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I deleted the sentence saying that the Outaouais is Quebec's 3rd largest region in population. This is not possible, since Montreal, Laval, Montérégie, and Capitale-Nationale (and maybe others) are more populated.
Emile15:53, 18 July 2006 (UTC)reply
You're right. Actually, Chaudière-Appalaches, Lanaudière, and Laurentides also beat it, making it eighth. Eighth out of seventeen puts it right in the middle. However, on a different point, this article lacks a map, like the other ones have.
Backspace17:25, 10 May 2007 (UTC)reply
Requested move
The following discussion is an archived discussion of a
requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
Take a look at the contents of the current
Outaouais disambiguation page. Apart from a couple of notes about how, eg, the
Ottawa River is called the "Outaouais" river in French, etc (which is not really a disambiguation conflict at all in English), and a note about "Outaouais HVDC back-to-back station" which is not even a redlink, the only actual potential "Outaouais" bluelink is with something called "
Outaouais Herald Emeritus". But that would always be known by its full name, never just as "Outaouais", just like
Canada Cup, for instance, contains the word "Canada" but would never be known as just "Canada".
On the other hand, Outaouais is one of the
17 administrative regions of Quebec (or
see here), and that is its name in both English and French. I can't think of any other rival for primary topic; if there was, it should have been added already to the disambiguation listing.
Oppose the river is also found in English (especially in Montreal) using the French name, and there's also the tribe to consider, since Quebec administrative regions don't mean that much in general. Between the MRC/municipality level and provincial level, there's not much there.
70.24.251.71 (
talk)
05:21, 3 March 2012 (UTC)reply
It's not just an administrative region invented purely for some formal governmental purpose, it's also an "actual" region. To clarify,
Beauce is not the name of an administrative region, yet it is still a traditional region with high name recognition within all of Quebec, and Outaouais likewise is equally well-known even to those unfamiliar with the precise administrative region structures. Regarding the river, although Google counts aren't "proof" of anything, "Ottawa River" gets 200 times more hits than "Outaouais River". And in any case, the existence of "
Ottawa River" doesn't cause "
Ottawa" itself to be a disambiguation page, nor does the "
Mississippi River" make a disambiguation page out of "
Mississippi" even though the river is arguably more prominent than the state. --
P.T. Aufrette (
talk)
20:56, 3 March 2012 (UTC)reply
The "actual region" might not have precisely-demarcated boundaries, but only the edge (albeit well-populated) of its territory borders on the Ottawa River. Since the river marks the border between Quebec and Ontario, half the Ottawa Valley is within Ontario — but none of the Outaouais is in Ontario (I'm pointing out the obvious for the benefit of readers from other places: a Google search for "the Outaouais region of Ontario" turns up exactly one hit in the entire Internet; "the Outaouais region of Quebec" turns up about 200,000 hits). Ottawa itself is within the Ottawa Valley, but it's not in the Outaouais. Anyway, this is just clouding the issue: what other article in Wikipedia has a valid claim to be the primary topic for "Outaouais"? Articles that don't even contain the word "Outaouais" in their title don't exactly fit the bill. --
P.T. Aufrette (
talk)
07:48, 4 March 2012 (UTC)reply
The region existed before Quebec was split into Upper and Lower Canadas, and the history of the region is in the Ottawa Valley article. True, half of the Ottawa Valley is within what was split into Upper Canada, which divided the existing region in twain politically. The influx of settlers from further west diluted the Franco-Ontarian population there, but it is still the heart of Franco-Ontario.
70.24.251.71 (
talk)
10:07, 5 March 2012 (UTC)reply
Support per the evidence of the DAB page. In English only the region is likely to be meant (unless perhaps one is using English as a second language).
Srnec (
talk)
02:42, 4 March 2012 (UTC)reply
Oppose. I would have considered the river to be a more prominent usage; these administrative regions aren't that prominent in practice. Because of the French name usage that has seeped into English throughout history for the tribe and the river, I think having
Outaouais as a disambiguation page is wise.
Good Ol’factory(talk)23:32, 12 March 2012 (UTC)reply
Support We don't disambiguate for the purpose of distinguishing between subjects that have similar names (or, in this case, a subject that has a similar name to another subject's French name), but rather to resolve conflicts between articles that qualify for the same artcle title. Therefore, unless there is a realistic potential move of the
Ottawa River article to the plan
Outaouais title (highly highly unlikely), then it is just overkill to maintain
Outaouais as a DAB page simply due to the river (and the river can be nicely and better handled through a hatnote). The term Outaouais is, I strongly suspect, overwhelmingly used in English to refer to the region (since in English the river is almost always referred to as the Ottawa River), and therefore the region is the primary use.
Skeezix1000 (
talk)
23:34, 13 March 2012 (UTC)reply
My search of English-language google books and scholar reveals just as many usages of "Outaouais" referring to the native tribe or to the river than to the region. But there is no single primary usage that stands out from the others. I don't think we can say that if someone encountered the word "Outaouais" and wanted to look it up that we would know with any degree of certainty which meaning they were looking for even a majority of the time.
Good Ol’factory(talk)23:51, 13 March 2012 (UTC)reply
Wow, I think using google.ca must have resulted in different results, because that's sure not very similar what I got. Or—I don't think I have different access to academic materials on google (since I did my search from an computer linked into the major online academic article databases), but it is possible that that's the case. I will need to look in to how my computer's academic database access might reflect in my garden variety google searches. (I did some draft attempting to link to my specific results, but clicking on them results in "access denied" messages, so something is going on.)
Good Ol’factory(talk)22:07, 14 March 2012 (UTC)reply
I am in San Francisco at the moment, and just got as far as I can tell the same result using Google.com. I am not as familiar with Google Books, but suspect you are correct that access to the databases may have given you different results. --
Skeezix1000 (
talk)
23:21, 14 March 2012 (UTC)reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a
requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
English pronunciation?
This article currently gives only the French pronunciation of Outaouais. The English pronunciation should be given as well. In fact, the English pronunciation is more important than the French is in this article, not because English is a more important language but because:
This is the English Wikipedia, so the vast majority of its readers speak English, and only a minority of them also speak French. As editors of the English Wikipedia, we must assume that English is the only language our readers know;
French speakers will already know (or be able to guess with considerable accuracy) how pronounce the word, so they don't need to be told;
It is impossible just looking at the word for an English-only speaker even to guess how to pronounce Outaouais (unlike "Quebec", for example. I know I don't pronounce Quebec the way a French speaker would, but at least I can get close enough that a French Canadian would understand what I was trying to say if he wanted to). If I were forced to say "Outaouais", I can hardly begin to imagine what I'd say, except to pronounce "Out-" either like the English word "out" or like "oot" (as in "boot"). But how I'd pronounce that string of five vowels is almost impossible even to guess, since such formations don't occur in English words. I can think of two ways I might try: to ignore a vowel or two and the s and say something like "oo-too-way", or to try pronouncing each vowel separately and end up with six or seven syllables, which cannot be right;
The
Quebec article identifies Outaouais as one of the areas in the province with a significant English-speaking population (which is how I got here), so it's almost certain that there is an English pronunciation.
If the intention in giving only the French pronunciation is to try to encourage English speakers to use the French pronunciation, that is presumptuous, inappropriate and certain to fail. It's not our place to try to manipulate how readers pronounce foreign-language place names. We can tell them how the French pronounce "
Paris", and if they want to try to pronounce it the same way they can; but our primary responsibility is to tell them how it's pronounced in English, the language they actually speak:
This article should follow that article's excellent example.
If, on the other hand, the English speakers in Outaouais use an entirely different name for the region, instead of pronouncing the French name using English phonemic norms, then there may be no English pronunciation of Outaouais. If that is the case, then the name which English Canadians use when they speak of the region should be given in this article as a synonym for Outaouais.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Canada, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
Canada on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CanadaWikipedia:WikiProject CanadaTemplate:WikiProject CanadaCanada-related articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Ottawa, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
Ottawa on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.OttawaWikipedia:WikiProject OttawaTemplate:WikiProject OttawaOttawa articles
I deleted the sentence saying that the Outaouais is Quebec's 3rd largest region in population. This is not possible, since Montreal, Laval, Montérégie, and Capitale-Nationale (and maybe others) are more populated.
Emile15:53, 18 July 2006 (UTC)reply
You're right. Actually, Chaudière-Appalaches, Lanaudière, and Laurentides also beat it, making it eighth. Eighth out of seventeen puts it right in the middle. However, on a different point, this article lacks a map, like the other ones have.
Backspace17:25, 10 May 2007 (UTC)reply
Requested move
The following discussion is an archived discussion of a
requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
Take a look at the contents of the current
Outaouais disambiguation page. Apart from a couple of notes about how, eg, the
Ottawa River is called the "Outaouais" river in French, etc (which is not really a disambiguation conflict at all in English), and a note about "Outaouais HVDC back-to-back station" which is not even a redlink, the only actual potential "Outaouais" bluelink is with something called "
Outaouais Herald Emeritus". But that would always be known by its full name, never just as "Outaouais", just like
Canada Cup, for instance, contains the word "Canada" but would never be known as just "Canada".
On the other hand, Outaouais is one of the
17 administrative regions of Quebec (or
see here), and that is its name in both English and French. I can't think of any other rival for primary topic; if there was, it should have been added already to the disambiguation listing.
Oppose the river is also found in English (especially in Montreal) using the French name, and there's also the tribe to consider, since Quebec administrative regions don't mean that much in general. Between the MRC/municipality level and provincial level, there's not much there.
70.24.251.71 (
talk)
05:21, 3 March 2012 (UTC)reply
It's not just an administrative region invented purely for some formal governmental purpose, it's also an "actual" region. To clarify,
Beauce is not the name of an administrative region, yet it is still a traditional region with high name recognition within all of Quebec, and Outaouais likewise is equally well-known even to those unfamiliar with the precise administrative region structures. Regarding the river, although Google counts aren't "proof" of anything, "Ottawa River" gets 200 times more hits than "Outaouais River". And in any case, the existence of "
Ottawa River" doesn't cause "
Ottawa" itself to be a disambiguation page, nor does the "
Mississippi River" make a disambiguation page out of "
Mississippi" even though the river is arguably more prominent than the state. --
P.T. Aufrette (
talk)
20:56, 3 March 2012 (UTC)reply
The "actual region" might not have precisely-demarcated boundaries, but only the edge (albeit well-populated) of its territory borders on the Ottawa River. Since the river marks the border between Quebec and Ontario, half the Ottawa Valley is within Ontario — but none of the Outaouais is in Ontario (I'm pointing out the obvious for the benefit of readers from other places: a Google search for "the Outaouais region of Ontario" turns up exactly one hit in the entire Internet; "the Outaouais region of Quebec" turns up about 200,000 hits). Ottawa itself is within the Ottawa Valley, but it's not in the Outaouais. Anyway, this is just clouding the issue: what other article in Wikipedia has a valid claim to be the primary topic for "Outaouais"? Articles that don't even contain the word "Outaouais" in their title don't exactly fit the bill. --
P.T. Aufrette (
talk)
07:48, 4 March 2012 (UTC)reply
The region existed before Quebec was split into Upper and Lower Canadas, and the history of the region is in the Ottawa Valley article. True, half of the Ottawa Valley is within what was split into Upper Canada, which divided the existing region in twain politically. The influx of settlers from further west diluted the Franco-Ontarian population there, but it is still the heart of Franco-Ontario.
70.24.251.71 (
talk)
10:07, 5 March 2012 (UTC)reply
Support per the evidence of the DAB page. In English only the region is likely to be meant (unless perhaps one is using English as a second language).
Srnec (
talk)
02:42, 4 March 2012 (UTC)reply
Oppose. I would have considered the river to be a more prominent usage; these administrative regions aren't that prominent in practice. Because of the French name usage that has seeped into English throughout history for the tribe and the river, I think having
Outaouais as a disambiguation page is wise.
Good Ol’factory(talk)23:32, 12 March 2012 (UTC)reply
Support We don't disambiguate for the purpose of distinguishing between subjects that have similar names (or, in this case, a subject that has a similar name to another subject's French name), but rather to resolve conflicts between articles that qualify for the same artcle title. Therefore, unless there is a realistic potential move of the
Ottawa River article to the plan
Outaouais title (highly highly unlikely), then it is just overkill to maintain
Outaouais as a DAB page simply due to the river (and the river can be nicely and better handled through a hatnote). The term Outaouais is, I strongly suspect, overwhelmingly used in English to refer to the region (since in English the river is almost always referred to as the Ottawa River), and therefore the region is the primary use.
Skeezix1000 (
talk)
23:34, 13 March 2012 (UTC)reply
My search of English-language google books and scholar reveals just as many usages of "Outaouais" referring to the native tribe or to the river than to the region. But there is no single primary usage that stands out from the others. I don't think we can say that if someone encountered the word "Outaouais" and wanted to look it up that we would know with any degree of certainty which meaning they were looking for even a majority of the time.
Good Ol’factory(talk)23:51, 13 March 2012 (UTC)reply
Wow, I think using google.ca must have resulted in different results, because that's sure not very similar what I got. Or—I don't think I have different access to academic materials on google (since I did my search from an computer linked into the major online academic article databases), but it is possible that that's the case. I will need to look in to how my computer's academic database access might reflect in my garden variety google searches. (I did some draft attempting to link to my specific results, but clicking on them results in "access denied" messages, so something is going on.)
Good Ol’factory(talk)22:07, 14 March 2012 (UTC)reply
I am in San Francisco at the moment, and just got as far as I can tell the same result using Google.com. I am not as familiar with Google Books, but suspect you are correct that access to the databases may have given you different results. --
Skeezix1000 (
talk)
23:21, 14 March 2012 (UTC)reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a
requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
English pronunciation?
This article currently gives only the French pronunciation of Outaouais. The English pronunciation should be given as well. In fact, the English pronunciation is more important than the French is in this article, not because English is a more important language but because:
This is the English Wikipedia, so the vast majority of its readers speak English, and only a minority of them also speak French. As editors of the English Wikipedia, we must assume that English is the only language our readers know;
French speakers will already know (or be able to guess with considerable accuracy) how pronounce the word, so they don't need to be told;
It is impossible just looking at the word for an English-only speaker even to guess how to pronounce Outaouais (unlike "Quebec", for example. I know I don't pronounce Quebec the way a French speaker would, but at least I can get close enough that a French Canadian would understand what I was trying to say if he wanted to). If I were forced to say "Outaouais", I can hardly begin to imagine what I'd say, except to pronounce "Out-" either like the English word "out" or like "oot" (as in "boot"). But how I'd pronounce that string of five vowels is almost impossible even to guess, since such formations don't occur in English words. I can think of two ways I might try: to ignore a vowel or two and the s and say something like "oo-too-way", or to try pronouncing each vowel separately and end up with six or seven syllables, which cannot be right;
The
Quebec article identifies Outaouais as one of the areas in the province with a significant English-speaking population (which is how I got here), so it's almost certain that there is an English pronunciation.
If the intention in giving only the French pronunciation is to try to encourage English speakers to use the French pronunciation, that is presumptuous, inappropriate and certain to fail. It's not our place to try to manipulate how readers pronounce foreign-language place names. We can tell them how the French pronounce "
Paris", and if they want to try to pronounce it the same way they can; but our primary responsibility is to tell them how it's pronounced in English, the language they actually speak:
This article should follow that article's excellent example.
If, on the other hand, the English speakers in Outaouais use an entirely different name for the region, instead of pronouncing the French name using English phonemic norms, then there may be no English pronunciation of Outaouais. If that is the case, then the name which English Canadians use when they speak of the region should be given in this article as a synonym for Outaouais.