Talk:List of Latin place names in the Balkans

Local spellings in parenthesis?

I disagree with William Allen Simpson's convention of putting first the modern name without diacritics and then the same name with diacritics between parentheses. I think it's only a waste of space. For most of these names, there are only local spellings. Removing the diacritics from the name does not make for either an English or an "international" name. It is simply a typographical convention for typewriters that have no accent marks. But that is all ancient history. Simpson's convention is antiquated and is not followed elsewhere in the Wikipedia, e.g. in related articles such as: Names of European cities in different languages, List of European regions with alternative names, etc. I recommend using the "local spellings" only, if necessary, preceded by the name without diacritic and a pipe, only in case the Wikipedia article's title does not show the diacritics (but I believe in most cases they do). Pasquale 22:48, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you. Everywhere in Wikipedia, the "local spellings" are used and AFAIK that is the policy. And in some cases, such as Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia, these are actually transliterations of the Cyrillic names.bogdan 22:55, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

• First of all, it's not "my" policy, but rather the designer of the original pages. I split them as they became too large for one page.

Probably it was created back in the time when Wikipedia did not accepted UTF titles. bogdan 11:54, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

• However, the idea that "everywhere" local spellings are used is incorrect. It is only very recently that folks have been moving page titles to diacritical marks. That's certainly true of all those that Bogdan recently changed. In fact, some of those changed HAVE NO diacritical named article! Only the English named article exists.

For example? bogdan 11:54, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

• "Rosia Montana" 15:41, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

You mean Roşia Montană ? It had diacriticals from the beginningbogdan 16:33, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

You mean, since you made the redirect on 2005 November 18. The references on this page are far older. William Allen Simpson 17:13, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I made the redirect a few hours after I created the article. bogdan 11:48, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

• For those of us in the English world, when we do a Google search, those articles with diacriticals never show up. We need translation pages such as these.

Wrong. Search for Brasov, without diacriticals and results with diacriticals. bogdan 11:54, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

The references I get on this search are to the old Brasov page, which apparently you've recently moved. Most *.wikipedia also use Brasov with no diacriticals. And perhaps most importantly, the only reason that the diacritical version shows up in the (unreadable, with no translation link) ro.wikipedia is that the image is "Brasov.png" — according to the cache highlights. --William Allen Simpson 15:41, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Not true. You can do that search on any site. Search for Brasov, without diacriticals on the site of the Romanian government and there are results with diacriticals. bogdan 16:33, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

• Moreover, I just checked the pages you mentioned, and most of those "English" names that have sprouted diacriticals are recent changes. In fact, diacriticals make them useless. They don't show up in searches, and therefore, arguably are not Wikipedia policy. English versions of names have no diacriticals.

William Allen Simpson 03:42, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Please — this is a language translation page. Making the English name the same as the Romanian name makes no sense! It stops being a translation.... William Allen Simpson 15:41, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

There are no English names for those places. When there is a widely known English name (such as "Bucharest" for "Bucureşti"), that name is used in the title. bogdan 16:33, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

(heavy sigh) Since there *ARE* clearly English names for the places, and they've been in books for centuries (cited in reference section), your "proof by assertion" isn't good argument. William Allen Simpson 17:13, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

---

With respect, William Allen Simpson's assertion about Google is just wrong. I google foreign-language words and names all the time without using accents or other diacritics, and they show up with the correct accents and diacritics. Furthermore, the notion that there should be special "English names" just for all the small places in the Balkans whose names happen to have diacritics (but not for those that don't) is absurd. There are English names for a few cities, such as Athens, Belgrade, Bucharest, and so forth, but they are few and far between. Again, please refer to Names of European cities in different languages for style. The fact that diacritics may have been added only recently to some Wikipedia entries is immaterial. All major atlases now show the diacritics everywhere, and when they show English names at all, e.g. for places such as Bucharest, etc., they certainly don't add English names without diacritics for small places whose names include diacritics. Pasquale 02:53, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Glamoc (Glamoč) <-- The spelling without diacritics is redundant. The article is at Glamoč. - FrancisTyers 16:57, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Kosovo table

@Maleschreiber: and @Bes-ART: this article does not have a table dedicated to Kosovo. Is one of you willing to create that table? Ktrimi991 (talk) 23:57, 2 September 2021 (UTC)