Talk:Kolkata/Archive 6

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Example of non-city use of Calcutta

Various places, buildings, monuments, books have the word "Calcutta" in them. The Government of India only changed the acceptable spelling of the CITY. Calcutta as a word remains just as Nieuw Amsterdam, Constantinople, and Mesopotamia continue to be the names of a cities in history. However, it is not the spelling of the name of the City of Kolkata anymore. Here's a good example:

University of Calcutta: The university uses Kolkata to call the city (see address on the first page), but its name was not changed to "University of Kolkata". Why? For our blind lovers of standards, there are probably numerous standards and regulations that University of Calcutta has signed and accepted. Changing its spelling, even though might be reasonable on some grounds, would mean immense disturbance. The University will also have to reapply for permission to run itself under a new "name". Google hit probably also returns this site when Calcutta is searched, even though the University accepts and actively uses Kolkata instead of the "outdated" (in West Bengal) spelling Calcutta.

Can be viewed as spelling change?

On a different ground of argument, this may be viewed as not a case of change of spellingrather than as a case of change of name. So applying "common usage" does indicate Kolkata/Calcutta (because they are the same word spelled differently). Well, the spelling is possibly still Calcutta in American English/British English, but in Indian English it is Kolkata and we should abide by Wikipedia:Manual of style. Is this argument valid? -- Urnonav 05:21, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

! exists "official English" anything

The problem seems to be the mistaken impression that there can be an official English name for anything. The English language is regulated by no authority, so there can be no such thing as an official English anything. The only regulator of English language usage is English language usage itself, and anyone who claims differently is attempting to wield linguistic power that they do not have.

It is true that the official name of the city changed from Calcutta to Kolkata, but it is NOT true that the official English name of the city changed to Kolkata, for the simple fact that there is no such thing as an official English anything. So claims that the article should be at "Kolkata" because that is its official English name are pure fallacy.

Now, what does this have to do with the name of the article on Wikipedia? Well, Wikipedia policy is to use the most common name used in English. That means that any evidence that can be presented to show that an article should be at one name or another has to rely on a quantitative measure of usage. Any other kind of evidence is simply not applicatible to this discussion. All of the quantitative evidence that makes any attempt at all to represent a diversity of English usage points to "Calcutta" being that name. There is not one shred of quantitative evidence that shows that "Kolkata" is more common. There is a lot of speculation and guessing, but no actual evidence that the Kolkata spelling enjoys a preponderance of usage. Therefore, unless Wikipedia policy is changed (and this page is not the right forum to do so), the page has to stay at "Calcutta" if policy is to be adhered to. It's that simple. Nohat 20:50, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I would love to see these "quantitative" measures you talk about. This is not a case of what is commonly used since we see that a definite winner cannot be reached through the pole. With all due respect, the whole "common use" terminology is absolutely garbage seeing that it is vaguely defined and inapplicable in cases where controversies actually will and do arise. It only helps in absolute obvious cases where we would not need to invoke a standard anyway. Given the current condition, I would go with the official spelling. -- Urnonav 01:08, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Whoa! It's an official transliteration of a Bengali name in English. There are several Indian places that have several transliterations in English. Examples are Sirkali/Sirkazhi/Sirkazi, Borivli/Borivali, Triambak/Tryambak/Trimbak/Trymbak, Nasik/Nashik, Mysore/Maisuru. In general, the entropy of the various names increases with the number of syllables and with the smallness of the place, and you may encounter nearly all the forms in postal addresses. In spite of all this, each city chooses one of those versions as its official transliteration in English. That becomes its de facto "English name", irrespective of how it originated. In conclusion, the concept of an official English name does exist for most Indian cities. -- Brhaspati (^talk_contribs) 23:29, 2005 Mar 7 (UTC)

But it cannot be an official English name--no one controls the English language, not even the government of India. It would be a violation of NPOV policy to accept that the government of India has any authority to legislate the English language. Nohat 23:37, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, it's the "official name in English". As in, "the official spelling of its name in English". Isn't that the same as "official English name"? But how does this constitute changing the English language? -- Brhaspati (^talk_contribs) 23:46, 2005 Mar 7 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use_English) states "If there is no commonly-used English name, use an accepted transliteration of the name in the original language." Nobody is saying the government of India is imposing anything on Wikipedia. But why wouldn't we respect Indian self-determination and choose to use their preferred transliteration of the name over the traditional colonial one? —Michael Z. 2005-03-8 00:25 Z

Because the policy says "use the most common name." It says nothing about "self-determination." Wikipedia's policy is not the only possible policy. One atlas, I forget which, says that their impartial policy is to use "the name used by the authority administering the territory." That is an example of a policy under which the name would be Kolkata. But, that is not Wikipedia's policy. Wikipedia's policy is "Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things." Not the most correct name. Not the most phonetically accurate transliteration of the name. Not the most official name. Not the name used by the people that live there. The most common name. Why wouldn't we respect Italy's self-determination and use "Napoli?" Because the most commonly used name is Naples. Dpbsmith (talk) 03:28, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but the city probably refers to itself in English as Naples. I didn't dig up a link, but here's an official website link in French ([1]), where the name is also "Naples". In the case of Kolkata/Calcutta, it refers to itself in English as Kolkata. And Kolkata/Calcutta is in part an English-speaking city, unlike Naples. So the case of Naples isn't really comparable. -- Curps 03:48, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

But the policy doesn't say that we call places what most English speakers who live in a place call it. The policy says "use the most common name". Nohat 04:41, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hasn't anyone noticed that "Calcutta" and "Kolkata" are the same name?! They're just different English transliterations from Bengali. I think they're probably pronounced the same way by most people. It's like arguing whether "labor" or "labour" is English. —Michael Z. 2005-03-8 06:13 Z

I'd say Calcutta is pronounced /kælkʌtə/ and Kolkata is pronounced /koʊlkɑɾə/, at least in American English. Pretty different. Of course, this is difficult to verify, because Kolkata isn't listed in most English dictionaries. Nohat 08:06, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

/leɪbɹ̩/ & /lajbəː/, of course not both in U.S. English. But you're right, it is difficult to determine how most people pronounce a word they've likely only seen in print so far. —Michael Z. 2005-03-8 15:40 Z

But then, don't you think an Indian English speaker would read out the two spellings the same? Anyone know for sure? —Michael Z. 2005-03-8 16:22 Z

As an Indian English speaker, I agree that there would be a pronunciation difference. The IPA pronunciations listed above by Nohat above are true (except that Kolkata should end with a /ɑ/, not /ə/), even when pronounced by Indians. The logic behind this is that Calcutta is perceived to be Anglicized, while Kolkata is not. As in, the pronunciation of Kolkata is closer to its etymological roots (for which various hypotheses exist), while Calcutta is how the British pronounced it, substituting phonemes that may have been more comfortable to them at the time. (This trend can be seen in other place names, like Thiruvananthapuram/Trivandrum, Udhagamandalam/Ootacamund, Kozhikode/Calicut, Kanpur/Cawnpore etc). As far as spelling goes, Indian names are transliterated to English using certain characters in preference to others. In particular, K is preferred to C, which is why you don't see names like Crishna or Camala competing with Krishna or Kamala. It seems to be one of those conventions. :-) But yes, that's pretty much the reasoning used by whoever initiated this name change. -- Brhaspati (^talk_contribs) 22:50, 2005 Mar 8 (UTC)

Uh, yes, there can be official names for cities & other legal entities. The official name of Massachusetts is "The Commonwealth of Massachusetts"; the official name for Berkshire is "Royal Berkshire". About 20 years ago a city in Oregon changed its official name from Baker to Baker City; Wikipedia has an entry Baker City, Oregon; it only has a redirect for Baker, Oregon (which I created last weekend because native Oregonians like me sometimes forget the exact official name). And the primary language for those 3 places is English.

If the entity is in a place where English is not the official or primary language, then Wikipedia offers us an out: if there is a better-known English form, we use that. If tomorrow France decides to rename Paris "Citie de Charles De Gaulle", we can ignore that. Unless someone can show that the law or ordinance changing the name was not in English, I'd have to say this point is fairly certain: the official name of the city is Kolkata. Whether that is a decisive argument for other people is another matter. -- llywrch 04:49, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

These examples don't prove anything, because in all three cases, the most common name is the same as the "official name". In particular, the Baker City example also not very instructive because it is an article about a small town that was automatically generated from census data. Note, however, that the official name of New York City, is "City of New York, New York", not "New York City", but the article is at New York City because that's the most common name for it. Nohat 18:23, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The source of the original entry for Baker City, Oregon is not relevant. Had the name not conformed to consensus, it would have been changed to make it so. It was a happy chance that the beginning material did reflect the proper name. -- llywrch 05:50, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

And the article about Bartholdi's statue in New York Harbor, whose correct name is, without question, Liberty Enlightening the World is at Statue of Liberty. The New York street named, without question, Avenue of the Americas (attested to by four separate signs at every corner of every intersection) is at Sixth Avenue (Manhattan). The article on Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy is at Felix Mendelssohn.

I started out with the assumption that the city's name was recently changed, that the new name would eventually become prevalent in due course, and the issue (which I still think is the proper issue to discuss) is whether the new name has already become prevalent. As nearly as _I_ can tell, the answer to this is "no, not yet."

But the more of this discussion I read, the more convinced I am that this discussion is really about some political point of view regarding colonialism versus independence, or West Bengal regionalism, or something.

The "pro" comment #27 above says "Even if it could be demonstrated that Calcutta is more popular, the fact is that Kolkata is far more likely to be used as time passes. Let's get with the future." No, our job is not to predict the future. We should change the name when there is clear consensus that the new name has become the most common name. Dpbsmith (talk) 18:51, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No I feel the policy is being misconstrued and twisted to prevent the name from being changed. The name is not a popularity contest to see which one is more popular for use in Wikipedia. It deals with the official spelling of the name of the city which was renamed. I don't see why people are getting so tickled to having the article contents in Kolkata who's first line would anyway read something like Kolkata formerly known as Calcutta ... which would be the most accurate and be on par with Mumbai, Chennai and other well known encyclopedias. Nichalp 20:16, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

The problem is that there is no such policy that articles should be at the official spelling, but lots of people seem to think what the official spelling is should somehow be used as a criterion for determining the article name, despite the fact the policy of using the most common name is the only official policy that is supported by consensus. According to policy, this article should stay at "Calcutta" until "Kolkata" becomes the most common name. The people who are upset about the proposal to move the article to Kolkata are upset because that would be a violation of a long-standing policy that is supported by consensus, and we like to follow our policies, not ignore them. But yet, over and over again, those who would move the article to "Kolkata" bring up completely irrelevant arguments about "correctness" and "consistency with others" that have no bearing on the criteria used in our policy. Nohat 22:32, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What we have seen is a flaw in the policy. The policy needs to consider the name change especially since the spelling also has changed; plus it is in English. The policy needs to be refined. Maintaining a ridgid stance based on an old policy that certainly goes haywire when dealing with Indian cities points to an upheaval and refinement, especially since wikipedia policies are fluid. "Correctness" or accuracy is a major criteria to be fulfilled if this encyclopedia has to gain credibility and definately a cogent point to consider. Nichalp 20:42, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

Then please initiate a discussion at the Naming conventions talk page and propose a change in the policy saying whenever a city has a well-defined official name that differs from the most common name, the article title should be the official name, with a redirect from the most common name. Explain why the existing policy "goes haywire with Indian cities."

When you get a consensus that using the official name is the appropriate policy, I'll support the move, as I think it will be extremely easy to get consensus that Kolkata is the official name. Dpbsmith (talk) 21:20, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

So you would go back to arguing over a metric for the most common form of the city's name? Despite the fact Kolata is the name of a city in an English-speaking country? As Nichalp remarked above, it does appear as if there is two standards here. -- llywrch 05:50, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Example supporting move Dacca to Dhaka

To support the move from old spelling "Calcutta" to new spelling "Kolkata", I would once again point out a similar change. The name of the capital of Bangladesh was spelt Dacca by the British rulers, and the spelling continued until the early eighties. Then the Govt of Bangladesh changed the official English spelling to Dhaka. Yes, the Dacca spelling was definitely common at that point. And yes, everybody switched to using Dhaka, and you find that in Wikipedia, and almost everywhere. The spelling change is completely similar to Calcutta->Kolkata, and unless anyone starts a vote to move Dhaka to Dacca (or Beijing to Peking, Myanmar to Burma etc), Calcutta should redirect to Kolkata. --Ragib 21:36, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The problem is that the criterion in the policy is not "what will be the most common name in a few years" but "what is the most common name RIGHT NOW". Right now, the most common name is "Calcutta". If and when "Kolkata" becomes the most common name, then the article can move, but not before. Nohat 22:35, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

And the problem with this is how do you accurately determine that calcutta is the most common name right now. It is based on what sources you want to check. And then the second problem is when does kolkata become common name i,e how much more does it need to be referenced before it is comparable in usage. The whole controversy is about whether kolkatta is common enough to go into the encyclopedia or not. And there are no clear ways of defining it. kaal 22:47, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Best to retain the status quo then, eh? Surely it should stay Calcutta unless it can be proved that the new spelling is more popular. -- Necrothesp 23:23, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it's a matter of proof, exactly, but more a matter of rough consensus a la VfD. When Kolkata really is the most common name, nobody will have to fuss about methodology, or standards of proof, because it won't matter what methodology you use. Google counts, New York Times hits, informal straw polls—they'll all give the same answer. Right now, we have something like an even split among those choosing to express an opinion in the poll. An even split is not consensus. In a few years, Calcutta will be almost universally understood to be an obsolete name just like, like Corea, or Bechuanaland, or Porto Rico, or Tanganyika. Dpbsmith (talk) 02:10, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

While imperfect, the Google hit count method has been used successfully in other similar disputes. It's not perfect, but it's the least imperfect method that is feasible to use. Unless someone can suggest a more perfect method that is actually possible to use, we should use those results. The fact that the Google hit count method is imperfect does not mean we should abandon the policy altogether and use a completely different policy, like "use official names". Nohat 23:38, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Google is not imperfect; it is perfect from the point of view with which it was designed. What it is, is misleading. How? This is how:

Someone pointed out above I believe that the disparity between search result hits changes drastically by addition of words like "city" and "India".
Google is not the only internet search engine.
Google search algorithm does not only depend on what is linked but also on what name it is linked by. So, if an article titled (possibly renamed after the name change) Kolkata is linked by the word Calcutta then google will return it when Calcutta is searched.
Google only gives a very rough estimate of how many times an internet page is associated with a particular word.
It does NOT indicate "common usage by native English speakers".
I believe Wikipedia also has a policy on naming after local form of English and Wikipedia does accept Indian English as a form of English. So, the policy of "common usage by native English speakers" is questionable. Does it apply? Does it override policies on use of local variety of English?

I understand that opponents of article location change want to stick to standards - a step I would definitely commend. My argument is that in this case multiple standards seem to apply: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (city names), Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English), Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) and Wikipedia: Manual of Style (spelling). People arguing on the name change have various sorts of arguments including which is "correct" and these have been completely rejected in favour of one SINGLE standard without any mention of contradictions.

I am yet to get a proposal about what sort of objective unbiased measure of "common" the "standard" says we use. If the standard doesn't mention anything, I am sorry, but I refuse to accept the standard on the basis that it is incomplete and, hence, cannot be applied efficiently.

I have proposed one: rough consensus, the decision procedure for most things within Wikipedia. I am not convinced that you will accept any standard unless it gives the predetermined outcome you desire. Dpbsmith (talk) 15:01, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Necrothesp mentioned leaving at the "status quo". OK so, I can move the article to "Kolkata" and then say the same thing; is that acceptable for you? I don't think so.

No, because a move not supported by consensus doesn't count. The question is whether the new name has become the most common name. Suggesting standards doesn't help; we can't reach consensus on that, since the people who want "Kolkata" do not seem to accept as valid any standard that gives a different answer. The solution is to wait a few years. Then Kolkata will pass the Google test and any other test anyone wants to apply and most likely an informal poll will indicate rough consensus to change the article name. When this happens, the article name should be changed. Dpbsmith (talk) 15:01, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

One of the things you have to follow when following standards is in the case of standards, you have to use cascades: if one standard fails to resolve an issue, select another that will cascade over the present to resolve dispute. I would logically invoke Manual of Style here and say use Indian English, since it clearly resolves the issue here. -- Urnonav 04:55, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Discussion in Talk:Naming conventions

Pursuant to Nichalp's comment above:

What we have seen is a flaw in the policy. The policy needs to consider the name change especially since the spelling also has changed; plus it is in English. The policy needs to be refined. Maintaining a rigid stance based on an old policy that certainly goes haywire when dealing with Indian cities points to an upheaval and refinement, especially since wikipedia policies are fluid. "Correctness" or accuracy is a major criteria to be fulfilled if this encyclopedia has to gain credibility and definately a cogent point to consider. Nichalp 20:42, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

I have opened a discussion on the naming conventions Talk page. Interested parties, please join. Dpbsmith (talk) 21:35, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Opinion: It is Calcutta. We are not renaming the City, we are simply using the name which we have to believe a majority of English readers looking up the subject, would expect to find the article under - or - quickly guess on a second try. It is the same reason we call New Caledonia by that title instead of Kanaky because most English readers still know it by that old term, not on account of the French governments opinion. Nor do we use Sanscript or other non-English spellings etc. The English version of Wikipedia uses what we estimate the common English title is.--Daeron 02:35, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

How can you say that so categorically when the votes by wikipedians are more for rename than retain as it stands now? Arunram 05:13, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

And yet again I am forced to ask what makes us "believe" a majority of English speakers will look for Calcutta and not Kolkata. Even if they do search, why not use the power of redirects to lead them to better information? If we were a paper-based encyclopaedia, then yes, majority might have been used to avoid making an article to direct people to some other page, but this is not a paper-based one and that is the whole point of an online encyclopaedia - exploit the immense power that e-tech yields! Even the war on majority has now become a war of perception - "I believe this is right" issue. Go by the consensus.... -- Urnonav 01:20, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Historical context

There has been a recent edit (with a fairly hostile-sounding summary) to some historical references to the city that used the spelling Kolkata. I am in a little doubt as to whether it is important to spell a city in the way it was spelt in year XXXX when writing about an event in XXXX especially when the same city exists today. One clear case to distinguish would be something like names of objects. For example, names of universities and colleges in the city should logically be spelt keeping in mind time, but does the same apply when referring to a place in general? Is there a convention on this?

On a slightly different note, the move to Kolkata was favoured by a 33.33% higher number of wikipedians than the number of those who opposed the move; so how come the move was not executed? Do we follow the two-third rule here? -- Urnonav 01:11, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The edit in question was mine and I apologise if it sounded hostile. But I really do think that cities/countries/whatever should be referred to historically by the name by which they were called at the time, yes. There were no such cities as Kolkata or Mumbai under the British Raj, just as there were no such countries as Zimbabwe or Myanmar under British rule. To my mind, using modern names in this way smacks of historical revisionism. In the same way, London under Roman rule should be referred to as Londinium and New York under Dutch rule as New Amsterdam. To do otherwise is thoroughly misleading and unnecessary and may engender a suspicion that it's being done for political reasons.

On your second point, 38 registered users voted for the move, 30 against. That's not really a consensus. -- Necrothesp 17:00, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I disagree... I find it jarring to have the same "object" referred to with two different names. Should we also use old English when dealing with history? It has already been mentioned in the article that the city's former (official) name was Calcutta, and that is what the British called it, and there's no need for modern articles to use historical names. Also, how do you determine what the historical name is? The British certianly called it Calcutta, and the locals called it something else... why do you prefer the official British name, but oppose the official Indian one? srs 23:57, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You can prove that the locals called it something else can you? Many Indians still call it Calcutta. I think most would have done then. And as to your claim that we should use modern names, would you prefer referring to the Siege of Volgograd instead of the Siege of Stalingrad? No, of course you wouldn't. Because most people wouldn't know what you were talking about. What's the difference here? -- Necrothesp 20:20, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)