Talk:İskenderun

Latest comment: 6 months ago by ToadetteEdit in topic Requested move 22 April 2024

this town needs a map

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there needs to be a map showing its loaction in its nation. i have no idea where this settlement is 99.51.212.6 (talk) 13:58, 29 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

Indiana Jones reference

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Should I put in the reference to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where Alexandretta is the starting point of the map leading to the Valley of the Crescent Moon? Firestorm 21:01, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

I thought we already had one! Speaking just for myself, I'd say be bold and have at it!
Atlant 22:27, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes!

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If I understood correctly, the question is if the city, Iskenderun is the same city depicted in Indiana Jones! Yes it is! I am from that city and it was an important passage to the Middle East and Far East, since there were no roads or airplanes to travel at the time. I have some pictures I took of the train station depicted in the movie but I am not sure how to post it. In fact, my grandfather worked at that station there when he was a little boy, during French invasion.

Huseyin K. Cococan 04:49, 9 November 2005 (UTC)Reply

Syria

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someone need to ad more info on Syrias control of the Area and the illegal annexation to turkey. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.228.102.63 (talk) 15:25, 14 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

And people should quit claiming Iskandar is a Turkish name. FunkMonk (talk) 08:37, 29 October 2009 (UTC)Reply
This article is incomplete without addressing the Turkish/Syrian dispute over the land. These two countries nearly went to war over this.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 19:16, 9 December 2009 (UTC)Reply

Dot?

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See that dot above the I? How would this dot look like in a lower case i? Just curious :) 66.108.247.7 (talk) 03:17, 9 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

Disabled reqphoto tag

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{{reqphoto|in=Turkey}}

Since the article has a photo now, I have disabled the {{Reqphoto}} tag. If there are additional/better images needed, feel free to undo my actions. Avicennasis @ 06:02, 31 March 2010 (UTC)Reply

Name

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The article says:

In antiquity, the city was known as Alexandretta (in Ancient Greek, Ἀλεξανδρέττα). At its founding, it was named in honour of Alexander the Great, a name which it retained during the Roman period. The city was later renamed al-ʼIskandarūn (Arabic الإسكندرون) during the Islamic Caliphate and then to İskenderun after the Ottoman conquest.

Well, sorry, but no, it was not "later renamed" at all—its original name was never changed, it simply got phonetically deformed into Turkish through Semitic (Arabic and Aramaic): al-ʼIskandarūn[a] is simply a phonetic corruption from the original name Alexandretta (Alexandretta > Aliksandratta > al-ʼIskandar-atta > al-ʼIskandar-ūn[a], the 'foreign' diminutive ending -etta changed into the native diminutive -on[a] in Aramaic). The more famous and similarly-named Alexandria in Egypt suffered a very similar toponymic fate, with its name ending up corrupted into Arabic as al-ʼIskandariya (Alexandria > Aliksandriya > al-ʼIskandar-iya). The Al- at the beginning got (mistakenly) reinterpreted as the Arabic definite article al-, which prompted the confusion that lead to its being dropped (thus Arabicizing the root of the word as ʼIskandar instead of the original Alexandr- > Aliksandr-), finally rendering the name as İskenderun when borrowed into Turkish. That is, İskenderun is simply the Turkified-through-Semitic version of the city's original name Alexandretta; just like Smyrna got corrupted into İzmir, Ancyra into Ankara (Angora in English), Iconium / Ἰκόνιον into Konya, eis ten polin / εἰς τὴν Πόλιν into İstanbul (Stamboul in English), etc. Therefore, I see no reason why this article in the English Wikipedia should be named using the Turkish-through-Semitic phonetic corruption İskenderun instead of its proper name Alexandretta (which, of course, got into English almost directly from Greek, as so many other English terms and toponyms like the aforementioned Smyrna), just like its more well-known Egyptian "sister" city Alexandria is properly named Alexandria in English (instead of its Arabic phonetic corruption al-ʼIskandariya). 213.37.6.101 (talk) 03:03, 6 February 2012 (UTC)Reply

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Requested move 8 February 2019

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The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved to the proposed title at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 05:47, 15 February 2019 (UTC)Reply


İskenderunAlexandretta – For the same reason we don't have articles on "Konstantiniyye" and "Iskandariyya". "Alexandretta" is the original name, and is also easier for English-speakers to spell and pronounce. Also, Greek-origin place names are usually filtered to English through Latin, and not through Turkish. The current article title would be like having articles about "Selanik" or "Kibris". Lovesaver (talk) 05:37, 8 February 2019 (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 or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

108 degrees September 2020

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Iskenderun just hit 108 degrees all time record high according to weather.com almanac. B137 (talk) 22:24, 5 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

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The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 18:07, 14 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

Requested move 16 December 2022

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The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved per strong consensus. No such user (talk) 12:52, 23 December 2022 (UTC)Reply


İskenderunAlexandretta – I believe that this it more common name to the plurality of English readers. Hard to know for sure, but this is what the data seems to show. It is true that Iskenderun (not İskenderun) is used more in guidebooks, we are almost certain. Most guidebooks give both names right off, but with Iskenderun usually (not always) coming first. However, Alexandretta is written more in books, per this Google Ngram (in the last half of the last century Iskenderun kept about even with Alexandretta, but per this Ngram that isn't true since (or before), for some reason.

Naturally guidebooks are going to favor Iskenderun because the signs say that, I assume, and their job is for people to not get lost. We don't want people to get lost, but we don't really care, we are not Wikivoyage. People will be coming here from history books, from novels, from atlases, etc. as well as guidebooks. The guidebooks matter, but Ngrams are an awfully strong argument. And after all the Ngrams include the guidebooks (I assume). FWIW there was a poorly-attended an RfC about four years ago, above. Herostratus (talk) 02:36, 16 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

  • Proposer additional comment: (Also, if its not to be Alexandretta, it should be moved to Iskenderun, since the "İ" version is seldom used in English sources, whether guidebooks or other (says the Ngram), and is certain to be most confusing to most readers. Maybe that's because the writers are lazy, or stupid, or don't have an "İ" character in their fontset, or whatever; doesn't matter, we don't judge, we just present the reader with term they are most likely familiar with. Serve the reader; technical issues or cultural sensitivity etc are way less important.) Herostratus (talk) 02:36, 16 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
Please correct that to "Proposer additional comment". Proposers don't normally support, that is assumed. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:42, 16 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
Right, good point, thanks. Herostratus (talk) 04:30, 17 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
  • Strong oppose and frankly inclined to call for early close as time-wasting. This is the 2023 Wikipedia and İskenderun is a large Turkish town with 250,976 population. "İskenderun is" test in GBooks shows that the modern name for the town is in modern use. Whereas "Alexandretta is" shows zero modern results. Strong oppose also changing the pronunciation from /ɯː/ to long /iː/ - we don't do that sort of thing with foreign place names or people on Wikipedia unless they are that one particular blonde Serbian tennis Olympic medalist. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:42, 16 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
Alright, I hear you. How can we explain the Google Ngram then? Herostratus (talk) 05:11, 17 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
Easily explained, you included history books in your Ngram "was" test instead of doing an "is" test in current books. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:18, 17 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
  • Support. The crunch question per Wikipedia:Article titles is what the English-language reliable sources use. The use of İskenderun seems to be overwhelmingly in the Turkish language sources and in low-grade tourist publications in English which are not peer-reviewed. The English-language reliable sources overwhelmingly use Alexandretta, including (for instance):
  1. Majid Kadduri, The Alexandretta Dispute (1995)
  2. Edward Weisband, The Sanjak of Alexandretta: a Case Study of Law and Power During the Inter-war Period, 1919-1939 (Stanford University, 1966)
  3. Matthew Hughes, Allenby and British Strategy in the Middle East, 1917-1919 (Routledge, 2013)
  4. John Fisher, Curzon and British Imperialism in the Middle East, 1916-1919 - (Routledge, 2012)
  5. Paul G. Halpern, The Naval War in the Mediterranean: 1914-1918 (Naval Institute Press, 2015)
I could easily list a few dozen more, but life is short. Moonraker (talk) 15:13, 16 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
This is the editor who canvassed me prior to this RM. Life is indeed short and attempting to rename a modern town with WWI history sources makes it shorter for all of us. @Moonraker: crunch question per Wikipedia:Article titles is what the English-language reliable sources use for the article subject. If you can find a single reliable source using the pre-WWI name for the the city I would like to see it. So far you have not provided one. If you want to fork out the content relating to history of Alexandretta prior to 1939 then you might have a case. But as it is the article is not forked and pre-1939 history is a section in the article on the modern city. In ictu oculi (talk) 17:24, 16 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
Quite by chance, In ictu oculi I did leave you a message about it, but I have no idea why Herostratus chose this moment to raise it here. Maybe he saw me asking you to take a look at the reliable sources. I have given some recent ones above. I see your point, but are you suggesting two pages, as with Constantinople and Istanbul? If not, it needs to be either the Turkish name or the Greek name. But see what the IP writing above at Talk:İskenderun#Name says about that. Moonraker (talk) 18:15, 16 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
Yeah I happened to lurk into that post, felt like looking at the previous RfC, and thought it was under-attended and under-argued, so another was appropriate. Nothing nefarious there. Herostratus (talk)
  • Strong oppose. Of course the historical name Alexandretta is used when discussing history, just as Gdansk is called Danzig in the appropriate historical setting. This is one reason you have to be careful with Google nGrams. Yes, "Alexandretta" is more common than "İ/Iskenderun" in Google nGrams, and you will see why if you search Google Books for those names. Pretty much all the books using the name Alexandretta use it as a historical name. --Macrakis (talk) 17:40, 16 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
Macrakis, I see you say there is a split, so we agree on that, but naming policy (Wikipedia:Article titles) isn’t interested in all books, only in reliable sources. What do you believe is the split within those? Moonraker (talk) 18:15, 16 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
Moonraker Reliable sources say different things at different times: The Britannica 9th Edition (1875-1889) uses "Scanderoon (Iscanderûn)" as the article name, and mentions Alexandretta as an alternative. The 11th Edition (1910) gives Alexandretta as the article name and mentions "Iskanderun (med. Scanderoon)" as an alternative. The 15th Edition (1985) gives "Iskenderun, formerly Alexandretta". The current online edition gives "İskenderun, formerly Alexandretta".
And Google nGrams pretty much confirms that pattern: Iskenderun / Iscanderoon / Iskanderun / Iscanderun / Scanderoon is most common until around 1860; Alexandretta from 1860 to 1960, and thereafter the two are roughly equally common. If you then look at the book evidence that nGrams relies on, you find that the Alexandretta spelling since 1960 is almost entirely used in historical contexts, especially around WWI, whereas the Iskenderun spelling is used in all sorts of contexts: studies of water pollution, travel, shipping, defense, fisheries, etc. --Macrakis (talk) 00:09, 17 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
  • Strong oppose I also probed the nGram - it's so easy, there are links to Google Books for selected years on that page - and found a massive preponderance of books about World War I for the Alexandretta usage. If People will be coming here from history books, from novels, Wikipedia's redirects support historical place-names very nicely. As for from atlases, my 2000 Times Atlas and 1989 Peters Atlas have only "Iskenderun", but the 1973 Bartholomew mini-atlas beside me does show "Iskenderun (Alexandretta)" and their 1970 1:4,000,000 Middle East map has "Iskenderun (Alexandretta)". Now I'm wondering how old Herostratus's atlases are if they only show "Alexandretta" and whether they also show the Ottoman Empire. Bartholomew 1970 and 1973 also show "Trabzon (Trebizond)"; will we rename Trabzon next? NebY (talk) 18:43, 16 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
Well, most of my atlases are historical atlases. Which aren't useful only for kindling after all. I'd actually never hear of Trabzon, I didn't know they'd renamed it. I'm well familiar with Trebizon, which outlasted Constantinople in Greek rule, and the rather depressing story of how it finally and bloodlessly got squeezed out. Maybe I'm a wierdo, but maybe not. Herostratus (talk) 05:16, 17 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
Historical atlases will naturally show contemporaneous usage. Depending on the historical period and point of view being covered, they may use (e.g.) Tsaritsyn, Stalingrad, or Volgograd; Trapezous, Trapezounta, Trebizond, or Trabzon; Pylos, Port-de-Jonc, Avarinos, Varinos, Anavarinos, Navarino, Anavarin, Neokastro, Pylos; etc. Wikipedia uses the modern English name, even if the place is strongly associated with some historical episode under a different name (e.g., Battles of Stalingrad, Navarino). --Macrakis (talk) 19:25, 18 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose, per recent useage.--Ortizesp (talk) 22:08, 16 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
  • Comment re the the "İ/I" thing, if we don't like "Alexandretta", couple points: according to the Ngram, very books use "İ", and those few only recently. Most guidebooks use "I" I think. I suppose this is because (excepting Turks) probably not one reader in 200 knows how to pronounce "İ". I sure don't; I pronounce it as a short I, because what else am I supposed to do? A few characters outside the English characters are known somewhat generally -- ö, maybe a couple others. "İ" sure isn't one of them. I don't see the benefit in us being an a far outlier among English language books about using "İ". OTOH it doesn't much matter, since both are (de facto) pronounced as short "I". Still, why annoy and bamboozle the reader with a unknown character, when almost no one else does. What the Turks do means little to us, or should. Most of our readers have not gone to college, you know. Herostratus (talk) 04:58, 17 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
We are not doing that. There is no evidence for a cod-Turkish mis-spelling. I don't know why you are mentioning that some English speakers would misread it even spelled correctly. That's not the point. The only article we deliberately misspell on en.wp is the blessed Serbian tennis star. And if you want to misspell all our Turkey geo articles you'd need to start an RfC, there are hundreds of them. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:12, 17 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
1) If you would read this Ngram and discuss.
2) It's not a question of misspelling anything. It's a question of alternate spellings, and which to use.
3) As to "That's not the point", we are here to serve the reader, period. We don't, or shouldn't, care much about what the Turkish government thinks, or what the people who live in that city think, or what Kemal's committee would have thought, or how Turks, nationalist or not, think, or to signal our academic or cosmopolitan chops, or any of that. We are here to serve the English-language reader. Presenting her with weird, unpronounceable glyphs that most other publications don't use, this doesn't serve. That is why our article is named "Moscow" and not "Москва" and so forth. Herostratus (talk) 16:56, 17 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
The use of native diacritics on Latin characters is well-established in Wikipedia placename titles. We have Łódź, Køge, Thủ Đức, Panevėžys, Nivå, Đurđevac, Borås, Nagykőrös, and also special letters as in Garðabær. Very few English speakers can pronounce å, æ, đ, ð, ė, ł, ó, ö, ø, ő, ủ, ứ, ź, or ž correctly (well, maybe ž). If you want to change that policy, this page is not the right place to do it. (Yes, I know that some of these symbols are considered as "letters" and others as "letters with diacritics", but that's irrelevant here.)
I don't know what nationalism or the Turkish government has to do with it. --Macrakis (talk) 18:53, 17 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
Fair point; consistency is an import considerations for article titles. Thanks for pointing that out, and for my part I withdraw the "I" suggestion. Anyway, that's only if we don't elect Alexandretta, which I guess we should. Herostratus (talk) 02:14, 18 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
@Ayıntaplı: Do you mean "Iskenderun" or "İskenderun"? Double sharp (talk) 06:18, 20 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
Iskenderun. Ayıntaplı (talk) 17:24, 20 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Clarify 19th C. demographics (ethnicity vs religion)

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The Demographics section entangles ethnicity (Turkish) with religion (Alawites) while referring to 19th Century observations by Martin Hartmann. The reason for the confusion is that European authors often referred to Sunni Muslims as "Turks" (vs "Christians", "Jews"). This does not mean that they are ethnic Turks as this section insinuates. They might be Turkish, Arab, Kurdish, etc. Clarification and other sources are needed. Muhaweralmani (talk) 10:25, 21 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

That is just an assumption as a result of failure to read the source. In the table of settlements, Martin Hartmann used "M" to mark settled Sunni Arabs, "T" for ethnic Turks, "K" for ethnic Kurds, "B" for Bedouins, and so on. In fact, in his earlier work Das Liwa el-Ladkije und die Nahije Urdu, he used "M" for Muslims in general, and then later in Das liwa Haleb und ein Teil des Liwa Dschebel Bereket (the work cited in this article) noted that some of the "M" settlements he mentioned in the former work were actually Turkish. So, this is an ethnic division and not a religious one. Best, Aintabli (talk) 14:42, 21 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Requested move 22 April 2024

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The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) ToadetteEdit! 11:46, 9 May 2024 (UTC)Reply


İskenderunIskenderun – According to Ngram, Iskenderun is a much more common spelling. I was unable to differentiate the spelling on Google Scholar. However, Iskenderun appears to be more common among the foremost publications there: [1] (Even more common when Turkish sources are discounted.) Iskenderun also uses letters found in the English alphabet: WP:ENGLISH Aintabli (talk) 23:45, 22 April 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. Safari ScribeEdits! Talk! 05:49, 30 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

Relisting comment: More comments to generate a clearer consensus Safari ScribeEdits! Talk! 05:49, 30 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
Note: WikiProject Arab world, WikiProject Turkey, WikiProject Syria, WikiProject Cities, and WikiProject Geography have been notified of this discussion. Safari ScribeEdits! Talk! 05:50, 30 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose. E.g. Britannica uses diacritics. Many English-language sources ignore diacritics altogether, so for example Ngram has no informative value (but even that shows an increasing trend of writing İskenderun with diacritics). Geographical names in general (incl. Turkish ones) in Wiki use diacritics, and I don't see this name being any different from names like İzmir, Eskişehir, São Paulo, Bogotá and Zürich. For an exception like Istanbul, stronger evidence and analysis is needed. FromCzech (talk) 06:44, 30 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
@FromCzech: Iskenderun is also more common on ProQuest, where the foremost articles do not use diacritics. Many of those articles also use diacritics such as "Č" but at the same time Iskenderun. We're going by COMMONNAME here. If other Wikipedia articles use diacritics, it doesn't concern this article, especially when there are obviously opposite cases, which you have pointed out. The difference on Ngram is so wide for us to consider any slight trends for the future. Iskenderun has been more common throughout history. Aintabli (talk) 14:35, 30 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
Iskenderun appears to have an established usage in English sources, so USENATIVE does not apply, and DIACRITICS is an indifferent guideline. The mere existence of sources using another form does not really show anything. It is still less common. Aintabli (talk) 14:35, 30 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
my point is wp:english doesn't apply here because of WP:DIACRITICS and i'm not swayed by the n grams analysis specifically because of: Search engines are problematic unless their verdict is overwhelming; modified letters have the additional difficulties that some search engines will not distinguish between the original and modified forms, and others fail to recognize the modified letter because of optical character recognition errorsblindlynx 18:26, 30 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
Okay, let's assume that this is the case. (And note that it says unless their verdict is overwhelming, which aligns with how Iskenderun is fourfold of İskenderun on Ngram.) "Iskenderun" on Ngrams objectively appears more than twice as common as İskenderun. So, even if Iskenderun were to also include instances with diacritics, Iskenderun is still more common. I'm not really seeing any counter-evidence here that shows the diacritics are more common? It was not possible to differentiate the diacritics on ProQuest and GoogleScholar, but Iskenderun is still more common there when skimming through. On a different note, I can't see any specification that WP:ENGLISH should be disregarded when diacritics come into play. It reads that we should take English sources into account (if such sources exist of course) for diacritics as well. Diacritics are demonstrably less common among English sources. (There are some Turkish sources in the GoogleScholar and ProQuest results, which Ngrams likely takes into account.) Aintabli (talk) 19:55, 30 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
You need to double check what you're linked, scholar usage is evenly split (5 of 10 for each) on the fist page of the search you linked—blindlynx 20:06, 30 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
It's 8 to 2 on the second page, but all of the examples with diacritics on the second page are in Turkish. Also please check ProQuest. Aintabli (talk) 20:35, 30 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
Ugh so thing i just realized that most of the hits are for 'İ/Iskenderun bay' that is Gulf of Alexandretta i don't know if those should be taken into account or not...probably doesn't make a difference though—blindlynx 21:15, 30 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.