Talk:Zarafshon (river)

Zeravshan and Zarafshon: naming conventions

Alefbe has made a number of systematic changes in the name of Zeravshan River based on Tajik-language sources and conventions. But Zeravshan is also a river in Uzbekistan, where (I think) it is much longer than in Tajikistan and where its name is not spelled Зарафшон and where "river" is not necessarily spelled with a lower-case "r" as in Tajik sources. This fact needs to be reflected in the naming conventions and in the article itself. --Zlerman (talk) 04:15, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

The common Uzbek spelling is also "Zarafshon" [1] (official usage). About "river" or "River", you can move the page to "Zarafshon River" if you prefer. Alefbe (talk) 05:10, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

• Thank you very much for this important clarification with the official Uzbek source. I will re-read the article and see if anything needs to be added in connection with Uzbekistan. Best, --Zlerman (talk) 06:20, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Zarafshon vs. Zarafshan: next stage in the decision process

Following the suggestions from Alefbe I looked up Zarafshan/Zarafshon in the Uzbek government site and in the site of the Tajik news agency khovar.tj. In the Uzbek government site [2], we read "Samarkand Region is located at the centre of Uzbekistan in the basin of the Zarafshan River." On khovar.tj [3] we similarly read "...negotiations of experts on discussion of construction Yavan Power Electric Station on Zarafshan River were held recently." So both an official Uzbek source and an official Tajik source write Zarafshan River in English texts on their sites. These are just two instances, one from each country, and maybe the same sites contain instances of "Zarafshon" in English texts, but I could not find them. Given this information, it seems to me that English Wikipedia also should use Zarafshan River rather than Zarafshon river (redirecting "Zarafshon" to "Zarafshan", not the other way around). Comments? Incidentally, Zeravshan is also used on the Uzbek official site [4], but this is for the mountain range, not the river (no "Zeravshan" on khovar.tj). Now, whatever we decide for the name of the river will apply to the mountains, the towns (in both Taj and Uzb), and other instances of Zeravshan/Zarafshan/Zarafshon in en:wiki and all interwikis. So what is the main name that we should use in English? --Zlerman (talk) 12:44, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

It's a matter of transliteration. What is written as Cyrillic "о" in Tajik texts, or Latin "o" in Uzbek texts, is pronounced as IPA:/ɑ/ and is written as "а" in Russian texts. That's why we see different common spellings of Tajik and Uzbek names in English texts (some transliterate from Russian, some other transliterate directly from Tajiki or use Uzbeki without any change). There are two different cases: either the name is widely used in English texts (for example "Bukhara") or not. In the first case, the common tradition is to use the most common English spelling of the word. In second case, it's the common tradition in wikipedia to directly transliterate from the original texts. The standard transliteration of "Зарафшон" is "Zarafshon" and it coincides with the Uzbek spelling. Alefbe (talk) 14:51, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Zarafshon River: Move Back to Zeravshan River

On May 15 and 16, 2008, the article Zeravshan River was moved to ‘’’Zarafshon river’’’ by Alefbe. The move was not discussed on the talk page, and the editorial comments only said that the move was “based on official Tajiki spelling (in president.tj and khovar.tj)”. Subsequently, Alefbe also provided a reference to the use of “Zarafshon” in Uzbek-language text on an official Uzbek site (http://www.gov.uz, see discussion of Uzbek spelling above). I am requesting that the move be reversed based on the criterion of established English usage:

• The major English language on-line encyclopedias – Britannica.com, Columbia Encyclopedia (at Bartleby.com), and Encarta Online (encarta.msn.com) – use “Zeravshan River” and do not mention either “Zarafshan” or “Zarafshon” (search in all these encyclopedias is accessible from http://www.libraryspot.com/encyclopedias.htm)
• Encyclopedia Britannica electronic edition (2004 CD) lists “Zeravshan River” (and “Zeravshan Range”), without mentioning either “Zarafshan” or “Zarafshon”.
• Encarta Atlas (on-line edition): “Zeravshan River” (no “Zarafshan” or “Zarafshon”)
• Encyclopedia Britannica Atlas (print edition): “Zeravshan River”
• Pergamon World Atlas (print edition): “Zeravshan River”
• Google search produces

2,620 hits for “Zeravshan River” (without either “Zarafshan” or “Zarafshon”);

1,430 hits for “Zarafshan River” (without “Zeravshan”)

164 hits for “Zarafshon River” (without “Zeravshan”)

• Google Scholar (Recent Articles) produces

144 hits for “Zeravshan River”

106 hits for “Zarafshan River” (without “Zeravshan”)

1 hit for “Zarafshon River” (without “Zeravshan”)

• Google Scholar (Recent Articles) produces

702 hits for “Zeravshan” (any “Zeravshan”, not just the river)

444 hits for “Zarafshan” (without “Zeravshan”)

34 hits for “Zarafshon” (without “Zeravshan”)

It seems to me that these results clearly indicate that the main scholarly usage in English is “Zeravshan”, followed (at a considerable distance) by “Zarafshan”, with “Zarafshon” trailing far behind on the scale of common acceptance. I therefore request that the page “Zarafshon river” (with its talk page) be moved back to “Zeravshan River” to restore the status before May 15. In addition to conforming to common English usage, this will prevent spelling conflicts within en:wiki and with interwikis. References to both “Zarafshan” and “Zarafshon” as spelling variants should of course be included in the article “Zeravshan River” and proper redirects should be added. --Zlerman (talk) 02:37, 17 May 2008 (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. JPG-GR (talk) 18:27, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Zarafshon river → Zeravshan River — accepted usage in English as documented above; original article called "Zeravshan River" was changed to "Zarafshon River" without discussion on May 15-16, 2008 —Zlerman (talk) 02:30, 18 May 2008 (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.

• Support - Revert it to the previous title per nom. Bold edits that are disagreed with should be reverted as a matter of course unless proof is provided or discussion entered. As it is, the nominator's evidence seems solid. Narson (talk) 22:24, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
• Interesting that an argument for having the article at "Zarafshon" is that it is the Tajik name but the Tajik article on the river is at tg:Дарёи Зеравшан, i.e. Zeravshan. — AjaxSmack 03:30, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

The article in Tajiki Wikipedia is generated by a bot (Корбар:Bishbot), run by a user who only has a rudimentary knowledge about Tajiki (compare [5] and [6]). Alefbe (talk) 13:15, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I should also mention that "Zarafshan River" is also fine for the title (Зарафшон can be transliterated as "Zarafshan" and Zarafshon", depending on the method of transliteration). Alefbe (talk) 13:17, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose For geographical names that are not widely used in English texts, the official spelling should take precedence. In this case, the Uzbek spelling is "Zarafshon" and the Tajik spelling is Зарафшон (which can be transliterated as "Zarafshon" or "Zarafshan"). In official English usage, "Zarafshan River" or "Zarafshon River" is used (for example [7] [8] [9]). I think the title of this page should follow the current official spelling (it should be either "Zarafshon River" or "Zarafshan River"). About the usage in other English texts, as Zlerman has already shown, "Zeravshan River" is not much more frequent than "Zarafshan River". So, there is no reason to favour "Zeravshan River" (which is not compatible with any transliteration standard) over "Zarafshan River" (which is one of the two official spellings and compatible with one of the two common transliteration standards) Alefbe (talk) 13:28, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
• Support: Although I am the nominator of the move, I am forced to cast my vote in order to offset the vote cast by Alefbe, who is an interested party in this discussion (it was his unsubstantiated bold edit that triggered the request) and therefore should not vote in the survey. In my opinion, we should follow the suggestion of Narson and revert for the reasons he gives. As to the question of English usage, I will repeat that Encyclopedia Britannica, Columbia Encyclopedia, and Encarta all use Zeravshan, and none mentions either Zarafshan or Zarafshon; all current English language atlases and maps use Zeravshan (for the latest example on line see the 1998 GRID-Arendal map). I therefore submit that Zeravshan is the common English usage, not Zarafshan or Zarafshon, and the Wikipedia article name should follow the other major English-language encyclopedias. --Zlerman (talk) 15:08, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

About the encyclopedias, official usage is more important that the spelling in other encyclopedias. All the encyclopedias will eventually follow the official spelling. Wikipedia shouldn't wait for other encyclopedias. About the map that you mentioned, it uses the transliteration from Russian (for example, Khodzhent, insteadof Khujand). This kind of spelling is becoming less common in English maps. Instead, most of the standard English maps use the new spelling (for example this map from the Texas library archive). As you see on the map, the river is spelled as "Daryoi Zarafshon" and "Khujand" is spelled as "Khujand" (the same spelling that we use in English Wikipedia), not the the russified "Khodzhent". Alefbe (talk) 16:58, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Please cite why you say that official usage is more important than encyclopedic usage here at Wikipedia? WP:COMMONNAME ("Use common names") puts more emphasis on what is commonly used by English speakers, not what is official, e.g. South Korea, not Republic of Korea. This is expressed more fully at WP:OFFICIAL. Furthermore, the "official names" you cite are running text usages with two different spellings. The evidence presented above concerning English usage is reasonably convincing so, support the move. (And agree with User:Narson that "bold [moves] that are disagreed with should be reverted as a matter of course unless proof is provided or discussion entered.") — AjaxSmack 23:01, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

The map brought to our attention by Alefbe also uses Viloyati Leninobod (for Sughd), Ordjonikidzeobod (for Vahdat), and Viloyati Muhtori Kuhiston Badakhshon (another example of Tajiki spelling that was debated in Wikipedia and reverted to Gorno-Badakhshan). The map is undated, but it looks to me like an old Soviet-era map that consistently uses Tajik-language placenames (as they were at that time) in straight English transliteration (note the use of Dar'yoi for River everywhere). I do not think it is valid evidence for our case. I strongly support the argument brought by AjaxSmack above, and of course also the arguments put forward by at the top of the section by Narson. We should revert to Zeravshan based on current encyclopedic usage (as well as the other reasons mentioned). --Zlerman (talk) 01:56, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

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.