Talk:Guipúzcoa

Province

Hi there, Guipúzcoa is not a province, neither are Álava or Biscay. The three are offcially called "historic territories", and calling them provinces is a mistake (a common one, though).

In traditional Basque usage, Guipuscoa was the provincia: Check Philotea from 1821:

Topatuco dute bear bada Provinciaco eusquerarequin batian Nafarroacoa, Vizcayacoa ta Arabacoa,

"They will find maybe along the Basque language of the Province [i.e. Guipuscoa] that of Navarre, Biscay and Alava".

However, as you say, the Ley de Territorios Históricos created this new category, for reasons unknown to me.

--Error 01:36, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Article name

Whether it's a province or a "historic territory", the name in English is Guipúzcoa (sometimes also Guipuscoa). Gipuzkoa is the Basque name.

See EB

Jmgonzalez 10:55, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I can't see how Guipúzcoa can be the English name - it has an accent on the u, which wouldn't be true of common English usage. The alternative (Guipuscoa) doesn't have the accent and perhaps this would be a compromise if the English name is what we're after. However, I think that tradition, local usage and common usage elsewhere are more important so I'd favour Gipuzkoa or Guipúzcoa over Guipuscoa. My favourite is the Basque version Gipuzkoa, because it is gaining ground and acceptance, even elsewhere in Spain, is used by the provincial government (e.g. [1]) and looks neater for English speakers, in my opinion. But I don't feel strongly against the Castillian and don't intend to go out of my way changing the name on all the relevant pages whatever the result.

I had also started a similar discussion on Talk:Vizcaya. Mtiedemann 23:12, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I kind of agree with your view on the use of diacritics in general English (living in the West Coast, I've always thought that naming a place "café" was an intent to make it sound more interesting), but here we're discussing on foreign words or words of foreign origin, where the use of diacritics in English is OK.

The wikipedia seems to wave its hands on this issue. The closest I could find is this: "If a native spelling uses different letters than the most common English spelling (eg, Wien vs. Vienna), only use the native spelling as an article title if it is more commonly used in English than the anglicized form." Now, the question is whether, for the three Basque provinces, there is a "most common English spelling", in which case it should be used, or they are considered foreign names (in which case there's no such thing as the "most commonly used foreign form" in the guidelines). I checked Britannica (EB), Columbia (CO) and Merriam-Webster (MW), and the names used for the provinces are:

• "Guipúzcoa" (EB, CO, MW),
• "Biscay" EB / Vizcaya CO / "Vizcaya" with "Biscay" as a variant MW, and
• "Álava" (EB, CO) / "Alava" (MW).

It is not clear then whether the sources were using the names as English names or as foreign (Spanish) names. I checked the 1911 EB, and the names used are "Guipuzcoa", "Biscay (Vizcaya)", and "Alava" (1911 EB). These are clearly English forms (incorrectly both in Spanish and Basque). I'd stick to them.

BTW, I assume your comment on "Gipuzkoa" "gaining ground and acceptance, even elsewhere in Spain" is also affected by "in my opinion". You use the Spanish or the Basque form depending on whether you're speaking one language or the other. In fact, a Spanish literal pronunciation of "Gipuzkoa" would make the "G" letter sound as /x/ (think Scottish "loch", or the first sound in "Hannukah"), and change the stress to the "ko" syllabe. If you accept my argument, which form has more acceptance would be equivalent to which language is more widely spoken in the Basque Country. That I'd say is Spanish (from visiting the three capitals. We can probably check surveys). Finally, the Provincial Government using the Basque form when writing in Spanish is a political statement, and a mistake.

Jmgonzalez 10:08, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. 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 proposal was} move to Guipúzcoa. The current title obviously does not fulfill WP:NC(CN). Castillan and Basque renderings are close in English usage, but prevalence of Guipúzcoa in English WP:RS sort of turns the tide there. The choice was not far apart from the coin toss (Note: while I did comment below, shortage of RM admins sort of forces me to close this one; I don't feel I have any conflict of interest.) Duja► 09:16, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

---

Guipuscoa → Gipuzkoa — The official Gizpuzkoa site in English spells it this way. Official site. —T Rex | talk 05:37, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

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 naming conventions.

• Oppose We should use "Guipuzcoa", as discussed below. Jmgonzalez 10:32, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose Per WP:NCGN. We don't do official names, except for places that have no widely accepted English name. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:58, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support The Basque Gipuzcoa is, as Guipuscoa, commonly used in English. But it's probably best to move since the official form is causing "Guipuscoa" to fall in disuse.--Húsönd 17:03, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
  • A bold, and undemonstrated, assertion. Evidence, please. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:41, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

• Comment I'm fine with either Gipuzkoa, with 273,000 English Ghits [2], or Guipúzcoa, with 370,000 [3]. The current title goes far behind those, with 11,400 hits. Duja► 12:47, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
• Comment I'll stick to this: "Name your pages in English and place the native transliteration on the first line of the article unless the native form is more commonly recognized by readers than the English form. The choice between anglicized and native spellings should follow English usage (e.g., Besançon, Edvard Beneš and Göttingen, but Nuremburg, delicatessen, and Florence)." I checked several sources: Britannica (EB), Columbia (CO) and Merriam-Webster (MW). EB, CO, and MW prefer "Guipúzcoa." I also checked the Times archive, and I got the following results (every pair of numbers represent the number of hits in the 1851-1980 archive and the "since 1981" one, respectively): Guipuzcoa/Guipúzcoa gets 218 and 26 results. Guipuscoa gets 2 and 0 results. Gipuzkoa gets 0 and 1 results. Jmgonzalez 10:31, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

• OOnly problem is "Guipuzcoa" is neither the English nor native name. T Rex | talk 19:42, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

  Why is it not "English"? And it's arguable if it's not native as well: while Basque people likely form the majority in the province, for many of them Spanish is the first or equal-first language. And it's one of official languages of the country and the province. Duja► 08:52, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

• Support move to Gipuzkoa. Reasoning: I have a modern dictionary of the Spanish language called "Clave - Diccionario de uso del español actual". One of its appendices is a list of place names in Spain with three columns: name in Castilian (Spanish), the autonomous language of the place (Catalan, Basque, Galician, Bable), and an official name. Now - i am not sure about the exact meaning of "official" in this context, but maps printed in Spain followed the "official" spelling as listed in this dictionary. The road signs in Catalonia and in Aragon followed Catalan spelling for places in Catalonia and Aranese spelling for places in Val d'Aran. (If anyone has a better explanation of the meaning of "official name" in Spain, please provide it.) So, for the province which is being discussed the Castilian name is Guipúzcoa, the autonomous (Basque) name is Gipuzkoa, and the official name is - drumroll - Gipuzkoa. To the best of my understanding, if this spelling is official enough for the Spanish federal government, then it can be used in Wikipedia. However, the reasoning provided earlier by Jmgonzalez about actual usage of Gipuzkoa in English sources is also rather convincing, so if Gipuzkoa proves as too controversial, then Guipúzcoa is my second best. --Amir E. Aharoni 00:12, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

  According to es.wikipedia, while the Spanish government (no such thing as federal government) has passed a law stating that the official names (even in Spanish) of Catalan and Galician cities is the Catalan and Galician form, (see es:Lérida and es:Orense, respectively), this is not the case for Basque ones (see es:Guipúzcoa). Jmgonzalez 09:19, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

  I am sorry about the incorrect wording federal government, but i suppose that you understood what i meant.

  So, do you say that this Clave dictionary is wrong? According to it, Gipuzkoa is as official as Lleida.

  Is there some Spanish government website about this issue? --Amir E. Aharoni 09:41, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

  Of course I did ;). According to es.wikipedia, Clave is wrong. Lleida (Catalan) and Ourense (Galician) are official, but Gipuzkoa is not. es:Guipúzcoa states that "La proposición de ley núm. 122/000084 presentada el día 2 de julio de 2004 por el Grupo Parlamentario Vasco (Partido Nacionalista Vasco) en el Congreso de los Diputados de la VIII legislatura, que pretendía establecer como denominación oficial única la de Gipuzkoa, fue retirada por ese mismo partido el día 9 de mayo de 2006." Quick translation: "A law introduced by the Basque Nationalist Party (BNP) on July 2nd, 2004, which stated that the official name for the province was Gipuzkoa, was taken away by the very same BNP on May 9th, 2006." Jmgonzalez 03:54, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

  Damn it, what did i pay 40 € for? :)

  Still, i have this question: Is there some webpage that lists those official names and explains what "official" means in this context? --Amir E. Aharoni 05:27, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

  Think positive: They may after all end up changing the name to Gipuzkoa, in which case you'd not only have a right dictionary, but one that was right before things were right ;).

  On your question, this may help on the name list. Jmgonzalez 10:26, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. 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.

No justification for the move.

According to the above discussion there are two opinions in favor to move and two against. There's absolutely no consensus and there's absolutely no argumentation in favor of using "Guipúzcoa", a term that is not even used in Spanish anymore (except by a reduced bunch of fanatics) and that definitively has no use in English.

Demonstration: I performed a search in BBC news (an English-only respected media) [4] and got:

• Guipúzcoa (accented, as in Spanish): no hits;
• Guipuzcoa (no accent): 7 hits
• Guipuscoa: no hits
• Gipuzkoa: 1 hit

So, if anything, it should be at Guipuzcoa.

In any case, the official name is a relevant element when taking these decissions. 8 hits in BBC mean that the name is not widely used, I got six times that for the ill-known city of Dushanbe [5]. So official name should be considered in these cases.

The official name, for use in Basque, Spanish, English, French and, as far as I know, any language of the world that styles the Latin alphabet is Gipuzkoa. See: the official page of the Gipuzkoan government Spanish and English (French and Basque are also available).

This term is not just styled by the Basque autonomous administrations but also by the Spanish government in nearly all official documents. Identity cards carry the official designations for the Basque provinces and municipalities, for instance.

Also there are other cases where the official name is used in preference to the more commonly known names. For example: Channel-Port aux Basques, Newfoundland and Labrador. Port aux Basques, a much better known and short name, is merely a redirect.

I wonder why there's always some people trying to strictly apply certain guidelines (but not others) specifically to Basque toponimy and not to cases as the above, which has an strikingly unwikipedic title, extremely hard to find. That title has been that way for years now... and the only reason I can imagine is that it's not a Basque (or Irish) toponym.

--Sugaar 09:06, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

There was absolute consensus that the previous name "Guipuscoa" was inadequate (unless one wants to make both Spanish and Basque speakers equally discontent), so the article should have been moved somewhere. As I said in the closing statement, Gipuzkoa vs. Guipúzcoa was little more than a coin toss. I don't think that it was reasonably well demonstrated that "Gipuzkoa" is the official name. We routinely include the diacritics for foreign toponyms, especially when those are the only difference. Your hinting that someone has something against the Basques only is not in line with WP:AGF. Duja► 09:30, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

No. It's not any coin toss: it's a conscious or unconscious decission in favor of the politically meaningful Spanish spelling. Would it have been Guipuzkoa (unaccented), it would have been justified, but this decission is 100% unjustified.

And there was no consensus: I read the RFM and there were two people in favor of the move and two against (and I wasn't around at that time). You made decission based in nothing but your own subjectivity.

And how can I assume good faith when the mve was done against consensus and for an unjustified option? If you have good faith, you should demonstrate it by undoing your totally unjustified move. --Sugaar (talk) 04:01, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Sugaar, by the way welcome back, Gipuzkoa should be used over Guipúzcoa because it is the official name and Guipúzcoa carries political connotations. Guipuzcoa however does not. T Rex | talk 08:55, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I think that Sugaar is exaggerating. I am sure that whoever performed the renaming did it in good faith and that there was reasonable consensus based on actual usage in English sources.

I can't see how Guipuzcoa has less political connotations than Guipúzcoa. The "Gui" is enough to make the spelling look Spanish. Moving this article to Guipuzcoa wouldn't make sense, as it is something that nobody uses.

Personally i think that Gipuzkoa is ultimately preferable, but the argument of usage in actual English sources is enough to convince me that Guipúzcoa is an acceptable compromise. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 11:29, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I think Sugaar is being unfair to Duja. He should definitely assume good faith. Had he read the discussion above (his comment that "there's absolutely no argumentation in favor of using 'Guipúzcoa'" seems to suggest he didn't), he could have argued that the move was carried out with little or no consensus (there were in fact very few opinions), or that the evidence (three well-known Encyclopedias an arguably the most influential English-language newspaper in the world) was not enough for him. But, the fact that Duja choose not to pick the spelling he fashions or to revert it at his will is by no means proof of bad faith.

In fact, I'd suggest he should assume good faith in a more general basis. The Spanish language spelling of a place need not be a "politically meaningful" one (whatever that means). Spanish-language speakers using such spelling when talking in the Spanish language are not a "reduced bunch of fanatics." (At least their number is big enough so that they're not a "reduced bunch.") They're simply using their language spelling. In fact, and contradicting your argument about officiality, they're also using the spelling suggested by both the Spanish (see the Spanish-language version of the Spanish 1978 Constitution) and Basque (see the Spanish-language version of the 1979 Basque Statute of Autonomy) governments.

On the issue: I'll stick to "Guipuzcoa," without the diacritics. While evidence still points to "Guipúzcoa" (books.google produces 3120 for "Guipúzcoa," 1160 for "Guipuzcoa," 881 for "Guipuscoa," and 645 for "Gipuzkoa"), the English alphabet uses no diacritics. The official policy has been rejected, so I'd get rid of them. Jmgonzalez (talk) 12:32, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Naming debate

I have started a general naming debate on the naming conventions of Basque provinces at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Basque and would like to invite all interested parties to take part in the debate. Akerbeltz (talk) 12:01, 23 January 2010 (UTC)