Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Kazakhstan

RfC Should Kazakhstan article names follow current transliteration rules?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

To keep it short:--No, at least as of now.∯WBG^converse 05:58, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

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Should Kazakhstan article names follow current transliteration rules, even where the WP:COMMONNAME found in English language texts uses a differing transliteration?

Recent move requests are using justifications such as "native Kazakh ... (Cyrillic name) is transliterated ... (Latin text)," and "Kazakhstan is also switching to Latin script as well so that makes it written ...".

Batternut (talk) 23:37, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Context

Current moves under discussion are Balkhash (city) to "Balqash", Akmola Region to "Aqmola Region" and Ak Orda Presidential Palace to "Aqorda Presidential Palace". Other recent attempted moves have been Stepnogorsk to "Stepnogor", Balqash Airport to "Balqash Airport", Arkalyk to "Arqalyq", Zhibek Zholy Street (Almaty) to "Jibek Joly Street (Almaty)", and Nurly Zhol to "Nurly Jol".

See Kazakh language for details of Kazakhstan's switch to Latin script. When the switch was announced a proposal to move Kazakhstan to "Qazaqstan" (archived here) was rejected.

Batternut (talk) 23:38, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Survey

• No - we should stick to the spelling currently found in English language reliable sources, per policy WP:COMMONNAME, and avoid WP:Crystalball gazing. Batternut (talk) 23:40, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
• Leaning No. We had a similar discussion for Ukraine, which is a bit difficult to me now to find. Ukrainian uses the Cyrillic script, but the transliteration rules are pretty straightforward. The outcome was that most Ukrainian localities (the identified exceptions were Kiev, Odessa, Chernobyl, and, later as a RM, Gurzuf) have no established Enlish language names, and for them the transliteration must be applied. I guess the situation is similar to Kazakhstan, most localities have no established names, and we must come with the list of exceptions and for the rest follow the Latin Kazakh alphabet. However, this should not be a permission for indiscriminate undiscussed moves (indeed, users who repeatedly moved Ukrainian articles without discussion have been blocked), and where an established name in English exists it must be used irrespectively of what spelling Kazakhstan chooses to use in Kazakh. Note that in the discussion of Talk:Qaraghandy the spelling was invented by discussion participants, which I personally find absolutely unacceptable.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:12, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
• Comment: Apologies for my unnotified page movement, I do think we should stick to WP:COMMONNAME. However, I can highly assure you that the names of the articles I moved have no complete common name and show different good amount of results when written in different language transliteration. I have no real intentions of changing articles with common name such as Kazakhstan to Qazaqstan or Nazarbayev to Nazarbaev since these are the names that I admit, are common. Shadowzpaev (talk) 16:41, 2 June 2018 (UTC)Blocked sock. Dekimasuよ! 20:19, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

• No. As this source points out, the transition to this alphabet is only just beginning in Kazakhstan and it is not reflected in English sources. I agree with User:Shadowzpaev's "no common name" argument in principle, but it's too early for wholesale moves based on an alphabet that's only been in place since February (and which replaced another one only finalised in 2017). Wikipedia still uses non-standard transliterations for Azeri nearly 30 years after its switch to the Latin alphabet. —  AjaxSmack  02:43, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
• (Summoned by bot) No. As per WP:COMMONNAME. Borsoka (talk) 04:33, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
• Neutral. I have a comment in response to Ymblanter; It is common in Kazakhstan for highway signs to have English versions for towns. (I don't know if this should be a factor in our decisions, which is why I am neutral -- I just thought it might be relevant). Kdammers (talk) 09:15, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

• To assume that last year's decision to switch the preferred script for Kazakh to Latin will result in the newer transliteration becoming the dominant spelling would be WP:Crystalball gazing (Wikipedia does not predict the future). Batternut (talk) 23:40, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
• It depends, if there is a very fair amount of Kazakh names about Kazakhstan articles that are mentioned in English language without a fully established WP:COMMONNAME then they should be changed. However if articles like Lake Balkhash, then they should remain the same because many English sources and even maps with Kazakh named cities show its non-Kazakh name. Igor1383 (talk) 16:02, 2 June 2018 (UTC)Blocked sock. Dekimasuよ! 20:19, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

@Igor1383: your "fully established common name" test is expressed by WP:TRANSLITERATE as situations of "too few reliable English-language sources to constitute an established usage". So what number of sources might we consider as "too few"? I think most or all of the above cases have over a hundred sources using the current spellings. Batternut (talk)

17:20, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

@Shadowzpaev: you assured us that the names of the articles I moved have no complete common name, but they do! One example, "Stepnogorsk" gets about 3,740 book search hits whereas "Stepnogor" gets only 11 hits. At scholar.google.co.uk "Stepnogorsk" gets about 494 hits whereas "Stepnogor" gets only 4 hits! It's the same with the others. Batternut (talk) 10:26, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

• Shadowzpaev and Igor1383 are confirmed as the being same person, so this appears to be just one person's crusade.. Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:24, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Thank you, it looks like vandalism, and it was unsourced anyway. I have removed it.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:25, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

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Romanization or native Latin script?

WP:KAZAKHNAMES says “For Kazakh language, BGN/PCGN romanization of Kazakh is typically used.” But I notice that the articles on Tokayev and Nazarbayev, and some others, use the Latin Kazakh in the lead instead, in contradiction to the example given there. Is this now the convention in use?

It seems to make sense to use the Kazakh Latin (or should I say Qazaq Latin?).

Shall we update the guideline?  —Michael Z. 05:43, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

No, I do not think there is consensus to use Kazakh Latin. In a year or two it would become official, and then romanization would not be needed. Ymblanter (talk) 19:31, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

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Hello WikiProject Kazakhstan:

WikiProject Women in Green is holding a month-long Good Article Edit-a-thon event in October 2023!

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Hi there, I don't know that much about Kazakhstan nor have any connection to the country, but I have been reading Wikipedia and have been finding that several articles still contain "Nur-Sultan" in their titles or body text. Is there a guideline on where to use Nur-Sultan vs. Astana in articles? Specifically, if an event (e.g. election, sports match etc) occurred while the capital's name was Nur-Sultan, do we use Nur-Sultan for that article or do we change that to Astana? Similarly, if something was established while the city was named Nur-Sultan, do we use Nur-Sultan or Astana for that as well? Thanks. Prodraxis _(talk) 20:17, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I think this is pretty much as other renamed cities: If an event took place when the name of the city wass Nursultan, it should be as a rule referred to as Nursultan. (Note also that though it was called Astana before and after Nursultan, it was still called Akmolinsk, Tselinograd, and Akmola before Astana). Ymblanter (talk) 16:08, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

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Recently, I have been finding that across multiple wikis (including en.wp), the capital of Kazakhstan is still called Nur-Sultan, not Astana in inappropriate places against WP:MOS guidelines (see User:Prodraxis/Astana for more info). I have recently come across the article Nur-Sultan Zhas Ulan Republican School while looking for examples of such MOS errors to fix. Now, AFAIK a lot of establishments (e.g. Barys Astana) have changed their names from containing Nur-Sultan to containing Astana when the capital was renamed back to Astana, and I want to know if this is the case for the Nur-Sultan Zhas Ulan Republican School article as well. I tried to google some stuff in English, but I couldn't find anything regarding the school's name, and I don't understand any Russian or Kazakh either and I can't read Cyrillic. Can any Russian or Kazakh speakers help out with this? Thanks. Prodraxis _(talk) 14:42, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Nvm, please disregard this message - a few days ago, I decided to move the page's title to Astana Zhas Ulan Republican School partly because other articles were named e.g. Almaty Zhas Ulan Republican School and the naming conventions seemed consistently to put the name of the city in front of "Zhas Ulan Republican School" with regards to these articles. Prodraxis _(talk) 15:02, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

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We hope to see you there!

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