then, now and for the next centuries. It isn't the (British and American) English students in Germany or Serbia (and the whole world minus the Indian subcontinent) would have learnt in school 15 or 35 years ago. Ganges is the common name today. I do not challenge that Ganga is taught, I challenge that Ganga is to current common name now. Wikipedia doesn't (or shouldn't) use the names that "will be the most common in ten or twenty years in the future". Wikipedia uses (or should use) the common name used today, and that means using 'Ganges'. You again compare this with Bombay/Mumbai and Peking/Beijing. However you know that these names are already the common name not because the English wiki uses them, but because the English-speaking media uses them all the time already, and that doesn't happen with 'Ganga'. Flamarande (talk) 20:09, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- Note that when you say "the English-speaking media", you unconsciously seem to be restricting that to Western media. In terms of sheer frequency of occurrence in recent English-language news reports available in google news, Ganga outweighs Ganges. --JN466 00:40, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
- Guilty as charged. I watch CNN, BBC World, Sky and Euronews (I tend not to watch English-speaking Al Jazera). I also watch English-speaking AXN, MOV, Fox, Fox life, etc. I'm truly sorry but my cable provider simply doesn't has a Indian English speaking channel. The problem is that I'm far from being the only one. How many international Indian English-speaking channels do you know? How many Indian English-speaking channels do you truly believe are available in Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Australia and I dare say Asia (minus the Indian subcontinent)? Now compare that with the international importance of CNN and BBC World (which are even available in China). Flamarande (talk) 02:34, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
- Well, on the other hand, who do you think mostly comes to view this article? The Ganges is of peripheral interest to the average CNN viewer, but is of profound interest to the average Indian. It is the same with the articles on, say, the Mississippi River, the Thames, or the Des Moines River. --JN466 06:00, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
- Well thats the real question, how many other(foreign) people really has interest in this river?, but if we think other hand ie Indians, who has most interest in this river, who are going to be most viewer then whats the problem is to change the name what most Indian understand?. This actually create an expression that Wikipedia is just for the western English speaking people, not for all. Thats pretty sad. KuwarOnline Talk 11:16, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
- The problem is that the name (Ganga) which most Indians seem to use is the name which the majority of the English-speaking world all but ignores (doesn't know). However notice that (probably) all Indians also know the name Ganges, which is often used in the India (newspapers) . The articles of Wikipedia are not to be written to please a single nationality but for the easy understanding of the average reader. The majority of ppl who speak/write/read English (native or foreigners) use and know the name Ganges but the majority do not know Ganga at all. Therefore the logical choice is Ganges. Flamarande (talk) 21:42, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
- Well thats the real question, how many other(foreign) people really has interest in this river?, but if we think other hand ie Indians, who has most interest in this river, who are going to be most viewer then whats the problem is to change the name what most Indian understand?. This actually create an expression that Wikipedia is just for the western English speaking people, not for all. Thats pretty sad. KuwarOnline Talk 11:16, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
- Well, on the other hand, who do you think mostly comes to view this article? The Ganges is of peripheral interest to the average CNN viewer, but is of profound interest to the average Indian. It is the same with the articles on, say, the Mississippi River, the Thames, or the Des Moines River. --JN466 06:00, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
- Guilty as charged. I watch CNN, BBC World, Sky and Euronews (I tend not to watch English-speaking Al Jazera). I also watch English-speaking AXN, MOV, Fox, Fox life, etc. I'm truly sorry but my cable provider simply doesn't has a Indian English speaking channel. The problem is that I'm far from being the only one. How many international Indian English-speaking channels do you know? How many Indian English-speaking channels do you truly believe are available in Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Australia and I dare say Asia (minus the Indian subcontinent)? Now compare that with the international importance of CNN and BBC World (which are even available in China). Flamarande (talk) 02:34, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
- Note that when you say "the English-speaking media", you unconsciously seem to be restricting that to Western media. In terms of sheer frequency of occurrence in recent English-language news reports available in google news, Ganga outweighs Ganges. --JN466 00:40, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
- You have learnt British English as AFAIK that was the standard then, now and for the next centuries. It isn't the (British and American) English students in Germany or Serbia (and the whole world minus the Indian subcontinent) would have learnt in school 15 or 35 years ago. Ganges is the common name today. I do not challenge that Ganga is taught, I challenge that Ganga is to current common name now. Wikipedia doesn't (or shouldn't) use the names that "will be the most common in ten or twenty years in the future". Wikipedia uses (or should use) the common name used today, and that means using 'Ganges'. You again compare this with Bombay/Mumbai and Peking/Beijing. However you know that these names are already the common name not because the English wiki uses them, but because the English-speaking media uses them all the time already, and that doesn't happen with 'Ganga'. Flamarande (talk) 20:09, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- Comment. The problem with a Google search that uses Ganga, is that the results include the ubiquitous slang word for marijuana, ganga. Google.com is the international search engine for Google, not Google.co.uk or Google.pt. When one goes to Google.com, and searches Ganges + river, one gets 811,000 results. (See here.) When one goes to Google.com, and searches Ganga + river, one gets 448,000 results. (See here.) Jayen, one cannot initiate an argument based on Google counts, and then, when it is shown that the results are diametrically oppopsite to what one had interpreted, dismiss that methodology. One cannot have it both ways. — SpikeToronto 19:16, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- Note that all government projects and institutions related to the river have "Ganga" in their names: the National Ganga River Basin Authority, the Ganga River Pollution Control Project, the Ganga Expressway Project, etc. I could not imagine any similar case involving a US or UK river, where we would give preference to foreign sources in how to name our article. --JN466 11:53, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- Well, we do have Kootenay River, if Canadian counts as foreign. Pfly (talk) 10:19, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose. While doing some research on a fish I'm creating an article for, I found it mentioned in a book on "The Ganga". I am a very well read person, and I had to search Wikipedia for "Ganga" to check that it was, as I suspected, the Ganges. The redirect told me I was right, and then I saw this debate. This is no Mumbai. Abductive (reasoning) 12:00, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
- Weak oppose per WP:VNE. Ganga is just too uncommon in non-Indian varieties of English right now, and Ganges seems accepted in IE. (By the way, is there a usage dictionary for Indian English? The article doesn't list any...) Tijfo098 (talk) 07:45, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose. Ganga is a Hindi word. Gangai is a Tamil word. Ganges is an English word. If anything is going to be moved anywhere, let the destination be Tamil. But this is an English wiki.Anwar (talk) 17:45, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
Google web counts vs Google news results
Please note that google web counts ("About 1,600,000 results") are a useless metric. These numbers can be out by several orders of magnitude, and as we've seen above, different editors may get wildly different results even for the same search string. Some of the technical reasons for this are described here: [45][46], used as references in WP:GOOGLE. The situation is slightly better in google news, because if you search over a smaller timeframe, like a week, month or year, you get a manageable number of hits that can be manually verified, allowing you to weed out false positives and make sure the sources actually exist. Google news is far from perfect for frequency analyses (it misses some news sources), but it is less useless than google web count estimates. --JN466 02:24, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
Google books
Google books lists 82 books with Ganga in the title and river in the text, vs. 88 books with Ganges in the title and river in the text. (Please make sure you click through to the end of the listing to get the accurate count, and ignore the "About X results" estimate you get on the first page. Note that river in the text is just to exclude non-English books.)
That's pretty even. If we analyse the publication dates, 11 of the books with Ganges in the title are from the 19th century (and there are a good few pre-1950s as well). All of those with Ganga in the title are from the second half of the 20th or the 21st century, so viewed from the perspective of WP:COMMONNAME, Ganga doesn't look bad. --JN466 06:03, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
- I agree. I did some careful googling, trying to eliminate false hits, and looked at Google Books, and various other sources (I didn't save my notes, so can't post them--at the time it didn't seem that important). It looked like Ganges was slightly more common, but it was close enough for the difference to be simple false positive errors. I still have no real opinion on the page name, it could go either way, really. Personally I had not until recently heard the name "Ganga" and still find it rather weird, and pronounced it in my head like it is spelled, which makes me think of ganglions. But my personal feelings are irrelevant here. I'm mostly curious to see how things go. This is the most borderline wp:commonname case I've seen, interestingly complicated by the use and role of English in India and the unfamiliarity of Indian English in the US and UK. Pfly (talk) 10:33, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure if "intitle:" works properly there, but I get [47] about 4K for Ganga and about [48] 10K for Ganges. Based on the authors' names however, there's very little "Ganga" usage outside Indian authors [49], [50], but Ganges is used by some Indian authors/publishers from the 1st page, e.g. [51] [52] [53], [54] Tijfo098 (talk) 08:12, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- The estimates on the first page of search hits are the result of a google algorithm. To show you the first ten results, google does not actually search all books, so these are very rough estimates that do not reflect the actual number of publications. In each such google books listing, you have to click through to the last page to see the actual number of titles in existence. The last page then updates the number of titles found, once google actually has searched its publications database. I discussed the question of google estimates with User:SpikeToronto on his talk page the other day, at User_talk:SpikeToronto#Ganges_vs_Ganga; if you are interested in google counts, that discussion lists some sources that will tell you more about how these estimates come about.
- Now, three examples you give of books that have authors with Indian names, and Ganges in the title, are by Western publishers (Steven Simpson Books, Ashgate Publishing, Other Press); in addition, one is about the Ganges River Dolphin, which is known as such by science. The fourth is by an Indian publisher, but the title play on an established English saying. [55][56]. That said, I fully agree with you that the use of Ganga is currently still relatively rare outside India, and rarer than the use of Ganges within India. My argument is not that this is otherwise, but that given this river's importance to India and Indian readers of Wikipedia, we should reflect the Indian English preference per WP:TIES. --JN466 13:55, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
Google scholar
- 961 for Ganga in the title, with river in the text.
- 772 for Ganges in the title, with river in the text. Again, these include many 19th-century sources.
Are those results reproducible at your end? --JN466 06:29, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, Google scholar results don't depend on the country. Tijfo098 (talk) 08:12, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
Google trends
Use as ganges is reducing. google trends Ganga is already more commonname Its matter of time the difference will be more than an order of 10. Avoid simple2 (talk) 17:38, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
JSTOR
- JSTOR publications 2001–2010 with Ganga in the title and river in the text: 6
- JSTOR publications 2001–2010 with Ganges in the title and river in the text: 4 --JN466 06:54, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
Occurrences of the name Ganga in materials for Western schoolchildren
Ganga can be found in some more recent materials for UK schoolchildren:
- GCSE-level geography book (UK)
- Religious Education primer for GCSE students
- GCSE-level geography book (UK)
- GCSE studies page by the BBC.
- [57] (studentcentral.co.uk)
- Teacher resource bank referring to the "Ganga Action Plan".
That is not to say that such occurrences are the rule, or more frequent than references to Ganges (they're not). Haven't checked equivalents from other Western countries.
- Passage in the Country Studies/Area Handbook Series sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Army (availabe online at countrystudies.us) describing the river as "the Ganga (or Ganges)". --JN466 12:41, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
Indian English
I'm adding back the {{Indian English}} tag removed by User:RegentsPark because the following words from Indian English are already used in the article.
ghats
maha smashanam
Kumbh Mela
mahima
jyotirlingams
gangajal
devatas
Shivalingam
abhishek
prayashchit
triveni sangam
Zuggernaut (talk) 16:42, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
- This is a misunderstanding of the tag; these tags are intended to mark spellings and phrasings which distinguish one brand of English from another, like color/colour. But these words indicate that India is the subject of the article, and nothing about dialect; ghat is the word for a ghat anywhere in the English-speaking world, whenever Americans or Australians or Trinidadese have occasion to write about India. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:02, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
- Perhaps the examples are not exact, but this tag means to convey that Indian spellings and diction and meanings will be used, we will write petrol and not gas here, and will know what corruption means, or what a flat is, or what a strike is, and that a restaurant is called a hotel, snacks are metaphhorically called tiffin, and that picnic is an excursion. That is what the tag stands for. Indian English is a dialect in its own right, with millions of users. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:35, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- Indian English is the dialect in which the words largest circulating English newspaper is written. It is not some kind of minority use, on the other hand it predominates other dialects in the above instance. Many articles concerning India carry the tag, this article concerns India, the tag makes perfect sense. Please discuss before taking it offYogesh Khandke (talk) 05:51, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- The worlds largest circulating English newspaper which uses both names: Ganges and Ganga. Flamarande (talk) 12:45, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- Indian English is the dialect in which the words largest circulating English newspaper is written. It is not some kind of minority use, on the other hand it predominates other dialects in the above instance. Many articles concerning India carry the tag, this article concerns India, the tag makes perfect sense. Please discuss before taking it offYogesh Khandke (talk) 05:51, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- Got it. But even by that definition, this template/tag will help an American contributor understand that he or she needs to use 'colour' instead of 'color' when they edit this article. Zuggernaut (talk) 06:48, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- It does use Ganges I agree, move the article to Ganga and then write that Ganga is the Indian Romanisation, and Ganges is the traditional UK/US way of writing it. With the region specifier on India, Ganga gave ten times more ghits than Ganges. As I said there is no rule that Ganga be used, it is used by choice, an overwhelming choice. And the term is clearly understood across the world. For those who don't there can be a prominently place explanation and a redirect Ganges to Ganga.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 15:03, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- The word is clearly not understood across the world, as evidenced by the people coming here who have never heard it before. It's a regional term, not a universal one. Ganges, on the other hand, is used even by the Indian govt, and so is universal. Your refusal to understand that is starting to appear dishonest. — kwami (talk) 19:04, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- Please see the discussion above, it is not one man ranting but even stevens. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 19:59, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- I like to be honest so here it goes: we saw and keep on seeing this trend here and there in the English wiki (it's nothing new). The English wiki is supposed to be written for the majority/average of English-speakers, many of which are not native English-speakers at all, having learnt American or British English at school. The logical names are therefore those used in American and/or British English. Die-hard "patriots" want to impose 'their names' upon the English wiki (which the average user all but ignores) at the expense of the most common names. Their weapons of choice are political correctness, npov and "fairness". I will even go further: they want nothing less than to virtually 'balkanize' the English wikipedia along national/cultural lines. All of you are free to agree with them or not: just vote according to your conscience. Flamarande (talk) 20:12, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- The word is clearly not understood across the world, as evidenced by the people coming here who have never heard it before. It's a regional term, not a universal one. Ganges, on the other hand, is used even by the Indian govt, and so is universal. Your refusal to understand that is starting to appear dishonest. — kwami (talk) 19:04, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- It does use Ganges I agree, move the article to Ganga and then write that Ganga is the Indian Romanisation, and Ganges is the traditional UK/US way of writing it. With the region specifier on India, Ganga gave ten times more ghits than Ganges. As I said there is no rule that Ganga be used, it is used by choice, an overwhelming choice. And the term is clearly understood across the world. For those who don't there can be a prominently place explanation and a redirect Ganges to Ganga.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 15:03, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- Perhaps the examples are not exact, but this tag means to convey that Indian spellings and diction and meanings will be used, we will write petrol and not gas here, and will know what corruption means, or what a flat is, or what a strike is, and that a restaurant is called a hotel, snacks are metaphhorically called tiffin, and that picnic is an excursion. That is what the tag stands for. Indian English is a dialect in its own right, with millions of users. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:35, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
Withdraw the proposal for the moment?
We have three threads running, that discuss the proper naming convention for Ganga, it makes it a little tedious. Since I was the original proposer, I wonder whether it would make sense to withdraw the proposal here and discuss it out at one place wp:COMMONNAME, with the condition that what passes through there would be accepted here. I wish to take permission of those who opposed and those who supported the move.[[User:Yogesh Khandke|Yogesh Khandke]] (talk) 18:03, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- You proposed it, you can withdraw it. Having multiple threads on one topic can be considered disruptive, so it may be a good idea. However, an admin can still come here and close it as 'no consensus', in which case continuing to push your POV, even in a different thread, could also be considered disruptive. — kwami (talk) 19:06, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
- I would leave it as it is, Yogesh: this discussion here on this page is properly about whether or not to move the article (and present consensus is leaning against the move). The RfC discussion at Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Ganga really addresses a different question: whether Ganga/Ganges is a good example to give at Wikipedia:Article_titles#National_varieties_of_English. Given that there is 1/3 support for moving to Ganga here on this page, the guideline shouldn't perhaps use Ganges as an example of when definitely not to move to a local English variant. So we could try and find a more clear-cut example to mention in the guideline, where the two English terms in local use are more evenly matched, and one of them really does not occur outside the country. This would allow the move to Ganga at some future time, if and when community consensus changes. JN466 02:02, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
- That example of Ganga vs. Ganges was only posted a couple of months ago,[58] and until or if we get definitive consensus on the article's name, it does not appear to be an appropriate example. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:25, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
- We've long had consensus on this name. The proposal has been made before, only to be rejected. I think it was included in the guideline specifically because it keeps coming up. — kwami (talk) 07:16, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
- You see, the long pole in the Ganges tent, looks like the inaccurate, baseless and incorrect comment on wp:commonname, that Ganga - Ganges is divided locally, kick it and that brings the tent down. On the other hand, as long as it is there the move would not materialise. You see it is a clear guideline. (Which I learnt after the propose). A clear guideline should not be violated. This discussion needs to be taken there. Please suggest.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 06:38, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
- (1) it is divided locally, as we've demonstrated numerous times. (2) even without that, it would still be local usage which is unintelligible to the rest of the English-speaking world. Your jingoistic attitude that India = the world is ridiculous. — kwami (talk) 07:16, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
- Kwami, I have likewise demonstrated that Western media outlets like CNN, BBC, and UK national papers have begun to use the term Ganga. To say that Indian editors are jingoistic for wanting their national river to be known by its national name in Wikipedia bespeaks an unconscious bias. Indian editors on this page are asking for nothing more than what US or UK editors are taking for granted: that articles on a key feature of their country's geography be based on the official name said feature has in their country. For foreigners to dictate to them that the name used in Wikipedia should be the one predominantly used by them is inequitable. The redirect argument works both ways: US, UK, Australian, etc. schoolkids who enter "Ganges" in the search field will be redirected here, to Ganga, and in the first line of that article it will say, "The Ganga, or Ganges, is ..." And in the process these schoolkids will have learnt something about the world. Indian schoolkids on the other hand who enter "Ganga" and are redirected to "Ganges" will only learn one thing: that Wikipedia treats them as second-class citizens, who don't even have the right to call their national, and holy, river by its proper name in Wikipedia. I don't think that's what we mean when we say we want to bring free education to the kids of the world. --JN466 12:43, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- Jayen466, your assumption that Indian school kids will think that wikipedia treats them as second-class citizens if they see Ganges instead of Ganga on the article title is incorrect. Ganges is a recognized English version of Ganga in India and, except perhaps for a few right wing hindi zealots, the same people who believe that all civilization originated in India, no one is offended by the term. In fact, Ganges is used quite freely in Indian scholarly publications (this list from JSTOR has 179 articles from the Economic and Political Weekly, an Indian journal published in Mumbai, that use Ganges in the article). There may be good reasons to use Ganga over Ganges, but your rationale about Ganges being offensive to Indians is not one of them. --RegentsPark (talk) 14:18, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- Furthermore the Times of India, published in India and the most widely read English-language newspaper in the world, uses Ganga and Ganges. You just have to go to its site and type 'Ganges' in the search-field and hit enter. The rationale that the use of Ganges is somehow offensive to Indians seems to be mistaken (or is someone going to defend that that newspaper wants to offend its Indian readers and make them feel like second-class citizens?). Flamarande (talk) 15:20, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- Well, you both have a point there. --JN466 06:18, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
- Political and Economic Weekly is not for school children.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 08:50, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
- Well, you both have a point there. --JN466 06:18, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
- Furthermore the Times of India, published in India and the most widely read English-language newspaper in the world, uses Ganga and Ganges. You just have to go to its site and type 'Ganges' in the search-field and hit enter. The rationale that the use of Ganges is somehow offensive to Indians seems to be mistaken (or is someone going to defend that that newspaper wants to offend its Indian readers and make them feel like second-class citizens?). Flamarande (talk) 15:20, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- Jayen466, your assumption that Indian school kids will think that wikipedia treats them as second-class citizens if they see Ganges instead of Ganga on the article title is incorrect. Ganges is a recognized English version of Ganga in India and, except perhaps for a few right wing hindi zealots, the same people who believe that all civilization originated in India, no one is offended by the term. In fact, Ganges is used quite freely in Indian scholarly publications (this list from JSTOR has 179 articles from the Economic and Political Weekly, an Indian journal published in Mumbai, that use Ganges in the article). There may be good reasons to use Ganga over Ganges, but your rationale about Ganges being offensive to Indians is not one of them. --RegentsPark (talk) 14:18, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- Jayen466, you've demonstrate that Western media has begun to use the term Ganga (but the use is still occasional). However Ganges is (still) the most common name as far as the majority of the English-speaking world is concerned. Kwami never wrote that all Indian editors are jingoistic. He clearly wrote and meant that Yogesh Khandke holds a jingoistic attitude (I can only agree). So please do not twist Kwami words along your own POV. What you and Yogesh Khandke are always avoiding is the simple fact that the overwhelming majority of non-native English speakers (from Europe, Latin America, Africa and I dare say from the rest of Asia (minus the Indian subcontinent) are learning either British or American but not Indian English. Furthermore the name Ganga is virtually unknown outside of the Indian subcontinent. In other words: it is unknown to the majority of the English-speaking world. Stuff this PC bullshit and this pitiful whinnying about how Wikipedia treats Indian schoolchildren as second-class citizens. I swear to you all: Wikipedia (and the whole world) is becoming more and more a hostage of political PC-lawyers every day. The use of the name 'Ganga' can (and should) easily be explained in the lead of the article itself. There is no logical reason to use 'Ganga' instead of 'Ganges' which is the common name for this subject. Flamarande (talk) 13:28, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- Kwami, I have likewise demonstrated that Western media outlets like CNN, BBC, and UK national papers have begun to use the term Ganga. To say that Indian editors are jingoistic for wanting their national river to be known by its national name in Wikipedia bespeaks an unconscious bias. Indian editors on this page are asking for nothing more than what US or UK editors are taking for granted: that articles on a key feature of their country's geography be based on the official name said feature has in their country. For foreigners to dictate to them that the name used in Wikipedia should be the one predominantly used by them is inequitable. The redirect argument works both ways: US, UK, Australian, etc. schoolkids who enter "Ganges" in the search field will be redirected here, to Ganga, and in the first line of that article it will say, "The Ganga, or Ganges, is ..." And in the process these schoolkids will have learnt something about the world. Indian schoolkids on the other hand who enter "Ganga" and are redirected to "Ganges" will only learn one thing: that Wikipedia treats them as second-class citizens, who don't even have the right to call their national, and holy, river by its proper name in Wikipedia. I don't think that's what we mean when we say we want to bring free education to the kids of the world. --JN466 12:43, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
- (1) it is divided locally, as we've demonstrated numerous times. (2) even without that, it would still be local usage which is unintelligible to the rest of the English-speaking world. Your jingoistic attitude that India = the world is ridiculous. — kwami (talk) 07:16, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
- You see, the long pole in the Ganges tent, looks like the inaccurate, baseless and incorrect comment on wp:commonname, that Ganga - Ganges is divided locally, kick it and that brings the tent down. On the other hand, as long as it is there the move would not materialise. You see it is a clear guideline. (Which I learnt after the propose). A clear guideline should not be violated. This discussion needs to be taken there. Please suggest.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 06:38, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
- It was the same editor too who, one day prior, added the example to the NCGN guideline which he then cited in that edit summary: [59]. This seems to go back to this discussion. --JN466 13:51, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
- I started my English education in 1972, my geography books always called the river Ganga, as they do now. I would consider corruption of names and continued use even after correction very offensive. Ganges is an exonym, just as Eskimo, Lapp, Gypsy, Coolie, Negro, Kaffar are. English has decided to grow up and allow users to call themselves as they would. Indians by an overwhelming majority prefer to call the river Ganga in English and not in Gujarati or Tamil.
The continuing refusal to do so is derogatory, offensive, insensitive and racist.One reason has been given that wikipedia would follow, US/ UK, Britannica, is Wikipedia designed to be the eternal follower? The UN acknowleges that it is necessary to give Giving priority to domestic name forms, endonyms, means that both the need for unambiguity and respect for the cultural-historical values embodied in names are respected., which is clear and unambiguous enough move Ganges to Ganga.[60]Yogesh Khandke (talk) 06:36, 24 November 2010 (UTC)- Comparing Ganges to Lapp, Gypsy, Coolie, Negro, Kaffar and arguing that "English has decided to grow up and allow users to call themselves as they would" is unwise. Your argument that: "The continuing refusal to do so is derogatory, offensive, insensitive and racist" was proven wrong already (read above) and is simply pitiful. Then you decide to use the UN, a political organization, in this debate? Sir, I believe that you are over-reacting in face of the opinion of your fellow users, who simply don't agree with you in this matter. If I were you, Sir, I would take a very deep breath and cool down. Flamarande (talk) 14:50, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
- I started my English education in 1972, my geography books always called the river Ganga, as they do now. I would consider corruption of names and continued use even after correction very offensive. Ganges is an exonym, just as Eskimo, Lapp, Gypsy, Coolie, Negro, Kaffar are. English has decided to grow up and allow users to call themselves as they would. Indians by an overwhelming majority prefer to call the river Ganga in English and not in Gujarati or Tamil.
- We've long had consensus on this name. The proposal has been made before, only to be rejected. I think it was included in the guideline specifically because it keeps coming up. — kwami (talk) 07:16, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
- That example of Ganga vs. Ganges was only posted a couple of months ago,[58] and until or if we get definitive consensus on the article's name, it does not appear to be an appropriate example. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:25, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
There should be no discussion about this
http://india.gov.in/knowindia/rivers.php No offense intended --SpArC (talk) 08:44, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
Please it is easy to get excited. But the best approach is to stick to the rules and to the point. And to ensure that every contribution can be backed up by wp:rs, even on talk pages. It is better to ignore insults and snide remarks, and refrain from passing them. Sorry for unsolicited advice, I know it is easy to get exasperated. I request you to strike out the angry comments please.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 09:15, 21 November 2010 (UTC)- Hm. If you want to ditch Western Imperialism, how about dropping English as an official language? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 13:57, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
- बिल्कुल सही. हम ब्रिटिश साम्राज्य बिना कहाँ होगा? (by your request, Seb.)It's... MR BERTY! talk/stalk 14:06, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
- Hm. If you want to ditch Western Imperialism, how about dropping English as an official language? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 13:57, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
Hello editors
The example making an exception for Ganga on wp:COMMONNAME, is no longer there.[61] Editors above who have based their opinion on wp:COMMONNAME are requested to put in their views a fresh. Of-course, one has to wait for the stability of the particular edit on wp:COMMONNAME regarding Ganga.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 10:20, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
- It is back[62]. We should wait for the matter to settle down.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 16:00, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
Ganga versus Ganges and the confusions it may cause
As I mentioned earlier, many placenames have been anglicised and are generally accepted in English - eg. Rome for Roma, Athens for Athena, and so on (and this same process also happens in the reverse many other languages - eg. Londres for London in Spanish). While we are at it - why can't we insist that the French change their use of Anglais for English, and the Spanish change Inglés to the "proper" name for this language?
This sort of naturally-occuring process does not usually seem to cause much angst as far as I am aware. However, in this case it appears that some people feel very strongly that Ganga should be accepted in English in place of the well-established and well-recognised name in English (and other languages), Ganges. If so, the process should then be carried over into other languages as well, eg. Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, Swedish German and Latin - to name a few, where it is written Ganges; Italian and French where it is written Gange, etc. So, one can see that to establish Ganga internationally will be a massive (and probably, impossible, job). And what about the poor Bengalis (who, after all, are probably even more dependent on the river than anyone else}, who write it (in romanised form) as Gônga?
There are at least two additional reasons for not using Ganga: first, most English speakers seeing the word "Ganga" would immediately associate it with the drug cannabis (and pronounce in "ganja"}. Secondly, and more importantly, if Ganga did become established it would mean that English speakers (and those of numerous other languages) would have to be aware of both usages or they would not recognise references to the river in earlier writings.
No, I think this whole arguement is a case of misguided and futile nationalism and should be abandoned immediately before things become even more confusing. Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 01:36, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
- Incorrect logic. (1)The point is not about international establishment in all the languages that use the Roman script, the point is whether it is appropriate to use the Romanisation in an Indian English article. Hypothetically if lots of Indians start using Spanish, and prefer to use the Romanisation Ganga, then that would reflect on the Spanish Romanisation too. (2)Gônga is not a romanisation it is pronunciation help, using phonetic script. See all the results for Gônga [64] (3)A person acquainted with Indian English is unlikely to associate Ganga(Ganga) with ganja. Plus one decides by context, bed has many meanings bed of roses, bed in brick laying, bed to sleep on, bed as a metaphor for copulation and so on, there would be no catastrophe, there is always the context to confirm the meaning. (4)See the result for "Ganga drug", they generate the comment Showing results for ganja drug. Search instead for ganga drug, also searching for "Ganga drug" again gives a mixed bag, and not just ganja or Cannabis,[65] obviously a small minority associates Ganga with ganja in that Ganga is a slang for ganja[66], however their number can only be measured in ppm, the use of a word as slang cannot confuse its meaning, perhaps the spelling Ganga for ganja could also be related to the fact that Ganga is an Indian river and ganja an Indian product, and the etymology of the spelling has been influenced by the river apart from the obvious confusion with the G sound, Kwami referred to Rastafarian origins of Ganga as the basis for bringing the slang to English. However the Wikipedia article on Rastafarian movement uses the spelling Ganja, there is no confusion.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 06:12, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
- I must admit that the spelling ganga for ganja was new to me prior to this conversation, so speaking for myself, it is not something that would have confused me. But I grant you that there may be others for whom it may be an issue. Also please note #Google_books above. --JN466 06:25, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
- Continuing on confusion, the word Indian is confusing, half the time it means native Americans[67] the other half the times it means Indians from India. That must be very confusing to Americans.[68] Does John Hill suggest changing the name to Bharat? That is how the country is described in English in the Indian constitution India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States[69]. No confusion great combination.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 08:30, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
- That is a whole separate issue; I suppose you've seen Native American name controversy? But I can say that Americans are rarely confused about what people are being referred to when the word "Indian" is used. Context makes it rapidly clear, and the contexts in which people talk about "American Indians" or "Asian Indians" are almost always very different and obvious. Just saying. Pfly (talk) 10:43, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
- (1)No, I haven't seen Native American name controversy, Wikipedia is not my one-dish meal, and USA is not on the moon. An American of English-German parentage is married to my first cousin, another lives in, Calgary Canada, two of my cousins lived in Washington, my college room mate is in NJ, VP with Citibank, and our ex-driver's son is in NY, works in a lamination factory, and my college junior is a professor teaching Remote sensing, his web-site has a photo of him with Hillary, he was in Colorado and is now in NY, the son of my one of my Rotary colleagues is a medical doctor in Texas, another has her daughter in Chicago doing nursing, my family doctor has emigrated to the US, and his two daughters and their husbands are doctors, one lives in Wisconsin another in Georgia, my friend is married to a person doing post-doc research in San Jose, California, a school class mate's daughter is learning flying in Florida, all my co-students who specialised in Computers have spent some time in the US,... a very long and boring list, a telephone call to the US from India costs less than Rs. 0.75 per minute, in the plan I had. I hope you have got the point. I do not want to argue about the above, I just wish you ask yourself whether you have sincerely believe what you have written. (2)You state that the context is important and there would be no confusion. Exactly what I wish to convey.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:29, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
- Actually, I'm not sure I have gotten the point. I was just responding to "...must be very confusing to Americans" with admittedly anecdotal opinion. I did not mean to suggest anything at all about your use of Wikipedia or your relatives & acquaintances. Re, (2), I'm not sure if we are agreeing or disagreeing! No matter though--this is all quite tangential to the Ganges/Ganga River. Pfly (talk) 09:22, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- (1)No, I haven't seen Native American name controversy, Wikipedia is not my one-dish meal, and USA is not on the moon. An American of English-German parentage is married to my first cousin, another lives in, Calgary Canada, two of my cousins lived in Washington, my college room mate is in NJ, VP with Citibank, and our ex-driver's son is in NY, works in a lamination factory, and my college junior is a professor teaching Remote sensing, his web-site has a photo of him with Hillary, he was in Colorado and is now in NY, the son of my one of my Rotary colleagues is a medical doctor in Texas, another has her daughter in Chicago doing nursing, my family doctor has emigrated to the US, and his two daughters and their husbands are doctors, one lives in Wisconsin another in Georgia, my friend is married to a person doing post-doc research in San Jose, California, a school class mate's daughter is learning flying in Florida, all my co-students who specialised in Computers have spent some time in the US,... a very long and boring list, a telephone call to the US from India costs less than Rs. 0.75 per minute, in the plan I had. I hope you have got the point. I do not want to argue about the above, I just wish you ask yourself whether you have sincerely believe what you have written. (2)You state that the context is important and there would be no confusion. Exactly what I wish to convey.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:29, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
- That is a whole separate issue; I suppose you've seen Native American name controversy? But I can say that Americans are rarely confused about what people are being referred to when the word "Indian" is used. Context makes it rapidly clear, and the contexts in which people talk about "American Indians" or "Asian Indians" are almost always very different and obvious. Just saying. Pfly (talk) 10:43, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
- Continuing on confusion, the word Indian is confusing, half the time it means native Americans[67] the other half the times it means Indians from India. That must be very confusing to Americans.[68] Does John Hill suggest changing the name to Bharat? That is how the country is described in English in the Indian constitution India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States[69]. No confusion great combination.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 08:30, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
Reply
Dear Yogesh: I certainly don't want to get in a slanging match with you but I cannot understand the first point you made above under the heading Incorrect logic. that this article is an "Indian English" article. This is an article on the English version of the Wikipedia which means it should (I contend) use "standard English" as far as possible. For such reasons (other than in exceptional circumstances) I would not use "roo" for "kangaroo", much less the "original" form of "gangarru", as this would likely be confusing to many, if not most, readers. Nor would I nromally use the slang term "Trini" for "Trinidadian" as it is unlikely to be recognised by most non-West Indians or cricket fans.
I am happy to drop the Ganga/ganja confusion as it really doen't lead anywhere and seems to be just inflaming the discussion.
No, of course I do not advocate using Bharat for India because of the most unfortunate common use of "Indians" for many of the native peoples of the Americas. Firstly, "India" is used (as far as I am aware) ONLY for the country. Secondly the word "Indian" should, I believe, be generally understood to refer to people from India or of Indian descent, unless the context makes it clear that the people referred to are natives of the Americas. If this is not clear from the context, I believe it should be clearly specified. This is certainly an area where English has developed an extremely confusing and unfortunate situation. As a child growing up in Trinidad we often had to specify that we were talking about "East Indian West Indians"! Such is language - never a perfect vehicle, but certainly an essential tool which needs to be used as clearly and responsibly as possible. Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 09:06, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
- (1)I am glad that you have stated that it is easy to know what a word means from its context. Little scope for confusion. (2)East Indian, West Indian etc like Ganges are exonyms. As you have shared from your experience, troublesome to put it most mildly. (3)Ganga is very much mainstream as the name of the river, it got more ghits than Ganges, won the Google fight with Ganges. (4)Ganga is also the endonym. Which the United Nations guides should be used when refering to a place. (5)This article carries the Indian English template. It means the language will have an Indian flavour. That is wikipedia policy too. There is no such thing as standard English, except perhaps Newspeak. (6) Ganga is how it is refered to in English in India it is not an Indian language word it is an Indian English word. (7)It is not slang. It is the official and popular name of the river. (8)I am also happy that we agree about Ganja (9)There are too many threads running. Will you please relocate this one. May I? Yogesh Khandke (talk) 09:25, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
Another reply in favour of retaining Ganges River
Dear Yogesh: Firstly, please do not put words in my mouth. I never “stated that it is easy to know what a word means from its context”, as you claim. What I did say is that, if the meaning of a name such as “Indian” is not clear from the context, I believe it should be clearly specified.
Also, there is such a thing as “Standard English” - please check out the WP article on it. Finally, while the article is indeed listed as using “Indian English”, the article in the WP on this subject says nothing about the use of proper names.
Now, I would like to make a few further points here which may not gain your acceptance – but I would like them listed here so that at least other readers can consider them.
1. Languages are constantly changing and this is usually an “organic” process. Most attempts to “police” language usage fail, as many linguists have noted.
2. I feel confident to say that if you mentioned the “Ganges River” to a representative sample of English-speaking Indians, almost all of them would recognise immediately what river you meant. On the other hand, if you took a representative sample of English speakers from the U.K., the U.S.A., Canada, N.Z., Australia, South Africa, etc., and mentioned the “River Ganga” to them, a vast majority would probably have no idea of what you were talking about.
3. You still have not answered my point about why the Hindi name for the river should be preferred over, say, the Bengali name. What is the reason for you favouring the Hindi name?
4. Take another well-known and even stranger name in English for a geographic feature, “Mount Everest.” Do you think it should be listed in the WP as Nepali “Sagarmāthā” or Tibetan “Chomolungma”? Or, perhaps, we should accept the Chinese take-over of Tibet and use the Pinyin version, “Qomolangma”? Please tell me who you think should decide this – and on what grounds?
5. This is a Wikipedia article aimed at English-speaking people everywhere – what advantage is to be gained by confusing most of them – especially when forms of the name from Indian languages, such as Ganga can be easily discussed at the beginning of the article and appropriate redirects added so that anyone searching for the name “Ganga” will be led immediately to the article?
6. Finally, the two largest and most widely-accepted dictionaries of the English language (the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster’s Third International Dictionary) both spell the name of the river, “Ganges”. I submit that unless and until the form “Ganga” becomes well-known enough to replace “Ganges” in such dictionaries we should stick with the better-known and more widely-accepted form in English – that is the “Ganges River”. Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 15:17, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
- I think we're spending way too much time on this. This is a POV push by one editor, and we're apparently not going to convince him with logic. He has submitted a move request, which has obviously failed to achieve consensus. When the request is closed, the point will be moot. — kwami (talk) 20:48, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
- That is not an accurate characterisation of the discussion. The matter has regularly come up on this talk page for years, and even before the submission of the google news and google books evidence above, which slightly favours Ganga per WP:COMMONNAME, the move proposal attracted support from a number of well-known, long-time editors (such as Ucucha, Guy, SlimVirgin) who are entirely unsuspected of harbouring Indian nationalist sentiments. Let's at least acknowledge, as User:Pfly did above, that this is a real quandary. There are also important wider issues at stake here.
- To answer John's points, I do not see that Western users unfamiliar with the term Ganga would be in any way inconvenienced or confused. A redirect would take them here, and the first line of the article will make the matter clear and, in fact, add significantly to their education. Besides, as I have shown, school kids -- in England at least -- today learn about the name Ganga. Mount Everest is not a relevant comparison, as Nepali English-language sources like nepalnews.com presently have a clear preference for Everest, and Tibet is not an English-speaking country. The reason why the Indian English name should be preferred "over, say, the Bengali name" is that the Ganga, for most of its course, flows through India. Pfly gave a similar example above, about the Kootenay River/Kootenai River, where the Canadian version is preferred, as the river only has a small part of its course in the States (where it is spelled with a final "i"). In addition, according to WP:TIES, "An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation uses the English of that nation". There can hardly be an example of an article that has stronger ties to a nation than the Ganga has to India. It is the national river, a Holy River to Hindus, and plays a major and millennia-old role in the country's religious life, besides being of ongoing current-affairs interest in the country. Overall, I believe these latter concerns outweigh considerations based purely on Western sources. JN466 04:24, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
- Here a British GCSE-level geography schoolbook referring to the "River Ganga": [70]. Even British kids are growing up with the term. --JN466 11:37, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
- It's a bit of a leap from finding 3 GCSE textbooks containing the name to "British kids are growing up with the term". (Presumably you noticed that the same search for Ganges gives 191 hits.) Kanguole 12:55, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
- I did, and made that clear above. However, note that there are not 190 GCSE textbooks with Ganges in google books. There are about 20. The last six pages of search hits in the google books listing are all German-language books. You always have to click through the listing to see what is actually there; and the estimate at the top of the first page of search hits is generally not a reliable indicator of how many relevant books there actually are. Cheers, --JN466 13:44, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
- So if I counted correctly what you both wrote above we end up with 20 GCSE textbooks containing 'Ganges' versus 3 GCSE textbooks containing the name 'Ganga'? Flamarande (talk) 21:28, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
- Indeed. It refutes the assertion that no one in the West knows the term "Ganga", and the point that Ganges is more common than Ganga in the West has always been conceded. --JN466 23:58, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
- The problem is that 'Ganges' is not only more known in 'the West'. The overwhelming majority of non-native English speakers (from Europe, Latin America, Africa and probably from the rest of Asia (minus the Indian subcontinent) are learning either British or American but not Indian English. I'm betting that the Chinese are probably learning American English (or British English). Be honest: when did you learn of the name 'Ganga'? Flamarande (talk) 11:08, 26 November 2010 (UTC) PS: These debates are becoming ridiculous. None of us is going to be convince the other side. Let's just wait for the closing of the move-request.
- Indeed. It refutes the assertion that no one in the West knows the term "Ganga", and the point that Ganges is more common than Ganga in the West has always been conceded. --JN466 23:58, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
- So if I counted correctly what you both wrote above we end up with 20 GCSE textbooks containing 'Ganges' versus 3 GCSE textbooks containing the name 'Ganga'? Flamarande (talk) 21:28, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
- Reply to JohnHill and Kwami (A) JohnHill(1)Taken, and agreed. (2)You have to give evidence. I have given evidence that disproves your statement. (3) & (4)Kwami, this is why I have to repeat, repeat and keep repeating, and you accuse of being a ranting crusader, editor John Hill, Ganga is not the Hindi name of the river it is the name used in English by Indians and internationally when writing in English.[71] (5)An article is to be titled by the proper, local English name of the feature, which is why the move is proposed here. (6)Do you suggest that Wikipedia be the eternal follower, do you know that dictionaries are considered tertiary sources and not really first class.[72] B Kwami(1)Kwami what ever your view, you know that Ganga x Ganges is not analogus to the three names for Mt. Everest, Sagarmatha which should be related to sagar = sea / matha = head, Chomolungma whatever it means, and Everest which is to honour a surveyor, whatever a person's bias, edits should be based on the three tenents of Wikipedia wp:OR, wp:V and wp:NPOV, I'm sorry the moot call is a little premature, and remember wp:NOTDEMOCRACY, arguments like JohnHill's (2)(3)(4) have been refuted, please come up with arguments that stick or join in supporting the move.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 15:13, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
- "Refuted" my as*. Nr 2 is a simple fact and you know it. Number 5 and 6 are also interesting points. Flamarande (talk) 21:28, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
- All right (2) is wp:OR, unless proved by wp:V, (3)Ganga is not a Hindi name, it is the English name of the river. (4)Ganga/ Ganges are different Romanisations or forms of the Sanskrit Ganga, Ganga an Indian English Romanisation, whereas Ganges arrived as Kwami says to English after taking other ports of call. it is not like Everest x Cholo... x Sagarmatha.(5) is another bit of speculation (6) is that a policy, follow the leader? Give evidence that it is and that it overrules wp:Engvar, wp:TIES and the rest.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 22:32, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
- Further evidence against editor Kwami's remarks. It is neither POV pushing, nor by one editor.[73].Yogesh Khandke (talk) 17:58, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
- I did, and made that clear above. However, note that there are not 190 GCSE textbooks with Ganges in google books. There are about 20. The last six pages of search hits in the google books listing are all German-language books. You always have to click through the listing to see what is actually there; and the estimate at the top of the first page of search hits is generally not a reliable indicator of how many relevant books there actually are. Cheers, --JN466 13:44, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
- It's a bit of a leap from finding 3 GCSE textbooks containing the name to "British kids are growing up with the term". (Presumably you noticed that the same search for Ganges gives 191 hits.) Kanguole 12:55, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
Let's hope
Let's hope we don't have a movement starting here to revise WP and revert all anglicised palce names names. Let's hope most editors will keep cool, avoid nationalist, ethnic or linguistic bias and retain the usual, standard version of placeneames in English. If not, WP will become a real mess.
Imagine - we will have Wein or Wean for Vienna, España for Spain, Puerto España for Port of Spain; Roma for Rome, Sverige for Sweden; Moskva for Moscow; Magyar Köztársaság for Hungary; Rhein, Rijn, or Rhin for Rhine; Suomi for Finland; Norge or Noreg for Norway; Elláda for Greece; Éire for Ireland; Bundesrepublik Deutschland for Germany . . . . And so on, and on, and on. Who will be authorised to make these changes and what will be the rules they will have to follow to make such decisions?
I think we would find people reverting to old standards such as the Britannica wherever possible. Or maybe we could have a Standard English version of the WP? Let's hope reason will prevail. Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 02:33, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
- Agreed. Thanks for taking the trouble to post that (and your comments above) because it would be easy to allow the vocal enthusiasts here to have their way due to a desire to cooperate, or apathy, or political correctness. As you have carefully explained, the suggestion to rename the Ganges article is without merit. We reached a consensus on that point some time ago, and we will never reach unanimity. Johnuniq (talk) 03:48, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
- Bad examples cannot force a consensus: For the umteenth time, Ganga x Ganges are English usages which is what this discussion about. Ganga is the Indian English usage, and also the international trend, Ganges is the old usage, like Peking, or Dacca. BDR x FRG and the many examples are irrelevent. Germans call their country Federal Republic of Germany in Germany, and Austrians their city Vienna and not Wein. Wrong arguments cannot force consensus. Ganga is a mainstream use, the mulitplicity of evidence is clinching. The United Nations has a decades old guideline, that is for endonyms. Move this article to GangaYogesh Khandke (talk) 05:22, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
- Though John Hill is moving in the right direction from the earlier on of Everest. I request John Hill to base his views on facts supported by evidence. See all the google results, google fights, the google trends, please discuss based on statistic and not on annecdotal evidence which will lead no where.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:27, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
- Please John Hill and Johnuniq discuss based on section (22), (22.1) to (22.5) above, or other relevant examples you prefer, please see reply to Quigley, where he struck his oppose to neutral.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:33, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
- After some point, repetition and strident objections become disruptive. We understand that you will never be convinced, and indeed no one needs to be convinced. All that needs to happen is for a few years to pass when we shall see whether common English usage has trended towards "Ganges" or "Ganga". One trivial sign I have just noticed is that my browser's spell checker thinks "Ganges" is correct, but it does not recognize "Ganga". Johnuniq (talk) 06:06, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
- Agreed, let's just wait for the closing of the move-request. Anyone new is free to vote according to his conscience, of course. Flamarande (talk) 11:10, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
- Good you call the browser spell check program trivial. Google spell check does not recognise exonym. Don't vote according to conscience, base it on verifiable facts. You do not have to wait for years, see Google trends, it weighs in favour of Ganga. The charge of disruptive cuts both ways. Johnuniq look at the google trends link, what do you have to say about that?Yogesh Khandke (talk) 13:31, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
- Link for google trends, which weighs in favour of Ganga, will you support the move now Johnuniq?[74]Yogesh Khandke (talk) 13:36, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
- Good you call the browser spell check program trivial. Google spell check does not recognise exonym. Don't vote according to conscience, base it on verifiable facts. You do not have to wait for years, see Google trends, it weighs in favour of Ganga. The charge of disruptive cuts both ways. Johnuniq look at the google trends link, what do you have to say about that?Yogesh Khandke (talk) 13:31, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
- Agreed, let's just wait for the closing of the move-request. Anyone new is free to vote according to his conscience, of course. Flamarande (talk) 11:10, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
- After some point, repetition and strident objections become disruptive. We understand that you will never be convinced, and indeed no one needs to be convinced. All that needs to happen is for a few years to pass when we shall see whether common English usage has trended towards "Ganges" or "Ganga". One trivial sign I have just noticed is that my browser's spell checker thinks "Ganges" is correct, but it does not recognize "Ganga". Johnuniq (talk) 06:06, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
- Please John Hill and Johnuniq discuss based on section (22), (22.1) to (22.5) above, or other relevant examples you prefer, please see reply to Quigley, where he struck his oppose to neutral.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:33, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
- Though John Hill is moving in the right direction from the earlier on of Everest. I request John Hill to base his views on facts supported by evidence. See all the google results, google fights, the google trends, please discuss based on statistic and not on annecdotal evidence which will lead no where.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:27, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
- Bad examples cannot force a consensus: For the umteenth time, Ganga x Ganges are English usages which is what this discussion about. Ganga is the Indian English usage, and also the international trend, Ganges is the old usage, like Peking, or Dacca. BDR x FRG and the many examples are irrelevent. Germans call their country Federal Republic of Germany in Germany, and Austrians their city Vienna and not Wein. Wrong arguments cannot force consensus. Ganga is a mainstream use, the mulitplicity of evidence is clinching. The United Nations has a decades old guideline, that is for endonyms. Move this article to GangaYogesh Khandke (talk) 05:22, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
This has been a surprisingly interesting page move discussion, but as others have pointed out, it's pretty clear that consensus has not been achieved at this point. Perhaps (probably?) a future proposal will meet with more success.Pfly (talk
- Reply to Tjflo[75] [76][77] (1) International x Local weighs in favour of Ganges, that is without doubt. (2) Link to Indian English dictionary Cosmos Dictionary of Indian English [78] (3)[79] Indian authors are not hanged if they use it, but the overwhelming trend in India is to use Ganga as evidenced even from your links and comments above.
- Reply to Plfy (1)[80], you assumed that all I know about the issue was based on the article you gave internal link to, please read my reply in that context, no my comment that Indian is a most confusing word in the USA is not based on the said article. Wikipedia is not the sole source of information for me. I hope I am clearer now, on second thoughts you write about my self-confessed anecdotal information, which makes what you are saying a little confusing. You are right our discussion was tangential to this move, but not the Indian remark. John Bull wrote about confusion, I reassert the word Indian is much more confusing, very difficult to know what one is talking about, some times even from the context, but people here love exonyms, so that issue all hush hush, I hope Indian goes in the same direction as Negro. (2)Isn't is a little premature to use past tense regarding the move->[81] I just added that we agree that the context is a good guide for the meaning of a particular word, if you disagree I will strike it off.
- Actually I didn't know if you had seen that article and thought you might find it interesting. That was all. Also, I meant my comments were anecdotal, not yours. And, yes, the use of the word Indian for Native Americans is unfortunate, and okay, yes, even confusing. I doubt it will go away though, at least in the US. Finally, I'm sorry I used the past tense. Pfly (talk) 10:48, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- My mistake for not assuming good faith, regarding the article. Glad you agree with the confusion part, perhaps Indians from India could call themselves Bharatiya to avoid confusion, I know it is wishful thinking. Give the move proposal another look, if you can and wish, checking the facts for why and why-not.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 11:39, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- Actually I didn't know if you had seen that article and thought you might find it interesting. That was all. Also, I meant my comments were anecdotal, not yours. And, yes, the use of the word Indian for Native Americans is unfortunate, and okay, yes, even confusing. I doubt it will go away though, at least in the US. Finally, I'm sorry I used the past tense. Pfly (talk) 10:48, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- Reply to Flamarande (1)You consider my views unwise and my argument pitiful[82], you have the right to have an opinion, the points is about facts, which are on the side of the move. (2)The United Nations represents us the citizens of the countries that constitute it, a representative body for all humanity. see the preamble, which begins, "WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS..."[83], it refers to dignity, social progress, in article 1.3 it states the purpose as "To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; ..."[84], United Nations prefers endonyms Wikipedia too does, a UN giudeline is a very pertinent evidence to be quoted in support of the move from Ganges to Ganga.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 10:32, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- Placing foreign names on our cities, towns and continents, is equal to subjecting our identity to the will of our invaders and to that of their heirs." Takir Mamani. That is the point Flamarande. (Thanks for the link to the page, Pfly.)Yogesh Khandke (talk) 12:06, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- So stop speaking English. Problem solved. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 12:09, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- I don't, I speak Marathi.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 12:16, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- Excellent. I meant India in general. Abandon English. Ditch it. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 12:19, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- I don't, I speak Marathi.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 12:16, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- So stop speaking English. Problem solved. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 12:09, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- First, my nick is Flamarande and not Flamerande. Second, when someone replies to a post he should do so below the post in question (so that others can better understand the details). Third, you wrote: "The continuing refusal to [move this article to Ganga] is derogatory, offensive, insensitive and racist" (emphasize mine). That is pitiful argumentation of your part and it may suggest that those who are/voted against the move suffer from such flaws. Fourth, you didn't commit a innocent mistake: You picked the names Eskimo, Lapp, Gypsy, Coolie, Negro, Kaffar on purpose to suggest this association. Fifth AFAIK the name 'Ganges' has no derogatory meaning at all despite of what you wrote. Sixth, if you care to look a bit above you will find that the Times of India, published in India and the most widely read English-language newspaper in the world, uses Ganga and Ganges. Are you seriously going to to argue that newspaper uses the name 'Ganges' because it harbours derogatory, offensive, insensitive and racist feelings against the people of India? Therefore your argumentation that the continued use of the name 'Ganges' is due of such feelings and is simply wrong (and it was proven so already above). Seventh The UNO isn't the world government and it isn't elected by the people, through the people and for the people (I actually like the UN a lot but I don't lower myself in using its guidelines to defend my POV). The UNO is a political organization, being largely a neutral meeting ground, and as such it has to give equal voice to serious democracies and oppressive dictatorships as it is tries to be a neutral bargain ground. You merely trying to misuse the prestige of the UNO to defend and to shield your POV. Flamarande (talk) 13:08, 27 November 2010 (UTC) PS: As far as your foreign name-post is concerned: You do realize that you are using the foreign language of your former colonial power?
The standards of this debate are lowering (with pitiful insinuations of racism and insensitivity) and no one can argue when the other side is merely preaching. I will not continue to participate in it. Let's just wait for the closing of the move-request. Flamarande (talk) 13:12, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
Strawmen
Making out that moving Ganges to Ganga would be the same as moving Vienna to Wien, or Finland to Suomi, is a strawman argument, and I would respectfully request that editors stop making it, because it degrades the quality of the debate. No one is advocating such moves; I certainly am not.
The difference between Ganga and Wien, or Suomi, is that Ganga is an established English usage. As I have shown above, modern English writings about this river are more frequently titled "... Ganga ..." than "... Ganges ...". Could we please discuss that, and how it bears on this discussion. Thanks. --JN466 13:35, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- Reply to Flamarande[85] (Numbers in parenthesis, are points as numbered by Flamarande.)(1) I am sorry for the misspelling, I have corrected it. My point is proved by your reaction. You are so sensitive about proper representation of a username, but you deny the same for a river. I wish you would explain that. (2) I had left a link, to make clear what I was referring to. (3) (4)and (5) My mistake, it looks bad, it reads Flamarande is opposing the move, so he is racist. Which is allusive. it has been struck out, and apologies. How do I present this, when we went to school, and our books had pictures of an igloo, a house of ice, built by Eskimos, we too used the word, we did not mean it to be a slur, today it is considered pejorative in Canada and Greenland. I wish to convey that Ganges carries the same connotations. A few years ago we had a Finnish GSE team, visit our club, all white Europeans, I introduced Finland to our club, and mentioned the Sami people and their language. Later one of them came over and said he was pleased that I did not use the word Lapp. I hope what I mean to say is conveyed, that the usage is painful is an understatement, quite a few editors apart from me who have contributed to this page find it racist, derogatory usw, please check the archives. (6)I pass that, someone should write to the ToI, refer to this discussion, share links of statistics and get them answer the question. (7)Gosh! UN is a very good source, a very reliable source, which is there to be quoted, as evidence, to prove a point. Why do you make it look like I am dragging it into a dung-heap. However the move is not proposed on the basis of the fact that Ganges is derogatory, but on the fact that Wikipedia prefers endonymsYogesh Khandke (talk) 14:51, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- You link to WP:ENGVAR which does not mention endonyms; ENGVAR concerns things like how to handle ize/ise or airplane/aeroplane. The guideline concerning article titles is WP:COMMONNAME which is essentially Articles are normally titled using the name which is most commonly used to refer to the subject of the article in English-language reliable sources. This includes usage in the sources used as references for the article. Scanning the refs/links in Ganges does not support the suggestion to rename as Ganga. It is not the role of Wikipedia to promote a particular name, we simply need to wait until the general English-speaking world adopts a different name. Johnuniq (talk) 00:56, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- Please see the summary of google books and google scholar results above. Ganga occurs more often in titles of English-language sources than Ganges. --JN466 05:06, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- As far as cited sources are concerned (there are only 17), they seem to be pretty evenly split (see analysis below). --JN466 18:06, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- You link to WP:ENGVAR which does not mention endonyms; ENGVAR concerns things like how to handle ize/ise or airplane/aeroplane. The guideline concerning article titles is WP:COMMONNAME which is essentially Articles are normally titled using the name which is most commonly used to refer to the subject of the article in English-language reliable sources. This includes usage in the sources used as references for the article. Scanning the refs/links in Ganges does not support the suggestion to rename as Ganga. It is not the role of Wikipedia to promote a particular name, we simply need to wait until the general English-speaking world adopts a different name. Johnuniq (talk) 00:56, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- This is true. The Wien analogy would only hold if we proposed moving it to गंगा नदी. I don't think that's on the table. This is more like Pune rather than Poona, Beijing rather than Peking or Kolkata rather than Calcutta. The only argument against is "not yet". It is beyond question that current informed and scholarly usage is Ganga, common usage is already catching up. Guy (Help!) 13:44, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
General comment
as a general assessment of talk page, i see the consensus is seems to be towards Ganges. Yogesh is waging a losing fight and losing all his credibility along with. For the record, born and brought up in India, I have never known Ganga to be Ganges until late in life. I see equally valid arguments on both sides of the issue. Like some have suggested, just waiting out for a few years is not going to change anything as Ganges is always known as Ganga in India and my parents wouldnt recognize what Ganges is if you told them. In other words, I just find it interesting that wikipedia has an article on one of the most popular and sacred rivers of India which an overwhelming majority of Indians wouldnt recognize if mentioned to. Wikipedia:Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass. --CarTick (talk) 14:54, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- (1)Numbers do not make the case weak. All the points raised have been countered. (2)I don't know how a person can loose his credibility if a move does not materialise. (3)The debate isn't dead, and the allusion to making a dead horse move, would be insulting to other editors too, esp. those who have spent hours finding evidence and presenting in a proper format. (4)Unless someone can come up with a new reason for not moving, the move should take place, though I don't know the nuts and bolts. (5)Note Flam. before my words fell on the floor, we have an editor who finds Ganges unrecognisable. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 15:12, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- I just find it daft that the Wikimedia Foundation is about to open an office in India and we can't even see our way clear to using Indian English on an article like this. --JN466 16:19, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- “The community in India should lead and Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) will follow them.” Mr. Wales, Ibid. Though that is not evident here. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 16:48, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- I just find it daft that the Wikimedia Foundation is about to open an office in India and we can't even see our way clear to using Indian English on an article like this. --JN466 16:19, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
(od) I think the point is that some of the people making the Ganga article are partly arguing that calling it Ganges is derogatory or insensitive to Indians (that seems to me to be the thrust of the Jayen466 argument anyway [86],[87], [88] - note the 'alien quasi-colonialist comment and the remark about 'Indian wikipedians'). That is patently not correct since Indians use both terms without any negative connotations being attached to Ganges. Hotels in Varanasi have Ganges in their name. Google gets more hits for "Ganges Delta" (1300 or so) when the region is restricted to India than "Ganga Delta" (about 350). Since Ganges is the more recognized term worldwide, and since Ganges is an acceptable term, though not I agree that it is not the primary one, in India, it would seem that Ganges is the better option for an encyclopedia that is not region dependent. --RegentsPark (talk) 17:05, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- Please read above. The arguments is not derogatoryness but Local over global, can we use Negro just because United Negro College Fund exists. IIT Powai calls itself IIT Bombay, should we change Mumbai to Bombay for that. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 17:17, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
From general to specific comments
I agree with CarTick's comments. Here are some specific comments about this debate based on information on this talk page and userboxes:
Position | Location | Number |
---|---|---|
Against Ganga (23) | India | 0 |
West | 13 | |
Unknown | 10 | |
Support Ganga (13) | India | 6 |
West | 2 | |
Unknown | 5 | |
Neutral (1) | Unknown | 1 |
Total votes (36) | 36 |
I've assumed the definition of West as those who live in North America, EU and Australia. Of the two people from the West who voted in favor of Ganga, one is an Indian living in the UK.
This is a clear POV victory (assuming Yogesh will concede) for those from the West. This is nothing new and it is in fact a well known problem not too different from the experience I had at the FAR/C at British Empire. I came to the same conclusion there. As pointed out by CarTick, this debate may have run its course. Once Yogesh accepts that this debate/vote should now be closed, I will go ahead and initiate the next logical steps by taking it to the project setup to counter the bias to seek a solution to the problem. Zuggernaut (talk) 18:25, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- I looked around but was unable to find anything about withdrawing a move-request. Is that even possible (I guess one could ask an administrator)? However the debate lasted for so long and got the votes of so many users that it is probably better to wait for the final decision. The process was started, ran for a long time already, we may as well wait for the final results. Afterwards you can freely appeal to whoever instances you wish to. No comments about your POV-suggestion. Flamarande (talk) 19:45, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- If it is closed with the decision to remain "Ganges", I would recommend to those wishing to propose the move again in the future to write a short summary of the main points raised in this long discussion. Like that comparisons such as Vienna/Wein are not a valid reason to oppose. Pfly (talk) 20:38, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- A summary is a good idea to avoid repetition of the same arguments again but I think it's better to have it in the form of a FAQ template at the top of the talk page. We should say in the FAQ that this issue has been discussed and the name remains Ganges due to a 2:1 vote. Zuggernaut (talk) 07:57, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- Zuggernaut, I do not like the idea of looking at people's background, and assuming bias. If I have done so before, or if it came across that I was insinuating bias, I have retracted my statements. It does not and should not work that way. For example most work here has been done by Jayen, who is not an ethnic Indian. I would like to keep the discussion to the points that have been said, in favour and against the move. And then weigh the issue, to check in whose favour the move proposal goes Ganga or Ganges. On the other-hand we could engage all those who have opposed the move, for them to give the wikireason why the move should not happen, we need somebody uninvolved to do so, Pfly, you have been neutral, right from the beginning, will you arbitrate. This is how I propose. First you have to make a statement (1)If the move prospers can prove this then the move happens if not then it doesn't. (2)Both the parties should agree to the above statement which defines the rules of the game. (3)Then the game can start. (4)Your decision will then be binding, on both the parties. Any takers? I will leave a message on Kwami's page, for him to take a look. As a summary I draw attention of editors here to wp:NOTDEMOCRACY Yogesh Khandke (talk) 04:44, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- I've just provided the numbers in a summary, tabular form. I didn't mean anything personal about anyone. Zuggernaut (talk) 07:57, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- If it is closed with the decision to remain "Ganges", I would recommend to those wishing to propose the move again in the future to write a short summary of the main points raised in this long discussion. Like that comparisons such as Vienna/Wein are not a valid reason to oppose. Pfly (talk) 20:38, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
I find it extremely distasteful to snoop into the national origin of wikipedians and make allegations of bias based on that. --Ragib (talk) 04:50, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- Ragib, please do not call names, looking at infoboxes cannot be construed as snooping. Please participate in the debate on based on wikirules. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:10, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- I'm simply presenting the data in a matter-of-fact manner, there's nothing grave about - it is well documented in the FAQ for the NPOV policy. It's unfortunate that you find it distasteful. Zuggernaut (talk) 07:57, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
Restart?
I am wondering whether we should restart the discussion and poll all those who voted early on to revisit the question. Over the past few days, a number of salient new arguments (like WP:VNE) have been presented in favour of Ganges, and there is evidence from google books, google scholar etc. above favouring Ganga which most of the early voters will not have seen. We could restate the most cogent arguments made, and once we agree that arguments have been presented neutrally, invite everyone to re-vote. Thoughts? --JN466 05:18, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- Agree, one point we need to define the parameters and the boundary conditions, move if this happens, and keep it that. Also we need someone to act as a judge. Pfly comes to my mind, he has been active, and did not vote for or against. And he comes across as slightly pro-keep. So the move proposal does not gain from a sympathetic judge.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:26, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- Disagree I looked around but was unable to find anything about restarting a move-request (at Help:Moving a page). Is that even possible/proper/legal (I guess one could ask an administrator)? Let's not avoid the obvious: some will be free to argue that you simply want to restart everything mainly because "your side" is getting fewer votes (simply stating the obvious). However IMHO the debate lasted for so long and got the votes of so many users that to simply ignore the cast votes and to restart the whole process again is unwise. The process was started, ran for a long time already, we may as well wait for the final results. Afterwards you can freely appeal to whoever instances you wish to (the rules allow you to re-propose a move-request - say perhaps in one year or so). Flamarande (talk) 11:48, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- Almost all editors in this discussion had !voted before anyone had presented any data on how many publications there actually are, in google books, in google scholar, that use either Ganga or Ganges in the title. You felt certain that no Western sources ever had used Ganga; I managed to surprise you by showing you some that did. Again, almost everyone had !voted by that time. Likewise, no one had pointed to WP:VNE. If we reinvite editors, show them the evidence and the contradictory policy considerations we have identified since the time they voted, we can get a more informed decision. --JN466 16:11, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- If the move-request was flawed, lacking data, Wiki policies, and containing flawed arguments and mistaken reasonings it was not my fault. I'm not guilty of canvasing (going to selected users in order to ask for their vote). Again: I looked at Help:Moving a page and was unable to find anything about restarting a move-request. If we bother users which voted already we risk alienating them. Notice that all voters are free to change their vote at any time, until an administrator closes the move-request (just don't ask me how long it will take). Flamarande (talk) 16:27, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- WP:VNE was raised earlier. Kanguole 16:52, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- Almost all editors in this discussion had !voted before anyone had presented any data on how many publications there actually are, in google books, in google scholar, that use either Ganga or Ganges in the title. You felt certain that no Western sources ever had used Ganga; I managed to surprise you by showing you some that did. Again, almost everyone had !voted by that time. Likewise, no one had pointed to WP:VNE. If we reinvite editors, show them the evidence and the contradictory policy considerations we have identified since the time they voted, we can get a more informed decision. --JN466 16:11, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- Disagree I looked around but was unable to find anything about restarting a move-request (at Help:Moving a page). Is that even possible/proper/legal (I guess one could ask an administrator)? Let's not avoid the obvious: some will be free to argue that you simply want to restart everything mainly because "your side" is getting fewer votes (simply stating the obvious). However IMHO the debate lasted for so long and got the votes of so many users that to simply ignore the cast votes and to restart the whole process again is unwise. The process was started, ran for a long time already, we may as well wait for the final results. Afterwards you can freely appeal to whoever instances you wish to (the rules allow you to re-propose a move-request - say perhaps in one year or so). Flamarande (talk) 11:48, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- Though Jayen I don't get it how wp:VNE, weighs in favour of Ganges, from it the title should be Ganga - Ganges, with Ganga only gaining alphabetic precedence.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:30, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- Kwami I was referring to this[89] and subsequent related discussion.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:51, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- Flam.(1)Your refusal to comment on why your misspelled username hurts, but similar emotions about Ganga are pitiful, is unfortunate. (2)Also this place is seeing continued dis-satisfaction about Ganges, which you retort with no-comment. (3)Cognitive perspectives are strongly influenced by belief systems, that works with everybody, for example Zuggernaut was suggesting that a geographical location entitled a particular belief system, my opposition to the suggestion does not mean that it may not be manifest. I opposed because it looked like balkanisation Flam. which I too do not want. (4)My move proposal is not based on a belief system, it is based on my interpretations of Wikipedia guidelines, all I ask is that; is the interpretation right; if it is move Ganges to Ganga. (4) You are using POV, like it is some charm, please see its usage note, I request you to be a little careful. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 06:16, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- Yogesh, VNE tries to minimise the number of readers who will be completely unfamiliar with the term. Most Indian English speakers will have read the name Ganges occasionally; it does after all occur even in present-day Indian-English newspapers. On the other hand, many people in the West will have never consciously registered the name Ganga, because its use in the Western media is so patchy. So if you go by VNE alone, you'd have to use Ganges. On the other hand, if you go by WP:TIES or WP:COMMONNAME, you would have to prefer Ganga. Cynics say this is why it is so good that Wikipedia has so many rules. You can always find one that agree with you. :) Others say that contradictory rules have encroached so much in Wikipedia that to comply with one rule, you often have to break another. --JN466 16:55, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- Kwami I was referring to this[89] and subsequent related discussion.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:51, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
Reply to Johnuniq[90]: wp:Engvar goes like this: (1)The English Wikipedia does not prefer any major national variety of the language. Within the English Wikipedia, no variety is considered more correct than another. (2)Cultural clashes over vocabulary, spelling, and grammar can be avoided by using the following four guidelines. (a)Consistency within articles (b)Strong national ties to a topic (c)Retaining the existing variety - When an article has evolved sufficiently for it to be clear which variety it employs, the whole article should continue to conform to that variety, unless there are reasons for changing it based on strong national ties to the topic. (d)Opportunities for commonality. A clear vote in favour of endonyms, unless you can explain how. (3)On the other hand you have a point though, about the usage in sources, a very valid point. One that clearly works in favour of Ganges, assuming your statistics are correct. But that is one point against others in favour of the move. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 06:34, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- Jayen: Johnuniq refers to sources used in writing the article, assuming he has counted right, he has a valid point.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 07:10, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- Yogesh, this is far from clearcut. If you look at the Notes section, with the cited sources, first of all there are only 17 sources cited. That is a fairly small sample to base a big decision on. Within that,
- 1. The first reference is an Indian gov't source which uses "Ganga (or Ganges)".
- 2. The second reference is a Western media source (60 Minutes), using "Ganges river, or 'Ganga' as they call it".
- 3. The third reference uses Ganga.
- 4. The fourth reference is the Mahabharata, and of course it uses Ganga.
- 5. The fifth source uses Ganges, according to the title given, but if you click on it, it has nothing about it.
- 6. The sixth source is Time Magazine, using Ganges.
- 7. The seventh source uses Ganga.
- The next two sources I can't view, but it is an Indian publisher, the author is Swami Sudarananda, and I would be surprised if he used Ganges rather than Ganga.
- The next four sources use Ganges, the next one (pdf report) uses both Ganga and Ganges, the reamining ones I cannot see.
- It is clear that we have a fairly even mix in the cited sources, rather than a clear preponderance of Ganges. --JN466 16:38, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- The gap was far too wide at 2:1 for this to achieve any success if it's restarted. Unless I'm totally incorrect about the bias, talk pages aren't the right place to take this up or it'll simply be a repeat of the same thing. I've asked for advise at the relevant project. Perhaps new eyes there will provide different ideas/approaches. Zuggernaut (talk) 07:57, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- I am banking on wp:NOTDEMOCRACY, I cannot assume I am right, but the move has been proposed, and there have to be reasons not to affect. It cannot be trampled down by numbers. Plus if we agree to the rules, in that move if this, keep if that, and then get into it, it will be transparent, and I will respect the judgement, any takers?Yogesh Khandke (talk) 08:40, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- I get your point, Zuggernaut. It is documented in Wikipedia, that English Wikipedia suffers an Anglo-American bias. How do you apply it here, apply some handicap, to the result 2:1, and declare that the move proposal has prevailed?Yogesh Khandke (talk) 08:49, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- I am banking on wp:NOTDEMOCRACY, I cannot assume I am right, but the move has been proposed, and there have to be reasons not to affect. It cannot be trampled down by numbers. Plus if we agree to the rules, in that move if this, keep if that, and then get into it, it will be transparent, and I will respect the judgement, any takers?Yogesh Khandke (talk) 08:40, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
I'm flattered by your suggestion, Yogesh Khandke. Unfortunately, I am currently much too busy to take on anything for a while. I've got family visiting, kid's birthday, and several days of vacation to a cabin in the wilds of Mount Rainier this week. I would like to see a summary of the various points brought up, for various reasons and uses (such as a FAQ for this page, as Zuggernaut mentioned above). But I know I won't be able to reread this page and make such a summary, at least not in the next few weeks. It seems to me the best way to proceed is to close this proposal and compile a summary of it, and then..., Zuggernaut's idea of requesting ideas/advice at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias seems worthwhile. Hopefully the project is active enough to get a decent response and new ideas about how to proceed. At some future date, a new move proposal can be started. If the new proposal is well written, with information about the various issues and relevant (and irrelevant!) wikipedia guidelines and how they might apply (or not), and yet succinct enough for people to actually read, then the odds of a more favorable response should be better. I could see this process taking at least several weeks, if not more. There's no great hurry. Better to take the time to do it well, I think. How about aiming for a new proposal sometime in early 2011? Pfly (talk) 09:53, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- Jayen? Keep supporters? Yogesh Khandke (talk) 10:15, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- (1)Kwami? (2)Pfly (a) I don't know what they can do? Can they lean in favour of the move, or the other way? (b)Whoever wishes to contribute in the position I thought for you, should make the rules, "move" if I see this, "keep" if I see that. We can't have advocates on either side to make rules, of-course they need to agree. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 10:32, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
The key here is that there is a conflict between WP:AT (with its clear preference for using the most recognizable WP:COMMONNAME) and WP:MOS (with its preference for using local spellings and names). Before this debate can be settled, that policy conflict needs to be resolved. I would therefor suggest that no decision be made on where this article should go until the underlying policy conflict is resolved. Blueboar (talk) 15:33, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
I think a restart is a reasonable idea. Many new points have been raised (on both sides of the issue) and I think it is worth the effort for all of us to reevaluate our positions based on the discussion. My thoughts are certainly not as fixed as they were at the start of the discussion. I don't agree with the 'handicap' idea (the idea that Ganges is reflective of a systemic bias is itself POV), nor do I think we need an 'judge', but a discussion restart seems to be a constructive idea. --RegentsPark (talk) 04:11, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- Well, if we restart, we need to summarise the evidence collected to date, and get agreement from everyone that the summary is neutral. Would you be up for drafting something, RegentsPark? --JN466 18:27, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
- I'd be happy to, but I don't think YK would approve :) --RegentsPark (talk) 03:31, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Summary
I'll say this one more time, and then will probably leave it:
- Ganga is the more common title in scholarly publications (see #Google scholar above).
- It is the more common title in contemporary books (see #Google books above).
- It is the more commonly used term in recent news coverage, by a factor of 3:2 ([91], [92].
By all means, retain the article name Ganges on the basis of WP:VNE, but let's please note that the WP:COMMONNAME argument, "Articles are normally titled using the name which is most commonly used to refer to the subject of the article in English-language reliable sources", is not the argument to invoke here in favour of Ganges.
WP:COMMONNAME just says, "English-language reliable sources". It does not say, "Western reliable sources". Cheers, --JN466 21:26, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- The first result is dubious (the very first hit is an acronym for something else, formed from the Hindi name of the river); the second is not a majority for JN's prefered name - although a caution that titles may prefer exoticism seems in order. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:12, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- I'm going to analyze your given results very cautiously. I'm unable to do this "here" (I'm at work and this comp is quite limited). Give me more or less a day to check your results. Flamarande (talk) 22:18, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- No problem, thanks; I'd appreciate an extra pair of eyes, just in case I got it wrong. Note though that quite a few of the google scholar matches with "Ganges" in the title are papers about the Ganges river dolphin, rather than papers about the river. "Ganges river dolphin" or "Ganges dolphin" is that animal's common name, and if we do a thorough count, we should discount those papers; no one is arguing that the article on the dolphin should be renamed. --JN466 22:52, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- Ok first of all I went to Google.com (not Google.uk or Google.pt) and changed my settings to 'English' and to 'not filter my search results' (saving my preferences at the end).
- No problem, thanks; I'd appreciate an extra pair of eyes, just in case I got it wrong. Note though that quite a few of the google scholar matches with "Ganges" in the title are papers about the Ganges river dolphin, rather than papers about the river. "Ganges river dolphin" or "Ganges dolphin" is that animal's common name, and if we do a thorough count, we should discount those papers; no one is arguing that the article on the dolphin should be renamed. --JN466 22:52, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
- Then I went to Google Scholar beta and made a couple of searches:
- search with the name: Ganga (only articles, not including patents) received "48,900. (0.07 sec)" [93].
- search with the name: Ganges (only articles, not including patents) received "160,000. (0.17 sec)" [94] note: several results refer to an academic called Ganges.
- search with the names: Ganga river (only articles, not including patents) received "30,900. (0.10 sec)" [95]
- search with the names: Ganges river (only articles, not including patents) received "45,900. (0.12 sec)" [96]
- Went to Google Books and made a couple of searches:
- search with the name: Ganga (return pages written in English, between 1950 and 2011) received 186,000 results (0.24 seconds) [97]
- search with the name: Ganges (return pages written in English, between 1950 and 2011) received 375,000 results (0.33 seconds) [98]
- search with the name: Ganga river (return pages written in English, between 1950 and 2011) received 106,000 results (0.24 seconds) [99]
- search with the name: Ganges river (return pages written in English, between 1950 and 2011) received 214,000 results (0.23 seconds) [100]
- Went to Google News and made a couple of searches (restricting them to 2010 only)
- I may have done a couple of mistakes somewhere (I'm presently very tired) but as far as I can judge this matter: 'Ganges' and/or 'Ganges river' wins over 'Ganga' and/or 'Ganga river' in Scholar and Books while losing in News (but the factor isn't 3:2). I certainly concede that all these results are subjective and that I'm not infallible. I hereby rest my case. Flamarande (talk) 03:16, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks. Well, the thing is that you are going by first-page search estimates ("1 - 10 of about 160,000"), and as you noticed and pointed out over on SpikeToronto's talk page, these are algorithm-based and not count-based, and they can vary by more than a factor of 10 from one search to the next. Google do not search 160,000 publications just in order to show you the first ten, and Google staff quite freely admit that they have never worked hard to make these estimates precise. There is more on this, and why this is so, in the references given at Wikipedia:Google#References (notably here: "The basic problem with the Google hit count reported in search results, particularly for phrases and searches using "AND" or "OR" operators, is that it is an estimate. It's not actually a count of anything, at all. It's the result of a calculation based solely upon the words that the query comprises, as Kevin Marks notes. Google explicitly states that it's an estimate, although it is coy about what that estimate is actually based upon. To quote one un-named Google employee, "these are all estimates, and we just haven't tried that hard to make the estimates precise".".)
- The searches I ran –
- Focused on books and scholarly publications with Ganges or Ganga in the title: because this is the equivalent of what this discussion is about. We are not about to change "Ganges" to "Ganga" in all of the 1500+ articles in which the word Ganges occurs, we are looking at the title of this article.
- Yielded not a phantom algorithm-generated number, but a list and final count (on the last page of search results) of individually verifiable, clickable, viewable lists of actual publications, in google books, google scholar, and google news. By those counts Ganga is slightly ahead of Ganges. --JN466 08:54, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- One problem with Google is that no Google search ever returns more than 1,000 results. So if there are more than 1,000 matches, the search is capped, and the final total is never updated from the estimate to an actual count. But there is another way we can get a Google Scholar list that is small enough to be countable: we can limit ourselves to 2010 publications, rather than limiting the search to publications that have Ganges or Ganga in the title.
- Here is a google scholar search for 2010 publications containing ganga AND river, claiming "about 2,150" results.
- Here is a google scholar search for 2010 publications containing ganges AND river, claiming "about 1,800" results.
- Now, we can't actually check or verify all of these publications in those claimed totals, because any Google search is capped at 1,000 results. So to get smaller totals, with verifiable results lists, we have to be tricky and use search splitting. The way to do this for Ganges AND river is that we search for 2010 publications using several mutually exclusive search options. It's basically a logic tree. We search for publications that contain –
- "ganges" AND "river" and DO NOT contain "Brahmaputra" and DO NOT contain "plain"
- "ganges" AND "river" and DO NOT contain "Brahmaputra" but DO contain "plain": That gives
- "ganges" AND "river" and DO contain "Brahmaputra" but DO NOT contain "plain": That gives
- "ganges" AND "river" and DO contain "Brahmaputra" and DO contain "plain": That gives results.
- The results for "ganges" are:
- These hits are fully verifiable and countable. You can click through the entire listing, page by page, and verify that each publication exists. So the total verifiable number of 2010 publications in Google Scholar that contain "ganges" and "river" is 862 + 684 + 398 + 617 = 2561.
- Now we do the same for 2010 publications that contain "ganga" AND "river".
- The results for "ganga" are:
- As can be seen, every one of these totals is greater than the equivalent total for "ganges". So the total verifiable number of 2010 publications in Google Scholar that contain "ganga" and "river" is 983 + 844 + 476 + 734 = 3037, which is over 400 more than we have for "ganges" and "river". This is for simple occurrences of "ganges" or "ganga" anywhere in the publications, not just the title, and it includes any 2010 papers on the Ganges river dolphin, which is always thus referred to. --JN466 10:12, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- One more comment: Please let's remember that there are innumerable articles where Indian users of Wikipedia find article names that do not correspond to Indian English usage. Indians don't say railroad car, they say bogie [105]. Indians don't say warehouse, they say godown [106]. Please let's give them this article, on their national and holy river, in their own language. Thank you. --JN466 10:24, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- Jayen466, there have been many good reasons stated to move the article to Ganga. But, this last statement of yours is not amongst them. I know you mean well, and I know you've meant well throughout this discussion so I've avoided (directly) mentioning this, but your presuming to speak for all Indians is a bit presumptuous and 'give them' this or that is a tad on the patronizing side. Just saying! (To be honest, I find this whole us and them thread that runs through this discussion rather distasteful. I can see where editors like zuggernaut with his/her divisive tables are coming from, but, for the rest, where did you get this idea that Indians are a monolithic entity simmering with anti-colonial discontent and easily slighted by this term or that? Ganges is aterm freely used in India, even on the names of hotels in the holy city Varanasi, so what's all this about giving 'them' 'their' holy river name?)--RegentsPark (talk) 15:30, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- RegentsPark, hotels are generally reluctant to change their names, because they are known by these names to their customers, and changing them involves the very real risk of losing business. For the same reason, Chinese restaurants still sell Peking Duck, rather than Beijing Duck. I appreciate that you see where I'm coming from, and I understand what you are saying about being patronising. On the other hand, it is easy for a Westerner to make a snap reaction, "That's not what we call it", without going a bit more deeply into the matter, and actually looking at the situation in reliable sources. So I think it is not inappropriate to remind editors to look at the wider picture. Cheers, --JN466 19:49, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- Jayen466, there have been many good reasons stated to move the article to Ganga. But, this last statement of yours is not amongst them. I know you mean well, and I know you've meant well throughout this discussion so I've avoided (directly) mentioning this, but your presuming to speak for all Indians is a bit presumptuous and 'give them' this or that is a tad on the patronizing side. Just saying! (To be honest, I find this whole us and them thread that runs through this discussion rather distasteful. I can see where editors like zuggernaut with his/her divisive tables are coming from, but, for the rest, where did you get this idea that Indians are a monolithic entity simmering with anti-colonial discontent and easily slighted by this term or that? Ganges is aterm freely used in India, even on the names of hotels in the holy city Varanasi, so what's all this about giving 'them' 'their' holy river name?)--RegentsPark (talk) 15:30, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Jayen, a facinating study. One problem I've found (not sure if I'm doing something wrong) on the second list of hits for Ganga many of the article returned seem to use Ganges throughout. Indeed the seach snippet shows many examples of Ganges in bold when the search term is Ganga. Outofsinc (talk) 11:59, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- A fascinating study, but apparently deeply flawed, largely because Google search algorithm is proprietary. For example, on the first page of results for ganga river -brahmaputra -plain [107], one was for this book The Old and Middle English By Thomas Kington Oliphant. Searching within the text of that book reveals hits for "ganges" but nothing for "ganga". This indicates one cannot draw definitive conclusions based on Google results. The exact same happened with this book The Types of Genesis By Andrew Jukes. older ≠ wiser 13:09, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- Basically, on the last page or two you get false positives; you get those for the equivalent ganges searches as well. The last search page for Ganges without Brahmaputra and plain has basically German and Norwegian sources. Note that I linked to the last page of each search because that is where you get the updated, actual count, rather than an estimate. If you want to do it properly, we have to check through the search results manually. I am up for it, but it will take a while. :) If you look at the first pages of the search, things look better. [108] --JN466 19:32, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, the point being is that it is dangerous to draw conclusions from raw Google counts. Just looking a a few on the first page of results for ganga river -brahmaputra -plain (I didn't realize when I posted above that your links were to the last page), there are some where the primary use in the article is Ganges and Ganga is only mentioned as part of work in bibliography. I don't think it is possible to draw any definitive conclusion either way about usage with the current results. older ≠ wiser 21:04, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- I presented a similar analysis above, on the use of Ganga or Ganges in the titles of google scholar publications. Ganga outweighed Ganges there, as well. Please review. These are not raw Google counts, they are verifiable publications. --JN466 21:50, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- Here are the Google Scholar publications from this year:
- These are manageable numbers; it's possible to review them and eliminate false positives. --JN466 21:56, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- In recent news reporting (October to November 2010), Ganga seems to occur more commonly in English-language sources than Ganges. --JN466 12:32, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, the point being is that it is dangerous to draw conclusions from raw Google counts. Just looking a a few on the first page of results for ganga river -brahmaputra -plain (I didn't realize when I posted above that your links were to the last page), there are some where the primary use in the article is Ganges and Ganga is only mentioned as part of work in bibliography. I don't think it is possible to draw any definitive conclusion either way about usage with the current results. older ≠ wiser 21:04, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- Outofsinc, you're right and are not doing anything wrong; and I can't account for it, except that the last pages of these searches generally include some flaky results, and that that is the case here both for Ganges and Ganga. I almost wish I hadn't linked to the last page of each search. :) I don't think it changes the overall picture though, and can only refer you to these results: [109] vs. [110], and [111] vs. [112], which don't suffer from the same amount of noise in the data, but still confirm the result of the searches above. --JN466 12:52, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- Is it possible that Google Scholar is including "Ganges" as a synonym when one searches for "Ganga"? Kanguole 13:17, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- No, I don't think it is anything as clever as that, from checking through the material. But sometimes Google does fudge things. This search listing from above for Ganges for example also shows German words like "gänge", "Gange", and "Gänge" as search hits in bold. That is how some German sources creep in, especially on this, the last page of the listing. This earlier page for Ganges includes a hit for "Yong-gangE-mail address", and another for the word "Gange". But by and large, these false hits are not typical for either of these searches.
- I've checked through every one of these vs. these, and every single one of the 38 recent publications listed for Ganga does have Ganga in the title, and every on of the 27 hits for Ganges has Ganges in the title. --JN466 18:07, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- Indeed it treats "Ganges" as the plural of "Gange", but that doesn't explain Outofsinc's observation. Kanguole 20:17, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- You're right; these look like faulty assumptions of a plural. SpikeToronto mentioned on his user page that placing quotation marks around single words prevents Google from registering (assumed) grammatical inflections. I've had another look at these searches, and placing quotation marks around "Ganges" and "Ganga" does make a difference, reducing the Ganga counts more than it does the Ganges counts: [113] vs. [114], [115] vs. [116], [117] vs. [118], [119] vs. [120]. These revised figures put Ganges ahead of Ganga, by about 2:1, though it should be noted that these are incidental mentions of the river in all manner of publications (plus some noise). Publications about the river do more commonly have Ganga in the title, as described above. But okay, this was well spotted, and it does make a difference. --JN466 20:49, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- I've double-checked; the use of the intitle parameter does not suffer from the same problem -- it does not require quotation marks to give accurate results. So the earlier search for Ganga vs. Ganges in article titles does remain valid; these 900+ publications really do all have Ganga, not Ganges, in the title, compared to the 700+ that have Ganges in the title. --JN466 21:18, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- (you forgot that your searches were made with Ganga or Ganges + river) I checked and it seems that we can narrow it down to 869 [121] for 'Ganga river' and 747 for 'Ganges river' [122].
- I also made searches only with 'Ganga' or 'Ganges'. About 1810 hits for Ganga [123] versus about 1430 hits for Ganges [124]. You have to concede that these margins are quite small. Flamarande (talk) 02:18, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
- I don't always get the same numbers; right now it is 962 for intitle:ganga river and 760 for intitle:ganges river. The margins are indeed quite small. The same applies to recent English-language reports in google news, where Ganga is ahead, but not by much.
- The reason I included river in the searches was to cut down on non-English hits. We have to bear in mind that both Ganges and Ganga exist as words in other languages than English; for example, Ganges is also an inflectional form of Gang = "course" in German; Ganga means "bargain" in Spanish, etc., and there are indeed publications that have those words in the title. In addition, the river is only known as Ganges in a number of other languages, including German and Dutch for example – so a search for Ganges alone will also include all sources on the Ganges written in those languages, which are outside of our scope here. --JN466 10:51, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
- Indeed it treats "Ganges" as the plural of "Gange", but that doesn't explain Outofsinc's observation. Kanguole 20:17, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- Is it possible that Google Scholar is including "Ganges" as a synonym when one searches for "Ganga"? Kanguole 13:17, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- Basically, on the last page or two you get false positives; you get those for the equivalent ganges searches as well. The last search page for Ganges without Brahmaputra and plain has basically German and Norwegian sources. Note that I linked to the last page of each search because that is where you get the updated, actual count, rather than an estimate. If you want to do it properly, we have to check through the search results manually. I am up for it, but it will take a while. :) If you look at the first pages of the search, things look better. [108] --JN466 19:32, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
Indian English name
The templated notice at the top of the page states "This article uses Indian English dialect and spelling. Some terms that are used in it differ from, or are not used in, American English and European English and other dialects of English." and it seems that Ganga is the Indian English name; those arguing for Ganges are using variations on "most common name in English" if I read this page correctly. KillerChihuahua?!?Advice 15:01, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- Note: The template was added by an editor supporting the move after the move request was initiated. (FYI) --RegentsPark (talk) 15:19, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- Let us see. Should this article use Indian English or any other dialect? Yogesh Khandke (talk) 15:38, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
Could someone explain the differences between British English and Indian English?, the article doesn't really cover what makes Indian English unique. Outofsinc (talk) 15:52, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- There is a Cosmo dictionary of Indian English.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 16:07, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- Discussions pertaining to Indian English only should be taken to the talk page of the Indian English article. Zuggernaut (talk) 17:24, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- Generally, I would say that 'Indian English' is better defined by usage by English language publications in India (newsmedia, academic papers, etc.) than by a dictionary. If using Indian English is the primary reason for choosing a name for this article, then Ganga would be the correct title because it is more commonly used than Ganges in India. However, it should be noted that local language is a stylistic preference, it is not the sole stylistic preference, and there are other policies that have been stated above (for either title). --RegentsPark (talk) 17:01, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- Jayen That is why I used the rider, assuming Johnuniq is counting right, if he isn't, then the predominance in sources quoted would weigh in favour of Ganga.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 16:07, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- The present revision regarding the use of National varieties of English reads: An article title on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the variety of English appropriate for that nation. It is now aligned with wp:Engvar, we are not sure how long it is going to stay that way there. But if a rule is created just to keep Ganga out, I don't think that would make Wikipedia look nice. It would make it look decidedly stupid. These rules are for hundered of thousands of English articles, they should not be tinkered for one article title, that some are not comfortable with. Please see the discussion at the Wikipedia talk:Article titles Yogesh Khandke (talk) 16:07, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- I repeat from the last time this template was abused: it does not deal with vocabulary, which merely shows that this is an article on India; it deals with spelling and syntax (such matters as have/have done, got/gotten and honor/honour). Whether there is any distinction in these between Indian and British English remains to be shown.
- Jayen That is why I used the rider, assuming Johnuniq is counting right, if he isn't, then the predominance in sources quoted would weigh in favour of Ganga.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 16:07, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- The claim that only Yogesh's favorite form complies with ENGVAR remains a falsehood. WP:COMMONALITY is part of Engvar and has been for years; precisely to deal with situations when the blind following of national ties would interfere with communication. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:21, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- Hey! There is no need to make personal attacks. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 16:36, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- I got your point Jayen about wp:VNE. but I cannot see myself agreeing. The example given is aeroplane, airplane and the one that nobody uses Fixed wing aircraft, like a no man's land. We would have needed a third name, by that logic the river should be called Padma, because one wikipedia rule suggests that the name of the river should be one by which it is called near its mouth, so the award goes to not Bhagirathi, not Ganga but Padma.I cannot find the wikirule right now Yogesh Khandke (talk) 16:36, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- Noted. (That's a response to a comment I made further up this page. Yogesh, please have a look at Wikipedia:THREAD#Indentation. I know it's a pain sometimes finding where someone has said something, but overall it will help readability if you add responses to particular statements you remember directly below the statement in question, so that statements and responses to them are kept together. Most people check for new contributions in the talk page history, so they won't miss a new comment even if it is made further up the page.) Best, --JN466 09:40, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- I guess it means, disagree. The advise about replies in-situ, is a thing I am not comfortable with, but if history is how a discussion on a talkpage is followed, then it works fine. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:29, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- No, actually I don't disagree with you there; like you say, fixed-wing aircraft/aeroplane/airplane is not analogous to our situation here, where we only have two terms. The logically plausible argument that I accept can be made for Ganges on the basis of VNE is that Ganges has been common to all varieties of English, including Indian English. To me, however, this argument doesn't outweigh the other considerations that are in favour of Ganga, like WP:TIES, and the preponderance of Ganga in recent English-language sources – and that is why Ganga is still my preference. --JN466 17:31, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- I guess it means, disagree. The advise about replies in-situ, is a thing I am not comfortable with, but if history is how a discussion on a talkpage is followed, then it works fine. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:29, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- Noted. (That's a response to a comment I made further up this page. Yogesh, please have a look at Wikipedia:THREAD#Indentation. I know it's a pain sometimes finding where someone has said something, but overall it will help readability if you add responses to particular statements you remember directly below the statement in question, so that statements and responses to them are kept together. Most people check for new contributions in the talk page history, so they won't miss a new comment even if it is made further up the page.) Best, --JN466 09:40, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- I got your point Jayen about wp:VNE. but I cannot see myself agreeing. The example given is aeroplane, airplane and the one that nobody uses Fixed wing aircraft, like a no man's land. We would have needed a third name, by that logic the river should be called Padma, because one wikipedia rule suggests that the name of the river should be one by which it is called near its mouth, so the award goes to not Bhagirathi, not Ganga but Padma.I cannot find the wikirule right now Yogesh Khandke (talk) 16:36, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- Hey! There is no need to make personal attacks. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 16:36, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- The claim that only Yogesh's favorite form complies with ENGVAR remains a falsehood. WP:COMMONALITY is part of Engvar and has been for years; precisely to deal with situations when the blind following of national ties would interfere with communication. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:21, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- (left) Thank you. False claims of personal attack are one of the signs that a discussion has reached a dead end. I discussed a claim, not a person. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:47, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
Nobody uses "fixed wing aicraft"? [125] I thought it was a more accurate technical term, besides side-stepping the EngVar issue. Tijfo098 (talk) 13:20, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
- How many instances of use can one find, statements like "Fixed wing aircraft" crashes killing all on board, or "Fixed wing aircraft" hijacked?Yogesh Khandke (talk) 19:33, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
Closure
Is there any claim that this discussion has reached, or is likely to reach, consensus to move? If not, no admin intervention is required and this can be closed by anybody. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:47, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- Do not remove templates without discussion. If move is allowed the closure materialises. Also do not forget wp:NOTDEMOCRACY. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 17:25, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- Do not insert templates without discussion; especially when they are plainly controversial. Is the rest of this saying that Yogesh Khandke will only agree to close this discussion if he gets his way? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:54, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- It doesn't say that, but that's apparently Yogesh' position here — my way or the highway. Wanna bet he posts another long reply into this thread? What exactly else would If move is allowed the closure materialises mean... in plain English it reads "until this thing is moved, I will keep posting and arguing into eternity". Or how would anyone else read this? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 20:00, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- Unfair allegations friends All I meant is that, unless, it is admitted by members of both parties to the dispute, that it has been settled to their mutual satisfaction about the correctness of their position or otherwise, how can the dispute be considered to be resolved. The manifestation of the dispute is the move proposal. Unilateral declarations to the effect are without value. Keeping it short Choyoo. Thanks.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:25, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- The template was not manufactured by me. It was there. Where is its intended use but at an article about an Indian subject. Ganga(es). Anderson? Could you please explain its intended use, and how it is not appropriate here.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:25, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- I am still waiting to hear from Flam. why a person has the right to be sensitive about a username, and be careful about its correct use, but the same emotion is considered savage, when it comes to the correct appellation of a national icon, Jayen I hope you would be listening to the answer too.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:25, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- You don't get it, do you? I'm not and never was sensitive about my username/nick. What bothers/ed me of were your suggestions that "our side" is motivated by derogatoriness, offensivity, insensitivity and racism (and you wrote this more than once). Oh, yes you struck the remark after I pointed it out and stopped using these adjectives. But let there be no doubt: you haven't changed your ways: now you suggest that I consider your emotions as savage. I mean, come on, give me a break. Could you us show exactly where I wrote that? You're just using the Race card in order to gain some advantage. I don't deny that I wrote that you harbour jingoistic feelings. But if you're not jingoist then I'm the emperor of China. Flamarande (talk) 19:53, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- (1)Does the sharp remark for correction suggest otherwise regarding username. (2)Jingoism reads "Jingoism is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as "extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy". In practice, it refers to the advocation of the use of threats or actual force against other countries in order to safeguard what they perceive as their country's national interests, and colloquially to excessive bias in judging one's own country as superior to others – an extreme type of nationalism." Can you provide a diff that would substantiate the above, even if one assumes that you have used the term colloquially, for my side, jingoist = less cultured = savage, which is why I have used the word above, do not forget that this is not a forum for debate and name calling, I have merely used the example of an attachment with username, the erroneous use of which prompts a correction, and the same desire for correction is derided as jingoism. It is not personal Jayen I am merely making a point that the sensitiveness regarding a username should be extrapolated to that of the desire of the correct usage of the name of a national icon. I have stated above, when I admitted discomfort about tables and lables, one should not put people in compartments. The allegation of race card is simply baseless. How do I know what the ethnicity or the nationality of the editors here are? Flam. please give us specifec reasons for your opposition to the move proposal based on wp:V and other relavent wikipedia policy, please no wp:OR. If the move proposal is demonstrated as against Wikipedia policy and practice it would be withdrawn.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 00:38, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
- Let's please not have goes at each other; I'm sure we can end this discussion peacefully. --JN466 20:18, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- You don't get it, do you? I'm not and never was sensitive about my username/nick. What bothers/ed me of were your suggestions that "our side" is motivated by derogatoriness, offensivity, insensitivity and racism (and you wrote this more than once). Oh, yes you struck the remark after I pointed it out and stopped using these adjectives. But let there be no doubt: you haven't changed your ways: now you suggest that I consider your emotions as savage. I mean, come on, give me a break. Could you us show exactly where I wrote that? You're just using the Race card in order to gain some advantage. I don't deny that I wrote that you harbour jingoistic feelings. But if you're not jingoist then I'm the emperor of China. Flamarande (talk) 19:53, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- Of course this article should use Indian English, just like Mississippi uses US English, or Murray River uses Australian English, so the Indian English template is justified. Let's not quibble over that. --JN466 17:43, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- It's a no-brainier that this article use Indian English. I was perplexed by the unexplained removal of the template. It's important to initiate a discussion on the talk page when such non-intuitive removals are made. Zuggernaut (talk) 17:55, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- I removed the template because I considered it an act of WP:POINT given the timing of its placement.--RegentsPark (talk) 23:36, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- Both of us had an identical number of edits to this page at the time of the removal of the template. Given that the timing of the addition/removal of the template was also more or less identical, WP:POINT could apply to you just as much as it applies to me, if the essay is applicable here at all. Zuggernaut (talk) 02:43, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
- Unfortunately there isn't much of a consensus what Indian English is, or (more relevant here) what its salient features are; there's not much in the way of an accepted authoritative source for it; see this discussion. Tijfo098 (talk) 13:25, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
- Tijfo you asked a question, is there a dictionary, it was pointed above that there is one the Cosmo Dictionary of Indian English, then there is the High School English Grammar and Composition, by Wren and Martin - As revised by N. D. V. Prasada RaoYogesh Khandke (talk) 00:38, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
- Unfortunately there isn't much of a consensus what Indian English is, or (more relevant here) what its salient features are; there's not much in the way of an accepted authoritative source for it; see this discussion. Tijfo098 (talk) 13:25, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
- Both of us had an identical number of edits to this page at the time of the removal of the template. Given that the timing of the addition/removal of the template was also more or less identical, WP:POINT could apply to you just as much as it applies to me, if the essay is applicable here at all. Zuggernaut (talk) 02:43, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
- I removed the template because I considered it an act of WP:POINT given the timing of its placement.--RegentsPark (talk) 23:36, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- It's a no-brainier that this article use Indian English. I was perplexed by the unexplained removal of the template. It's important to initiate a discussion on the talk page when such non-intuitive removals are made. Zuggernaut (talk) 17:55, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- I am still waiting to hear from Flam. why a person has the right to be sensitive about a username, and be careful about its correct use, but the same emotion is considered savage, when it comes to the correct appellation of a national icon, Jayen I hope you would be listening to the answer too.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:25, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- The template was not manufactured by me. It was there. Where is its intended use but at an article about an Indian subject. Ganga(es). Anderson? Could you please explain its intended use, and how it is not appropriate here.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:25, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- Unfair allegations friends All I meant is that, unless, it is admitted by members of both parties to the dispute, that it has been settled to their mutual satisfaction about the correctness of their position or otherwise, how can the dispute be considered to be resolved. The manifestation of the dispute is the move proposal. Unilateral declarations to the effect are without value. Keeping it short Choyoo. Thanks.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:25, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- It doesn't say that, but that's apparently Yogesh' position here — my way or the highway. Wanna bet he posts another long reply into this thread? What exactly else would If move is allowed the closure materialises mean... in plain English it reads "until this thing is moved, I will keep posting and arguing into eternity". Or how would anyone else read this? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 20:00, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
- Do not insert templates without discussion; especially when they are plainly controversial. Is the rest of this saying that Yogesh Khandke will only agree to close this discussion if he gets his way? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:54, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
FAQ template
I've added a FAQ template at the top of the page and populated it with two items. Please continue adding the summary of the move discussion to that template in a FAQ format. Having as many direct links to the discussion we just had will help avoiding getting in to the same arguments over and over again in the near or medium-term future. Zuggernaut (talk) 17:33, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
Indian government usage
- An Indian government source stating that the Ganges is officially known as the Ganga: [126].
- The Ganga Action Plan is known as such on the appropriate Indian government website: [127].
- Likewise the National Ganga River Basin Authority: [128].
- A joint statement by the World Bank and the Indian government reported in the UK Independent refers to "the Ganga (Ganges)": [129]. --JN466 19:21, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- Ironically, the first source uses 'Ganga' 12 times and 'Ganges' 25 times. No easy answer here (except, perhaps, the obvious one that that government site is comfortable with either term!) --RegentsPark (talk) 19:36, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- And the obvious observation that they culled texts from various disparate sources to put the page together ... --JN466 20:01, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- Presumably all Indian sources. Though, I hope you're not suggesting that the Indian government is incapable of reading what it puts together. :) --RegentsPark (talk) 20:19, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- Hrmph. --JN466 21:24, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- There is no doubt that both forms are used, the point is contemporary use is predominantly Ganga in India, Ganges is not taboo. I do not consider this anachronistic. There is google search result for the site gov.nic.in that gives a result of 110 to 2 in favour of Ganga. (It is given above.)Yogesh Khandke (talk) 00:45, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
- Hrmph. --JN466 21:24, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- Presumably all Indian sources. Though, I hope you're not suggesting that the Indian government is incapable of reading what it puts together. :) --RegentsPark (talk) 20:19, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- And the obvious observation that they culled texts from various disparate sources to put the page together ... --JN466 20:01, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- Ironically, the first source uses 'Ganga' 12 times and 'Ganges' 25 times. No easy answer here (except, perhaps, the obvious one that that government site is comfortable with either term!) --RegentsPark (talk) 19:36, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
Summary is here please be free to edit.
Disclaimer: The epithet Hindu is used in its cultural context.
Sr. No | argument for Ganges | argument for Ganga | |
---|---|---|---|
1 | The Indian govt uses both "Ganga" and "Ganges" in its English-language publications, often in the same paragraph. | Ganga is used more often on English-language india.gov.in webpages than Ganges. To quote from the official site of the District Haridwar: "The river known as the Ganges is officially and popularly known by its Hindu name, Ganga" [130]. India's official cartographer The survey of India uses the name Ganga on its map. | |
2 | The term "Ganga" is local, being virtually unknown outside south Asia and countries culturally influenced by India. It is not listed in US or UK geographic dictionaries whereas "Ganges" is. Encyclopedia Britannica online states that Ganga is the Hindi name for the Ganges River supporting the statement that Ganges is the English language word for Ganga.[131] | Ganga is used in India, Asia, and Africa; it is not a fringe use. Encyclopaedia Britannica uses both Ganges and Ganga, so do various US departments. Examples of use in Western media: US National Science Foundation: [132] CNN: [133][134][135]. BBC: [136][137][138][139][140]. UK Independent: [141][142][143][144][145]. UK Telegraph: [146]. UK Guardian: [147][148], Asian Development Bank site uses Ganga 450 times. The languages of countries like Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and others in Indo-China have been influenced by Sanskrit, there are instances Ganga's use as a generic term for river, Ganga would be easily understood.[149] | |
3 | 24 Google scholar publications with Ganges in the title, and river in the text, published in 2010, that actually call the river by that name. According to these results, Ganga predominates in international scholarship on this river. | 25 Google scholar publications with Ganga in the title, and river in the text, published in 2010, that actually call the river by that name. According to these results, Ganges predominates in national scholarship on this river. | |
4 | Recent mentions of Ganges + river in Google News. | Recent mentions of Ganga + river in Google News. According to these results, Ganga is more common in current English news reporting within India. | |
5 | wp:Commonname: when this question was brought up several months ago, it was considered obvious[by whom?] that it should be Ganges, and that was even added as an example to the MOS. | The said revision was introduced on 2010-09-01, which read Ganges not Ganga, divided local use by an editor on who is also active pro-Ganges in this discussion, it was brought to notice that divded local use was false, and as there are over 3 million articles in English, it was agreed on wp:COMMONNAME that a specific policy for a specific article should not be created. At the present the pertinent guide line is "local and generally intelligible" | |
6 | TIES (right) concerns minor grammatical and orthographic differences that do not cause problems with comprehension. "Ganga" is unintelligible to most non-Indians. India is a secular country with over 300 million non-Hindus and large swathes of the country where Hindi is neither spoken nor understood. Generally, wikipedia should avoid using religion based arguments (and please note the WP:OWN caveat to WP:TIES). For example, in this Times of India news report, the hindi usage of Ganga by the politician Sharad Yadav is translated into English as the Ganges River by the (Indian) reporter. Suggesting that, at least when translating from Hindi to English, Ganga becomes Ganges in Indian English. | WP:TIES. Ganga is the normal name of the river in Indian English today though Ganges is also used in Indian English. The argument on the left refers to the title of a video clip, where as the text-news story from same source uses Ganga Dunk Rahul in the Ganga[150], they did The Ganga is India's national river, and a Holy River to hundreds of millions of Hindus. It is an Indian icon, and one of the articles of most interest to our Indian readership. | |
7 | wp:COMMONALITY: "Universally used terms are often preferable to less widely distributed terms, especially in article titles." | There is evidence that the present trend suggests that Ganga trumps Ganges, see links shared by editor Jayen. | |
8 | Paree is Paris, Torino is Turin, Sindhu is Indus, Roma is Rome, so Ganga should be Ganges | Paree is French, Torino/Roma is Italian, Italian and French both use the Roman script Sindhu is Sanskrit, Ganga is used in English, Sanskrit does not use the Roman script, Ganga is not a Sanskrit name it is the English form of the Sanskrit name Ganga which is written in Devanagari. | |
9 | Ganga would be confusing, as it's most common use outside India is as a synonym for ganja (marijuana) | Ganga for marijuana is slang/fringe usage, there is context, Indian is a more confusing word, which is found derogatory by many in the continents now called America, but that does not stop Wikipedia from using it, for that we have disambiguation pages and internal links; despite the said Rastafarian origin of the slang ganga, the Wikipedia article on Rasatfarian religion spells ganja as ganja and not as Ganga, which proves that ganga is wp:fringe even in the context of ganja let alone Ganga. | |
11 | Many hotels in Varanasi (the holy city on the Ganges/Ganga) use 'Ganges' in their names. Cantonese is not used to identify the cuisine within China, and there are almost no restaurants named Peking Duck in Beijing (apparently only one uses the term and does so in parentheses). | Restaurants call themselves Peking Duck, or the cuisine is referred to as Cantonese, that does not stop the titles from being Beijing and Guangzhou | |
12 | Ganga is an international river with different names and should be called by its traditional English name Ganges | Ganga flows through two countries India and Bangladesh, in India it is called Ganga, in Bangladesh Padma, leaves no room for Ganges. | |
13 | Mount Everest has three names, Everest, Sagarmatha, and Chosomething, it is still called Everest, and not by the other two local names, ergo the river should be called Ganges | These are three diffrent names Everest - name of surveyor, Sagarmatha - a Sanskrit name (ocean - head?), Cho... Tibetan), Ganga/Ganges are two ways the original Sanskrit name Ganga is written Ganges is derived from Greek which is derived from Sanskrit, Ganga is derived from Sanskrit | |
14 | Because Indians are comfortable with the English language, they should either acept an exonym or quit using English. | Scurrilous argument: many countries use English as they see fit, and India is no exception. | |
15 | An editor was looking for fish, he came across a book titled The Ganga, even though he is well read, he was foxed by the name, so the page should not move to Ganga. | Please write counter-argument here. | |
16 | Ganga is a Hindi word. Gangai is a Tamil word. Ganges is an English word. If anything is going to be moved anywhere, let the destination be Tamil. But this is an English wiki. | Hindi is more widespread in India than Tamil is, and the Ganges does not flow through Tamil-speaking regions. <---(?)Is this a pro-Ganga argument? Please take it off. Ganga is how it is spelt in English, Ganga is English use and not Sanskrit or Tamil use, | |
17 | Ganges is the English name of the river, eg. Ganges Dolphin, Ganges Delta | Peking Duck, Bombay Duck, Bombay High, do not stop titles being named Beijing, Mumbai. | |
18 | More ghits, wins google fight | More ghits, wins google fight too, seems these results have to be intrepreted carefully | |
19 | (to argument at right): True, which is why we use "Ganga" when referring to those entities. This is just the flip side of the "Hotel Ganges" argument. | All government projects and institutions related to the river have "Ganga" in their names: the National Ganga River Basin Authority, the Ganga River Pollution Control Project, the Ganga Expressway Project, etc. | |
20 | Chinese learn American/English English, so Ganges should stay. | Perhaps Chinese learn English from foreigners, but they learn Chinese English, they have their own system of Romanisation, pinyin which they have taught it to the world, ISO/ Wikipedia too follow it, evidence that English Wikipedia is international and not English English/American. So don't force an English English dialect on the Ganga article. | |
22 | (to argument at right): Endonyms are only used on WP in as far as they are used in RS's. It's not up to us to establish them. | UN Guideline: Giving priority to domestic name forms, endonyms, means that both the need for unambiguity and respect for the cultural-historical values embodied in names are respected. | |
23 | Nehru uses Ganges, no Indian is more Indian than Nehru | Nehru wrote in 1946 CE, the present year is 2010 CE, this article should reflect present usage. |
Thanks. I may do some work on this over the next few days. First thoughts: as it stands it's a bit too long. We also need to link to some of the google research. --JN466 13:02, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Added link from govt. website about the name. --SpArC (talk) 14:24, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
- I'm afraid I had to remove the links to Goggle as they are misleading - I suspect Ganga is used more often on Indian government sites, but Ganga is also used to refer to a lot of things that aren't the river, so, as mentioned previously in relation to this, we can't trust a raw Google search. - Bilby (talk) 14:37, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
- I'm actually neutral as to what the article should be called, as it seems there are good arguments either way, but it seems to me this approach may not be the best one to head down. The more I read the points above - especially as they are developed - the more it seems that the problems from the earlier discussion are being repeated, rather than summarised. For example, the way the argument for Ganga in point two is presented suffers from selectively choosing links - dropping in a series of cases where Ganga is used in Western media is problematic, because it makes no statement as to extent. Similarly, the use of Ganges/Ganga + river reduces the number of false positives, but doesn't completely remove them from the search, and leaves open the question as to whether or not it is generally referred to as "the river Ganges" or just "Ganges", or "Ganga" vs "Ganga river" - just as an example. Perhaps "Ganges" is sufficiently recognisable that it doesn't need the "river" qualifier, while "Ganga" is not (and no, I'm not sure that this is the case, but it is the sort of problem you face when collecting stats this way).
- Anyway, I'm concerned that this approach is flawed, as the points seem to have inherent POVs which make it difficult to evaluate the case from that list. - Bilby (talk) 20:48, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
- Jayen the links are there in the discussion above, all we need to do is copy them here. Bilby as with everything you are free to edit, RegentsPark suggested a summary, a summary has to repeat what has been discussed, it cannot have anything new in it, Ganges too would need a qualifier, it could be dolphin, hotel, delta, plain etc., that is what the context is for. Please do not use POV as a charm, the summary was suggested and it has been provided, it does not carry anybody's name under it, so how can it be a POV? Yogesh Khandke (talk) 03:00, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
- I guess my point is that none of these statistics can be said to be reliable. It is possible to get a good idea of the usage of the two terms, but Google searches - even with "river" added (which was a good idea) - aren't going to be the way of doing it.
- If I can suggest three things:
- a) the list above isn't going to help;
- b) the core issue is much simpler: if we agree that Ganga is the preferred term in India, and we agree that Ganges is the most common term outside of India (I don't see any reason to dispute this), then the question is not all of the stuff above, but whether or not we go with the currently preferred term in India or the most common term outside - anything else, like Google news searches - just needlessly complicate the issue; and
- c) the current debate was so polarising, with tendentious editing on both sides, accusations of racism, and a lot of ill will, that it would be difficult get a true consensus right now. If this was left for a few months, so there was a bit of distance, you would be in a better place to conduct this on happier terms.
- I'm not, and don't want to become, involved with the question of what term should be used, as I honestly think it is too complex and too borderline both ways for an easy solution. But I do think that if you want to find a consensus decision, you may need to let things cool down a bit before looking into it again. With borderline cases it is often good will that gets one side over the line. - Bilby (talk) 03:53, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
- I think this has always been the case. The MOS example was on this very point: local vs. international usage. All the rest seems like a distraction. Question: when locals prefer one term when using English, but elsewhere people prefer another, which should we go for? (Generally in such cases I would expect that, like here, locals will understand both, but outsiders will not.) Secondly, a point which has been alluded to but largely sidestepped: does it make any difference whether locals are native English speakers? If the official language is English? If English is not official but used in education? etc. — kwami (talk) 06:12, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
- Reply to Bilby, (a) if the list is bad, trash it and come up with a better one, an editor wanted a summary, and I came up with as good a one as I could. (b) to be precise English American-Anglophone usage is predominantly Ganges, Ganga is prefered in India, elsewhere it goes depending on the user. (Please see point 2 in the summary) The trend for increasing use of Ganga, as demonstrated by Jayen, could point to the fact that, use of dialects and people using Ganga is increasing. (c)I have no issue with keeping the proposal on the back burner for the moment. Reply to Kwami(a) Wikipedia prefers endonyms. (b)The term local vs international is a very mis-leading term in the context of India/Ganga, because local is so numerous, local is more than international, numerically, in terms of instances of use of the term, as demonstrated by ghits, (although it has been pointed out that ghits are not accurate measures of incidence). Kwami, the purpose of encyclopaedias is not to perpetuate ignorance or indifference, that is why I have argued for Guangzhou at wp:AT, Wikipedia should not be at the mercy of kupamandukas. (c)I did not understand the statements regarding official/popular use of English.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 07:20, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
- Kwami, (1)you have removed text regarding the demonstrations of use of Sanskrit based names, the Hindu deites in Japan, Garuda as an international icon, the names of head of states, Bhumibol Atulyadej and Megawati Sukarnoputri, which carried links, calling them nonsense and then put a citation wanted tag, (2)you have removed the argument that Chinese study American/English English, but have devised a system for Romanisation, pinyin, which ISO and Wikipedia follow, and do not follow the English/American method in spelling for Chinese proper names. Erasing text, won't make the argument go away.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 07:34, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
- If a point is consider mis-leading, another can be added, removing the point, is not constructive. Before 2010-09-01 wp:COMMONNAME was for preference to endonyms, then suddenly the Ganges not Ganga argument sprung up, without rhyme or reason or discussion. There have to be sound reasons for any clause, it was withdrawn as one was not found, there are over 3 million articles, a rule cannot be devised just to keep Ganges in or out. The moral of the story in Endonyms are in, Exonyms are out, that is Wikipedia policy as I understand it.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 07:48, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, it is constructive to weed out the nonsense. We should be presenting legitimate arguments pro and con, not falsehoods. We're trying to convince each other, not hoodwink each other. If I said it should be called Ganges because it's in England, that argument should simply be deleted, not debated for as long as I feel like making it. And what do Japanese deities have to do with anything? (In Japanese, BTW, the river is known as Ganges (Ganjisu).) What does Garuda have to do with it? Even if foreign names were reason to support an argument, and they're not, this has nothing to do with the river. — kwami (talk) 08:27, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
- (1) I did not state that Japanese call the river Ganga, the reason for the inclusion of the influence of Sanskrit is that it makes Ganga closer than Ganges, are you sure that Ganjisu is derived from Ganges and not from Ganga? If the Thai king has a Sanskrit name, and the Indonesians call their language Bhasha and the Malaysians call locals Bhumiputra, they would not be uncomfortable with Ganga, a palace is called Tirthaganga, "the holy water of the Ganga in Bali. Mongolia caries Garuda on its flag, which is a demonstration of the influence of Hindu" culture, of which Sanskrit is an unseparable part, which would make Ganga perfectly easy to understand and as a corollary Ganges alien, notwithstanding what it is called in English/American English. (2)What was the reason to delete the argument that Chinese learn foreign English, but have their own system of English as far as proper names go, which Wikipedia accepts, pinyin, but we see these arguments against Ganga. (3)Calling arguments nonsense is easy, but an inadequate counter-argument. (4)Having a Kupamanduka view does not mean that a wider perspecitve isn't there.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 02:21, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, it is constructive to weed out the nonsense. We should be presenting legitimate arguments pro and con, not falsehoods. We're trying to convince each other, not hoodwink each other. If I said it should be called Ganges because it's in England, that argument should simply be deleted, not debated for as long as I feel like making it. And what do Japanese deities have to do with anything? (In Japanese, BTW, the river is known as Ganges (Ganjisu).) What does Garuda have to do with it? Even if foreign names were reason to support an argument, and they're not, this has nothing to do with the river. — kwami (talk) 08:27, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
- Just in regard to the comment above, no, I don't think the list is bad as such. The problem is that I don't think the list helps. If you want to work through a complex problem like this, you need to either summarise the arguments succinctly or bring the attention of those involved to the core issues, removing from the discussion the points which detract from the those issues. This list method, creating a complex summary of a complex discussion, does neither. I can't get a quick summary of all the issues, nor can I quickly see what issues I need to focus on. When faced with this problem, I would suspect that most editors will choose just to go with the status quo - there is no clearly compelling reason to change, and if there is a compelling reason it is hidden in the distracting and non-core issues being listed. If this is to be pursued now, I'd suggest trying to get an agreed short summary from each side (perhaps with a fixed word limit), or some other approach that brings the focus back to the material that matters.
- That said, I still think this is being pushed at the wrong time. I don't see the urgency for change - the RFC seems to have come to a consensus for Ganges, so I'd normally recommend stepping back for a bit, letting the emotions recede a tad, then returning to it when everyone is fresh and willing to reevaluate the arguments. You're welcome to disagree, and this is fine, but it seems to me that the best bet after a heated discussion is to let things cool off before reengaging. Anyway, that's just one person's opinion, for what it's worth. - Bilby (talk) 06:55, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
- Kwami, (1)you have removed text regarding the demonstrations of use of Sanskrit based names, the Hindu deites in Japan, Garuda as an international icon, the names of head of states, Bhumibol Atulyadej and Megawati Sukarnoputri, which carried links, calling them nonsense and then put a citation wanted tag, (2)you have removed the argument that Chinese study American/English English, but have devised a system for Romanisation, pinyin, which ISO and Wikipedia follow, and do not follow the English/American method in spelling for Chinese proper names. Erasing text, won't make the argument go away.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 07:34, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
- Reply to Bilby, (a) if the list is bad, trash it and come up with a better one, an editor wanted a summary, and I came up with as good a one as I could. (b) to be precise English American-Anglophone usage is predominantly Ganges, Ganga is prefered in India, elsewhere it goes depending on the user. (Please see point 2 in the summary) The trend for increasing use of Ganga, as demonstrated by Jayen, could point to the fact that, use of dialects and people using Ganga is increasing. (c)I have no issue with keeping the proposal on the back burner for the moment. Reply to Kwami(a) Wikipedia prefers endonyms. (b)The term local vs international is a very mis-leading term in the context of India/Ganga, because local is so numerous, local is more than international, numerically, in terms of instances of use of the term, as demonstrated by ghits, (although it has been pointed out that ghits are not accurate measures of incidence). Kwami, the purpose of encyclopaedias is not to perpetuate ignorance or indifference, that is why I have argued for Guangzhou at wp:AT, Wikipedia should not be at the mercy of kupamandukas. (c)I did not understand the statements regarding official/popular use of English.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 07:20, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
- I think this has always been the case. The MOS example was on this very point: local vs. international usage. All the rest seems like a distraction. Question: when locals prefer one term when using English, but elsewhere people prefer another, which should we go for? (Generally in such cases I would expect that, like here, locals will understand both, but outsiders will not.) Secondly, a point which has been alluded to but largely sidestepped: does it make any difference whether locals are native English speakers? If the official language is English? If English is not official but used in education? etc. — kwami (talk) 06:12, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
- Jayen the links are there in the discussion above, all we need to do is copy them here. Bilby as with everything you are free to edit, RegentsPark suggested a summary, a summary has to repeat what has been discussed, it cannot have anything new in it, Ganges too would need a qualifier, it could be dolphin, hotel, delta, plain etc., that is what the context is for. Please do not use POV as a charm, the summary was suggested and it has been provided, it does not carry anybody's name under it, so how can it be a POV? Yogesh Khandke (talk) 03:00, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
How to present the Google scholar results
Let's do some work on how to present the google scholar results. I had added them as follows:
700+ Google scholar publications with Ganges in the title, and river in the text, 27 of which published in 2010.
900+ Google scholar publications with Ganga in the title, and river in the text, 38 of which published in 2010. According to these results, Ganga predominates in international scholarship on this river.
Kwamikagami has revised this thus:
24 Google scholar publications with Ganges in the title, and river in the text, published in 2010, that actually call the river by that name. According to these results, Ganga predominates in international scholarship on this river.
25 Google scholar publications with Ganga in the title, and river in the text, published in 2010, that actually call the river by that name. According to these results, Ganges predominates in national scholarship on this river.
Kwami has argued on their talk page that they "went through the results from 2010 to see which were actually about the river, not about the delta or plain or anything else". Personally, I don't see why we should exclude articles discussing the Ganga's flood plain, or its delta. I cannot see how Kwami arrived at the figures 24 and 25. Could we look into this, and arrive at an agreed number of "good" hits in the 2010 results? These are the links: [151][152] --JN466 12:52, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Kwami's argument for dropping the all-time results (700+ vs. 900+) is that it would be too labour-intensive to look through those, to weed out false positives. That argument has some merit, but it is still something we should discuss. We could present the results with a caveat, for example, or alternatively, we could look at results for 2009–2010 (86 for Ganga, 60 for Ganges), to get a slightly larger sample size which is still not so large as to involve a prohibitive amount of checking. --JN466 13:15, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
- Is it really worth going through? The results are pretty clear. Most of the Ganga hits are written by Indian authors, many in Indian English, for example omitting the word "the". The Ganges hits are written by both Indian and non-Indian authors, and mostly in standard English. — kwami (talk) 20:18, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
- Ganga proponents argued above that we shouldn't use the phrase "Ganges delta" to argue for using the name "Ganges". I accepted that. By the same token, we shouldn't use the phrase "Central Ganga plain" to argue for "Ganga", so I excluded them both. Likewise "Ganges River dolphin" and several other rivers with "Ganga" in their name. — kwami (talk) 20:18, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
How to present the Google news results
Kwami's revert: [153]. Now, the argument for Ganga is that Ganga predominates across all English news results, regardless of origin. I think we should present that as such. The argument for Ganges might be that the majority of news results for Ganga are Indian sources, but this does not change the fact that looking at the totality of English-language news results, Ganga predominates. --JN466 12:52, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
- But it's not true. The Ganga results are predominantly from India. The Ganges results are mixed. We shouldn't present falsehoods just because someone claims them. — kwami (talk) 20:12, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
- What is not true? Why this Injun sources and cowboy sources, Totally, globally, on this planet, and in this planet,(we cannot keep the miners out of this), Ganga predominates, Singh is Kinng and Ganga is too periodbased on Jayen's comments above, and assuming his stats. are accurate.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 06:49, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
- RegentsPark has brought out a key argument, that was earlier hidden in the heart, Oh the secularists think Ganga is too Hindu and Hindi, it would hurt the feelings of 300 million minorities, and non-Hindi speakers. I would like to ask; is the Tamil Gangai (Mother Ganga?) closer to Ganga or Thames? Glad you brought it out Saru. Cut the Ganga lamb, but why not first do it in India, remember just as Wikipedia is not at the mercy of bigoted, stupid, retarded Indian nationalists in that it only follows - wp:V, unfortunately there is no affirmative action here- the secularist too have to follow the same Wikipedia rules, no special concessions; I suggest that the secularists/ campaigners against Hindu-Hindi hegemony should start a world wide campaign, make the UN pass a resolution, obliterate the name Ganga as a rabid neo-Nazi Hindu-Hindi name, then Wikipedia will follow and kick it out, till then we will have to bear with Ganga.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 02:44, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
Suggestion
We are editing each others text on a talk page, which is not good practice, when I wrote please be free to edit, I meant we could add more arguments, and not edit each others arguments which is not how the protocol is on a talk page, how about having a sub-page, with a project page, where we can edit, and a discussion page where we do not edit each others text.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 04:27, 7 December 2010 (UTC)