Talk:Karawanks

Dubious statement

This is surely incorrect?

is over three hundred years old and is the oldest mountain pass in Europe

given the Great St. Bernard and Brenner have been in use since ancient times.

Gerry Lynch 15:19, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

I believe it's an error. The Enciklopedija Slovenije (book 6; 1992) says that the mountain pass has already been used in pre-history and that a 100-metre long road tunnel right under the top of the pass was opened in 1575, located much higher than the current tunnel, which opened in 1963. The tunnel's roof was removed in 1725-28, so it became a 130-metre long cut in the mountain. That route was used until WW2.

Maybe the author meant "three thousand years old", but I don't think we can say for sure it's that old nor is it the oldest in Europe. It is definitely older than 300 years though. I'll rephrase the sentence. edolen1 19:07, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I have changed the order of Stol/HochStull mentioning, since it's located in Sovenia and therefore I think it should be named in this order. Also I have put Peca in first place because the highest peak is on the Slovenian side of the border, though this move wasn't really necessary. 153.5.60.89 12:48, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The celts invaded the alps only after 800 bC. Names of mountain ranges are much older. So this etymology is the usual celtomania. This mountain range is made of lime stone and looks like a bench, from the north and the south. So its name should be ,lime-bench'. There is in Europe excactly one language which fits - kare-banku. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.216.70.109 (talk) 04:48, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Name

Given the large number of published sources calling these mountains the Karawanks (194 88), the Karavank Mountains/Range (etc.) (114 42), the Karavanks (99 39), or the Karavankas (hits include German and French -s), it seems reasonable for both consistency and WP:English to move this article to a more typical English plural name (Karawanks or Karavankas) rather than a Slovenian or German plural. For comparison, other mountain ranges have plural suffixes that vary across languages:

Some mountain ranges

	Foreign languages and suffixes
English	Slovene	German	Italian
Alps	Alpe	Alpen	Alpi
Pyrenees	Pireneji	Pyrenäen	Pirenei
Sudetes	Sudeti	Sudeten	Sudeti
Carpathians	Karpati	Karpaten	Carpazi
Appalachians	Apalači	Appalachen	Appalachi
Andes	Andi	Anden	Ande
Karawanks	Karavanke	Karawanken	Caravanche

Based on the Slovene feminine plural Karavanke, English Karavankas would be more "correct" than Karavanks because the Slovene form is not the masculine plural Karavanki. However, both -v- forms are less frequent than the -w- form in English texts. Doremo (talk) 06:57, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Karawanks sounds ok to me. It's the most common English version (by the way, one has to click to the last page to get the real number of Google hits). Anyway, you may also propose the renaming at WP:RM before moving the article. --Eleassar ^{my talk} 07:48, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder about the Google hit numbers. Doremo (talk) 08:45, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

After looking at WP:RM, the move appears neither technical nor controversial, so I think the informal discussion here will be sufficient. I'll let the matter rest for a week or so in order to give other contributors an opportunity to comment or offer opinions. Doremo (talk) 08:51, 26 May 2012 (UTC)