Wikipedia talk:Romanization of Russian/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Hard sign

ъ (твёрдый знак) | Omitted | When followed by a vowel <!-- In modern Russian, is it ever not followed by a vowel? -->

Харьков→Kharkov—the hard sign seems to be omitted here, so should the note "When followed by a vowel" be removed from the table? If it strictly followed BGN/PCGN then it would be Khar”kov.

That is a soft sign. —141.153.215.130 (talk) 16:08, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

We will have to transliterate old Russian too, in some cases, so pre-reform letters should be added to this table (І і, Ѣ ѣ, Ѳ ѳ, Ѵ ѵ). —Michael Z. 2006-01-2 23:21 Z

Combine this with Cyrillic page

What do people here think about merging this page into Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Cyrillic) (and marking that page as a guideline)? See discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Cyrillic)#Mark as guideline or merge? --Kotniski (talk) 11:23, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I would be against that. WP:CYR's intent was to document the romanization practices of all language using the Cyrillic alphabet. It was a tool to help develop guidelines where none existed, but it was never intended to be prescriptive. WP:RUS is strictly limited to Russian.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:29, September 22, 2009 (UTC)

Also Against. -LlywelynII (talk) 02:34, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

"imeni Karla Libknekhta", "Tolyatti", "Lakhdenpokhya" and many, many others...

It is absurd that e.g. the Russian places named after Palmiro Togliatti and Karl Liebknecht would be in English "Tolyatti" and "imeni Karla Libknekhta" and Lahdenpohja (the bottom of sound) would be in English "Lakhdenpokhya". By the way, even the English kh reminds the German ch, there is not the second (or third) k in the Cyrillic transliteration: имени Карла Либкнехта, so the name should be (if we still like to be absurd): "imeni Karla Libknehta" and same with Лахденпохья: "Lahdenpohya".
The Italian, German, Finnish and English languages are written by Latin alphabet and the Russian transliteration can not change this. --Finrus (talk) 12:12, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

You mean to tell me that the name Seattle should be changed to Si'ahl because that's how the name of the Amerindian chief is spelled in Lushootseed?

Those are Russian cities names and their Russian names are the original ones, not transliterations of something. Hellerick (talk) 13:25, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Best Hellerick, Palmiro Togliatti (not "Tolyatti") was an Italian and Karl Liebknecht (not "Libknekht") was a German person. Naturally we must write their names right also in places named after them. Of course Lahdenpohja is a Russian city, but it has Finnish name (meaning the bottom of sound) and it is just transliterated to Russian and Cyrillic alphabet Лахденпохья. It shall no be so, that Finnish name - written in Latin alphabet - changes to English - written in Latin alphabet - as quite different, because of the Russian transliteration. Not this way: (Latin) Lahdenpohja > (Cyrillic) Лахденпохья > (Latin) Lakhdenpokhya (otherwise, from what the k's come from?)

--Finrus (talk) 23:10, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Lakhdenpokhya is not a Finnish name, it's a Russian name of Finnish origin; and Lahdenpohja is a Finnish name of the Russian city. It's not about alphabets, it's about languages: (Finnish) Lahdenpohja > (Russian) Лахденпохья > (English) Lakhdenpokhya Hellerick (talk) 11:41, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

"Lakhdenpokhya" is not a name at all. Lahdenpohja situates in Ladoga Karelia, the Republic of Karelia and its names were not changed in year 1948 from Finnish to Russian, in opposite of the Karelian Isthmus, Leningrad region, e.g. Kamennogorsk, Pervomayskoye and Zelenogorsk - before 1948 Antrea, Kivennapa and Terijoki.
When the name comes from language written in Latin alphabet, it returns from Russian to the original form: (Finnish/Latin) Lahdenpohja > (Russian/Cyrillic) Лахденпохья > (English or other/Latin) Lahdenpohja. It is totally wrong to claim, that the name Lahdenpohja is transliterated like "Lakhdenpokhya" to Russian/Cyrillic: "Лакхденпокхыя".
Anybody can not show a source the names were changed from Finnish to Russian in Ladoga Karelia (1948), like in the Karelian Isthmus. --Finrus (talk) 14:08, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

"Lakhdenpokhya" is a BGN/PCGN romanization of the official Russian name of a place located in Russia. BGN/PCGN romanization (on which WP:RUS is based) is the most common system of romanization of Russian geographical names in English; hence this is what the English version of the Wikipedia uses. Origins of place names in Russia play no role whatsoever for romanization purposes; the only thing that matters is the spelling of the official name in Russian. That is your starting point. Anything else you put on top of that would be outside of the scope of romanization and/or wishful thinking/original research.

With that in mind, Finrus' statement that "when the name comes from language written in Latin alphabet, it returns from Russian to the original form" is nothing but his/her own opinion not supported by the industry standards. Furthermore, it is not "totally wrong to claim that the name Lahdenpohja is transliterated like "Lakhdenpokhya"; a cursory glance at any BGN/PCGN-compliant English-language publication would confirm just that, as would pages 84 and 85 of "Romanization Systems and Roman-Script Spelling Conventions", a BGN publication which says nothing about taking into consideration place name origins when romanizing a place name.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 1, 2010; 14:03 (UTC)

Anyhow, Lahdenpohja situates in Russia and is a Finnish name (the bottom of sound), which is transliterated in Russian/Cyrillic Лахденпохья (not Лакхденпокхыя > Lakhdenpokhya) and 'back' to English/Latin Lahdenpohja.

If anybody can not show a source the names were changed from Finnish to Russian in Ladoga Karelia (1948), like in opposite in the Karelian Isthmus, til that moment e.g. "Lakhdenpokhya" is "wishful thinking"/own research. --Finrus (talk) 19:01, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Here's the bottom line. We have WP:RUS, and we have BGN/PCGN romanization guidelines on which WP:RUS is based. BGN/PCGN guidelines do not take into account from which language the Russian name was derived. It could have came from Finnish, German, Komi, Ukrainian, Chinese, whatever—BGN/PCGN does not care. The guidelines take modern official Russian spelling and apply a set of very specific rules to produce romanization—a variant which becomes a standard for use in the English language. For example, if you take any modern English-language atlas (like I did here when this issue first was raised), you will see that they all use romanized Russian names regardless of the origins of those names. Occasionally systems other than BGN/PCGN are used, but the outcome is still romanization, not a verbatim Finnish word.

Note that the romanization practices have absolutely nothing to do with whether the name itself changed or not; what's important is the place jurisdiction, the change of which, I hope, you are not planning to challenge. Names of places in Finland are normally written in English using the official Finnish name. Names of places in Russia, on the other hand, are written using the romanized official Russian name. If a Finnish place becomes Russian, the approach to naming changes (from Finnish to romanized Russian). If a Russian place becomes Finnish, the approach to naming changes as well (from romanized Russian to Finnish). This is an approach taken by two very respectable organizations (BGN and PCGN), whose conventions are widely used. There is no need to pile imaginary rules like "when the name comes from language written in Latin alphabet, it returns from Russian to the original form" on top of them, nor is it ever done (with the exception of cases when historical contexts are being discussed). Keep it simple and keep it in line with real-world use.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 1, 2010; 19:57 (UTC)

So, you think that in the article Karelian Isthmus, after the war is an error:
"The vast majority of the old Finnish toponyms in the conquered territories were renamed to invented Russian ones by the government around 1948. The toponyms of the territories included within Karelo-Finnish SSR and of the southern part of the isthmus mostly remained.
In every case, Lahdenpohja is a Finnish name (meaning the bottom of sound). Due to the fact Finnish is written in Latin alphabet, name is Lahdenpohja. When transliterated to Russian written in Cyrillic alphabet, it is Лахденпохья and when back to the language written in Latin alphabet, e.g. English Lahdenpohja (not "Lakhdenpokhya"). --Finrus (talk) 15:07, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't think it's in error. You are mixing up different things yet again—article titles and names used in a certain context. Titles of the articles about the places in Russia are always subject to the WP:RUS provisions. How one links to those articles, however, depends on the context. This is not at all different from, say, the Gdańsk situation—just because the article is presently titled "Gdańsk" does not mean the German name "Danzig" is banned forever from any and all articles. Similarly, it would be incredibly illiterate to ask to use the "Lakhdenpokhya" spelling when discussing the Finnish history of the place. It would be equally illiterate to use "Lahdepohja" when discussing, for example, the administrative status of the town within the modern Republic of Karelia. An article can be only at one title, but it can be linked to in a number of different ways. Once you see that, the pieces will start falling in place.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 2, 2010; 15:35 (UTC)

WP:RUS and BGN/PCGN do not concerns names or parts of them, which are not Russian

Here is the point: e.g. Palmiro Togliatti is an Italian and Karl Liebknecht a German name. So the place in Russia named after Palmiro Togliatti has to be in Latin alphabet Togliatti and after Karl Liebknecht imeni Karla Liebknechta, where the romanization of Russian and BGN/PCGN romanization concern only the parts imeni -a -a, but not the German part Karl Liebknecht.
Lahdenpohja is a place in Russia having Finnish name and is already written in Latin alphabet, so it can not be "Lakhdenpokhya". It is absurd to claim, that the place was in English Lahdenpohja til 1940's seded from Finland to Soviet Union (later Russia), but after that would be "Lakhdenpokhya". The names in the Ladoga Karelia were not russified, in opposite of the toponyms in the Karelian Isthmus. --Finrus (talk) 12:55, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

If Russian place names are not subject to BGN/PCGN then what is?

As for "Karla Liebknechta", this name is supposed to be either in Russian or German, please don't invent a mixture of both. Hellerick (talk) 13:07, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

What Hellerick said, plus this:

1. "Palmiro Togliatti" and "Karl Liebknecht" are the conventional English names of these two people. On the other hand, the places named after these people are not high-profile enough to have conventional English names of their own, so the policies/guidelines are delegated one step down—romanization.
2. Romanization concerns the whole name, not just its parts. The person doing the romanization should not be trying to figure out which parts are borrowed and which are native to the language. This is not how the romanization works. You take the name written in Cyrillic, apply the romanization rules to it, and get the end result. That's it. Anything you add on top of that is an unnecessary complication detrimental to the core purpose of romanization—producing a standard variant.
3. Regarding the "it's absurd to claim..." statement, depending on your place of residence, please address your grievances to either the United States Board on Geographic Names or to the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use. It is their practice we borrowed. "Absurd" would be using someone's home-brewed set of arbitrary rules instead of an established industry standard. The approach you are arguing for simply has no base in reality. By the way, we are yet to see you cite anything comparable to this document, supporting your approach to romanization. Instead of wasting everyone's time, you might start with that next time you are going to post a response.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 3, 2010; 14:01 (UTC)

I hope that the romanization of Russian and BGN/PCGN romanization are not only someones 'businesses'.
In every case, a city in Russia is named after Palmiro Togliatti and of course, its name has to write Togliatti in Latin alphabet (not a strange transliteration from Russian pronounciation "Toljatti"). Same with Karl Liebknecht, the place named after him has to be imeni Karla Liebknechta in Latin alphabet (not a strange transliteration from Russian pronounciation "imeni Karla Libknekhta").
Lahdenpohja is a Finnish name, meaning the bottom of sound, and is transliterated to Russian Лахденпохья. There is no k's and y's, so '"Lakhdenpokhya" is absurd.
The fact is that anybody can not show a single source the names were changed from Finnish to Russian in Ladoga Karelia (1948), like in opposite in the Karelian Isthmus. Also the fact is that WP:RUS and BGN/PCGN do not concerns names or parts of them, which are not Russian.--Finrus (talk) 21:15, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Please don't start going in circles. All these points have already been discussed above. Here are a few more clarifications, though.

Consider that "Tolyatti" is a spelling used, for example, by Britannica and listed as major variant in Merriam-Webster. If they had entries on minor places like "imeni Karla Libknekhta", I assure you they'd be using the same spelling we do, because they are following the same romanization conventions we do. I suggest you go pester them with you theories as to the proper way of handling romanization (I hear Britannica now accepts readers' comments for review), because here it is getting rather tiresome.

"Lakhdenpokhya" is no different. As far as the "name change" is concerned, there was a change of the official place name, because the jurisdiction of the place changed (that fact, I trust, is not in dispute?). Before 1940, the official name was "Lahdepohja", which is the same spelling that was used in English. After 1940, the official name became "Лахденпохья", which, of course, needs to be romanized first before it can be used in English. Hence the "Lakhdenpokhya" spelling. Is the end result bastardized Finnish? Yes. Is it surprising? Hell no. Just an industry practice we are wise enough to follow.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 4, 2010; 14:06 (UTC)

Are the citizens of Лахденпохья aware that the name of their town is not even a name, but a transliteration? :)

And if it's a name, then what language it's in? I guess in Russian, because it's written in Cyrillic characters.

And if it's a name and in Russian, it's subject for BGN/PCGN.

What your statement about "not a single source" is supposed to mean I honestly have no idea. Hellerick (talk) 15:02, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

BTW here you can see a British map of former Finnish territories published in 1951. Hellerick (talk) 15:05, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

In every case, Togliatti is an Italian named place in Russia - transliterated in Russia like "Toljatti" - and imeni Karla Liebknechta is an place in Russia, which has German part Karl Liebknecht - transliterated in Russia like "Karl Libknekht". By the way, how do you transliterate the person name Karl Liebknecht in Russian? Answer: like *Karl Libknekht", anyhow, the person name is still in English Karl Liebknecht, no an absurd "Karl Libknekht".
Lahdenpohja is not a Russian, but Finnish name and means the bottom of sound - engl. bottom > finn. pohja, engl. sound > finn. lahti. Lahdenpohja or "Lakhdenpokhya" is not Russian or if it would be, what that name means in English? Please, show a single source that the names were changed from Finnish to Russian in Ladoga Karelia (1948), like in the Karelian Isthmus.
Liinahamari is not a Russian, but Finnish name and means the line hammer - engl. line > finn. liina, engl. hammer > finn. vasara. Also, another toponym from the Murmansk region: Luostari is Finnish and means the monastery in English and монастырь, monastyr in Russian. Luostari is not a Russian or if it would be, what that name means in English? --Finrus (talk) 21:01, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, since it looks like you have nothing to say except repeating an absurd statement that Russian language has no names for Russian cities, I suppose the discussion is over. Hellerick (talk) 01:29, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Very sad, but that seems to be a typical comment, when somebody can not admit anything.

However, the fact is that a name written originally in Latin alphabet can not change to a new form after going through a language written in Cyrillic. Also, not that way: Togliatti > Тольятти > Toljatti, Lahdenpohja > Лахденпохья > Lakhdenpokhya, but instead and naturally Togliatti > Тольятти > Togliatti, Lahdenpohja > Лахденпохья > Lahdenpohja. These subjects have nothing to do with the WP:RUS and BGN/PCGN - or if would have, it is strange, that nobody can/dare repair obvious errors. The languages and their writings should not be anyone's private businesses.

We must respect Wikipedia's principles, one of them is references and in this occasion a source showing that the names were changed from Finnish to Russian in Ladoga Karelia, like in the Karelian Isthmus 1948 (e.g. finn. Antrea > russ. Kamennogorsk, finn. Kivennapa > russ. Pervomayskoye and finn. Terijoki > russ. Zelenogorsk) and a source that Liinahamari's and Luostari's - engl. monastery, russ. монастырь, monastyr - names were russified. After all, these sources do not exist, because the Finnish toponyms have remained.

--Finrus (talk) 19:55, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Please come back when you have something new to add to this discussion. Every single point you raise in your two most recent posts had already been addressed in this very thread. Just scroll up; the counter-points are all right there. Going in circles and parroting the same, already refuted, sentiments over and over again isn't a proper way to carry a discussion, nor is quoting the policies and guidelines which have nothing to do with the issue at hand. You want sources? To support our romanization guidelines? Really? And an abundance of real-world usage examples is someone's "private business"? I think this discussion has outlived its usefulness.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 5, 2010; 20:34 (UTC)

If someone can not admit a single thing, that e.g. Togliatti is an Italian word and is transliterated in Russian (like pronounced) Тольятти and naturally is 'transliterated back' Togliatti, that is his problem. Same is with a German word Liebknecht, which is transliterated in Russian (like pronounced) Либкнехт and of course is 'transliterated back' Liebknecht, so also imeni Karla Liebknechta.
Persons, who consider languages and writings as their private businesses, should show a source, that e.g. Lahdenpohja's name was changed, like in the Karelian Isthmus. The source for the Karelian Isthmus is Указ Президиума Верховного Совета РСФСР № 741/2 от 13 января 1949, e.g. Светогорск - история города и комбината and Устав муниципального образования «Кузнечное». However, that kind of source concerning Ladoga Karelia does nobody find, because toponyms in Ladoga Karelia were never changed from Finnish to Russian, so e.g. Lahdenpohja is still Lahdenpohja, not a ridiculous "Lakhdenpokhya".--Finrus (talk) 20:05, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Here's what I can "admit": you are going in circles, ignoring the arguments presented to you, and keep parroting the same sentiments over and over. That is not a way to conduct a constructive discussion and is a waste of everyone's time. The answers to your most recent questions can be easily found by scrolling this thread up. When you come up with new arguments, by all means please post them here, but until then, you will be referred back to the paragraphs above which already address your concerns.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 7, 2010; 14:53 (UTC)

Now it has to be believed, that anybody can not show a single source which exhibits toponyms in Ladoga Karelia were changed. So Хелюля (no "Кхелыулыа") is written in Latin alphabet Helylä, Лахденпохья (no "Лакхденпокхыя") is Lahdenpohja, Питкяранта (no "Питкыаранта") is Pitkäranta and so on. Also in the Murmansk region e.g. Лиинахамари (no "Лиинакхамари") is written in Latin alphabet Liinahamari, Луостари is Luostari and Сальмиярви (no "Сальмиыарви") is Salmijärvi. --Finrus (talk) 22:20, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

No one showed you a single source regarding the name changes because doing so would be irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Sources on the change of jurisdiction (i.e., those which matter here), on the other hand, should be easy to find. But I am repeating myself again. Please see the discussion above for more explanation on this point.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 8, 2010; 13:22 (UTC)

Thus the final conclusions are:

• Names written originally in Latin alphabet, will not change after gone through language written in Cyrillic, like Russian, e.g. Togliatti > Тольятти > Togliatti, Karl Liebknecht ~ имени Карла Либкнехта > imeni Karla Liebknechta.
  
• Soviet officials russified toponyms in the Karelian Isthmus 1948-1949: Finnish Antrea to Russian Kamennogorsk, Finnish Kivennapa to Russian Pervomayskoye, Finnish Terijoki to Russian Zelenogorsk and so on. (One source for that is Указ Президиума Верховного Совета РСФСР № 741/2 от 13 января 1949.)
  • In opposite of that toponyms of Ladoga Karelia were not changed from Finnish to Russian, so Хелюля is still Helylä, Лахденпохья is Lahdenpohja, Питкяранта is Pitkäranta and so on (no "Kheljulja", "Lakhdenpokhya", "Pitkyaranta").
  • Also in the Murmansk region many Finnish name were not russified, so Лиинахамари is still Liinahamari, Луостари is Luostari and Сальмиярви is Salmijärvi (no "Liinakhamari", "Salmiyarvi").--Finrus (talk) 19:23, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

All true, but as far as this discussion goes, so what? As far as this English Wikipedia is concerned, names of places in Finland are supposed to be the official Finnish names, while the names of places in Russia are supposed to be romanized official Russian names. This is exactly what we are doing.

What's more, your last statement ("Лиинахамари is still Liinahamari...") just makes no sense whatsoever. "Liinahamari" is the name still used by the Finns to refer to the place in Russia; "Лиинахамари" is the official Russian name; and "Liinakhamari" is the BGN/PCGN/WP:RUS romanization of the Russian name (which we are supposed to use per the previous paragraph). Makes perfect sense.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 8, 2010; 19:39 (UTC)

Here's another way for you to look at it. Let's take Liinakhamari as an example. When the place was a part of Finland, its Finnish name was "Liinahamari", its Russian name was "Лиинахамари", and its name in English was "Liinahamari" (because BGN/PCGN use Finnish names to refer to the places in Finland). When the place became a part of Russia, its Finnish name did not change (still "Liinahamari"), its Russian name did not change (still "Лиинахамари"), but in English it became "Liinakhamari" (because BGN/PCGN use romanized Russian names to refer to the places in Russia).

Since this here is the English Wikipedia, it's the practices used in the English language that matter. The change of jurisdiction, however, did not affect the practices used in the Finnish and Russian languages the slightest, which is why those Wikipedias refer to the places as, respectively, "Liinahamari" and "Лиинахамари".

Hope this helps.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 8, 2010; 19:52 (UTC)

Ëzhiki, I believe that you are right. Although the Russian and BGN/PCGN rendering of Cyrillic 'х' as 'kh' is quite awkward (the respective Bulgarian transliteration is by 'h' instead) but that is something else and cannot be helped I reckon :-) Apcbg (talk) 13:15, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your support, Apcbg. As for the rendition of "х" being awkward, it is not something we, the Wikipedians, are in a position to change. By the way, "kh" is used to represent "х" by BGN/PCGN for Bulgarian as well :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 9, 2010; 13:34 (UTC)

Once again: Liinahamari's name was never russified, never changed from Finnish to Russian. Of course, Liinahamari is a place in Russia, but it's official name is Finnish. Same with Luostari and Salmijärvi, also in Ladoga Karelia Helylä, Lahdenpohja, Pitkäranta and so on. These names has not been changed from Finnish to Russian.
In opposite of that, Soviet authorities russified, changed from Finnish to Russian, Finnish toponyms in the Karelian Isthmus, e.g. Finnish Antrea to Russian Kamennogorsk, Finnish Kivennapa to Russian Pervomayskoye, Finnish Terijoki to Russian Zelenogorsk - at least an exception: Leipäsuo. (One source of the changes is Указ Президиума Верховного Совета РСФСР № 741/2 от 13 января 1949.)
What concerns names e.g. Togliatti and Liebknecht, naturally they are not Russian ones. As we know, the Russian way is to transliterate them almost they are pronounced: Тольятти, "Tolyatti" and Либкнехт, "Libknekht". In every case, we must respect the original languages written in Latin alphabet just like in English and transliterate the toponyms: Togliatti and imeni Karla Liebknechta.
--Finrus (talk) 15:03, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

"Liinahamari's name was never russified"??? So, the "Лиинахамари" spelling (in Russian, in Cyrillics) under item 1 of Article 1 of the Law of Murmansk Oblast #539-01-ZMO "On the Status, Names, and Composition of the Territory of the Municipal Formation of Pechengsky District and of the Municipal Formations It Comprises" is a figment of someone's imagination? And in reality the Russians use the "official Finnish names"? Is that what you are saying? I think we are done with this discussion.

As of "we must respect the original languages written in Latin alphabet", no, we must not. We must respect the practices used in the English language (which is BGN/PCGN), not what some other languages do. This is the English Wikipedia. Wikipedias in other languages would have different rules which are of no concern to us.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 9, 2010; 15:36 (UTC)

Please, look at the Лиинахамари. There is explicitly Лиинахамари (от фин. Liinahamari «цветок из камня»). Even in the Karelian Isthmus (an exception) Лейпясуо (фин. Leipäsuo — хлебное болото). Everyone must believe and know that Finnish toponyms has not been changed in Ladoga Karelia and in the Murmansk region, in opposite of the most in the Karelian Isthmus.
Everyone should also know, that e.g. Togliatti is an Italian and Liebknecht is a German name. They just are transliterated in Russian like pronounced: Тольятти, "Tolyatti" and Либкнехт, "Libknekht". So the toponyms in Russia has to be transliterated Togliatti and imeni Karla Liebknechta also in English, which is written in Latin alphabet.
This is the English Wikipedia. So the names, which come from other languages written also in Latin alphabet (e.g. Italian, Finnish and German), will not change even if after going through the Russian transliteration. Consequently: Togliatti, imeni Karla Liebknechta, Helylä, Lahdenpohja, Pitkäranta, Liinahamari, Luostari, Salmijärvi etc. That should be very clear.
--Finrus (talk) 12:32, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

"They just are transliterated in Russian like pronounced"??!! Meaning you don't even understand the difference between transliteration and transcription? No wonder you are having hard time with the concept of romanization!

The rest of your concerns have already been addressed above in this section.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 10, 2010; 13:24 (UTC)

Not really. As I see here, Finrus demands something more than transliteration or transcription. What s/he wants is to restore the declined Russian transliteration to its nominative form and then tracing back its (foreign) origin. Either way both may constitute the act of wp:original research, so it's not prefered in English Wikipedia unless there exists an already established Anglicised name that WAS NOT INVENTED BY WIKIPEDIAN and supported by reliable source. Which means if several reliable sources state that Imeni Karla Libknekhta should be called Karl Liebknecht (Russian locality), we move this individually, but that doesn't apply to other transliterations which lack the conventional Anglicised name. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 15:20, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Oh yeah, this has been addressed above; more than once actually. Yours is exactly the point I've been trying to make for the duration of this discussion! WP:UE takes precedence over WP:RUS, and WP:RUS constitutes a standard practice when no conventional English name is (or can be) established. At no point should original research (like figuring out which Russian names are really Cyrillized Finnish) take over. Good luck explaining it to Finrus, though. His lack of understanding of the difference between the transliteration and transcription, as evidenced by his most recent comment, doesn't help matters either. I'll give the fella a credit for persistence, but with the comments like that he's clearly painting himself into a corner here.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 10, 2010; 16:41 (UTC)

Transliteration or transcription, in every case Togliatti is Togliatti, imeni Karla Liebknechta, Lahdenpohja is Lahdenpohja etc., not some kind of "mutations" like "Tolyatti", "imeni Karla Libknekhta" and "Lakhdenpokhya". --Finrus (talk) 19:41, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Real-life usage and industry practices clearly show that the usage you are proposing is hardly typical of "every case". Wishing something doesn't make it so. By all means, open your own standardization agency, have the standards you made up adopted in the English language, then come back here and we'll talk.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 10, 2010; 20:31 (UTC)

Finrus, fact doesn't matter in Wikipedia. We only care about wp:reliable sources that support calling the locality imeni Karla Liebknechta "Karl Liebknecht" etc. in English. Otherwise it's plain original research. Also remember that Wikipedia isn't the ground for challenging scholarly standard. More importantly it's not the ground to establish new scholarly standard (so the OR again). -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 01:38, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

In every case: Togliatti is in Russian Тольятти, "Tolyatti" and Liebknecht is Либкнехт, "Libknekht". Anyhow, the names are in English Togliatti and Liebknecht and of course, the toponyms named after them.
If anybody can show a reliable source, that the Finnish names in Ladoga Karelia and the Murmansk region were changed like in the Karelian Isthmus, that is ok. Til that "Khelyulya", "Lakhdenpokhya", "Liinakhamari" etc. are original research. --Finrus (talk) 17:17, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Transciption is applied when conventional English name is not available. Transcrption itself, by no mean, is original research. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 23:50, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

However,Togliatti and Liebknecht are originally written in Latin alphabet, just like English language. So, "Tolyatti" and "imeni Karla Libknekhta" are wrong forms. It should be very clear, that WP:RUS and BGN/PCGN do not concerns names/toponyms or parts of them, which are written originally in Latin alphabet and are not Russian. .
Furthermore, if anybody can show a reliable source, that the Finnish names in Ladoga Karelia and the Murmansk region were changed Russian like in the Karelian Isthmus, that is ok. Til that "Khelyulya", "Lakhdenpokhya", "Liinakhamari" etc. are wrong forms. --Finrus (talk) 14:37, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Transcription doesn't require reliable source. So you're the only one should provide us reliable source to justify your claim. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 02:09, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

What about ks/x?

As for me, 'x' seems correct and preferable as English 'x' sounds like 'ks'. Anyway, there is no consensus regarding this and it is a bit chaotic now. Artem Karimov (talk | edits) 12:10, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I believe this provision was present (or suggested—I don't quite recall the details) a few years ago but was removed (shot down) because it is not explicitly specified by any major romanization system. Come to think of it, it is not really needed as a separate rule anyway—any person whose name is romanized using "x" instead of "ks" usually falls under the "conventional name" clause anyway.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 18, 2010; 13:14 (UTC)

Well, OK, but what about other (non-bio) cases like this? Artem Karimov (talk | edits) 13:21, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Just like with everything else, the safest bet is to go with the spelling used by most of the English-language sources.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 18, 2010; 14:16 (UTC)

In that particular instance, both are fairly common, and many sources use both, but Ekspress seems to be used more by the more reputable sources with regards to subject expertise. --GW… 14:56, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, OK, but I should note that "Express" is not only an alternative transliteration, but also a very appropriate translation. If a term can be translated without introducing any ambiguity or other kinds of problems, why not go with that? On the other hand, if significantly more reliable sources favor "Ekspress" (I wouldn't know), then that's what should be used. Don't know if my comment helps you much; it seems this article is from that wide gray area where anything is possible :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 18, 2010; 15:43 (UTC)

So... when it is a neutral case (sources support both variants and the x\ks does not affect the meaning) which variant should be preferable? Artem Karimov (talk | edits) 16:09, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Russian spacecraft names are almost always transliterated. I don't see why one exception should be made, and if this were to be extended to more widely known spacecraft, your position would become untenable. --GW… 16:34, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

To answer Artem's question, out of multiple and fairly equally represented romanization alternatives (note it's romanization, not translation), generally the one that's closest to the default WP:RUS provisions should be selected. In this particular case, since the default provision does not address the "кс" letter combination separately, the variant favored slightly more would be "Ekspress".—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 18, 2010; 17:04 (UTC)

So, you would favor 'ks' over 'x' in a neutral situation, right? Artem Karimov (talk | edits) 17:46, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, I should be, but I tend to use "x" in people's names, which is probably not according to the party line :).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 18, 2010; 18:11 (UTC)

Maybe that's because there is no difference between 'x' and 'ks' at all. Still, I prefer 'x' too as why should I use 2 letters when a 1-letter option (specifically designed for 'ks' sound) is available? Artem Karimov (talk | edits)

But haven't I already answered that question above? We are trying to stick to existing romanization systems, not invent a brand new one here.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 18, 2010; 20:10 (UTC)

Hmmm... OK, I won't object further though the romanization in en.wp is done according to a new romanization system. Artem Karimov (talk | edits) 12:11, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

It's not actually new; it's the good old BGN/PCGN romanization, slightly simplified the way academia and media outlets do it.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 19, 2010; 12:59 (UTC)

Russian accent encoding

There is a discussion here about whether to remove these from the Cyrillic transcriptions of placenames, etc., or to replace them with some other more standard character. The current consensus apparently promotes including the Russian accent despite English-language browsers failing to display them properly (e.g., on this computer, Vladivostok's Russian name displays as к) and despite no template being placed on these pages linking the reader to Russian encoding support. -LlywelynII (talk) 02:27, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Transliteration as detraction

This has come up on the Sergei Rachmaninoff page, where the problem is that the composer himself did the romanization/transliteration of his name, and did a better job of it than any academic system. The main reason being that all standard systems transliterate -oв at ends of Russian names as "ov", when they are pronounced (in Latin letters) as the de-voiced "-off." So this causes confusion, clutter, and is actually nonhelpful for those English speakers who'd like to know how to say the name. BTW, this flawed transliteration convention is the reason why so many Anglophones say "Romanov" instead of "Romanoff", "Korsakov" instead of "Korsakoff," and so on. Normally it doesn't detract too much, but in the Rachmaninoff case where the man himself did something about it, it really hurts especially to put in the formal transliteration which is worse than the subject's own choice. Perhaps a change in the guidelines to cover such cases, is in order? It would help people on both sides of this language barrier. SBHarris 23:10, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Do you suggest to represent all the unstressed 'O' in Russian as 'A', or something? And the unstressed 'E' as 'I'? And to devoice the final voiced consonants? Like "Novgorod" should become "Novgarat"? Because that's how they are ponounced.

Closer to the Russian pronunciation does not mean better. Just because the Russians aren't able to pronounce the Russian words as they are spelled does not mean that the Anglophones should distort the Russian words twice, applying both Russian and English phonological limitations.

In other words, as a Russian I can assure you, that there is nothing wrong with pronouncing the final '-v' in Russian last names as [v]. Hellerick (talk) 03:37, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Speaking of precision, Russian е should be rendered as [ye] or [yi], so one would not pronuonce нет as [net] but [nyet]. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 06:37, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Umm, no. We are talking about transliteration here, not transcription.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); December 20, 2010; 12:46 (UTC)

I'm not sure how the English terminology works, but in Russian it's called "practical transcription", while "ISO 9" is a transliteration. Hellerick (talk) 13:08, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

In English a close approximation would be romanization, which, while leaning towards transliteration, may still contain elements of transcription. The purpose of romanization, however, is different from the purposes of both transliteration and transcription (as is pretty close to the purpose of the above linked практическая транскрипция). At any rate, when romanization is employed, there is no need to argue over the details because an already established and well-documented system (such as BGN/PCGN romanization) would be used. If one has to argue about the details, then one is deeply in the area of original research.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); December 20, 2010; 14:52 (UTC)

If you look at the article on transliteration you see that in the narrow sense it can be a one-to-one replacement of letters in a prescriptive algorithm that could be done with a very simple computer program. However, "transliteration" also can be used to refer to a broader program that includes elements of transcription, where pronunciation (phonetics) assists in the program of which different alphabet letters are chosen. The big problems come in where systems of transliteration aren't flexible enough to permit some obvious transcriptive fixes, as here.

That's not so in all languages. Of course, every language that doesn't use Roman letters needs romanization if it's to be printed using roman typefonts. For some languages, that has been pretty flexible and has changed over the years, and that is how we have Beijing now instead of Peking, and Qur'an instead of Koran. For the romanization of Russian, the rules are somewhat stricter, and sometimes don't cover the obvious transcriptive fixes that we've been discussing. "Rachmaninoff" and "Beef Stroganoff" and "noddles Romanoff" are all transcriptive romanizations-- but as narrow academic Cyrillic transliterations, they are all wrong, since the rules for Russian romanization seem to be less flexable than the romanization of non Cyrillic languages. I see with some amusement that the writers of the Beef Stroganoff wikipedia article have felt it necessary to include the "Beef Stroganov" romanization, even though it's hardly ever used. For Rachmaninoff (composer), we have an even worse problem, as Rachmaninov is hardly ever seen. As I said, all this is adding information that is academically correct, but (in a big sense) factually wrong, since the people who did their own transliterations weren't academics. It is Rachmaninoff. There is a real sense in which "Rachmaninov"-- which was not the composer's choice and not the English spelling he was known by and IS known by-- is WRONG. SBHarris 21:42, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, neither variant is "wrong" per se. You are confusing established English usage and a transliteration/romanization produced using a specific set of rules. Our guidelines (including those dealing specifically with the Russian language) strongly favor the former over the latter, but it is done an a case-by-case basis, not systematically. "Rachmaninoff", when one refers to this composer, is strongly preferred because it is more firmly established in the English usage, not because some transliteration/romanization system is flawed. "Rakhmaninov" is a perfectly acceptable transliteration and can be used to refer to some other person with the same last name.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); December 20, 2010; 21:58 (UTC)

So I understand, but I wish the "academics" involved weren't German! Which is the only explanation I can come up with. The Roman letter "v" is never pronounced devoiced "ff" in English. German is the only langauge in which it is, but not any of the "romance" languages that derive from Latin! So it's a very bad choice for a "Romanization." SBHarris 01:27, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

The "ff" variants are actually from French, not German. They are usually considered loanwords that came to English from Russian via French (not unlike bistro). And loanwords are not considered to be either transliteration or romanization. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); January 11, 2011; 14:25 (UTC)

In German, word-final V always is pronounced [v], so it can't be the reason.

Word-final letter V is tabooed in the Western-European languages — the taboo comes from the time when the letters U and V weren't distinguished, and the word-final -U or -V usually stood for a vowel (thus Ivanov, would be recognised as Ivanou, and pronounced [iva'nu] in French). That's the sole reason for -FF substitution, it has nothing to do with the Russian phonetics. Hellerick (talk) 17:01, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Accent marks in romanization

Once a while back I added an acute accent to a Russian romanization to represent the Cyrillic accent mark (Респу́блика Саха́, Respúblika Sakhá), but was reverted, because the romanization is a transliteration, not a transcription.

I don't understand the reasoning — if the Cyrillic has both letters and accents, it makes sense that the transliteration have letters and accents too. Original alphabet and transliteration should correspond as closely as possible. Perhaps there's the possibility readers will assume that the accents should always be included in writing the Russian word in English, but I don't think that's likely when the article name does not include them.

I think the accents should be included in the Wikipedia romanization, to help readers who cannot read Cyrillic to pronounce the words. The system accommodates English speakers by using y instead of j and ch instead of č, so why not allow inclusion of accents as well? The acute accent is not ambiguous, at least in the Wikipedia romanization. — Eru·tuon 19:03, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

The accents are routinely added to Cyrillics to show stress, but only in reference works such as dictionaries and encyclopedias. That's a common approach, but it doesn't make the stress marks a part of the alphabet. On the other hand, accents are never added to Russian romanization to show stress (no major romanization system supports this approach, and we shouldn't encourage it either). Ideally, of course, the stress should be shown in the IPA transcription (in which case it can be removed from Cyrillic text), but then one would need to be comfortable with IPA to add a transcription where it's missing, whereas it only takes a native speaker (or someone who knows Russian fairly well) to add the stress marks to the Cyrillic spellings. Does this help?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 29, 2011; 19:14 (UTC)

Erutuon, the accent marks in Russian is nothing more than a phonetic guide for people who probably don't know how the word is pronounced — they are widely used in keywords of Russian dictionaries. Just like furigana is not a part of the Japanese orthography, the accent marks are not a part of the Russian orthography, and they aren't supposed to have a special romanization.

Erutuon's opinion is a good example of how people confuse the accent marks in Russian with a part of its writing system, and it again convinces me that such accent marks should be removed from the English Wikipedia. Hellerick (talk) 15:14, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I'm aware that accents marks are only used in dictionaries, but that's not an argument against including them in Wikipedia, since Wikipedia provides basic dictionary-level information, such as etymology and pronunciation. Russian and Russian transliteration serve as both etymology and rudimentary pronunciation information. Accent marks are helpful, because word stress is variable, and vowel pronunciation is dependent on stress. If we want readers to stress Russian words correctly, or (if they understand Russian phonology) pronounce vowels correctly, we must mark accent. Obviously, we could remove the issue by adding IPA transcriptions, but we can't add them to every article, and not all readers can understand them. So, for now, adding accent marks is the best we can do. — Eru·tuon 04:53, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

It is and argument, you insist on romanizing something which is not even correct Russian spelling Hellerick (talk) 02:45, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

To Ezhiki: although accents aren't included in official transliteration systems, they are included in the schemes in some dictionaries, such as the primary dictionary on Dictionary.com and Wiktionary (although not in others, such as the Oxford English Dictionary). So, conventions don't always have to be followed. Maybe Wikipedia should follow them, though? I don't know. — Eru·tuon 04:53, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Russian dictionaries are made for Russian speakers, and show the pronunciation of unfamiliar words with accent marks.

English dictionaries are made for English speakers, and show the pronunciation of unfamiliar words with IPA or other similar phonetic notations.

Don't mix them together.

English speakers are not supposed to know how the Russian orthography works and what acute signs stand for. Hellerick (talk) 02:45, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Oxford Russian-English Dictionary also applies the accent mark (without IPA) for the Russian vocabs.[1] The usage is orthodox. I suggest offering both IPA and Russian accent mark in the first sentence of lede, etymology section or language infobox (c.f. {{Chinese}}). Because English WP does not mean to be read by English-native readers only but other persons who might not be familiar with the IPA but with minimum knowledge of Russian accent mark. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 03:40, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

It is not a Russian-English dictionary, it's an English encyclopedia — the usage and the rules applied are completely different.

And the IPA transcriptions always are linked to the special IPA chart for Russian, while the accent marks have no explanation at all. Hellerick (talk) 18:05, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

This doesn't make sense. If WP (not Wiktionary) should eliminate its partial functions as a dictionary, not even the IPA should be provided in any WP articles. Also unless there's a very common source of IPA for Russian words, I consider providing IPA for Slavic words to be an act of WP:original research. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 00:18, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

It's not only Russian dictionaries that include accent marks. Some English dictionaries do as well, such as Dictionary.com, which I linked above. — Eru·tuon 00:26, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Whether English speakers know about something does not determine whether Wikipedia can use it. English speakers don't know Cyrillic, but we use Cyrillic in articles, because it's explained on pages such as Cyrillic alphabet. If we use accent marks, we merely have to explain them in an article such as Russian alphabet and link to the article. Then if a reader doesn't understand what accent marks mean, or assumes that they are a constant part of orthography, it's the reader's fault, not ours. — Eru·tuon 00:26, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

I think we should bring this to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) to gain wider discussion. In any case, I still prefer both accent marks and IPA to be indicated in the first sentence of Russian/Slavic-related articles. Accent mark is in fact more intuitive than IPA when the reader is more familiar with the former. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 02:08, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Re common names

So let me get this straight.

• If a person is named Александр, and he is well-known, he will be referred to as "Alexander" on the English Wikipedia.
• If a person is named Александр,, and he is not well-known, but there are some mentions of him in English source, he will be referred to as "Alexander" on the English Wikipedia (since that is how the sources will refer to him, since "Alexander" is the common rendering and correct translation of Александр".)
• But if a person is named Александр, and he is known only in Russia, than he will be referred to as "Aleksandr" on the English Wikipedia, since -- there being no English sources -- we are thrown back on this guideline, which prescribes transliteration rather than translation.

This seems quite wrong. I don't much care if people with the same name are called differently, but here it is actually and intentionally built into the guideline: big shot=Alexander, small fry=Aleksandr.

I am very much of the opinion that where practicable, terms should be translated rather than transliterated. In the case of proper names of persons its arguable. But - to the extent we don't do this, we are (I guess) taking an idiosyncratic and pedantic approach, yes?

So we shouldn't do that. So how about something like this: "If a person's first name has a common English equivalent, use that. Otherwise, use the criteria outlined below..." Herostratus (talk) 03:00, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Re place names

OK, the personal names thing (see section immediately above) is arguable, I suppose. But for place names, we definitely should render the meaning, if it has one. This seems incontrivertable to me, and in fact is what is generally done.

But the guideline doesn't make this clear, at all. Fortunately, the guideline is generally ignored. The article for the entity "Парк Победы" is titled "Victory Park" and (I hope and assume) no one is going to move that article to "Pobedy Park". We all understand that that would be silly. Right?

However... I just came across this article: Park Pobedy (Moscow Metro). Obviously this article should be named Victory Park (Moscow Metro). (Interestingly, the article uses Template:lang-en to render the English name in the body of the article: Victory Park. If the English name is Victory Park, in what language then is the article title? No language. Russlish, perhaps.

How did an error like this come to be? Perhaps someone took the guideline literally. Obviously we need to correct the guideline to be in line with common sense and actual practice, to avoid errors such as Park Pobedy (Moscow Metro).

And I see other instance of what I would say are highly problematic renditions. For instance, I see all instances of "Автозаводский район" rendered as "Avtozavodsky District". But this is just wrong. There is no word "Avtozavodsky" in English. What is meant is the Auto Factory District. Using this name has the virtue of, well, imparting information: all of the districts named Автозаводский район are, indeed, near an automobile factory. This is a useful piece of information to know about the district, yes? And translating rather than merely transliterating the name imparts this information. And imparting information is what what we are here for.

I think we all basically understand this, which is why we don't say "Avtozavodsky Raion" (I hope), and why Moskovsky Victory Park and Maritime Victory Park and similar articles are named correctly. (And, when you get down to it, we render "собака" as "dog" rather than "sobaka" and so forth).

And then I ran across something similar just now when someone changed "Stavropol District" to "Stavropolsky District". But this is silly. It is true that 1) in Russian, many names have possessive adjectives attached, and 2) a letter-for-letter transliteration of Ставропольский is "Stavropolsky", but: so what? What does that have to do with English? It doesn't have anything to do with English. We don't use a possessive adjectives in these cases.

I mean, if you wanted to be super pedantic, you should translate "Ставропольский район" as "District associated with Stavropol" I guess (not that I am recommending that), but "-sky"? What does that add? It adds nothing, and it actually removes meaning -- makes it harder to understand what the entity is. If I know what Stavropol is, I can quickly understand that Stavropol District is a district that is associated with Stavropol, probably by containing it. But "Stavropolsky"? I can probably tease out "Stavropol" from that (or maybe not), and maybe make the leap of cognition to guess that "Stavropolsky" and "Stavopol" are related, but how does having to do that extra work help me? It doesn't.

And I think the guideline doesn't at all make this clear. Here's what I'd say. As a general overarching rule:

When possible, translate. When this is not possible, transliterate.

That is what we are here for, right? To render meaning. I have made the necessary changes, hoping that I have made my case fairly unassailable. Herostratus (talk) 05:35, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

What's so special about Russian? Nobody translates Unter den Linden so why we have to translate Avtozavodsky? We are supposed to provide the names themselves, not their meanings. Not to mention that it would be quite difficult to understand, whether the translation is possible — following such rules not only would contradict the English traditions of foreign place names, but would create quite chaotic situation in Wikipedia as well. Hellerick (talk) 10:58, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I fully support Hellerick in that. Proper names originally in a non-Latin alphabet are usually transliterated, not translated. Translation for many (if not most) of them would be impossible, or even when it is "possible", multiple variants may exist ("Avtozavodsky" is a case in point). All this makes organizing information on a large scale nothing short of a horror. On the other hand, there are, of course, places (like Moscow), for which a well-documented conventional English name exists, but the guideline already covers such cases. All in all, the rationale behind the existing guideline is the real-world practices. I've never seen a map or a geographic publication which would "translate" geographic names in a manner you are proposing. If you want to convey the meaning(s), make a note in the article's body.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); April 15, 2011; 12:09 (UTC)

There's nothing special about Russian, but this page is about Russian, and WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not an argument. "Unter den Linden" is not translated because that name is famous and therefore would be exempted under the "If major English dictionaries do not list the place" exception. However, while I don't know how German translation is done here, I would hope and assume that a generic Ulme Straße would be rendered as "Elm Street" and not left for the reader to blip over. "We are supposed to provide the names themselves, not their meanings"... um, I thought that providing meaning is kind of the very essence of what a reference work is supposed to do?

As to "would create quite chaotic situation in Wikipedia as well" and "All this makes organizing information on a large scale nothing short of a horror"... First of all: Why would this be so? I can't image why this would be so. Could you provide an example? Perhaps you are thinking of this: one person might translate "Avtozavodsky" as "Auto Factory" and another might translate it as "Car Plant". Is that what is worrying you? Well, stop worrying! Of course this is true, but so what? Ambiguity is inherent in any translation of most terms.

For Victory Park (Tolyatti) I have translated Парк Победы as "Victory Park". I could, I suppose, have translated it as "Triumph Park" (well, not very justifiably, as that would not have been idiomatic, but nevermind that for now). Well, so what if I had? Either way, "Victory Park" or "Triumph Park" tells the reader what the park is about and what meaning the name of the park has to a native speaker, while "Park Pobedy" would have told the reader nothing. In my book "telling the reader something" is better than "telling the reader nothing". Am is missing something here? The Wikipedia is supposed to exist to serve the readers. Right? The convenience of editors in organizing information is quite secondary.

However. Appealing to accepted practice is worthwhile. But, first, accepted practice is more variant than you are you are making out (I cracked open my atlas, and I find one country named "Côte D'ivoire" and another "French Guiana", and similarly throughout: some terms are translated ("Federation") and some not ("Oblast") according to I do not know what rubric -- if any.

Two, "accepted practice" is, to my mind, insufferably pedantic often enough. We don't have to be bound by the dead hand of the 20th Century, you know. We can choose to be, but to mind only if there's a good reason. "This is how it's always been done" is not something to be dismissed out of hand, but neither is it by itself sufficient to prescribe all future behavior. Herostratus (talk) 04:05, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Russian proper names are never translated in reference works such as encyclopedias or maps. They are occasionally translated in books, but the only purpose of doing so is to convey the meaning to readers. We, on the other hand, can convey the meaning via other means (an explanation in the lede, a redirect, a piped link, a description on the dab page, a hatnote, and so on). Straight out translation of the proper names is just as silly as translating people's last names, even though the latter is also done occasionally when it serves a purpose.

As for Avtozavodsky et al., you are right on the money about what worries me. I can't, however, take your "stop worrying" advice seriously—there is no point of introducing more entropy into a system which can be well-organized with some effort. If you ever tried to organize information on a topic, having to deal with "auto/automotive/car plant/factory/whatever" to refer to just one place is hell indeed. Incidentally, this hell is one of the main reasons why foreign place names are mostly transliterated and not translated. Imagine yourself as a researcher trying to collect information on a place when that place is called by a myriad of different names. Not my idea of "serving the reader" for sure!

As for the examples you requested, consider these—I think they show very well that your approach is far from bulletproof (and the list is nowhere near complete; these are just the ones I immediately came up with after thinking this over for five minutes). And while these may sound ridiculous, I assure you that if you proposal were to be passed, we wouldn't be waiting long for someone to show up and start implementing just these ridiculous examples because "the guidelines say so". All of these names "can be translated", but I hope you see why they shouldn't be:

1. Krasnoznamensk. Should we move both articles to "Red Banner"? Why not?
2. Dalnegorsk. Shall we move it to "Far in the Mountains"? That's what it's translates to, after all, and fairly unambiguously, too.
3. Krasny. Should we move all of the entries on this page to "Red"? Including the rivers? And the crater on Mars? Why not?
4. Krasny Oktyabr vs Krasnooktyabrsky. Move these all to "Red October"? Even though the originals are different words? Why not?
5. What of the Russian names which are really from the local languages? These can be translated as well, right? Should something like Cheboksary be moved to "fortress of the Chuvash" (because that's what the Chuvash name means)?

One can come up with many more, if needed. And if these examples seem ridiculous to you, but "Victory Park" does not, can you describe what the difference between these cases are, and how your proposed amendment is supposed to deal with those differences?

To answer your question, yes, Wikipedia is supposed to serve the readers, but it is supposed to do so in a way that makes sense. Translating the proper names isn't such a way, and there are plenty of other ways to convey the meaning which are both helpful to readers and follow the real-world practices. I also can't agree with you on your view of accepted practices and "the dead hand of the 20th century". Wikipedia is not in business of inventing "new and better" naming practices. We are supposed to look at what is used out there in the real world and adopt those practices the best we can. Our whole manual of style is built around the "dead hand of the 20th century"; if you think the approach is so wrong, why not bring it up there and see where it goes?

The bottom line is that when the real world encyclopedias start translating proper names of places in Russia, we can start thinking about doing the same. Until then, we'd better stick with what works.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); April 18, 2011; 14:23 (UTC)

And Yasnaya Polyana would become Clear Clearing :) Hellerick (talk) 15:56, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Well it wouldn't have to be "Clear Clearing". We deal with Lake Nyasa by calling it that and not Lake Lake (not that we would anyway, as Lake Nyasa is a famous name, but even it wasn't we could use common sense in this case).

Well, Ëzhiki, you make some convincing points. Thank you for taking the time to respond. I do see your point. I guess there is a tension between organizing the information and presenting it. And as you say if a translation is provided nearby that helps a lot. Although this isn't done, often enough. "...located in the Avtozavodsky District (Auto Factory District) of..." would perhaps be the kind of construction that we should consider using more often.

I guess there is no perfect answer. I do think that the scheme used by other similar reference works is worth treating with considerable respect (although not total respect). I don't want to fight to create a whole new paradigm, especially with an editor as erudite as you. I will cogitate some more on what you say and may have some specific suggestions we can discuss, for instance on the possessive adjectives I mentioned. Herostratus (talk) 19:00, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, I am glad that my examples were of some value :) By the by, I myself have nothing against supplying a literal translation next to the proper name, when doing so is indeed helpful. Most often, however, it isn't. The reader for the most part doesn't really care what the name of a place means, unless, of course, the meaning of the name is the information being sought. For other purposes, one can always click through and see what the name means. If a person is reading an article about some museum (and this is a purely theoretical example, by the way), and the article says that the museum is located in "Avtozavodsky City District", they couldn't care less that "Avtozavodsky" means "car factory", especially considering that just because a city district is called "Avtozadovdsky", it doesn't mean there is still a car factory there! Some of the names are historical and their meaning is obsolete, so inserting a literal translation may not only be out of place, but be misleading as well.

As for the adjective forms, I can additionally point out that even identical adjectives do not always derive from the same noun, or that they may (or even should) be translated differently. Zavodsky City District literally means "pertaining to a plant", but it also means "beyond the water(s)", which is not a cognate but merely a homonym. Now imagine the confusion when a plant is built in the "beyond the waters" district (a true story, incidentally, even though I don't remember off the top of my head in which city this happened—the locals, however, are still arguing which meaning came first). Stavropolsky District in Samara Oblast is not called after this Stavropol, but after Tolyatti, which used to be called Stavropol when the district was formed. The three districts called Petrovsky are not called so after some famous "Peter" or Mr. Petrov, but for various other reasons—the ones in Saratov and Tambov Oblast, correspondingly, after their administrative centers Petrovsk and Petrovskoye, and the one in Stavropol Krai because it was formed on the basis of Petrovskaya Volost. Renaming all three entities to, correspondingly, "Petrovsk District", "Petrovskoye District", and "Petrovskaya District" is the only option if you want to "translate" them properly, and yet all it does is complicate things for the readers (many of whom would expect the entities of the same type with identical names in Russian to have identical names in English as well, and who would have no clue how to construct the name of the district they need, even when they know what it is called in Russian and are familiar with transliteration), use the variants which are not used in English, and, worst of all, does not even get rid of the adjective form! This is precisely the problem the organizations dealing with the standardization of geographic names deal (and those organizations include encyclopedia foundations, of course), and this is precisely why this has long been dealt with with the help of romanization. Every now and then you will see a source which will translate a proper name, but that doesn't mean it's an established practice. No English reference work ever translates proper names except as a clarification (which is the same way we are doing it—by providing a short note in the lead), or when the said translation is so commonly used that it is instantly recognizable. Names of most places in Russia hardly qualify as instantly recognizable, no matter how you present them in English. We here follow the same practice other English encyclopedias and reference works are following, and if the reader happened to stumble upon a quirky translation of a proper name, we should (and will) do our best to lead him/her to the article with the help of redirects, dabs, hatnotes, and what-else-have-you.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); April 25, 2011; 20:22 (UTC)

Place names

The following text is largely unacceptable. It is contrary to clear policy, and its existence should be incompatible with various ArbCom decisions on Eastern Europe:

A conventional name of a place is the name listed in major English dictionaries and should be preferred over default romanization at all times. In particular, if major English dictionaries do not list the place, then default romanization should be used.

• No, such a listing is sufficient; it is much more than necessaery.
  • This part is being addressed immediately above.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 10, 2011; 15:23 (UTC)

Clarifications

1. If a dictionary lists several variants of the name, use the main one.

   Example: use "Moscow", not "Moskva"

   • Unnecessary; part of the general rule to use the most common name, since dictionaries will list in that order.
     • This clarification pertains to cases when multiple dictionaries list the names in different orders. One would take the main one from each dictionary, and compare the usage of the main terms across all of the dictionaries. I'd agree that the clause could use some rewording to make the intent more clear.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 10, 2011; 15:23 (UTC)

1. If different dictionaries list different main variants, use the one that's closest to the default romanization guidelines.
   • Nonsense; there are undoubtedly dictionaries so misguided as to leave the second s out of Saint Petersburg, or to insert a k; but English spelling of that name has been clear for three centuries.
     • Nonsense; there are no such misguided dictionaries among the major ones we are supposed to be using for this purpose. Even if you can find one with a typo or a genuine mistake, it would be overwhelmed by the lack of such typos/mistakes in other similar dictionaries. The purpose of this clause is not to push an uncommon spelling through, as you seem to be implying; it is to help choose a spelling when dictionaries disagree fairly evenly.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 10, 2011; 15:23 (UTC)

I think the spirit of this convention is as follows: "If there are multiple English forms which are commonly used, without one which is significantly more common than the others, then it's best to choose the one closest to the default romanization guidelines." Which makes sense to me. Mlm42 (talk) 19:05, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

1. Example: suppose one dictionary lists the city of Тольятти under "Tolyatti" and another one—under "Togliatti". "Tolyatti" should be used as it is the variant produced by the default guidelines.

   • Illiterate; just as Saint Petersburg is named after Saint Peter, this city is named after
     • Palmiro Togliatti is I suppose what you forgot to paste. While we are at it, can we also move Yekaterinburg to Catherineburg] (because it's named after Catherine the Great)? Putting aside the fact that romanization is dependent only on the original Russian spelling and not on the origins of the name, here we have yet another case where you put your opinions over what the sources say (or "might say"). This is the third time you are discarding valid reference works which don't agree with your views. They are all either "pidgin English", "misguided", or "illiterate". All I can say is that it's just swell to finally have someone in-house who can tell us exactly which dictionaries and encyclopedias are rubbish, and which are good to use!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 10, 2011; 15:23 (UTC)

- #:Example: the name of the city of Чебоксары is romanized "Cheboksary". The Chuvash name "Shupashkar" is mentioned in the lead, but cannot be used as the main title. - #:Rationale: spelling of names of Russian places used in English sources is normally derived from the name in Russian, as local languages are rarely employed in international communications.

It is usually true that places in Russia (whatever their ultimate origin) are most often called by the Russian name in English. When that is the case, this is redundant (and that will usually be the case); When it is occasionally false (and it will be sometimes), this is the voice of one contending ethnic nationalism. It is shameful, and contrary to neutrality, to let this stand. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:43, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

So, based on your eloquently voiced opinion above, you have declared this to be "consensus" and found it perfectly alright to remove the whole section from the text of the guideline without waiting for as much as one comment to appear? Is this how we do discussions now? Great. I should start doing RfCs more often as I clearly am missing out.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 10, 2011; 15:23 (UTC)

No, you should admit that this page is your private essay. Your bad-faith revert war is as unacceptable as the wording of this page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:37, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

If this page were to be general advice, not the private opinion of a Russian editor, it could well say something like:

Many languages are spoken in Russia, and many place and personal names are found in different forms in different languages. Most often, English has adopted these forms from Russian, and has adopted the Russian form; Wikipedia uses these forms; this is not Russophilia but English usage.

There are exceptions, such as Saint Petersburg, where English has adopted some other form; here again we follow English usage.

Where English usage is not clear, or not documentable, we generally adopt Russian usage, for consistency with the usual practice.

That preserves as much as possible of the content of the nationalist diatribe now disgracing this page, while preserving neutrality and consistency with wider practice. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:37, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

How is asking to keep the wording of a guideline in the state it was adopted in 2007 while the discussion is ongoing on the talk page the same as "treating it as a private essay"? What gives you the right to dismiss the results of a previous formal process, ignore another formal process which is ongoing, and decide that OK, we are done here, it's an essay, everyone go home now? And I would very much appreciate it if you stopped with the "nationalistic" quips. Since I'm the only non-Anglophone here, it's becoming difficult not to take them personally. Are you calling me a nationalist? If not, then who are you calling a nationalist?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 10, 2011; 17:12 (UTC)

How about not revert-warring to the unspeakable? Either discuss what other people want, or acknowledge that this is your private project. At present this page says: "7.Names of places located in Russia must be romanized from Russian"; please explain how this differs, if at all, from "always use Russian"; and how it is possible to defend it without being a Russian nationalist. We are required to assume good faith, not ignore all the evidence on the question. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:35, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Can you please stop calling Ezhiki a Russian nationalist? It seems unnecessary. His position is easy to explain: the guideline was excepted unanimously in the current wording. I think the tricky point here is that maybe in 2007 people didn't realize that the wording isn't actually consistent with other site wide policies (possibly because they didn't interpret the wording in the same way Ezhiki did). Mlm42 (talk) 16:43, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Very well; I do distinguish between defending the wording and dilatory attempts to preserve it on the sole grounds that it was the consensus of some small group way back when. Both are objectionable, but on different grounds. But my question stands: is there an argument that this can be consistent with policy? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:59, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

It'd also be helpful if you realized that invoking AGF and calling someone a "nationalist" in their face in the same sentence is kind of contradictory and is hardly indicative of your own neutrality. Although, I admit, it is a breath of fresh air to be called a "Russian nationalist" for a change—normally people who find it necessary to insult me resort to terms like "traitor of the motherland", "a clerk from Washington Obkom", or, when they are feeling generous, a "cosmopolitan".

On a different note, could you please explain how a dozen people universally supporting a proposal in 2007 constitute "a consensus of some small group", yet a group half that size in 2011 (which has not yet arrived to any formal consensus) is suddenly the ultimate authority? Wouldn't that be objectionable on the same grounds? By all means, let's discuss the issues this group has identified, but so far I'm not seeing so much a discussion as Pmanderson's attempts to serve as the prosecutor, the judge, the jury, and the executioner all in one. Not very conducive to the discussion, I must say.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 13, 2011; 16:11 (UTC)

Actually, Pmanderson is correct that, for the moment, there is only a single editor who supports the guideline, with respect to the RfC. This in itself indicates that maybe the 2007 consensus wasn't as air-tight as one may think, and that the points should be revisited, each on their own merit. And more of an effort should be made to ensure this guideline is consistent with policy. Mlm42 (talk) 16:22, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't mean we should dispense with the proper process, though. At any given time, any person can find a number of guidelines passed only by a handful of people several years ago. Efforts to consolidate our policies and guidelines need to be made, but not the way Pmanderson is going about it. Identifying a problem and putting it up for discussion (as you did with this RfC) is one thing and perfectly acceptable; identifying a problem, unilaterally acting on it, and ignoring other opinions while insulting those who hold them is quite another.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 13, 2011; 16:43 (UTC)

Substantive disagreements

If these can be straightened out to the satisfaction of any editor other than Ezhiki, we can consider whether the result is consensus.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:35, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Why can't they be straightened out to my satisfaction as well???—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 13, 2011; 15:53 (UTC)

You are welcome to suggest alternatives. You have not done so. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:37, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Dictionaries

• We do not determine usage merely by consulting gazeteers or dictionaries. This is the only page which suggests any such process. Why should we not immediately change all of this? Does anybody, even Ezhiki, actively defend it? I don't see anybody. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:35, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
  • Because things are supposed to be changed after the discussion is over and the consensus is reached, and not while it's still ongoing? As for me defending it, it is, as I demonstrated in the sections above, other ways of determining a conventional name do not work well for the romanization of Russian due to the practical peculiarities of the said romanization. There are specific problems that need to be addressed, and the generic approach is not only not addressing them, it randomizes the outcome, making our readers suffer as a result.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 13, 2011; 15:53 (UTC)
    • Every bunch of POV pushers in Wikipedia has the same cry for the pages they abuse; that is no excuse. The authors of this should have been banned; it may not stand.
    • You have demonstrated nothing of the kind; what you have given evidence for is that English is inconsistent in dealing with Russian names; so it is with every language on the planet - not least English.
    • And none of this addresses whether this page should appeal only to dictionaries. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:28, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
      • English being inconsistent in dealing with other languages is precisely why we have so many guidelines dealing with the names, not least foreign names. This guideline is no different from any other—it identifies a problem and suggests a solution. The solution is not going to be the same as in other guidelines because the very problem is very different.
        • the very problem is very different So Ezhiki keeps saying; but he has given no examples where it is actually different from Greek or Hebrew. (Chinese, with its syllabic characters, does differ somewhat.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:42, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
          • For Greek, a well-established traditional way exists to represent the names in English. For Russian, no such way exists. Greek does not have a dozen romanization systems which can be expected to be encountered fairly evenly, often regardless of context. Russian does. I can't comment on Hebrew because I am completely unfamiliar with the problems the romanization of that language faces and am thus perfectly happy to defer to the opinion of the people knowledgeable about that subject. Ukrainian shares pretty much the same problems Russian does, and if you spend any time around the articles in the WP:UKRAINE domain, you'll see what a horrible mess they generally are. Lack of proper and effective guidelines is a big part of the reason (it's hard to put things in order when there is no guidance as to how).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 14, 2011; 21:53 (UTC)
            • • No, there are at least four or five traditional ways of transliterating Greek; if one counts hybrid systems, there are over a dozen. One is oldest and we (mostly) abide by it, except for our Byzantinists; but everything from Aeschylus to Aiskhulos is encountered fairly evenly in the literature. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:04, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

• • • • As for the dictionaries, I've noted more than once now that it was both the original intent and is my preference to recommend using reference works, not just dictionaries, for this purpose. While the WP:NCGN provisions are fine for choosing between two or more vastly different names, they aren't very effective when what you are dealing with is basically a bunch of different spellings of the same name. One of the reasons why dictionaries and reference works exist is to give advice on what spelling to use. WP:RUS also recognizes that the reference works won't always agree, which is why the "default romanization" mechanism is provided as a backup. Does this answer your question?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 14, 2011; 17:11 (UTC)
        • No. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:42, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
          • Care to elaborate why?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 14, 2011; 21:53 (UTC)
            • Because it doesn't, any of it, address what I actually asked; except to concede that this should have been works of general reference to begin with, and the RfC was unnecessary. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:04, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Togliatti

Example: suppose one dictionary lists the city of Тольятти under "Tolyatti" and another one—under "Togliatti". "Tolyatti" should be used as it is the variant produced by the default guidelines.

• Unacceptable; it makes no allowance for the possibility that Togliatti is simply the more common English spelling. See the governing policy; doubly unacceptable since elementary searches in printed material strongly suggest that Togliatti is three times as common, as the name of the city, as Tolyatti. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:47, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, Togliatti indeed seems much more common, and even used on the city administration official website. Hellerick (talk) 05:35, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

"Togliatti" seems to be (and actually is) much more common because it refers to both the city and the person, whereas "Tolyatti" refers only to the city. Even sources referring to the city as "Tolyatti" may mention that it is named after "Palmiro Togliatti", which skews the results even further. Not to mention the searches above aren't indicative of "much more common" (300 results vs. 100? Come on.). Even if you dismiss WP:RUS entirely, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)#Divided usage covers this situation perfectly, especially when a proper analysis of the search results is done (as opposed to using raw hit counts).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 13, 2011; 15:53 (UTC)

If Ezhiki had clicked on the links above, you will see that the seach phrases are "Togliatti Russia" against "Tolyatti Russia". It would require intricate and unusual syntax to include references to the politician, and I see none in the first pages of hits. There will be some false positives; but where is the evidence that there are enough to matter? (If one makes the search "in Togliatti, Russia", there are no false positives whatever, and the ratio is still 8:1) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:21, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I did click on those links, and I am not convinced. Any reference work worth its salt would mention the politician when discussing the city, and wouldn't necessarily use the same spelling. The "in Tolyatti, Russia" vs. "in Togliatti, Russia" with its 8:1 ratio sounds like a wonderful counterargument, until you look at the actual raw numbers, which are 35 hits vs. 4. Might as well search for "from Tolyatti, Russia" vs. "from Togliatti, Russia". The ratio there is 1:1.

In all, its not our job to tweak these searches until we see what we like. Its the job of the publishers who produce dictionaries and other reference works, which, as WP:RUS recommends, is what we are supposed to borrow from.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 14, 2011; 17:30 (UTC)

I agree with PMAnderson here, that I think this is one of the cases where there is a "widely accepted English name", per WP:NCGN, and that name is Togliatti. The Mayor of the city, Togliatti State University, Togliatti Academy of Management, all refer to themselves and the city as "Togliatti" in English.. so I'd even say that Togliatti is its "official name" per the first point in WP:NCGN#General guidelines.

If what the locals used had any effect on our practices, we would have moved Kiev to "Kyiv" long ago. I will also repeat that no Russian city has an "official name" in English, and even if it did, the English Wikipedia guidelines can't be affected by such a declaration.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 14, 2011; 18:59 (UTC)

There was a survey done during a move request last year (at Talk:Tolyatti), where various news organizations were shown to use "Togliatti", to which Ezhiki responded in detail. In the end two editors were in support of the move, and Ezhiki opposed.. so it didn't end up getting moved.

Of course the longer we leave the title of the article as "Tolyatti", the more influence this decision will have on English language sources.. good old wikiality. Mlm42 (talk) 18:12, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Also, when I do a google news search (allowing for old news as well), I get 379 hits for "Togliatti, Russia" (in quotes), vs. 37 results for "Tolyatti, Russia".. pretty much any way you cut the google results, Togliatti convincingly wins. Mlm42 (talk) 18:25, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I take exception to a "convincing" win with a sample so laughably small (same problem as with PMA's results). Also, I can't replicate your result—I get even fewer hits than what you've indicated.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 14, 2011; 18:59 (UTC)

By "win" here, I just mean there are more hits than that for "Tolyatti, Russia" in every search I've tried. I'm concerned that 1) this place has a widely accepted English name, 2) we're not using it because of WP:RUS, and most worryingly 3) this will cause more sources (English and otherwise) to use "Tolyatti". Remember that these google search results will be skewed towards the Wikipedia usage due to the mirror sites, etc. I don't understand the page's move log, but it appears to have been called "Tolyatti" since its inception in 2004, with the exception of a few people trying to move it to "Togliatti" (both of whom were reverted by Ezhiki). Mlm42 (talk) 19:56, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, there just isn't a "widely accepted English name", is all. There are variants which are equally acceptable, even though one may be somewhat more common than the other (in no small part because the search results are affected by Mr. Palmiro and other non-city entities). Reference works all list both variants, albeit in different order: Merriam-Webster Geographical has it under "Tol'yatti"; Houghton Mifflin—under "Togliatti (also Tolyatti)", Merriam-Webster Collegiate under "Tolyatti or Togliatti or formerly Stavropol", Britannica and Columbia—under "Tolyatti", Encyclopedia Americana—under "Tolyatti", and so on and so forth. So, no, WP:RUS is not the only reason why we are not using "Togliatti"; the "divided usage" clause of WP:UE also plays into the big picture.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 14, 2011; 20:38 (UTC)

Anyway, this isn't a good example to use in a guideline because it's probably a borderline case. This is clearly an argument for its talk page, not here. But the main point of this thread still stands: If a place has a widely accepted English name (including spelling), then that name should be used. Mlm42 (talk) 23:04, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Yo

This Cyrillic letter (if it is a separate letter, a verbal question) is the root of the problem with dictionaries. It is pronounced quite like English "yo", but is most often Romanized as e, as in Gorbachev. Anglophones, who do not expect their spelling to be phonetic, are generally able to deal with this, but should be warned; it would seem to be the rational course to use e for Romanization, yo for transliterations, which serve as pronunciation guides:

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (Russian: Михаил Сергеевич Горбачёв, romanized: Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachyov, IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈil sʲɪrˈɡʲejəvʲɪtɕ ɡərbɐˈtɕof] ;

in an article called Mikhail Gorbachev, is about right. It seems the rational course for Oryol as well. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:54, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I note, following this through, that only one of the several transliteration systems listed here uses yo. We are not an agency of the Russian Government; we don't have to use their system. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:07, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Good point.. indeed, why isn't the default romanization simply "ë", instead of "yo"? Our article titles are able to handle accents like this. Mlm42 (talk) 18:22, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Simply "ë" is used in strict BGN/PCGN romanization. "Yo" is used in the simplified BGN/PCGN romanization, on which WP:RUS is built. It's for the same reasons why we omit the apostrophes signifying the soft sign—strict BGN/PCGN never does that, but hardly anyone else includes them (we are thinking about the readers, not about conformance to a guideline just for the sake of being accurate). It's one of the things some people felt strongly about ("why should we use 'ë' when 'yo' is more common and accurate?" "why should we use apostrophes when hardly anyone else uses them?"). I, for the record, was not one of those people, although over time the position started to make a lot of sense (those pesky readers and their expectations again).

On top of that, I should note that transliterations are not supposed to be used as pronunciation guides; it's what transcriptions are for. Romanization is essentially the same as transliteration, except for its narrower purpose (to establish a standard rendering of a written word), to which end transcription elements can be introduced in systems where doing so makes sense. I would expect from someone so involved in this discussion to at least understand this (quite important) difference between the three.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 13, 2011; 15:53 (UTC)

I accept the terminology, and will adopt in any future draft on the subject. The present page does not use it, another strike against it. The rest of this ignores the actual practice of BGN, which is (in these terms) to provide a consistent - if inconvenient - transcription system. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:31, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

"Yo" is used in the simplified BGN/PCGN romanization, on which WP:RUS is built. - The simplified BGN/PCGN? Where is this codified? Any sources? The article BGN/PCGN romanization of Russian does not mention the simplified BGN/PCGN romanization of Russian. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 13:24, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I still don't get it.. "yo" doesn't seem like the most common transliteration of "ë".. is there evidence to back up this claim? I don't know much Russian, but Mikhail Gorbachev, Nikita Khrushchev, Sergei Korolev, Sergei Krikalev, and Alexei Kovalev all come to mind.. their articles all use "e" as the transliteration. So I think PMAnderson is right; "yo" may be more helpful as a pronunciation guide, but our guideline should reflect English usage.. and I'm not convinced "yo" is the best choice. I understand that "e" is misleading, but if it's how most sources romanize it, then shouldn't we be bound to follow them? Also, "ë" itself is another possibility. Mlm42 (talk) 17:03, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

To answer Bogdan's question, the simplified BGN/PCGN is not a formal system; it is a product of the 2007 consensus by editors who, during the discussions preceding the adoption of WP:RUS, did not feel that the strict BGN/PCGN system is going to do the job. I was not one of those editors, although I will readily admit they had a point. The "simplifications" were the observations of real-life usage, both indirect and direct.

To answer Mlm's questions, "ë" itself is a poor choice because its use is even rarer than that of "yo". If I remember correctly, "yo" was chosen over "e" because that's the convention that seems to be more commonly used by the dictionaries and encyclopedias (which is no surprise, because technically it is more correct). By the way, I should probably disclose my ever-lasting love for that particular letter (as my signature would attest), but at the same time I will readily admit that purposefully accounting for it is more trouble than it's worth. Currently, we only use "e" when the ё/е distinction is unclear (which is the case in a majority of such cases) but "yo" when the use of "ё" is easily demonstrated and documented. Whether that's the right approach can be a subject of a separate debate.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 14, 2011; 17:42 (UTC)

Since this seems like a very special case, perhaps there should be a section of the guideline specifically about this letter. Mlm42 (talk) 18:47, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

WP:RUS says WP:RUS is built on the simplified BGN/PCGN. If "the" simplified is the product of the 2007 consensus, I guess it is more correct to say a simplified BGN/PCGN. If this in turn is observed usage, it could go into the article BGN/PCGN romanization of Russian. Yozhiki, could you add this to the article? If there are good articles, we need less guidelines/policies, because we can just point to the articles. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 23:01, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Must be romanized from Russian

As the existing comment makes plain, most names of places in Russia are romanized from Russian; this is fine, and expected. But to apply it to places which are in fact romanized in English from some other language (which includes Saint Petersburg) is bad English, and often lack of neutrality, in one easy bundle. I have proposed an alternative, which will in fact agree in most cases, above; but this is unacceptable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:47, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

"Saint Petersburg" is not a romanization, it is (regardless of whether one uses a WP:RUS or a WP:COMMONNAME definition) a conventional English name. It may at some point have been derived from a transliteration of one sort or another, but on its own is no longer a transliteration, if only because it does not conform to any existing transliteration system. There are few other places the names of which come from languages other than Russian and when those non-Russian names are what the English language borrows on a scale worth noticing. All those places would fall under the "divided usage" clause of WP:UE, so the practical implication of this WP:RUS clause isn't really that far-reaching. It's here mostly as a convenience measure to prevent the situations Mlm42 used as an example above. Is the clause thus redundant? Perhaps. Is it "bad English and lack of neutrality in one easy bundle"? Hardly. It can easily be perceived as such by a person who is not intricately familiar with the Russian geography, but in practice it is just a convenience clause which is built on what's going on in real life.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 13, 2011; 15:53 (UTC)

If the text above were a convenience clause, it would not have said never. Of course "Saint Petersburg" is not a transcription; but that's a technicality, because German (excluding its particular characters0 does not need to be transcribed into English. But it is derived from the German spelling, not the Russian Sankt-Peterburg, the only point to hand. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:37, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

It says "never" for the only reason—there are no such situations. The use of the word "never" is itself for convenience. "Saint Petersburg" is the name commonly used to refer to the city in English. With or without current conventionality clause of WP:RUS, you'd still end up with it first, rendering the "romanization" problem moot). It's only when you have to romanize the name (i.e., when there is no conventional name in the sense described by NCGN), then the romanization needs to be done from Russian. There just aren't any places in Russia where this does not hold in "in relation to the period in question" (per NCGN), with the "period in question" for the articles about the inhabited localities being "modern times" (defined as post-1993, as per NCGN).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 14, 2011; 17:54 (UTC)

If there were no such situations, then the rule would be superfluous.

If you have anything constructive to suggest, instead of claiming forever that this piece of nationalism is both perfect and unchangeable, do let us know. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:55, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

If insults are the only thing you have left to say, let's leave this piece hanging indeed. I'd think that since it is you who is challenging the clause, it would be a snap to show example where it doesn't hold. Superfluous it may be, but that doesn't make it less useful.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 14, 2011; 20:25 (UTC)

I've already cited a major example. You have chosen to shut your eyes. You are operating in bad faith, and this page should be rewritten or detleted. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:32, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

More insults, eh? But who's counting...

As for the "major example", you mean St. Petersburg, right? I've already pointed out what's wrong with that example ("Saint Petersburg" is not a romanization, it is... a conventional English name); in return you said that of course "Saint Petersburg" is not a transcription..., which kind of makes it hard to understand your point because, again, you have mixed up two terms which mean different things. In all, this clause does not care where the conventional name has originated, because if a conventional name exists, we don't even get to this clause—the problem is being taken care of well before it.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 14, 2011; 20:45 (UTC)

In short, the claim now is that we need two paragraphs saying "all of Russia must be in Russian" to meet a case that will never arise? Be ashamed of yourself! Either they are redundant, or they are substantive; pick one. In the first case, they are unnecessary; in the second, undesirable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:16, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but which part of "it's convenient" prompted you to conclude that "redundant" and "substantive" are the only choices? If you must, yes, it's redundant. It's a shortcut, is all.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 14, 2011; 21:24 (UTC)

No patt of "it's convenient"; although that patent falsehood (rules of convenience do not say must or never) does make discussion more difficult. I suggested an actual rule of convenience under #Place names above; but if the case will never arise, there's no need for it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:36, 14 June 2011 (UTC)