Talk:Governorate of Livonia

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no sign of any consensus for renaming Kotniski (talk) 10:50, 31 August 2010 (UTC)Reply

Governorate of Livonia → Livonia Governorate — Like all the other things, except one, called governorate in Category:Governorates of the Russian Empire Schwyz (talk) 10:41, 9 August 2010 (UTC)Reply

• Support See also List of governorates of the Russian Empire for Russian names which are all of the same form. Why should the English names not be all of the same form? Schwyz (talk) 14:40, 9 August 2010 (UTC)Reply
• Oppose, for the same reasons as the other move. Zero Google Books and Scholar results (compared to the current title, which has plenty), bad English - and we have to follow WP:COMMONNAME. --Sander Säde 14:58, 9 August 2010 (UTC)Reply
  • Comment. we have to create a good encyclopedia. COMMONNAME says : "Articles are normally titled using the most common English-language name of the subject of the article" - Why are all the other at X Governorate? Why has nobody found it so bad English that they were moved? Maybe you English knowledge is just limited to some kind of European school English? Schwyz (talk) 16:17, 9 August 2010 (UTC)Reply
  • Comment. Bessarabia Governorate, Lithuania Governorate, Podolia Governorate all use the form Somethingia Governorate. Schwyz (talk) 16:28, 9 August 2010 (UTC)Reply
• Comment. Oppose the proposed name per Sander Säde, but would support either "Livonian Governorate" or "Livland Governorate", as they are closer to the Russian original, are used in English, and would achieve the same goal Schwyz pursues.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 9, 2010; 15:49 (UTC)
  • Per Talk:Guberniya#WP:RM I would support Livland Governorate. Schwyz (talk) 17:38, 9 August 2010 (UTC)Reply
• @Ezhiki: Are you sure it would be closer to Russian or the original meaning? I would translate Лифляндская губерния -> Governorate of Livonia, reserving Livonian Governorate for an (imaginary) Ливская губерния. The shade of meaning I am really aiming at is more clear in German (and the Russian version has been borrowed from there, right?), where I'd automatically translate Livländisches Gouvernement (where unambiguously the name of the country is declined) as Governorate of Livonia, presuming Livonian Governorate is better translated into German as Livisches Gouvernement.
  That's because it seems to me that in English the term Livonian can be seen as derived from both “Livonian” as referring to connection with the Livonian people and also the area called Livonia, whereas 'of Livonia' can only refer to the country (as in German: Livland/Livländisches, NOT Livische, which would refer to the people). Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (t) 21:27, 9 August 2010 (UTC)Reply
  • Compare Sakha Republic, Altai Krai, Tuva Republic, Sakhalin Oblast, all nouns. Schwyz (talk) 02:47, 10 August 2010 (UTC)Reply

Most of those either do not have a corresponding adjectival form at all or the form is rarely used. Which is unlike the case of Livonia and Estonia (or Lithuania). The country name 'Sakha' came into use only in 1990s (it was called Yakutia before that). Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (t) 10:53, 10 August 2010 (UTC)Reply

Maybe that is the problem here, see your writing about Livländisch and Livisch. No good adjective here: If Livonian Governorate is used it refers to the people. But if Livland Governorate is used it is more clear. Livland in Google Books: http://www.google.com/#num=100&hl=en&tbs=bks%3A1&q=livland+russia Schwyz (talk) 15:20, 10 August 2010 (UTC)Reply

• as to the move: oppose per discussion on Governorate of Estonia. Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (t) 21:28, 9 August 2010 (UTC)Reply

Miacek, I'm pretty sure it would be closer to the original Russian (lest there is any confusion, I would like to emphasize that's "original Russian", not "originated in Russian"). "Livland Governorate" is much closer to "Лифляндская губерния" than the "Governorate of Livonia"; same goes for "Estland Governorate" vs. Эстляндская губерния vs. "Governorate of Estonia". I might have been wrong about the "Livonian" suggestion, although I'm pretty sure I've seen it used in English as well.

Furthermore, both "Livland" and "Estland" are used in English—I'm not a fan of using ghits as proof of anything, but they'll do just fine to illustrate the fact that usage exists, and a quick googlebooks search for "Livland"/"Estland" will easily demonstrate such usage. The problem with the too few ghits someone previously reported is exacerbated by our choice of the term "governorate"—between the topic of the governorates of Russia not being represented well in googlebooks and the wild variety of terminology used by the academia it is no surprise that pretty much any specific variant will not return many results. As long as "Livland" and "Estland" are valid English terms (which they are), and as long we all agree that the choice of the term "governorate" best serves Wikipedia's organizational purposes, I see nothing wrong with moving these two articles to "Livland Governorate" and "Estland Governorate". These are not the only possible variants, of course, but from the organizational point of view they seem to be a good compromise (hey, even Schwyz is OK with them :)). Do you have any concerns regarding this? Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 10, 2010; 13:58 (UTC)

I guess you have by now understood that this is not about what the governorates were called (the truth), but about how nationalistic Balts would like their history to have existed (truthiness). The article on Estland was in fact deleted. Funny how it happened so long before WP:EEML was set up. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 14:10, 10 August 2010 (UTC)Reply

Well, I actually find it more ironic that Wikipedia is not even supposed to be about truth (and especially truthiness); it is supposed to be about verifiability. I am OK with Estland being an disambig page—from what I'm seeing, the page was deleted because it was neither here nor there; a mixture of a disambig page, a list, and an article. The article about the governorate is in a different situation entirely.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 10, 2010; 14:18 (UTC)

Yes, funny that way. Shows just once more how little EEML did in truth - and how much some believe we did. At least we didn't give newspaper interviews lying that we were banned from Wikipedia because of our political views... --Sander Säde 14:28, 10 August 2010 (UTC)Reply

• Oppose - See Talk:Guberniya#WP:RM. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 06:59, 10 August 2010 (UTC)Reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.