Talk:Alb Valley Railway

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Requested move

Latest comment: 13 years ago9 comments6 people in discussion

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 consensus. Jafeluv (talk) 09:18, 16 April 2011 (UTC)Reply

Alb Valley Railway → Albtalbahn —

It is normal usage in English language publications to refer to this railway by its German name, rather than the deconstucted and then translated 'Alb Valley Railway'.

Compare:

http://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=albtalbahn&num=10&lr=lang_en

with:

http://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=%22alb+valley+railway%22&num=10&lr=lang_en

-- Starbois (talk) 14:04, 3 March 2011 (UTC)Reply

Support. The names of railways like this are almost never translated in guidebooks or other publications, so it makes no sense to translate them here. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:47, 3 March 2011 (UTC)Reply
Oppose for the following reasons:
- Albtalbahn is a German compound noun comprising a "proper name" and "ordinary nouns". "Albtal" means Alb valley and would invariably be translated as such, "Alb" being the proper name for its river. "Albtalbahn" is therefore logically translated as "Alb Valley Railway".
- This is a standard way of naming such lines in English - see Severn Valley Railway, Kettle Valley Railway, Meon Valley Railway, Okanagan Valley Railway, etc.
- It is consistent with the naming of other railways i.e. Berlin–Hamburg Railway and Munich–Augsburg railway, not Berlin–Hamburg Bahn or Bahnstrecke München–Augsburg.
- There are many sources that do use the English name or both English and German names, including railway magazines like Railway Herald, tour companies like Great Rail, tourist sites like This is Harz and Harz Region, holiday firms like Holiday Rentals, and image sites like www.redbubble.com and other sites like www.thomasgraz.net (using the example of the Selke Valley Railway in Germany). Even the town of Ettlingen refers to the "Alb Valley Railway" on its official site.
- The number of sources is a factor but, in view of the above, is not decisive in this case. The use of the German name in the redirect, infobox and lede is sufficient. --Bermicourt (talk) 19:27, 3 March 2011 (UTC)Reply
Oppose, we translate these names to make the articles more accessible for English-speaking readers. The German name is always given at the top of the article.--Grahame (talk) 10:10, 4 March 2011 (UTC)Reply
Support (myself). Taking Bermicourt's points above one by one:
- The problem with decomposing words and translating the bits is when to stop. For example, on the basis you quote, our article on Düsseldorf should probably be renamed to Düssel Village.
- True, but I don't see its relevance. We are discussing the name of the Albtalbahn, not the way Victorians named English railways.
- The key point here is that in these cases, we are not decomposing words before translating them.
- I cannot find 'Alb Valley Railway' on any of the links supplied, except on official site. As this is a German based web site, I don't think it qualifies as expert in how to render German names in English; I've noticed before that native German speakers tend to overtranslate when going from German to English, possibly out of misplaced politeness. Let me be clear; I see that those sites have other similar names but my suggestion is specific to the Altbtalbahn, which because of the impact of the Karlsruhe model has copious published English language references, many in professional/academic papers, and almost all of which use Albtalbahn.
- I would respectfully disagree on the decisiveness of the number of references.
- As far as Grahamec's point is concerned, then surely if much literature already refers to Albtalbahn, isn't this a moot point. Surely it is just as likely to make it less accessible. --Starbois (talk) 11:48, 4 March 2011 (UTC)Reply
  - Comments
    - "Düsseldorf" is irrelevant as proper names of settlements are never translated. It is normal however to translate compound nouns e.g. "Elbetal" as "Elbe valley".
    - "Valley Railway" is standard English naming today. And the Kettle and Okanagan Valley Railways are Canadian, so this is neither "Victorian" nor just about "England".
      Here are more worldwide examples of the English naming pattern: Ozark Valley Railroad (US); Hutt Valley Line (NZ) and Hotham Valley Railway (Australia)
    - As clearly stated, the examples were based on the Selke Valley Railway to demonstrate that "Valley Railway" is a common translation of German lines.
    - A survey of the proposer's link to "Albtalbahn" google sources above shows that 2/3 are German or French sources or "empty" (no reference found).
    - There is an increasing trend away from sources for railway fans/specialists using German names to sources for the wider public using more understandable English names. --Bermicourt (talk) 18:32, 4 March 2011 (UTC)Reply
Support Looking at the actual hits on a Google search (excluding Wikipedia), it's hard to find a single one from a reliable source for either Albtalbahn or Alb Valley Railway. However, Google Books, performing the same search produces 4 hits for Alb Valley Railway and 105 for Albtalbahn. Examples of naming patterns in English speaking countries, as cited by Bermicourt, really has no relevance whatever. Germany is not an English speaking country. On balance, the most common use in reliable English language sources appears to be overwhelmingly Albtalbahn. Skinsmoke (talk) 15:00, 5 March 2011 (UTC)Reply
- Comment. Beware of google searches, even google books: when you look at the 105 links you find that 2/3 are German/French sources or empty, so your 105 reduces to about 30, mainly technical, documents. But as we're using google: you actually get more hits for "Alb Valley Railway" on google than "Albtalbahn" (1620 to 1140) and, of the latter, 2/3 were German sources even though you restrict the search to English pages! So hardly overwhelming. And BTW naming patterns are absolutely relevant to how to translate something accurately in a specialist area! --Bermicourt (talk) 19:37, 5 March 2011 (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.

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