Talk:Bug (river)

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Bug (western)

Latest comment: 3 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Does anyone know anything about the etymology of the name? Slavic?

Both Slavic and Indo-European, I believe. The Indo-European and early-Slavic root bug- is clearly related to water and found its place into modern words of burzyć się (effervesce, seethe) and burza (tempest, storm) in modern Polish. Until recently it was visible in other words like bug meaning river curve or swamp as well as bugaj meaning a slow stream.

According to Gołąb the original Pre-Indo-European root was *bhuogos and had the meaning of river curve. He also cites that the name was also adopted by the Germans into *beugan,baug,bugans - to bend and then by the Goths as biuganHalibu tt 06:37, 21 November 2005 (UTC)Reply

In "How Old Are the River Names of Europe? A Glottochronological Approach" Note 42 says Old Russian Bogъ; Byzantine Greek Bogou, explaining further in the note. I have not removed what is said in the article which seems to be wrong. --Samesawed (talk) 10:43, 3 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

Requested move

Latest comment: 13 years ago18 comments9 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: move to Bug River. Kilo T 17:00, 13 June 2011 (UTC)Reply

Western Bug → Bug River — Bug River is the most common name for the river in English. See Encyclopedia Britannica. Western Bug should be a redirect pointing to Bug River since it a secondary name mostly attached to Ukranian usage. Ajh1492 (talk) 20:00, 2 May 2011 (UTC)Reply

Clarification: The request is to FLIP the article names so that Bug River is the primary article and Western Bug (which is the transliteration of the Ukrainian name) is a redirect to Bug River. I think they both need to be there, just that Bug River should be the article name. Ajh1492 (talk) 14:58, 23 May 2011 (UTC)Reply

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

Oppose The EB entry "Bug River" [1] is for the Southern Bug, not the western. Both the western and southern rivers have equal claim. In this case the status quo was kept with the Bug river db page and one labelled Western Bug and one Southern Bug. Chaosdruid (talk) 20:49, 2 May 2011 (UTC)Reply
- The link you provided[2] is an article on the Western, not Southern Bug. — AjaxSmack 17:37, 6 May 2011 (UTC)Reply

You're making my point. The article for the river that is part of the Vistula drainage area, the river we are talking about, is Bug River in Encyclopedia Britannica.

EB QUOTE: Bug River, Ukrainian Zakhidnyy Buh (“Western Bug”), Bug River, Ukr. tributary of the Vistula River, rising in western Ukraine on the slopes of the Volyn-Podolsk Upland in Lviv oblast (province).

Western Bug is the Ukranian name, not the English name. I am saying to MOVE the article to Bug River and have Western Bug as a redirect.

If we're talking about the River in Ukraine that flows into the Black Sea, the Encyclopedia Britannica refers to that as Southern Buh (EB:Southern Buh). Ajh1492 (talk) 20:07, 8 May 2011 (UTC)Reply

Comment how about Western Bug River. Seems better, and wouldn't be confused with the insect. 65.93.12.8 (talk) 06:05, 3 May 2011 (UTC)Reply

Oppose. "Bug River" and "Western Bug River" seem to be used interchangeably in English with neither being overwhelmingly more popular. Keeping the status quo will leave the least room for confusion. — Kpalion^(talk) 16:31, 9 May 2011 (UTC)Reply
Encyclopædia Britannica, Columbia University Press and National Geographic use Bug River as the primary and Western Bug as a secondary name. So what's wrong with flipping the article and redirect to match? Instead of Western Bug being the article and Bug River as a redirect, just have Bug River as the article name and Western Bug a redirect? Ajh1492 (talk) 18:25, 9 May 2011 (UTC)Reply
Perhaps there would be nothing terribly wrong with that, but I think it would be a solution in search of a problem. What's wrong with the current titles? You've got one river which is sometimes called "the Bug" and sometimes "the Western Bug", and another river which is sometimes called "the Bug" and sometimes "the Southern Bug". Maybe the former is called "the Bug" a little more often than the latter, but I still think the most natural approach would be to have them at the least ambiguous titles. — Kpalion^(talk) 19:22, 9 May 2011 (UTC)Reply

The point is that non-WP sources tend to use "Bug" vs "Western Bug". The other river is really "Southern Buh". By using the real names we reduce ambiguity. Keep the other titles as redirects and keep the hatnotes at the tops of the pages

Merriam-Webster's geographical dictionary - page 172, entry on Brest, Belarus - "Bug River"

Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary, p.1565, Entry on Narew River - "Bug River"

Geology.com Map of Poland - "Bug River"

Webster's II new college dictionary, p.1414, entry on Bug River - "Bug River"

New York Times article from 1920 - "Bug River"

Discussion

Any additional comments:

Can you please provide some evidence about the claim that "Bug River" is the most common for the Western Bug, as well as how the Southern Bug does not have an equal right to be called the "Bug River"? I now see you have also nominated Bug river for deletion - why can you not just go back and fix all the AWB redirects you made rather than have these debates when the status quo was fine the way it was? Chaosdruid (talk) 20:39, 2 May 2011 (UTC)Reply

There are two issues here 1) is whether this river should be Bug River or Western Bug River - Western Bug River gets 31,900 google hits, characterizing that as mostly Ukrainian usage is false, both terms are commonly used in English. That EB link cited above is talking about this river, not the southern one, showing how easy it is to confuse these, but I'm not sure if EB defines most common usage. The Geonames database also supports using just Bug (lists name as Zakhidnyy Buh with Bug as an alternate name, Western Bug not listed). Still I could be convinced either way. Then issue 2) is whether Bug River should go to this river or be a disambiguation page. The Western Bug and Southern Bug are similarly sized, Western Bug is arguably more famous, but I'm not sure if it's enough so to count as the principle usage, google hits gives them 31,900 to 31,000 hits respectively so it's very close. There are also other Bug Rivers out there, Google "Bug River" -Western - Southern gives lots of hits not referring to either river and Geonames lists another one in Canada. Since the potential for confusion clearly exists I'd lean toward keeping the disambiguation page. I guess on the first issue I'd lean towards keeping Western Bug River even if Bug River is a little more common because it helps with disambiguation (similar to how we have Red River of the North even though the official name is just Red River). Kmusser (talk) 01:32, 3 May 2011 (UTC)Reply

In reality the names of the rivers in question are Bug River and Southern Buh River. The Google hits are questionable since a significant number of them are just mirrors of Wikipedia. If we screen the mirrors out we get results like:

United Nations Development Programme - Bug River

Educational conferences at local Universities - Bug River

Columbia University Press Encyclopedia - Bug River

IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature - Bug River

Wageningen UR (University & Research centre)- Netherlands - Bug River

The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands - based in Switzerland] - Bug River

North Atlantic Treaty Organization - NATO - Bug River

UNESCO-IAH-UNEP Conference, Paris, 6-8 December 2010 - Bug River

Bug River Basin commission by Poland-Belarus-Ukraine governments & supported by the European Union - Bug River

Towards Converging Migratory Trends in Europe - Bug River

Characteristics and cross-border cooperation within the river basins of the FLOOD-WISE project - Bug River

Ajh1492 (talk) 12:14, 9 May 2011 (UTC)Reply

The examples quoted above (which I strongly suspect to have been cherry-picked) are not always consistent within themselves. The third links says "Bug, river, E Europe, also known as Western Bug". The fourth link used "Bug River" in the first sentence, and "Western Bug River" in the next. The fifth link – same thing. The sixth link uses "(Western) Bug river" in the first sentence. The seventh link uses mostly "Bug River", but also "Western Bug River" in some places. The tenth links uses "Western Bug" in the firts sentence. The second, eighth and ninth links are written by Poles or published in a Polish domain, and thus should be discarded as possibly biased.

That said, a glance at some reliable English-language encyclopedias and maps (see table below) do suggest that "Bug" might be the primary name of the western river, although "Western Bug" is usually given as a common alternative. In my opinon this indicates some preference for "Bug River", but not overwhelming. I am more convinced by Kmusser's argument that the status quo is the least ambiguous solution and provides the lest room for confusion.

Source	Western Bug	Southern Bug
Encyclopædia Britannica	Bug River, Ukrainian Zakhidnyy Buh (“Western Bug”)	Southern Buh, Ukrainian Pivdennyy Buh, Russian Yuzhny Bug, Yuzhny also spelled Iuzhnyi, also called Boh
Columbia Encyclopedia	Bug, Pol. Bug, Ukr. Buh or Zakhidnyy Buh	Buh or Southern Buh, Ukr. Pivdynnyy Buh
National Geographic	Bug	Southern Bug

Additionally, I find Ajh's arguments that "Western Bug" is wrong becuase it is "mostly attached to Ukranian usage" flawed. The river does flow through Ukraine, so what's wrong about Ukrainian usage? "Bug River" could be just as well labeled as mostly attached to Polish usage. — Kpalion^(talk) 16:29, 9 May 2011 (UTC)Reply

I have NEVER said that Western Bug is wrong, this request is to FLIP the article names to that Bug River is the primary article and Western Bug (which is the transliteration of the Ukrainian name) is a redirect to Bug River. I think they both need to be there, just the Bug River should be the article name. As for the list of references I gave above, I stated that I pulled references that were not echoes of Wikipedia. Stop taking Rzeczpospolita (disambiguation)‎ so personal. Ajh1492 (talk) 18:07, 9 May 2011 (UTC)Reply
Rather overwhelming bibligraphy assumes that Bug River" is the offical name of this river in English language. It is seciondary what it is called only in Poland or in Ukraine. That would have an effect in articles in Polish and Ukrainian language projects. Not in English language project. The article should by any means provide other popular name usage (i.e. Western Bug) but it should be under official English name. Saudi Arabia has many slightly or largely different names, but only one official name in English. Southern Bug once again used here absolutely without any merit. It is a different river. What it has to do with Bug (Western Bug)? It is not a southern part of Bug/Western Bug therefore I fail to see how it could sway one way or another the result of this strange dispute. --emanek 09:43, 2 June 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Emanek (talk • contribs)

- as per sources cited by Kpalion, you would notice clearly that Southern Bug when named singularly appears as Buh, not Bug. --emanek 09:53, 2 June 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Emanek (talk • contribs)
  - as an additional helpfull hint how the English common usage in geographical names is used on enwiki, please see redirect on river Ganges here to huge number of people on Indian subcontinent known as Ganga. And it also flows through more than one country. The deciding factor was the commonality of English name usage. I move to close the discussion and reverse current redirect. --emanek 10:13, 2 June 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Emanek (talk • contribs)
sorry for the signatures (nick) - my Preferences were not set correctly, --emanek (talk) 10:20, 2 June 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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