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Archive 1Archive 2

Name 1

Moving this article from "Ilham Aliyev" to "İlham Əliyev", furthermore, replacing all instances of "Ilham Aliyev" in the article itself with "İlham Əliyev" is not helpful in the English language Wikipedia, though I understand the desire to accurately reflect the linguistic origins of the name. I think the subject would be better served (in an English-language context) by reverting the move and adding "İlham Əliyev" in the first sentence as a variant. Any objections? Pinkville 16:09, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I do object. Švitrigaila 17:00, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
In fact I have a very very very long argument on exactly the same subject on the French Wikipedia. I don't want to start an argument here too. It's not me who has decided to change this article's title on English Wikipedia, but I agree with it. Just because his name is İlham Əliyev and the use of redirects is very practical to avoid typing problems. It's absolutely logical for me to make a redirect from an approximative but widely used spelling to the correct spelling. Švitrigaila 17:06, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
But consider such names as: 上野 彦馬 (Ueno Hikoma), Казимир Малевич(Kazimir Malevich) or even Hồ Chí Minh (Ho Chi Minh). Although "İlham Əliyev" is appropriate and correct in an Azerbaijani context, most non-Azerbaijanis would have no idea how to pronounce this - and no way to enter it in a search field! The same goes for any other names that use non-roman characters. I believe the article should be moved back to "Ilham Aliyev", with "İlham Əliyev" in the opening sentence of the article, and with a "İlham Əliyev" redirect page. Furthermore, this is Wikipedia policy (and Wikipedia practice in other biographies); i.e. the principle used in naming articles is to give the best (often most common) English trasliteration of a proper noun. Pinkville 21:20, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
To provide a little grounding: "Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.
Another way to summarize the overall principle of Wikipedia's naming conventions:
Names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors; and for a general audience over specialists." [1] Pinkville 00:46, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
(I'm sorry for my bad English, I'm French.) In fact, there is a difference between a name like İlham Əliyev and Казимир Малевич. The first one is written with the latin alphabet, the second one is not. Of course, the first one is written with a completed latin alphabet with some extra letters. The latin alphabet by itself has twenty six fondamental letters, but languages using only those twenty six letters are very rare (Latin, English, Indonesian, Uzbek,...) Nearly every language add aditional letters. On an encyclopedia, it's normal to respect the exact spelling of foreign proper names if they're written with the latin alphabet and to transliterate them if they're written with another alphabet. Prononciation is not the problem. In loan words from French used in English such as "vis-à-vis", for example, you write the acceent on the "à" without wonderoing how to pronounce it. If the pronunciation were the problem, you should have to rename every unprounceable names, such as Miloslav Cardinal Vlk. Names and their sepelling are not made for the reader's confort.
The azerbaijani "ə" may be difficult to pronounce. But you can do with it exactly the same thing you do every time you see a "difficult to pronounce letter". For example, if you read the article about Võru, what would you do with the "õ"? It's simple : either you find out how it's really pronounced, or you invent your own pronounciation, or you choose to ignore totally the odd signs (you count "õ" like a mere "o" and "ə" like a mere "e"). You'll be surprised by this extra letter only once, you'll get used to it ten seconds later and you won't be surprised if you find it once more. it's not like Казимир Малевич whith which you must learn a complete alphabet.
And what about researches? On Wikipedia, it's very simple : there are redirects. Try to look for Ilham Aliyev, or Ilham Aliev or even Ilkham Aliev... You'll be immediatly be sent to İlham Əliyev without any effort. I think the artcle Ho Chi Minh must be renamed into Hồ Chí Minh by the way.
I don't like the argument I often read here about the "principle used in naming articles is to give the best (often most common) English trasliteration of a proper noun." Firstly, this principle must occur only when there is something to transliterate, and secondly (and mostly) it would mean the the majority's confort is more important than the accuracy of the information. It would mean a truth is the result of a concensus about what effort the majority is ready to do to reach it.
Just to finish, I must add I'm strongly in favor of using English forms of proper names when they exist and are considered parts of the English glossary: country names (Ivory Coast instead of Côte d'Ivoire,...), main city names (Rome instead of Roma,...), kings' names (Charles XVI Gustav, instead of Carl XVI Gustaf, Ladislaus II instead of Władysław II...) and some old personnal historical names (Christopher Columbus instead of Cristoforo Colombo,...) Those are the results of anciant historical distortion processes. But it doesn't include modern foreign names just because they're not easy to pronounce.
Švitrigaila 11:32, 26 May 2006 (UTC)


I’m from Azerbaijan myself, but I think we should use the English spelling for the title according to the rules, and provide Azeri spelling in the lead of the article. That’s a normal practice here. Otherwise we need to change the titles of all Azerbaijani personalities. Also see here, it requires to use English spelling: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people) Grandmaster 11:58, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
The titles of most of the Azerbaijani personalities have already been changed. And I don't think there is an "English spelling" for Azerbaijani names. There is no need fore example tu rename Fuad Quliyev into Fuad Gouliev.
Azerbaijan uses the latin alphabet for a short time. I think the Azerbaijani are not accustomed yet to write foreign proper names written with the latin alphabet with their correct spelling (Here is an exemple about US President Corc Buş). This habit to transliterate all the names from other languages, regardless of their original alphabet, is common in languages written with the cyrillic alphabet. Thus, the Russians write every foreign names phonetically, even the Bulgarian names, despite Bulgarian uses exactly the same letters as Russian, but with a different pronounciation. But languages using the latin alphabet don't... except Albanian, Latvian, Lithuanian and "new latin-users" such az Azerbaijani, Turkmen and Uzbek. In Lithuanian, the custom is now changing, and the original spelling of foreign proper names are more and more used. The newspaper "Lietuvos Rytas" uses the original spelling, while "Respublika" still uses the phonetic spelling. I think the custom will change gradually for the "new latin-users".
But it's not a reason to do the same thing on the other way. We write Albanian, Latvian, Lithuanian names with their original spelling. We write for examble Andris Šķēle and not Andris Shkyehle. The Andris Skele spelling can occur, but it's not phonetic. It's simply the result of technical restrictions we don't have on Wikipedia. It must be the same rule for all foreign languages using the latin alphabet, without discrimination.
Švitrigaila 14:34, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
(I respond here to your comments further up the page as well as to those immediately above.) "Names and their sepelling are not made for the reader's confort." On the contrary, that is exactly why proper names are rendered differently in languages other than the original. That is why francophones refer to Terre-Neuve rather than Newfoundland (and, in fact, Newfoundland is only the English version of the original Latin, Terra Nova, from 1497). It is why diacritical marks are often removed in the English version of names like Emile Gsell, et al. You must recognise that modern foreign names are adapted to English (and other languages) as soon as they become known - that is how news anchors (for example) can refer to people such as İlham Əliyev (believe me, the teleprompters in North American (etc.) TV studios do not say "İlham Əliyev". You can consult the Library of Congress Names Authorities to find the accepted English forms of names, including "Aliyev, Ilham", for indeed there is an English spelling for many Azerbaijani names (though there are often two or more variants for any given example; both "Quliyev" and "Gouliev" can be found in the Library of Congress). You've misunderstood my point about pronunciation - I'm not concerned with how an anglophone (or anyone other non-Azerbaijani speaker) would utter such a name, but with the primary recognition of the character. Diacritical marks don't gravely affect the readability of a word (taking your example of vis-à-vis), but the use of unknown characters does. It is the same with the examples I gave of Ueno and Malevich, seeing 上野 or Малевич is perplexing - how does one refer to these terms in an English context? The answer is, one can't. There is no English point of access to 上野, which is why the name is transliterated (according to one or another carefully worked out transliteration systems, as it turns out). Although the Azeri alphabet uses the roman/latin alphabet as a base, you can't sweep away the exceptions, which need to be transliterated (especially since, as I understand it, the schwa Ə is one of the most commonly used letters in the language). I understand the Azeri use of the schwa (and other symbols) as a point of nationalistic pride, and linguistic groups do and ought to create whatever linguistic conventions work best for them, but transliteration is a necessity in a multilingual world (and even a positive condition, by improving access to each others' cultures). (It's worth adding, maybe, that even the Azeri partial adoption of the latin alphabet can be as easily seen as an example of cultural imperialism {by the US and Europe} as were the uses of the Arabic and Cyrillic alphabets for Azeri.) You raise the issue of accuracy, but how is Ueno Hikoma less accurate than 上野 彦馬? It's a variant in another language, not an error. Finally, in addition to re-reading the following note from Naming conventions, you should consult the naming conventions for Irish names, which has direct relevance since Irish uses the latin alphabet, but with variously Irish and Anglicised forms.
Names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors; and for a general audience over specialists.
Pinkville 16:32, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Name 2

Bouncing back to the left, to save space.

I'm puzzled by the relevance of this: "Names and their sepelling are not made for the reader's confort." On the contrary, that is exactly why proper names are rendered differently in languages other than the original. That is why francophones refer to Terre-Neuve rather than Newfoundland (and, in fact, Newfoundland is only the English version of the original Latin, Terra Nova, from 1497). The example strikes me as very interesting but largely irrelevant to naming practices in English during our own lifetimes. Imaginary example: Paraguay decides to rename its capital "Casablanca". Anglophones do not rush to their dictionaries and name the place "White House"; they instead write "Casablanca" and pronounce the place, well, as they pronounce the title of the movie, telling themselves that this (however closely or loosely their pronunciation resembles what's used in Paraguay) is not the English name but instead is the name.

Let's continue with placenames for a moment. Rīga is commonly (but not universally) written as Riga (the title of the en-WP article). I think that this is at least in part a matter of quasi-tradition within English. Compare the neighboring quasi-town of Jūrmala. This concept (that the little resorts constitute a town) is a new invention; perhaps this is why Jurmala redirects to Jūrmala rather than vice versa.

There's no technical problem with diacritics in titles. I don't think there's a readability problem either. Those interested will wonder how they're pronounced, and their provision will thus aid attempts at proper pronunciation; those not interested will ignore them, merrily pronouncing "Jūrmala" (for example) just as they'd pronounce "Jurmala".

"Əliyev" is perhaps a different matter. I knew nothing of Azerbaijani, I'm ashamed to say, until I read this talk page. The first letter stumped me: I knew of its use for schwa in IPA and other phonetic notation, but I had no particular reason to think that it was here used as schwa. Still, the confusion didn't last long and actually I found it rather pleasant. ("Ooh, Azerbaijani uses schwa!") This seems a very different matter from 上野 彦馬 (mentioned above). As it happens, I can read that (as "Ueno Hikoma") -- but I can't read An editor has nominated the above file for discussion of its purpose and/or potential deletion. You are welcome to participate in the discussion and help reach a consensus. ("Yangon" in Burmese), because I've no idea of Pali/Burmese script. I realize that 上野 彦馬 will be just as abstruse for most en-WP readers. (Indeed, it's inherently a lot more abstruse.)

What the Library of Congress recommends is not of such interest to me, as I imagine that their priorities are different from WP's: probably standardization and a form that can be easily input. I'm tending toward retention of "İlham Əliyev". -- Hoary 12:24, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

The reason why I value the Library of Congress is not because of their internal rationales, etc. but because they base their "authorities" on what is most often cited in a multitude of English-language sources. Of course, I'm glad to know the actual spelling of a name, but I also want to have a clue how to refer to the subject. I'm not suggesting that the Azeri be removed, but that the accepted English transliteration be used for the article title and the Azeri be added to the opening line. Although a schwa is IPA, it's not English (as it were). Obviously I agree with the point about diacritics - as I explained. The problem with your Casablanca, Paraguay example is that we're not talking about a name Anglophones have already established or that can be rendered in roman letters. The Terre-Neuve/Newfoundland example is pertinant because English hasn't changed much since 1497; but if you prefer a more recent example, there's:
Pinkville 04:02, 28 May 2006 (UTC) (sorry about forgetting to sign in earlier)

Name 3

Ooooh! I was so happy to discover my computer had finally catched a Burmese font somewhere... but not! That's only a .png! I'm disappointed! :o)
To return to the argument, I agree with you, but I think we clearly must distinguish two kinds of proper names. A little minority are "translatable" and the huge majority are not. But I must explain exactly what I mean by "translatable". It's not really about translation. By translatable, I mean a proper name that has a standard form in the English language. This English form obeys the same rules as English common names. The English form is an English name. For example country names. Germany is an English name, while Deutschland is the German name of the same thing, Allemagne the French name, Németország the Hungarian name and Saksamaa the Estonian name... As I explained earlier, those "translatable" names are limited to country names, some city names, king's names and traditionnal historical personal names. For example, Riga is the English form of Rīga, but Jūrmala has no standard English form.
(A little parenthesis here. You spoke about Casablanca. It's the name of a city in Morocco. It's the name used in English because it's the city's name in French language, and French is de facto the administrative language of Morocco. But "Casablanca" itself is a Spanish name meaning "White House". The official language in Morocco is Arabic, and in Arabic, this town is called ad-Dār al-Bayḍāʼ (الدار البيضاء). From time to time, Moroccan authorities try to impose the Arabic name... without any succes.)
I think it's perfectly normal to use the English form of "translatable" proper names, but it is normal too to use the original form of "untranslatable" proper names. And then, there must be clear rules for every article. The clearest rule is to decide that every name written originally with the latin alphabet must retain its spelling, even with aditionnal signs. I don't think such signs can really prevent the reader to read. Every name written originally with another alphabet must be transliterated with the "scientific transliteration" when it exists and is normally used (pinyin for Chinese, Hepburn for Japanese,...)
(I have the strange feeling of having typed this answer for hours, and that I've added nearly nothing new... :o| )
Švitrigaila 14:25, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
The simple point is that "translatable" (i.e. transliteratable) names are rendered with the letters of the English alphabet. Pinyin and Hepburn and others work in English exactly for the reasons I've mentioned, they use roman letters, with or without diacriticals. But take the example of Casablanca, shall we rename it: ad-Dār al-Bayḍāʼ? Pinkville 22:42, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
As long as Moroccan authorities have not decided to make an effort to change the name, nothing can happend. And nothing will, because litterary Arabic is understood only by a small minority of the population. There are more people who speak French in Morocco. The main languages in fact are a local dialect of Arabic, and three different dialects of Berber.
But if they did, would we abide to it? I'm always surprised when I read somewhere a country has decided to change its name and when I see it means that the name changes only in English. I take an example: Belarus. The country was named Белоруссия Byelorussiya in Russian and Беларусь Byelarus’ in Belarusian. But there was an assimilition of Belarussian language by Russian and the Soviet authorities decreted a long time ago that Russian was the official language, and all proper names has to be transilterated from Russian to Belarusian, and so the name of Belarus in Belarusian has to be Беларусія Byelarusiya. When the country gained its independance, it restored its name in Belarusian: Беларусь. It was an internal measure, but they just say "The name of our country is Belarus" (with an approximative transliteration on the top of that...) It's funny in Russian, because Russian is the second official language of Belarus now, and the country is officially known as Беларусь in every official Belarusian documents even written in Russian, but the correct Russian word Белоруссия is used everywhere in Russia itself.
Outside Belarus, it's even more ridiculous: English language newpapers switched immediately from Byelorussia as it was known to Belarus, without asking themselves is Englishe was concerned by the reform... But in every other languages, the traditionnal names remain : Biélorussie in French, Weißrussland in German, Λευκορωσία Lefkorosía in Greek, Baltarusija (or even Gaudija) in Lithuanian, Baltkrievija in Latvian, Valgevene (my favourite!) in Estonian, and so on... You can see by yourself on the article's left column how many different forms this name can have from a language to another. "Belarus" isn't in any way universal.
I'm always astouned to see how English language reacts to language reforms in other tongues. It's like if English tried to be universal, that is as if there was a universal word for every thing and if this universal word had to be integrated into English. As if English words had no justification by themselves.
The same happend for Ivory Coast, mysteriously become Côte d'Ivoire with the pretext that French is the official name of the country. Look at the different language versions of Wikipédia, and you'll see how diverse are the names of this country. And examples like those ones are innumerable. Why should we call the Irish prime minister Taoiseach and not Prime Minister?
The reason for that is well known: Those changes are not decided by native English speakers but by international bodies. English language doesn't belong to its speakers.
But I wander from our initial subject
"Translatable proper names" are part of the language they are translated in, like every word of its own glossary. "Ivory Coast" is as English as "Ivory" and "Coast" themselves. "Rome" is as English as "London". It's absolutely not a matter of transliteration. When I say "translatable", I absolutly don't mean "transliterable".
But foreign "untranslatable proper names" are not. They are not a part of the language. Antonín Dvořák or Reykjavík are not English words. And changing it into Antonin Dvorak and Reykjavik won't make English words of them. So we must respect them with their original spellings, even the most bizarre ones.
Just one remark to finish: Why do you say that "ə" is not English, but is IPA? "ǝ" is part of of the extendend latin alphabet (Unicode#01DD) when scwha is "ə" (Unicode#0259). You could say then that "œ" and "æ" are not English, but IPA.
Švitrigaila 16:39, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I appreciate your interesting points regrding Belarus, etc. On the issue you raise there, in fact far from an example of the English words having no justification by themselves, English has "successfully" appropriated words from every culture that the British and American empires have colonised. Thus we have thug (from India), tote (from west Africa), canoe (from North America), etc. Believe me, this is not a point of anglophone pride. Then we must deal with names of places that have deep political significance, but not necessarily transcendant significance: Zaire (a name created by a ruthless dictator, based on his own minority ethnic language), Myanmar (the name for Burma as imposed by the ruling military junta), etc. And it's not the case that the words used in English for various national entities are determined by International bodies - though the latter may well act on behalf of the Anglo powers.
As for transliterated and translated, niether is the case for "İlham Əliyev". and contrary to your point about the schwa, it has never been used as a character in normal English. This is why the "extended latin alphabet" is not a useful reference point for this discussion. People have used and continue to use "œ" and "æ" in Standard English words like fœtus and ægis, but the schwa has never been used in this manner. Again, enWikipedia uses English as the standard operating language, not IPA, not the extended latin alphabet. And, again, the idea is to maintain accessibility for the majority of English readers, even if one doesn't like it. Pinkville 00:18, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

The fact that this character is in the "extended latin" character set is irrelevant. It's not a letter that's used in English. Most well-educated English-speakers would recognize the symbol because we do use it to talk about pronounciation, but I've never seen it used outside that context even to spell foreign words. As an English speaker with some interest in Azerbaijan, I would immediately know who Ilham Aliyev was. It took me a few moments to recognize that İlham Əliyev was that same person, because that is not how the name is written in English. Isomorphic 17:49, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

So, you're angry because you have learned something? Švitrigaila 18:00, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
By your logic, Švitrigaila, I suggest the article on Prince be moved to for the years 1993 - 2000. Pinkville 20:20, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Fortunately, he changed his name again. :o) I sometimes call him "The artist formerly known as 'The artist formerly known as 'Prince ' ". Švitrigaila 23:12, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
The following discussion is an archived debate 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 debate was move page. I think there is enough consensus for a page move. (If there was not, I would have moved the page to its original location as there is clearly no consensus for the current name. Eugène van der Pijll 19:00, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Survey on move

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~
  • Support Standard English characters and more common spelling in English. Also assists search engines. Tfine80 16:29, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support Use English Jay32183 16:33, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support We should use English spelling and provide Azeri spelling in the brackets in the lead. Grandmaster 17:15, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support Not surprisingly (given my above comments), I support the move of this article and use of the accepted English version of the subject's name, i.e. "Ilham Aliyev" (as well as those of linked articles). With Grandmaster I believe the Azeri spelling should be given in the lead. Pinkville 17:43, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support and the spelling in the lead is standard practice. Septentrionalis 02:36, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Strongly strongly oppose. "Standard practice" is nothing. "Standard practice" doesn't exist. Only right spelling and wrong spellings exist. Changing ə into a isn't a custom, or you can change Artur Rasizadə into Artur Rasizada — depite no source calls him like that anywhere. Changing İlham Əliyev into Ilham Aliyev would be the triomph of philosophy stating an encyclopedia doesn't propose knowledge of exat facts, but only common accepted customs that won't hurt the reader. Švitrigaila 11:29, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose, correct name utilising extended Latin alphabet is possible and should be used. —Nightstallion (?) 11:43, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support This is English wikimedia not everybody can read Azeri characters, this will only cause stress and confussion among the readers. Baku87 12:21, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support Spelling should be standartized and easily found both by/through internet searching engines and since this is an English-language encyclopedia article, its spelling should be in accordance with Library of Congress or prevailing usage (such as used by the US Government, or Ilham Aliyev himself: [2],[3]) --AdilBaguirov 13:01, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
(See my answer to this below. Švitrigaila).
I definitely still stick to my reasoning, since Ilham Aliyev himself signs his name in english as "Ilham Aliyev", same say all the official books, papers, articles, etc., put out by his office, his website, etc. etc. etc. Not only most users don't have knowledge of how to use "special" Latin letters outside of their own alphabets, but "Ə" is not in any Latin alphabets (of course, it can be used in transcriptions) except in Azerbaijani -- and even there it was carried over from Cyrillic, since the Turkish-style "A" with double dots was not liked by the population. --AdilBaguirov 15:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. No transliteration is needed for names written with the Latin alphabet. Haukur 15:31, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support: use the English alphabet. Bubba ditto 23:13, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose: I am personally against the usage of foreign letters in any language. Saying that, I still oppose, because of an apparent double-standard. No one here propses a move for the articles about Thomas Häßler, Anker Jørgensen or François Mitterrand. Why this is different then? Oh, I see, those are in prominent Western languages and poeple can figure out how to pronounce it, but names in some third-world country language should be transliterated. Until all non-English names are going to be translated, I will oppose any such move. And Google hit statistics is not a criteria for me to base my arguments. --TimBits 00:12, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
The fact that other articles are located in the wrong place is not a very good reason to keep this one here. Why not go ahead and propose moves at those pages? I would definitely support moving Thomas Häßler to [[Thomas Hässler at the least.—Nat Krause(Talk!) 19:11, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
The reason for keeping this one here can not be the fact that other articles are located in the wrong place. The reason is consistency. If the other articles use diacritics, then this one can not be an exception. But as for move proposals, it is not practical because of the scope of the diacritics usage in Wikipedia article names, at the current time. Instead, I would suggest that we should work towards establishing a house rule within English Wikipedia, against the usage of any extra-character that is not part of the 26 letter English alphabet. --TimBits 22:53, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Consistency is not a goal that I think of as very important when it conflicts with other goals. This is especially true in this case, as Wikipedia tends to move by precedent ... in fact, there has been some indication that Wikipedia might eventually abandon its "use English names" on the grounds that it is not actually in use in quite a number of articles. So, your vote of oppose here is a vote to move in that direction. —— Personally, I wholeheartedly support your proposal "against the usage of any extra-character that is not part of the 26 letter English alphabet", although, in my opinion (apparently in contrast to yours), characters that are merely minor modifications of standard letters—i.e., áèôü—are acceptable in some cases.—Nat Krause(Talk!) 04:44, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Good. Your point is clear and I am glad to see that mine is clear too. There is nothing I want to add at this point. --TimBits 06:57, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
(About "foreign" letters, don't forget John C. Frémont. Švitrigaila 09:39, 1 July 2006 (UTC))
  • Oppose Titles using the latin alphabet are fine. I would also suggest using the template:foreignchars at the top of the page. Stefán Ingi 11:53, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose If Əliyev is the spelling in Azerbaijani written with latin alphabet, why should we change it on the wikipedia? English language accepts spellings with characters that are specific to other languages (e.g. from my own language - Ceauşescu. The redirection from Aliyev to this page is OK.Razvan2001 12:34, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I don't like Razvan2001 at all, and I find his vote-stacking tactics even more despicable than my own, but I have to agree with him here. --Node 00:46, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Support, not strongly. If we move it, all Azeri articles with diacritics should be moved per this. WP:UE says that article titles should use the Latin alphabet, not any other alphabets but any non-Latin-alphabet native name should be given within the first line of the article. But I think the case is whether the name could be pronounced without standard Latin letters or not. Brand спойт 11:03, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Support It is vey simple, the letter at issue is not a letter in the English language. It doesn't belong in a title in the English Wikipedia. 6SJ7 15:53, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Support, inclusion of Ə does violence to the concept of using the Latin alphabet. I would also like to point out that, in absence of consensus, this page should be moved back to Ilham Aliyev, because there was never consensus to move it away from that location and it has existed there for most of its history.—Nat Krause(Talk!) 19:11, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Support -- Clevelander 22:16, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose - --curling rock Earl Andrew - talk 06:26, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Support - use English.--Aldux 22:30, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Support: use English, per policy. Jonathunder 06:16, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Support: per 6SJ7 and others.--Greasysteve13 09:51, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose: as per Lech Walesa. Azerbaycanlı gardaşlarım, there is no point in having a script if you won't defend it in the outside world (this is a joke). Cretanforever
  • Oppose: IMHO, names of people should be spelled in their own alphabet, unless technical limitations exist. --Emre D. 03:38, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose: I have no idea how to pronounce certain scandinavian letters. Do they bother me? Not at all. If you're so concerned with it's pronounciation, write down it's IPA. The fact that an encyclopedia is a source of universal knowledge makes it obvious that we should use proper spellings. Also, it's been said before, hypocrisy of this proposal. While it would be easier to use just a 26-letter alphabet, as long as there are articles with Ø, Þ or ą, I'll oppose. Kedi the tramp 11:24, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Support his official website uses Ilham Aliyev in English. --Tēlex 11:51, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
And Lech Wałęsa, on his official site uses "Lech Walesa" in English, while he uses "Lech Wałęsa" in the Polish version. The same goes for nearly every Foreign politicians on the web. Costas Karamanlis is called "Kostas Karamalis" on his website. Švitrigaila 13:32, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Very strongly oppose If we can have Antonín Dvořák and Þorsteinn Pálsson and Davíð Oddsson there is no earthly reason why we cannot use extended Latin letters in İlham Əliyev. This is a bad-faith proposal, I think, and not in the internationalist spirit of the Wikipedia. All of the "English-based" spellings can point to the article as it is. That satisfied search-engines. I don't think that any of the arguments for moving this page have any weight. We live in a Unicode world now. We can use real Azeri letters in Mr Əliyev's name. Have some respect. Evertype 17:27, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Neutral: I think this is not the place to discuss naming conventions in general. Help:Page_name disallows only # + < > [ ] | { }. So it seems that by official policy every UTF-8 character is allowed, even for the main article (not redirects). If we have a problem about that (comments above suggests me that this is the case) we should move the discussion there. If you think that these special letters should be allowed in general but not for this gentleman please give more specific reasons. As a side note: Safari browser does not show the title properly even in UTF-8 mode, Firefox for Mac does. --þħɥʂıɕıʄʈʝɘɖı 17:56, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments

Responding to Švitrigaila's comment. To set the record straight. I found 435 hits on Google for "Artur Rasizada" from a great variety of sources. For "Artur Rasizadə", once I had removed Wikipedia pages from the hits, I found 1490 hits - but none of them in English. If you mean to say that no sources in Azeri give "Artur Rasizada" that may be true, but it's an irrelevant (and misleading) observation for the purposes of this discussion. Pinkville 13:17, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

How many sources do you find with "Leos Janacek", and how many with "Leoš Janáček"? And how many of these "Leoš Janáček" pages are in English? How many do you find with "Ismet Inonu" and how many with "İsmet İnönü" And how many of them are in English? And how many serious encyclopedias dare to write "Ismet Inonu" or "Leos Janacek"? Or maybe you'll thin "Yes, but in Azeri language it's different"? I can't see why İsmet İnönü can keep his dots on the capital i and not İlham. About Rasizadə, just check how many sites write "Rasizade" instead of "Rasizada". You'll find far more. And try to explain me why his ə must be translitterate by e and not by a.
I think National Geographic writes "İlham Äliyev" and "Artur Rasizadä". It used to use ä instead of ə when I was a suscriber 10 yers ago, for technical reasons we don't have on Wikipedia.
Last thing: Russian translitterations are based on Wikipedia on Romanization of Russian. Where is the article Romanization of Azeri? Švitrigaila 22:16, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

For User:AdilBaguirov, about the Library of Congress, look here. It doesn't use "Əliyev" for alphabetic reasons we don't have on Wikipedia and uses Äliyev or Ăliyev instead. It uses "Aliyev" only to translitterate titles of books written in Russian! So the example of the Library of Congress is a good example "Əliyev" is not to be translitterated into "Aliyev"! Švitrigaila 22:29, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

You are completely incorrect about the Library of Congress (and you are, unfortunately, looking in their Catalogue - which is, of course, only titles of books, etc. You should be looking in the Library of Congress Authorities, which lists the authorised names and variants for thousands of people, places, and subjects). There's no pertinent technical distinction between Wikipedia and the Library of Congress, no technical reason that the Library of Congress doesn't use "Əliyev". In fact the Library of Congress routinely includes variants of names in their original script. The reason that Library of Congress gives "Aliyev" and not "Əliyev" is because the former is the most accepted variant of the name in English, the latter is simply not an English variant. Follow the link I gave to the authorites, click on "Search Authorities", enter the name you are searching for (family name first, a comma, then given name), select "Name Authority Headings", and click "Begin Search". You will then see a list of entries in the same alphabetical range as the name you entered, for example, if you entered "Aliyev, Ilham", you will see "Authorized Heading" and "Aliyev, Ilham, 1961-" at the top of the list. Click on "Authorized Heading" and you get a Heading and the name again, click on the name and you will find the entry for "Aliyev, Ilham, 1961-" with the authorised variant of his name on the line numbered 100 (or any other number between 100 and 199). The lines numbered 400+ are unauthorized (i.e. less accepted in English) variants. Try the same procedure with "Əliyev" and you will find a series of entries in Russian (notice, by the way, that there is no technical inability of the Library of Congress to produce text in other scripts. It is the largest library in the world. The authorities are based on English common usage, academic sources, and linguistic analyses, not on the abilities of their webmasters...).
If we must return to the romanization vs. diacritics issue, then let me reiterate (from the above discussion on this page) that "Leoš Janáček" and other names that use the roman alphabet with diacritics are English variants (in fact, "Leoš Janáček" is the authorised variant in Library of Congress). "Əliyev" is not an English variant of "Aliyev" because "Ə" is not a character in the roman alphabet. It couldn't be more plain. Diacritics do not disrupt the reading of names and words in any languages that share a common alphabet. Azeri only partially shares the roman alphabet, and words that include those characters that are not a part of the roman alphabet have been transliterated so they can be read in English. I suggested somewhere on this page that it might be useful to read the Wikipedia conventions for articles with Irish names and I think now would be a particularly good time to do so. After all, Irish uses the roman alphabet without additional characters, yet there are still good reasons for rendering many Irish names into their English variants. Pinkville 02:14, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
There is no logics in the Library of Congress Catalogue. Why would we choose to translitterate İlham Əliyev into Ilham Aliyev, Heydər Əliyev into Heydar Aliyev, but Oruc Əliyev into Oruc Äliyev with "ä", Aybəniz Əliyeva into Aybäniz Äliyeva with "ä", and Həsən Əlirza oğlu Əliyev into Ălii̐ev, Ḣ. Ă. (Ḣăsăn Ălirza oghlu) with "ă", and "gh" instead of "ğ" without any good reason. The Library of Congress classification lacks unity. I think it's because various entries have been filled by various persons — as on Wikipedia! The Library of Congress translitterations are not an example we must follow. Švitrigaila 10:13, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
The reason there are spelling variations of the kind you mention in Library of Congress is not because there are a number of different editors - all their editors follow the same strict method of entering information in the Authorities. The spelling variations come about because of differences in the sources they reference. That said, Library of Congress is only one reference to be used for articles in Wikipedia, in which such spelling variations can be standardised. Notice again, though, you didn't find any examples of "Əliyev"in Library of Congress. Pinkville 11:43, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
The fact is if you type "Əliyev" in this searching engine, you'll arive on pages that have nothing to do with him or with anybody named Əliyev. It's a shame since if you own a book written in Azeri written by "İlham Əliyev", you can't find it on this engine. My conclusion is simply that this engine doesn't work properly, or is not well made. Švitrigaila 14:42, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
I'll explain this once more. The reason you don't find "Əliyev" in the Library of Congress site is because "Əliyev" is not English script. The Library of Congress site works perfectly (it is not a search engine - don't confuse it with Google, etc.) - it is an exactingly researched database of names and subjects as they are used in English. As such it is one of the most authoritative sources for information and the most accepted usage (in English) of literally hundreds of thousands of people, places and other subjects. If I were to look in a comparable Azeri database for, say, "Tony Blair", I wouldn't expect to find him under that spelling - in fact, looking at the Azeri Wikipedia, "Tony Blair" is actually spelled: "Toni Bleyr"! "England" is spelled: "İngiltərə"! The latter bears very little similarity to the language of origin - should I be mounting a campaign in the Azeri Wikipedia to have the article titled "İngiltərə" renamed "England"? No. Because "England" is not the Azeri spelling of the country's name. Pinkville 21:49, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
If we follow your argument, it means İ (the capital dotted i) is a dicriticed letter from the Latin alphabet. So, it's normal we can find articles such as İsmet İnönü on Wikipedia. So why do you support changing İlham Əliyev into Ilham Aliyev? You should support changing the article's title into İlham Aliyev or even İlham Äliyev. Why do you want to deprive him of his dot? Double standards, two sets of rules. Soon every entry on this encyclopedia will get its own standard, its own naming convention. As I said above, you can't translitterate any Azerbaijani name before you've written the article Romanization of Azeri. Good luck. Švitrigaila 10:13, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with either "İlham Aliyev" or "İlham Äliyev" - but the most commonly used and accepted form of "İlham Əliyev"'s name in English is "Ilham Aliyev". There's no double standard. Pinkville 11:49, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

To TimBits, regarding Mitterand and Jørgensen, see my above comments on diacritics. As for Thomas Häßler, I would advocate moving the article to "Thomas Hassler", since even in German the "ß" is often written as "ss". I agree with the sentiment of your comment (being anti-imperialist myself), but believe it to be off the mark in this case. For one thing, your point can only refer to names that are written in scripts that incorporate some roman letters - or do you propose that all biographical articles in Wikipedia be titled in their original languages? As I mentioned somewhere above, should the article on Ueno Hikoma be retitled 上野 彦馬? Notice, though, that I support using the original name order, diacritics, etc. where they are easily read in English and accepted variants of the name - Ueno is Hikoma's family name. Pinkville 02:26, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

You've clearly given this some thought but I still don't completely understand your position. Is Irish a Latin alphabet language but German is not? What about, say, Faroese? Is Heðin Brú an acceptable article title in your opinion? What about Vietnamese article titles like Lê Lợi and Nguyễn Minh Triết? Haukur 10:14, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I used the examples as argument. I did not mean to be sentimental at all. English is written with 26 letters and any character that is not part of it, is not English. It couldn't be more plain. There is no difference between Ə and Ä or Å for that matter. Ueno Hikoma is a whole different story as it is not written in Roman alphabet. But Azerbaijani is based on Roman and not partially. English languege uses 26 letter variant of it, and other languages has additional characters. Again, unless, there is a motion for ridding all the article names that use letters outside the 26 letter English alphabet- which I would support- this proposal is totally inaproriate. --TimBits 03:48, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
Is John C. Frémont to be renamed into "John C. Fremont"? Švitrigaila 10:15, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
It should be. --TimBits 22:44, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
There are no characters in the Irish alphabet that are not also in the English alphabet, which makes it a simple matter to use the original Irish spelling - where appropriate. I gave the link to Irish naming conventions because the reasoning as to when to use the irish spelling of a name and when to use the English spelling has some bearing on this and other Azeri subjects. Notice particularly:
If someone used the Irish version of his or her name, and this enjoyed and enjoys widespread usage among Irish and English speakers, this should be reflected in Wikipedia.... In cases where someone used the Irish version of his or her name but this does not enjoy widespread usage, then use the English version when naming the article but refer to the Irish version of the name in the first line.
The same principle operates here, but with the added variable that the character "Ə" - and three others in the Azeri alphabet - are not (no matter what anybody desires or avers on this page) part of the roman alphabet - they are never used in normal English writing (being employed - with different phonetic/symbolic values - only in a technical context). The German character "ß" is usually rendered in English as "ss", because it is not a part of the English alphabet - and because "ss" is an accepted alternative in German anyway. As for Vietnamese (and other) names, I've already made the point several times: diacritics are not a problem - generally speaking, whatever variant is the most widely accepted in English is the variant that should be used for the title. Note that there are cases, such as My Lai Massacre where I belive it makes more sense to have no diacritics in the article title because the name of the subject is actually English (the vietnamese being: "thảm sát Mỹ Lai"), even though it refers to a place that is written with diacritics. I would expect an article on the village(s) of My Lai to be written: "Mỹ Lai".
Names in Faroese, and Anglo-Saxon, Old English, etc. are a different issue. The characters "ð" and "þ" are part of the English language itself (historically) and are still used in English to refer to Anglo-Saxon (and similar) subjects. But it's interesting to note that the Anglo-Saxon character wynn "ƿ", is now usually written "w" to avoid confusion with the letter "p". In other words, a letter's utility and readablility in English is the determining factor.
Finally, "sentiment" means "feeling", not "sentimentality" (as in nostalgia, etc.) You were talking about a type of linguistic imperialism, that Third World languages are being treated unfairly vs. First World languages by tranliterating them into English - but every foreign language is transliterated into English - some more closely to the original than others, simply because those languages are closer linguisitically to English. Probably the majority of "Third World languages" don't use the roman alphabet, and must be transliterated - which is why I gave the example of Ueno. It could as easily been the Ethiopean singer, Mahmoud Ahmed look here for the original script (but notice that Amharic, the language of Ethiopia, is not {yet} compatible with Wikipedia...) Pinkville 13:43, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
First of all, my example was an example, and nothing else. It may be a colourful one but I there is no sentiment itended in it. Because if it was, I would be appealing to the feelings of the users, which I do not intend to, I intend to aply to their reason. I do not wish or aver that Ə or any other charatcter to be part of the English alphabet. Quite contrary I know that they are not and I am against the usage of extra characters that are not part of the language. Saying that, I do not want to repeat my position- when I say English alphabet, I understand 26 letters, nothing else. And finally, English alphabet is based on Latin alphabet and not the other way around. Even though, modern English alphabet is the same with Latin alphabet, this order of derivation means that other alphabets based on the Latin alphabet are different and of equal relation with Latin alphabet and English alphabet respectively. --TimBits 14:32, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
I think you've misundestood me. All I meant when I said that I agreed with the sentiment of your comment was that I agree with your concern about Third World cultures being marginalised by the First World. That is a phenomenon that is obviously far too common. But I don't think that that concern applies in this case, which is just a question of how foreign names are written in English, regardless of the country of origin. Now, maybe I've misunderstood you - because from what you say here it sounds like you support retitling the article "Ilham Aliyev" because "İlham Əliyev" is not how his name is written in English. Is that right? Do you think the article should be titled "Ilham Aliyev"? Pinkville 22:25, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Not with the current state of article names using extra characters. I am for a wholesale change. --TimBits 07:09, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Wholesale change of what to what? I don't understand what you mean. Pinkville 12:56, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Wholesale change of ALL Wikipedia article names containing characters outside the 26 letters of the English alphabet. I have indicated this before, more than once. If it is still not clear, then there is nothing I can do. Thanks. --TimBits 18:14, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Well then why do you oppose changing the title of this article from "İlham Əliyev" to "Ilham Aliyev"? If you believe all Wikipedia articles should only use the 26 letters of the English alphabet why are you opposing the title "Ilham Aliyev"? Pinkville 18:51, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
I have explained my postion over and over. I do not want to repeat it again. Sorry. I have given my reason in the voting list and it says it all. Thanks. --TimBits 19:05, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
(The main difference is English is an official language in Ireland, and not in Azerbaijan. For Ukrainian subjects, for example, we use the Ukrainian names of people. Except when those peoples are ethnical Russians and use their Russian name outside Ukraine. It's why Sergei Bubka is written like that, with his Russian first name, despite he's called "Serhiy Bubka" in Ukrainian and in every Ukrainian texts. But we never tranlate his first name into "Serge" because there is no need to translate in English the name of a citizen from a non English sepaking country. Švitrigaila 10:22, 1 July 2006 (UTC))
The status of English as an official language in Ireland has nothing to do with Wikipedia policy. What matters, as pointed out in the Wikipedia Irish naming conventions, is the status of Irish names in the English language and in English usage. If Swahili were an official language of Ireland that wouldn't alter how Irish (or Irish-Swahili) names should be rendered in English. By the way, I wish you hadn't broken up my comments with your own - I've taken the time to develop an argument over several paragraphs and breaking it up makes it too easy to lose the thread. And by adding my username as though I entered it myself you've essentially changed what I said and made it appear that I made several separate (and brief) comments rather than just a few longer ones. Please add any replies at the end of my comments (or other peoples' comments). Thanks. Pinkville 11:59, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
All right, I'm sorry for that. I won't do it again in the future. But now it's done. And I don't understand what you mean on Irish names. When an article's title is proper name in Irish, the Irish spelling is respected. Why not in Azeri? Švitrigaila 14:42, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
The naming conventions for articles with Irish names state that the most accepted form in English should be the one used. So if an Irish person is better known in English by her or his Irish name - that is the form that should be used. If, on the other hand, an Irish person is better known in English by the English spelling of their name - that is the one that should be used. Ilham Aliyev is not at all known in English by the Azeri spelling of his name. The accepted form of his name in English - the most widely used form - is "Ilham Aliyev", so much so that he uses that form himself on the English-language version of his website. Pinkville 21:58, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
And once again I answer you it's normal because English is the official language of Ireland, and not Azerbaijan's official language. Švitrigaila 10:16, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Irish law has no bearing on on Wikipedia and no bearing on usage in English. English writers will always write whatever they want regardless of Irish law. The same goes for every language. Try this example, the great native leader Geronimo, whose name in his own language (Chiricahua) is written "Goyaałé", meaning 'One Who Yawns', and often spelled "Goyathlay" in English. But "Geronimo" is how he is known in English, so not his name in his own language, nor the translation of it, nor the accepted English transliteration of that name is used for the Wikipedia article (except in the lead sentence). Pinkville 13:24, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I would like to make two general points here, because there seems to be some confusion in the comments given in the survey - as well as in other comments on this page. As I understand it, in Azeri "ü" and "u" are considered different letters. In English they are not - they are the same letter, first with a diacritical mark (a diaeresis) and second, without any diacritical mark. That is why foreign names with diacritics are accepted in English - the diacritics are (generally) ignored. But foreign alphabetical letters are a different matter. A number of people have insisted that Azeri uses same alphabet as English, but this is only true for the majority of letters in the Azeri alphabet. The first exception is "Əə", which is not all shared with the English alphabet (and for which the letter "Aa" is a substitute). The other exceptions: "Ğğ", "İi", "Öö", "Şş", and "Üü" may or may not be substituted in English by the letters they most resemble: "Gg", "Ii", "Oo", "Ss", and "Uu", because in English the diacritical marks are irrelevant.

The second point is this: if English names are respelled in Azeri to suit the comfort of Azeri readers, why shouldn't the same go for Azeri names in English. Somewhere above in this discussion I posted links to the Azeri Wikipedia, in which one finds an article titled "İngiltərə", the Azeri spelling for "England". The first line of that article begins: "İngiltərə (İngiliscə: England)". That is exactly the same form that is being proposed here in changing the title "İlham Əliyev" to "Ilham Aliyev", in other words, change the title to "Ilham Aliyev" and include the Azeri spelling of his name - "İlham Əliyev" - in the first line. I can't see any reasonable argument to oppose this move - why shouldn't the English Wikipedia follow the same principles as the Azeri Wikipedia? Pinkville 23:04, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Precisely; thank you for taking such time and thought on the fundamental argument here. Septentrionalis 00:49, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Of course, Wikipedias in each language should be designed to be the most correct in accodance with rules of the relevant language. Saying this, it is possible that different languages has different rules, for translating or transliterating foreign names. Therefore, a compariosn between different Wikipedias is not appropriate. --TimBits 07:09, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
You've just indicated why it's not only appropriate, but essential. Every language has it's own way of representing foreign words and names in its own script - this is a universal. When comparingone Wikipediawith another one isn't looking at the specific transliteration rules, one is looking at the principle involved. It does me no good as a person writing in English to know how my name might be written in Vietnamese, what's useful is the fact that my name is written differently in Vietnamese, just as Vietnamese names are written differently in English. The same principle applies to all languages, while the specific methods/"rules" differ and are only important within each language. Pinkville 12:53, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
I am sorry to say but, what you are saying is next to meaningless. Every Wikipedia should be written with the rules of the language it belongs to. If a rule on a certain issue differs among languages, then respective Wikipedias will reflect this too. There can not be a common principle on that issue, just becase these are parts of the same project. Again, this is if the rule actually differs. --TimBits 18:14, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
No need to be rude. I can see you are frustrated, and I've made an effort to understand what you mean - but your comments seem to contradict your decision to oppose changing the title of the article. Pinkville 19:02, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
:) No, I'm not frustrated at all. There is no reason to be, and I did not mean to be rude. If there is such an impression, I can only apologize. I only wanted to say that I can see no meaning in your latest argument. I did not mean to offend, if I did, I am sorry. There seems to be some sort of a disconnection between you and me over understanding each other. And it is also very difficlut to understand ones feeling from written letters alone. Therefore, it is understandable. --TimBits 19:20, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
No worries. Pinkville 19:24, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Guys, why are we discussing things that are supposed to make perfect sense -- use the spelling 1) most often used in English language and 2) used by the person, own government, foreign governments? In all those cases the president of Azerbaijan is Ilham Aliyev, not "İlham Əliyev" which is valid only in Azerbaijan. I repeat that all his books, articles, papers, etc., are signed as Ilham Aliyev, as is his website, and US White House correspondence for example. --AdilBaguirov 16:00, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm willing to have the discussion (obviously, given the amount of writing I've spent on the subject), but at base I agree. At this point (6 July), following 8 days for the survey, we have 13 votes supporting a return to the original "Ilham Aliyev" title and 8 opposed = 62% support for the move. More fundamentally, the reversion to the original title is more in keeping with Wikipedia policy and far better support ed by common sense. I've seen no new arguments against reversion, and no compelling ones to begin with. I think it's probably time to make the change (and related changes). What do you say Tfine80? Pinkville 00:49, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. 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.

Lets just keep to the basic 26 letters of the Latin Alphabet using diactric marks on THESE letters if necessary

And get rid of all this Ðð Þþ ß ſ Əə business.--Greasysteve13 11:08, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Why? Švitrigaila 13:43, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Less fuss--Greasysteve13 07:29, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
And factually incorrect, yes. —Nightstallion (?) 10:45, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Well Confucius and Cairo are incorrect too, if you want to get technical. But diacriticly speaking: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics)--Greasysteve13 07:37, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
I'd be all in favour of having those at their correct locations with redirects from common names, too... In my opinion, correctness trumps common names, but I'm a minority with that, I know. —Nightstallion (?) 11:19, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm preparing a new argumentation and a new vote about this subject. I would be glad if you could give me your opinion before I post it or even (if you have time to lose) to correct my deficient English. Have you seen the aticle "Rasul Quliyev" has been renamed into "Rasul Guliyev" two days ago by an anonimous IP? What can we do against it, since both spelling are wrong??... Švitrigaila 16:14, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Why is this discussion even continuing? Can there really be anything new to say on the matter? Such a discussion at this point would simply waste time and energy that could be better spent elsewhere. There are plenty of articles that could be improved rather than dealing with this minor issue. Pinkville 17:02, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Do you think it's normal those articles change names once every mounth? Švitrigaila 16:12, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Not at all, that's one reason why I'm resistant to opening this discussion yet again. I have nothing to say regarding "Rasul Quliyev/Rasul Guliyev", I haven't looked at the article. Pinkville 16:41, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Shouting my head off

Latin alphabet hasn't 26 letters. Y and Z where Greek letters and where added later to note Greek sounds that didn't exist in Latin. J was added later to mark the distinction between the vowel I (pronounced "ee") and the consonant J (pronounced "y"). U and V where graphical variants of the same letter. The distinction between them dates back from the 18th century. W has never been part of the Latin alphabet. Some people here seem to make a confusion between the Latin alphabet and the English alphabet.

If we decide to use on Wikipedia only the English alphabet, then we have to exclude all letters that are not ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ (it's the solution proposed by TimBits). Note at first that no serious encyclopedia does that. You can check Leoš Janáček's name on whatever encyclopedia, you'll never find a serious encyclopedia writing his name "Leos Janacek". On the contrary, you can find newspaper articles, internet sites, vulgarisation books with the "Leos Janacek" spelling. But no serious source. Newspaper and internet sites have not the same quality requirements as an encyclopedia does. They are fast read, and read only once. The question is then: has Wikipedia vocation to be a high standard encyclopedia, with informations as correct and complete as possible, or has it vocation to be a bottom-of-the-range vulgarisation site, giving only unshocking facts that are considered easy enough to understand for the average reader? In the first case, we must write "Leoš Janáček" because it is his name, as a simple fact. In the second case, we must write "Leos Janacek" because it's a spelling with no harshes, with no bumps, making the reader feeling comfortable, presenting him only a small part of the truth, the only part he needs to know in order to avoid him asking other questions. In the first case, Wikipedia would be a source for knowledge, in the seconde case, it would be a digest of pre-selected-by-clever-than-you-are-people acceptable facts.

Of course, in the second case, we would have to rename such bad citizens' names as John C. Frémont, Elisabeth Röhm, Charlotte Brontë (and her sisters). Obviously, those people haven't understood anything about their own language! And what about common nouns such as "föhn", "café", "tête-à-tête", "vis-à-vis", "cliché"...

On the other hand, if we decide to use the Latin alphabet, it may mean two things. Either the true original Latin alphabet — ABCDEFGHI(K)LMNOPQRSTVX — or, more probably, all the letters used by languages that use "Latin alphabet", by opposition with other alphabets (Cyrillic, Greek, Devanagari,...) Neither of these two "Latin alphabets" have 26 letters. The original one has 20 or 21 letters, the "extended Latin alphabet" has far more than one hundred. And it can be difficult to make the distinction between an extended Latin alphabet and another unlatin alphabet.

The extended Latin alphabet is not an alphabet by itself: no language will use all its letters. It's a type of alphabet. English uses English alphabet, French uses French alphabet, Czech uses Czech alphabet and Turkish uses Turkish alphabet. And all are extended Latin alphabets. So is Azerbaijani alphabet. It has been decided by Azerbaijani lawmakers in the late 1990s, and it's not our task to judge it. The argument that states Azerbaijani alphabet is not Latin alphabet is not truer than "English alphabet is not Latin alphabet". And since Azerbaijani alphabet is a Latin alphabet, there is absolutely no need to translitterate Azerbaijani words.

The argument about the letter "Ə" is only a pretext. Some people don't like the German "ß" and they systematically replace it by "ss". But they even don't have the idea of using this pretext to write every German proper name phonetically in English! Just imagine someone saying "Oh, the spelling "Franz Josef Strauß" is not good, because "ß" doesn't exist in English and we must write in English! So I'll rename this article into "Frants Yozef Shtraws"." But when it comes to Azerbaijani peoples, there is another set of rules! Because of this "Ə" that upsets so many people here, they want to eradicate every harshness on Azerbaijani names. Not only must all "Ə"s be repalced by something else (either A in Aliyev, or E in Rasizade, it matters little: exactness is not the purpose), but every other diacritics must fall. So İlham Əliyev must become Ilham Aliyev, not because we can't tolerate a dotted capital "I" (it's common in Turkish — see İsmet İnönü), but because we have absolutely no respect for Azerbaijani spelling in general.

I can see two reasons for that: either it's a clear case of racism: Azerbaijani people is perceived as uneuropean and then, has no right to use OUR Latin alphabet and to modify it, but WE are the owner of the Latin alphabet, WE have the right to judge what is Latin alphabet and what is not and WE have the right to decide who has the right to use it and who doesn't. So German uses a Latin alphabet, but Azerbaijani not. (By the way, Uzbek and Turkmen peoples are in the same bag: we must write their president's names "Islam Karimov" and "Saparmurat Niyazov" even if their real names are "Islom Karimov" and "Sparamyrat Nyýazow" and present no diacritical difficulties!)

Or it's a lack of thinking on the issue itself: a lot of people voted "support" to the proposed change of name from "İlham Əliyev" to "Ilham Aliyev" because they are upset by the "Ə". But they have not tried to understand why there is this "Ə" and that it wasn't invented just in order to get on their nerves. They accept the "new" name "Ilham Aliyev" without ever asking themselves if "Ilham Aliyev" is the better name that can been chosen. Why not "İlham Aliyev"? Why not "Eelham Aleeyev"? Why not "İlham Äliyev" which is the form chosen by serious sources when they try to avoid only the letter "Ə" (for example, it's the spelling of National Geographic magazine)? No, the only important thing is that this "Ə" vanish! The rest of the word has no importance at all, like all this Azerbaijani stuff!

I would like every people voting here on this issue to ask themselves why they do so. Such sentences as "Use English" or "inclusion of Ə does violence to the concept of using the Latin alphabet" " don't stand. I'd like there were no stupid remarks about alphabetical order (Wikipedia's article are not in alphabetical order), or searching engines (try "Ilham Aliyev" on Google and wou'll arrive very quickly on İlham Əliyev by a redirect), or difficulties to write his name (write "Ilham Aliyev" and the redirect will do the job for you). I would like you vote for the change only for real reasons, not for imaginary problems that don't exist in practice.

And if finally you find "Əliyev" is definitivly unacceptable, try to ask yourselves why "Aliyev" would be better than "Äliyev" which is used both by the Library of Congress and the National Geographic Society.

Švitrigaila 15:49, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I conclude you have 1) not understood, 2) not read, and/or 3) ignored my comments. How many times have I explained on this page that diacritics do not affect the 26 letters of the English language. With regard to proper nouns, in English there is no important difference between "e" and "é", like it or not. Your description of the Latin alphabet is irrelevant - we are talking about English usage (in which, incidentally, the diaresis over the "e" in Brontë was an affectation of the father's, merely indicating that the "e" is to be pronounced - in this sense it is also an English diacritic). Similarly, your speculation as to why people have voted to support the suggested move is both irrelevant and insulting. Further, you impute dismissive and devious motives to preferring "A" to "Ə" and "ss" to "ß", when these preferences in English are simply a reflection of tradition and the alphabet used in English. Remarkably, are you not yourself responsible for this edit: sv:Ilham Alijev? Where are your principles now?! By your argument shouldn't all articles on this subject be titled "İlham Əliyev". And, the Library of Congress does not use "Äliyev" - it uses the spelling I offerred repeatedly on this page: "Aliyev" (please actually read the instructions for use of the Library of Congress Authorities that I provided). I am now becoming convinced you are nothing more than a troll - I know you've wasted more than enough of my time. The survey on this move has gone 10 days, which is above the suggested time period, and the vote is: 15 support; 8 oppose = +65%. I am reverting your revision - and reminding you of the 3 reversion rule. Pinkville 23:29, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

You are not the only one I wrote this text for. It's not because I don't answer your remarks that I can't answer the others'. You're not the center of my world. My remark about Brontë was for TimBits, for example. I am not responsable at all for sv:Ilham Alijev. I don't speak Swedish and I don't edit Swedish Wikipedia. The vote isn't over. But if it were, I would start a ne discussion about the spelling of foreign proper names in general. And I'm sure no-one would accept Azerbaijani names to be treated differently as Turkish names. Švitrigaila 23:48, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

May I ask why this conversation is still going on? There has been a poll which has established a consensus for not having this page where it currently stands. And, there was never a consensus to move it here in the first place. Why would it not be moved immediately?—Nat Krause(Talk!) 23:52, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
To Švitrigaila, please read this Wikipedia policy regarding page moves. In principle I agree with Nat Krause. I thought it useful (apparently incorrectly) to discuss the relevant issues. The points that I and others have made have been misunderstood, ignored, or not read, and have been unanswered - and as Nat Krause has at least twice pointed out, the article shouldn't have been moved in the first place. Now you have twice reverted changes made to the article in a manner that smacks of bad faith. The article will shortly be moved to its original title. Pinkville 00:05, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
Just to clarify (as I did misspeak a bit), my point is not really that the conversation shouldn't continue, but that the page move shouldn't be left pending as we converse.—Nat Krause(Talk!) 00:09, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree - and I understood you to mean that. Sorry about leaving the wrong impression re: your comments. Pinkville 01:56, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
To Švitrigaila: That's why I added the link to this article: Latin Alphabet--Greasysteve13 02:06, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
Oh and I wasn't complaining about THESE 26 letters featuring diacritics--Greasysteve13 02:19, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Soliciting

RE: this reverted edit, I guess I had better contact all my friends to get them to vote my way, right Švitrigaila? And what was this edit summary: 19:39, 8 July 2006 Švitrigaila (Talk | contribs) (Revert. The name change has not been aprroved yet. And won't be.), some kind of threat? Azeri will be used in the English Wikipedia regardless of guidelines and other users' opinions? Lovely. Pinkville 11:37, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Don't worry. You have perfectly the right to contact all your friends if you want. And you know what: I won't censor your mail. You can write to them and I won't try to erase what you write to them before they can read it. I just say that because after I have sollicited some people about this issue, someone, User:Theresa knott erased systematically all my messages, in order to prevent people to read them (she added ""You are spamming native turkish speakers, that introduces bias. This is an english speaking encylopedia. Please don't do it anymore." I had forgotten Turkish has no right to vote.) So you don't have to be afraid, the name changing will occur because only people voting "support" has the right to warn their friends. Et vive la démocratie libre ! Švitrigaila 11:49, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
No he does have a perfect right to contact all his friends to solicit votes! No one has the right to spam. If he had've spammed I would have reverted him too. I have no interest in the outcome of this vote. I simply don't care. I do however care about talk page spamming.Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 12:13, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

The cameo in "Borat"

I admit, as a non-Azeri who happened to know who Pres. Aliyev was, I found that surprise cameo --as the photo of the President of Kazakhstan-- to be a pretty amusing surprise. I'm sure it wasn't done in any nefarious way; my theory (which I am not adding to the article) is that, since actual Kazakh Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev looks significantly unlike Borat, they chose someone from a nearby country who has less Asiatic features (Sasha Baron Cohen is half Persian-Jew/British). I feel for Pres. Aliyev, who now might be mistaken by the American public as the President of Kazakhstan (not only that, Borat's version of Kazakhstan). --Bobak 23:00, 14 November 2006 (UTC)


Bobak, nice theory there! I think the American audience would have enjoyed it more if they presented Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the president of Kazakhstan instead of Pres. Aliyev as he also has less Asiatic features and looks a lot like Borat. I think it was because of Ken Davitian who played role as Borat's producer (Azamat Bagatov) as he is Armenian by nationality and Armenians have problems with Azerbaijan over the dispute over Nagorno Karbakh. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.146.250.232 (talk) 00:49, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Hobbies

A very weird section was somehow added: "Aliev's biggest hobby is vehicle-tuning (his 1971's Bugatti is a real treasure) and jogging. Besides, Aliev is a big fan of Comedy Club." I have removed it, since there is no evidence of that, and no one has ever seen that 1971 Bugatti, nor has anyone seen the president jogging. And he certainly cannot be a fan of Comedy Club, as that is not easily broadcast in Azerbaijan, and would require massive sattelite dishes whereever he lives and works -- which, once again, is not seen, instead, more modest and standard dishes pop out of the Presidential palace and office. --adil 01:10, 25 March 2007 (UTC)


I agree. Ilham Aliyev jogging?! No one jogs in Azerbaijan except western expats.

The name

Hello, sorry, but I have to continue the discussion about the name of this article. There is no reason to write Ilham Aliyev instead of the correct form İlham Əliyev. Names written in the Latin alphabet in their original form should be written correct! In the German Wikipedia wie write all Azerbaijani names in their correct form. We have a redirect from Ilham Äliyev to İlham Əliyev, so everyone can find the article without any problems. I cannot understand why you write Heiner Geißler for example, a name with the typical German letter ß that is not known in the English language, but do not want to write the Azerbaijani Ə in İlham Əliyev. Where is the difference? Best wishes, Juhan, German Wikipedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.226.221.55 (talk) 22:46, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Why is President Aliyev's name given in Arabic in the first paragraph? It is not an Arabic name, Azeri people are not Arabic, and Arabic is not used in Azerbaijan, and in fact the Azerbaijani people can't even read that script. Insofar as it is made as a gesture to Iranian Azeris (who write Azeri in Arabic script), it is also not justified at all, because he is President of the Republic of Azerbaijan and has nothing to do with Iranian Azeris. The use of the Arabic script for writing his name simply gives a false impression about Azerbaijan in general to those users who do not have much information about this country. Therefore, it must be removed, as it is totally arbitrary. The name should be given only in Azeri and in English transliteration. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.164.229.102 (talk) 14:41, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

You're wrong. Arabic and cyrill letters were formerly used before the so called "new turkish alphabet" was introduced. And the Azerbaijanji Wikipedia has beside the latin letters arabic writings. So the Arabic name has its purpose here. Shouldn't be removed. --Saviour1981 (talk) 11:21, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
I removed the Arabic name. I see no reason for it to be here. BalkanFever 02:40, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Ilham Aliyev was recently listed amongst 40 other individuals deemed to be "Predators of the Press" by Reporters without borders (http://www.rferl.org/content/journalists_in_trouble_preying_on_the_press/2038570.html). I believe this information would be important to place in the article to give a more rounded image of Mr. Aliyev. Many of the controversies of his leadership seem to be brushed under the carpet in this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.235.132 (talk) 16:07, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

WP:LABEL

I reverted the edit by Yerevanci (talk · contribs) in accordance with this discussion: [4]. I think the word "dictator" is a WP:LABEL, and as such should be avoided. Plus, tabloids like Daily Mail are not reliable sources anyway in articles like this. Grandmaster 12:36, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, you think that it's a label, but the admin didn't agree with you. And he also said that Daily Mail is frequently treated as reliable. So get your facts straight, please. What I'm saying is, we can replace the word "many experts in Azerbaijan and the world" by "Azerbaijani and international media".--Yerevanci (talk) 16:12, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't think he disagreed with me on WP:LABEL. The word used is a label that should not be placed in the article about the politician, especially considering that it is not something generally accepted. Also the admin found the wording problematic, because it presents certain things as uncontested facts. You can ask for more third opinions if you wish. Grandmaster 18:35, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
He is a dictator and many objective analysts of the region call him as much. It's a family dictatorship similar to the one in North Korea.--Moosh88 (talk) 21:31, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Corruption

There is a well researched investigative piece in RFE/RL documenting a trail of evidence linking the President's family with AIMROC, a company which has been granted to mine gold from the Chovdar gold field in Azerbaijan. A link to the relevant article is here: http://www.rferl.org/content/azerbaijan_gold-field_contract_awarded_to_presidents_family/24569192.html

Quite relevant to the section and should, in my opinion, be included. Recent legislative changes on access to commercial information is a testament to the ruling regime's growing concerns that more revelations could surface in the future: http://www.rferl.org/content/azerbaijan-ilham-aliyev-wife-immunity-from-prosecution/24614499.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.170.79.24 (talk) 13:47, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

2013 election

The 2013 election were not considered as free and fair by most of the international observers. The opposite is true. The OSCE released the following statement after the elections: "Election in Azerbaijan undermined by limitations on fundamental freedoms, lack of level playing field and significant problems on election day, international observers say" [1] However, it is true that some observers reach another conclusion, e.g. see here (many sources available for this one) [2] Still, it lacks any references to the negative and not free election as well as alleged manipulation of the observers by the current regime. Since I am not a native English speaker, I will refrain from changing, but I cannot leave that way too positive and non reflected statement like this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.3.50.254 (talk) 11:30, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

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tabloid journalism

[5] - Sumptuously. The article is based on United States government-funded Radio Free Europe, Columbia University Press, European Parliament and The Daily Telegraph ([6]) is only sourcing is tabloid journalism. Divot (talk) 14:53, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Business Year company named President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev "The World`s Person of the Year 2015"

Can't find about that at the Business Year website - [7]. Divot (talk) 12:00, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

https://www.thebusinessyear.com/medianews/the-business-year-launches-its-sixth-edition-on-azerbaijan — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.191.19.181 (talk) 15:35, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

  1. ^ http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/106908
  2. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/11/world/asia/observers-say-azerbaijan-election-marred-by-fraud.html?_r=0
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