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The draft looks very well thought out, well done.
I am not quite convinced we should use "Kosovan" for "Kosovar", since the latter is clearly much more widely used. I am not sure just how much "Kosovar" implies Albanian ethnicity, maybe we should cite some third party sources on that question. Also, I am not sure it is a good idea in this case to use national flag as a symbol for languages:
and
symbolize "Republic of Albania" and "Republic of Serbia", not "ethnic Albanian" and "ethnic Serbian", respectively. The situation is also asymmetric, since the Serbian side claims Kosovo as part of the Republic of Serbia, while the Albanian side does not claim it as part of the Republic of Albania, and it is unwise to suggest the Republic of Albania is an official party to this dispute. --
dab
(𒁳)
06:13, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
ok, we could recommend using "Kosovan", pointing to the Guardian guideline. I don't think that this suffices to actively deprecate "Kosovar" though. dab (𒁳) 09:28, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure whether the statement that "common English equivalents" should count only where the English forms have "undergone significant modifications to spelling (e.g. "Belgrade" for Beograd" meets current consensus. It seems to me that it is a rather far-reaching re-interpretation of the rules of WP:USEENGLISH. My understanding has always been that "common English equivalent" refers to whatever form is predominantly used in English, be it identically borrowed from the source language or not. For instance, it was determined that Shatt al-Arab, despite not being "Anglicised" in spelling, in fact is the common English term, and this was (rightly) the deciding argument in moving the article there. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:17, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Fut. Perf. on this. I'm really uneasy with the idea of moving away from the "impeccably descriptive and non-prescriptive" nature of our core criterion of common English usage, which I understand as being basically the same approach that led to the idea of "verifiability, not truth" (in this case, "common English usage, not official or local or ethnicity-based or true name"). It's a can of worms; it has NPOV implications; it would mean using different names from the ones our readership would commonly find elsewhere; etc. Let's patiently wait to see if English usage itself changes. - Best regards, Ev ( talk) 20:10, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I find that "Republic of Kosovo" is about four times more commonly used than "Republic of Kosova" at this point. dab (𒁳) 09:39, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Nomenclature isn't a metaphysical question like the existence of God. It is a matter of convention. Our policy is to use the most common spelling in English language usage. There may be room for debate if conventions in academic literature differ from those in newspapers etc. But if one spelling is clearly the most common throughout English language sources, that's the one Wikipedia will use. You will also note that the Greece article is called "Greece", not "Hellas", simply because that's the common English name, in spite of what Greek authorities would like. That has nothing to do with Greece being an independent state, it's a simple matter of the English lexicon. I note that the OED has:
The OED isn't aware of the spelling Kosova. dab (𒁳) 10:38, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
moved from guideline page
(add gazetteers, maps etc here)
The best source that enforces the order Albanian (A)/Serbian (S) is the 2000/43 UNMIK Regulation, which may be found here.-- Arbër Let's talk 13:14, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
guys, this has been long debated. We can give both Serbian and Albanian names. But we necessarily need to give them in linear order. The best we have been able to come up with in the spirit of WP:NPOV is alphabetic order, first Albanian, then Serbian (or, if you prefer, Shqip, then Srpski). This is for listings of the native nomenclature. Of course English usage (common anglicizations) will trump these for the question of article titling. There may be room for the argument that for toponyms in North Kosovo, where there is a Serbian majority, the sequence may be inverted to Serbian, Albanian. dab (𒁳) 11:57, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
According to dictionary.com and the Oxford dictionary, Kosovar is the correct demonym for Kosovo. Grammaticaly it should have been Kosovan, however in this case due to the widespread usage of the term Kosovar, this has generally been replaced the with Kosovar. I believe this version should be applied.
No so long ago the US spokesman referred to "Kosovar Serbs" and "Kosovar Albanians" living in peace. I disagree that the term Kosovar causes confusion. Most people who would be confused are the ones that woudn't know anything about Kosovo.
I found that people that never heard of Kosovo tend to say, "Kosovians", "kosovovians", in spain I encountered, "Kosovovos" or "Kosoveños".
Kosovar is a widely accepted term in most european languages. See elpais.es, lemonde.fr, or even local balkan versions jutarnji.hr (croatian best selling daily) or delo.si (slovenian daily). They all refer to them as Kosovares, Kosovari, Kosovars etc.
Most english speakers refer to its people as Kosovars. United Kingdom however tends to use the term Kosovan. This alone doesn't justify it's exclusive use. Logitech999 ( talk) 16:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
CIA word factbook has corrected itself as it is written now:
Radiant suggested that WP:MOSMAC put its recommendations first and the reasons for them below. This seems to work well.
The major problem with it is, as Chris knows, that the different factions each see it as legitimizing their own preference, which is why it (briefly) claimed consensus. Let's not do this again. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:20, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't know that we want to describe Kossovo as obsolete, although Cossovo may be. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:20, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
This guidelines seem quite fair and neutral , no ? When will they be implemented ? Cra del 21:36, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Who will be actually implementing this guidelines? Do the editors/users need to do it and always refer to them?. Thanks 85.144.179.57 ( talk) 14:33, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Is it Kosovo or Kosova? And is it Pristina or Prishtina? i don't want a reply without a good source, otherwise i will see it as void. Ijanderson977 ( talk) 22:07, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Ferizaj is the youngest City in Kosovo, founded in 1896 by the Turks. Originally it had only a railroad station and a "motel" who's owner was Feriz. Thus later the location became known as the place of Feriz or Ferizaj. Uroševac was added only later when Kosovo was annexed by Serbia after 1912. Gjakove is founded by the family of Jakova, common albanian christian family name, which throughout the times changed it's form onto Gjakove and was also changed by the serbs onto Đakovica. Prizren comes from the Albanian (pesrend) which means five rows and describes the houses situated on the hilltop under the castle. Lipjan derives from the name of old Roman City of Ulpiana. Novobrdo, one of the most powerful Kosovo cities in the 14th century was founded as Neuberg and later translated onto Novobrdo, is known by the albanians by the name Artana (because of the gold mines)
Serbs did not only change place names or created new ones but changed also peoples names especially after 1989. For example Gashi and Thaçi were changed to Gasi and Taci. If you think that wikipedia should take onto account these changes which every colonial power enforced, then you are clearly out of touch. In a lot of discussions forums, serbs use as an argument that Kosovo is Serbia because there are so many serb named places. But local population has their own albanian names and wikipedia will not able able to change that. 85.144.179.57 ( talk) 08:09, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
We have a general rule to use for place names the most used variants in English language. We don't need a separate guideline only for Kosovo.-- MariusM ( talk) 12:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
We should spell Pristina the same way the Republic of Kosovo's Constitution does as that makes sense. Kosovo's Constitution spells it as "Pristina". Please read Chapter 1 Article 13 Kosovo's Constitution Ijanderson977 ( talk) 18:49, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree we should spell it "Pristina", but I insist the constitution draft does have nothing to do with that. We need to follow de facto current usage in notable (and neutral) English language sources, not one single document, let alone a partisan one. -- dab (𒁳) 14:23, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
These two who are very important in the English speaking world and spell it as "Pristina".
Ijanderson977 (
talk)
15:22, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
you have a point. As I said, I agree with the spelling Pristina, I just don't think the constitution draft has any relevance in this. dab (𒁳) 18:07, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Shall i add this to the page as a final consensus is needed on the name of the city?
Please read in the above section named "KOSOVO'S CONSTITUTION SPELLS "PRISTINA" AS SO" before commenting on this
Ijanderson977 (
talk)
18:35, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
A Request for Comment has been opened at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Kosovo-related articles)/Prishtina-Pristina-Priština regarding the disagreement over the naming of Kosovo's capital city. Although I would like to remind everyone that RfCs are not votes, all constructive discussion and comments are welcome at that page. Happy‑ melon 20:15, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Kosovo-related articles)/Prishtina-Pristina-Priština. A consensus was reached that on English Wikipedia we are to spell the name of that capital/ largest city of Kosovo as "Pristina". So this must be included for future edits. Ijanderson977 ( talk) 20:53, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
yes, enough of this nonsense. It's clearly Pristina in English, by a very wide margin. We can still note its Serbian spelling, as Serbian, if the context requires it, but mere mention of the city within English prose will be spelled Pristina. -- dab (𒁳) 08:07, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Reading through almost all the hot pages related to Kosovo, I notice we have reached a consensus regarding naming of cities, towns, etc. The consensus in effect seems to be: "The name of a place should be expressed in English, as this is the English Wikipedia. Thereafter, it can be followed by the Albanian - slash - Serbian name. In case of a missing English naming, the Albanian - slash - Serbian convention will be used." Because the majority agrees with this convention, then this should also apply to Wikipedia URL/Page names.
For instance, the main page name for Shtërpcë is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Štrpce. We notice the use of a diacritic S in the URL. The anglicized version would be Strpce. However, the Albanian name is Shtërpcë. That is, we should reach a definite consensus regarding naming. Because in most of the cases the English version of names is missing, I raise the need for new requirements.-- A B X T • ? 15:24, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
What about categories? That is last thing to be added to MOSKOS in order to became totally funcional. How to show that some building, river, mountain or anything else belong geographically to Kosovo, but it is regarded as Serbian also by multiple sources? Oldest bridge in Serbia is now in Kosovo, same as highest mountain in Serbia, Đeravica, etc. Also, for the bigger listing, where all things should be included, for multiple articles... I propose adding both Serbia and Kosovo, like in article Sitnica, as today, both categories are here.
Just with Template:kosovo-note on both sites. I hope that is NPOV. In most cases, this is already used, like categories of churches and monasteries. How we should create these guideline, in order to obtain neutral status like all other MOSKOS segments, and still have valid Serbian and Kosovo categories? Also hope that this will be last step before introducing MOSKOS, from proposed to accepted Wiki guideline.
As today, almost all of the MOSKOS is used in practice, and just template:kosovo-note introduced by User:Ev is not totally widespread per vandal deletes. And those categories, as written above. So, what did you say? What to do next? -- Tadija speaks 17:03, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
The WP:MOSKOS for Kosovo municipalities states that local names (Albanian name for a municipality dominated by Albanians; Serbian name for a municipality dominated by Serbs) should be used for article names, while in reality all article regarding municipalities, towns and villages in WP are using the Serbian name. Any input? Cheers. kedadial 00:26, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
I have to say that I do not agree with this part of the proposal, which says local official place names are to be used. First of all, municipalities of Kosovo all have two official names, Albanian and Serbian, as those are two official languages of Kosovo since 1999. In most municipalities where Albanians are majority, Albanian name is predominantly used, while in others Serbian name is mostly used by the population. But there are also municipalities where number of Serbs and Albanians is (almost) equally balanced. In those municipalities we have two official names and two names used by the local population. So, this proposed policy can not bu used in such a situation, and I think that we need an universal policy, that applies to all the situations. Another thing that I want to say is that the aforementioned proposal would be in conflict with WP:COMMONNAME. We already had numerous discussions (see Talk:Uroševac#Requested move or Talk:Kosovo Polje#Requested move) and the conclusion was always that the Serbian name is most commonly used in English, even if we speak about municipalities populated by Albanians. This proposal claims that the rule local official place names are to be used is the aplication of Wikipedia:Naming conflict, but this page is now deleted and redirected to WP:TITLE which does not say anything about using official names or the self-identifying entities which are mentioned here. Vanjagenije ( talk) 08:01, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
English usage is the deciding factor for this issue, not local populations, ethnic majority or official status. See Talk:Kačanik#Proposed move (March 2009) for details about English usage related to Kosovo. - Best, Ev ( talk) 13:50, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Bazonka, you said: I think people here are confusing the English-language name of a place, with the foreign names used in English-language media.
Not really. Our policies are based on what names are used in English, regardless of whether they are English exonyms (like Germany & Rome), identical to the local names (like Paris & Berlin), or local names (any village seldom mentioned in English-language publications). See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) & the "Use English" section of our naming conventions for geographic names.
Our naming conventions don't require us to use English words, but to follow common English usage, i.e. to use the names most English speakers are familiar with.
The fact that we're dealing with English usage and not necessarily Englishness is mentioned in the first general guideline of our naming conventions for geographic names. It currently states that "[w]hen a widely accepted English name [...] exists for a place, we should use it. This often will be a local name, or one of them; but not always" (underlining is mine).
It clearly says "this often will be a local name". That is, "this often will be an Albanian or Serbian or French or Italian or Chinese name, which happens to be the one commonly used in English-language publications and the one most English speakers are familiar with".
This approach of following the usage of English-language publications, irrespective of the name's Englishness, has various advantages for the English-language Wikipedia:
Local names only become relevant as a tie-breaker of sorts where no established English usage exists. The first general guideline of our naming conventions for geographic names. It currently states that "[if no common English usage] exist[s], the modern official name [...] should be used." See also the "No established usage" section of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English).
(The wording of the naming convention for geographic names should probably be clarified or modified from "modern official name" to something along the lines of "modern local name", to avoid arguments about which official name to use. In the case of Kosovo: the one used by the city itself, by Pristina or by Belgrade ? In essence, in these disputed places choosing an official name can imply deciding which authority has jurisdiction over it... something that the neutral point of view policy ask us to avoid.)
Luckly for us, in the case of Kosovo a general usage does exist in English-language publications: see the "English usage related to Kosovo" sub-section of Talk:Kačanik. - Best, Ev ( talk) 17:02, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm trying to follow this discussion, but I can't really. Could someone answer me these questions:
? Nikola ( talk) 21:21, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
We follow them because they are long-standing policy, while this Manual of Style for Kosovo-related articles remains a mere proposal that has yet be approved.
In my opinion, we shouldn't follow the new proposal, because it runs contrary to the long-standing policy on the issue & to the advantages it has for a site of Wikipedia's characteristics (details in the "Anglicised" section above). "We shouldn't follow the new proposal" = we shouldn't approve this Manual of Style for Kosovo-related articles until it becomes compatible with our general policies.
On Talk:Vučitrn I raised and 2 supported the idea of a RfC on the subject. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Kosovo-related articles aka WP:MOSKOS seems the appropriate location.
rough example: Question : following the disputed 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence (not recognised by Serbia and Russia) usage of Albanian place names has begun to increase versus traditional Serbian place names in some English sources. How should en.wp respond to this? e.g. Should a Talk:Gdansk/Vote take place? If so what should the question be? And if so should involved editors (meaning any Balkan connection) !votes be excluded or !counted separately?
In ictu oculi ( talk) 08:03, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia can sometimes reach a compromise on whole groups of geographic names. See for instance Talk:Municipalities of South Tyrol, where the controversy is whether places should have an Italian or a German name. But imagine how many thousands of words were expended in that page, and ask yourself how much time and patience you have. For a person outside the disputed area (Kosovo or South Tyrol) the names probably have little importance one way or the other. The important thing is for places like Pristina to get sorted out in a reasonable way. The present draft of WP:MOSKOS *does* treat the high level issues reasonably. Where it goes astray (in my opinion) is thinking that the local official placenames should determine what the place should be called. I admit that such a rule, though unlikely to be approved, would save a lot of discussion. The only conceivable grounds for doing that that would be that nobody cares. But in practice both the Serbian and the Albanian sides would care a lot. EdJohnston ( talk) 21:14, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
@In ictu oculi, restricting WP:COMMONNAME to any time interval should be done with care especially in this case. If we restrict it to past 2 years or less we should have a margin wide enough for the other variant of the name to be considered as not common. I am not sure this is the case at the moment. Anyway, comparing this type of name change to the case of one celebrity changing stagename is frivolous at best. Even when companies or schools change names it has a much smaller impact than this type of change has: not only does it convey the preference of one language over some other but it has a significant if not the biggest influence on how one perceives one entire settlement completely with its history together.
Also, if one cares so much to suggest that editors totally unknowledgeable of this name situation are necessary, why not invite them then? A situation of such importance to be called a politico-ethno-linguistic one surely deserves input from as many sources as possible.
And this mention of the need for only the non-Serbian/Albanian editors to express/repeat their opinion here; if a casual passer-by wouldn't have read the words "meat" and "sockpuppeting" within this same comment, they surely would've thought an editor writing this were an inexperienced editor, because how they mentioned only the 3 of the non-Serbian/Albanian editors' opinion is necessary here for the "progress" of "this". --biblbroks (talk) 21:52, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
FkpCascais has been canvassing again. When the stalking and the canvassing stops, perhaps pages like this may make more progress towards neutrality. bobrayner ( talk) 18:23, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
Hi guys, I'm not sure how many people have this page still on their watch list but I'd like to bring this discussion to your attention: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Kosovo#Languages of Kosovo. I'd most certainly like to hear your opinions. Thanks in advance. Kind regards IJA ( talk) 14:07, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
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The draft looks very well thought out, well done.
I am not quite convinced we should use "Kosovan" for "Kosovar", since the latter is clearly much more widely used. I am not sure just how much "Kosovar" implies Albanian ethnicity, maybe we should cite some third party sources on that question. Also, I am not sure it is a good idea in this case to use national flag as a symbol for languages:
and
symbolize "Republic of Albania" and "Republic of Serbia", not "ethnic Albanian" and "ethnic Serbian", respectively. The situation is also asymmetric, since the Serbian side claims Kosovo as part of the Republic of Serbia, while the Albanian side does not claim it as part of the Republic of Albania, and it is unwise to suggest the Republic of Albania is an official party to this dispute. --
dab
(𒁳)
06:13, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
ok, we could recommend using "Kosovan", pointing to the Guardian guideline. I don't think that this suffices to actively deprecate "Kosovar" though. dab (𒁳) 09:28, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure whether the statement that "common English equivalents" should count only where the English forms have "undergone significant modifications to spelling (e.g. "Belgrade" for Beograd" meets current consensus. It seems to me that it is a rather far-reaching re-interpretation of the rules of WP:USEENGLISH. My understanding has always been that "common English equivalent" refers to whatever form is predominantly used in English, be it identically borrowed from the source language or not. For instance, it was determined that Shatt al-Arab, despite not being "Anglicised" in spelling, in fact is the common English term, and this was (rightly) the deciding argument in moving the article there. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:17, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Fut. Perf. on this. I'm really uneasy with the idea of moving away from the "impeccably descriptive and non-prescriptive" nature of our core criterion of common English usage, which I understand as being basically the same approach that led to the idea of "verifiability, not truth" (in this case, "common English usage, not official or local or ethnicity-based or true name"). It's a can of worms; it has NPOV implications; it would mean using different names from the ones our readership would commonly find elsewhere; etc. Let's patiently wait to see if English usage itself changes. - Best regards, Ev ( talk) 20:10, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I find that "Republic of Kosovo" is about four times more commonly used than "Republic of Kosova" at this point. dab (𒁳) 09:39, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Nomenclature isn't a metaphysical question like the existence of God. It is a matter of convention. Our policy is to use the most common spelling in English language usage. There may be room for debate if conventions in academic literature differ from those in newspapers etc. But if one spelling is clearly the most common throughout English language sources, that's the one Wikipedia will use. You will also note that the Greece article is called "Greece", not "Hellas", simply because that's the common English name, in spite of what Greek authorities would like. That has nothing to do with Greece being an independent state, it's a simple matter of the English lexicon. I note that the OED has:
The OED isn't aware of the spelling Kosova. dab (𒁳) 10:38, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
moved from guideline page
(add gazetteers, maps etc here)
The best source that enforces the order Albanian (A)/Serbian (S) is the 2000/43 UNMIK Regulation, which may be found here.-- Arbër Let's talk 13:14, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
guys, this has been long debated. We can give both Serbian and Albanian names. But we necessarily need to give them in linear order. The best we have been able to come up with in the spirit of WP:NPOV is alphabetic order, first Albanian, then Serbian (or, if you prefer, Shqip, then Srpski). This is for listings of the native nomenclature. Of course English usage (common anglicizations) will trump these for the question of article titling. There may be room for the argument that for toponyms in North Kosovo, where there is a Serbian majority, the sequence may be inverted to Serbian, Albanian. dab (𒁳) 11:57, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
According to dictionary.com and the Oxford dictionary, Kosovar is the correct demonym for Kosovo. Grammaticaly it should have been Kosovan, however in this case due to the widespread usage of the term Kosovar, this has generally been replaced the with Kosovar. I believe this version should be applied.
No so long ago the US spokesman referred to "Kosovar Serbs" and "Kosovar Albanians" living in peace. I disagree that the term Kosovar causes confusion. Most people who would be confused are the ones that woudn't know anything about Kosovo.
I found that people that never heard of Kosovo tend to say, "Kosovians", "kosovovians", in spain I encountered, "Kosovovos" or "Kosoveños".
Kosovar is a widely accepted term in most european languages. See elpais.es, lemonde.fr, or even local balkan versions jutarnji.hr (croatian best selling daily) or delo.si (slovenian daily). They all refer to them as Kosovares, Kosovari, Kosovars etc.
Most english speakers refer to its people as Kosovars. United Kingdom however tends to use the term Kosovan. This alone doesn't justify it's exclusive use. Logitech999 ( talk) 16:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
CIA word factbook has corrected itself as it is written now:
Radiant suggested that WP:MOSMAC put its recommendations first and the reasons for them below. This seems to work well.
The major problem with it is, as Chris knows, that the different factions each see it as legitimizing their own preference, which is why it (briefly) claimed consensus. Let's not do this again. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:20, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't know that we want to describe Kossovo as obsolete, although Cossovo may be. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:20, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
This guidelines seem quite fair and neutral , no ? When will they be implemented ? Cra del 21:36, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Who will be actually implementing this guidelines? Do the editors/users need to do it and always refer to them?. Thanks 85.144.179.57 ( talk) 14:33, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Is it Kosovo or Kosova? And is it Pristina or Prishtina? i don't want a reply without a good source, otherwise i will see it as void. Ijanderson977 ( talk) 22:07, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Ferizaj is the youngest City in Kosovo, founded in 1896 by the Turks. Originally it had only a railroad station and a "motel" who's owner was Feriz. Thus later the location became known as the place of Feriz or Ferizaj. Uroševac was added only later when Kosovo was annexed by Serbia after 1912. Gjakove is founded by the family of Jakova, common albanian christian family name, which throughout the times changed it's form onto Gjakove and was also changed by the serbs onto Đakovica. Prizren comes from the Albanian (pesrend) which means five rows and describes the houses situated on the hilltop under the castle. Lipjan derives from the name of old Roman City of Ulpiana. Novobrdo, one of the most powerful Kosovo cities in the 14th century was founded as Neuberg and later translated onto Novobrdo, is known by the albanians by the name Artana (because of the gold mines)
Serbs did not only change place names or created new ones but changed also peoples names especially after 1989. For example Gashi and Thaçi were changed to Gasi and Taci. If you think that wikipedia should take onto account these changes which every colonial power enforced, then you are clearly out of touch. In a lot of discussions forums, serbs use as an argument that Kosovo is Serbia because there are so many serb named places. But local population has their own albanian names and wikipedia will not able able to change that. 85.144.179.57 ( talk) 08:09, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
We have a general rule to use for place names the most used variants in English language. We don't need a separate guideline only for Kosovo.-- MariusM ( talk) 12:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
We should spell Pristina the same way the Republic of Kosovo's Constitution does as that makes sense. Kosovo's Constitution spells it as "Pristina". Please read Chapter 1 Article 13 Kosovo's Constitution Ijanderson977 ( talk) 18:49, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree we should spell it "Pristina", but I insist the constitution draft does have nothing to do with that. We need to follow de facto current usage in notable (and neutral) English language sources, not one single document, let alone a partisan one. -- dab (𒁳) 14:23, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
These two who are very important in the English speaking world and spell it as "Pristina".
Ijanderson977 (
talk)
15:22, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
you have a point. As I said, I agree with the spelling Pristina, I just don't think the constitution draft has any relevance in this. dab (𒁳) 18:07, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Shall i add this to the page as a final consensus is needed on the name of the city?
Please read in the above section named "KOSOVO'S CONSTITUTION SPELLS "PRISTINA" AS SO" before commenting on this
Ijanderson977 (
talk)
18:35, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
A Request for Comment has been opened at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Kosovo-related articles)/Prishtina-Pristina-Priština regarding the disagreement over the naming of Kosovo's capital city. Although I would like to remind everyone that RfCs are not votes, all constructive discussion and comments are welcome at that page. Happy‑ melon 20:15, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Kosovo-related articles)/Prishtina-Pristina-Priština. A consensus was reached that on English Wikipedia we are to spell the name of that capital/ largest city of Kosovo as "Pristina". So this must be included for future edits. Ijanderson977 ( talk) 20:53, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
yes, enough of this nonsense. It's clearly Pristina in English, by a very wide margin. We can still note its Serbian spelling, as Serbian, if the context requires it, but mere mention of the city within English prose will be spelled Pristina. -- dab (𒁳) 08:07, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Reading through almost all the hot pages related to Kosovo, I notice we have reached a consensus regarding naming of cities, towns, etc. The consensus in effect seems to be: "The name of a place should be expressed in English, as this is the English Wikipedia. Thereafter, it can be followed by the Albanian - slash - Serbian name. In case of a missing English naming, the Albanian - slash - Serbian convention will be used." Because the majority agrees with this convention, then this should also apply to Wikipedia URL/Page names.
For instance, the main page name for Shtërpcë is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Štrpce. We notice the use of a diacritic S in the URL. The anglicized version would be Strpce. However, the Albanian name is Shtërpcë. That is, we should reach a definite consensus regarding naming. Because in most of the cases the English version of names is missing, I raise the need for new requirements.-- A B X T • ? 15:24, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
What about categories? That is last thing to be added to MOSKOS in order to became totally funcional. How to show that some building, river, mountain or anything else belong geographically to Kosovo, but it is regarded as Serbian also by multiple sources? Oldest bridge in Serbia is now in Kosovo, same as highest mountain in Serbia, Đeravica, etc. Also, for the bigger listing, where all things should be included, for multiple articles... I propose adding both Serbia and Kosovo, like in article Sitnica, as today, both categories are here.
Just with Template:kosovo-note on both sites. I hope that is NPOV. In most cases, this is already used, like categories of churches and monasteries. How we should create these guideline, in order to obtain neutral status like all other MOSKOS segments, and still have valid Serbian and Kosovo categories? Also hope that this will be last step before introducing MOSKOS, from proposed to accepted Wiki guideline.
As today, almost all of the MOSKOS is used in practice, and just template:kosovo-note introduced by User:Ev is not totally widespread per vandal deletes. And those categories, as written above. So, what did you say? What to do next? -- Tadija speaks 17:03, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
The WP:MOSKOS for Kosovo municipalities states that local names (Albanian name for a municipality dominated by Albanians; Serbian name for a municipality dominated by Serbs) should be used for article names, while in reality all article regarding municipalities, towns and villages in WP are using the Serbian name. Any input? Cheers. kedadial 00:26, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
I have to say that I do not agree with this part of the proposal, which says local official place names are to be used. First of all, municipalities of Kosovo all have two official names, Albanian and Serbian, as those are two official languages of Kosovo since 1999. In most municipalities where Albanians are majority, Albanian name is predominantly used, while in others Serbian name is mostly used by the population. But there are also municipalities where number of Serbs and Albanians is (almost) equally balanced. In those municipalities we have two official names and two names used by the local population. So, this proposed policy can not bu used in such a situation, and I think that we need an universal policy, that applies to all the situations. Another thing that I want to say is that the aforementioned proposal would be in conflict with WP:COMMONNAME. We already had numerous discussions (see Talk:Uroševac#Requested move or Talk:Kosovo Polje#Requested move) and the conclusion was always that the Serbian name is most commonly used in English, even if we speak about municipalities populated by Albanians. This proposal claims that the rule local official place names are to be used is the aplication of Wikipedia:Naming conflict, but this page is now deleted and redirected to WP:TITLE which does not say anything about using official names or the self-identifying entities which are mentioned here. Vanjagenije ( talk) 08:01, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
English usage is the deciding factor for this issue, not local populations, ethnic majority or official status. See Talk:Kačanik#Proposed move (March 2009) for details about English usage related to Kosovo. - Best, Ev ( talk) 13:50, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Bazonka, you said: I think people here are confusing the English-language name of a place, with the foreign names used in English-language media.
Not really. Our policies are based on what names are used in English, regardless of whether they are English exonyms (like Germany & Rome), identical to the local names (like Paris & Berlin), or local names (any village seldom mentioned in English-language publications). See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) & the "Use English" section of our naming conventions for geographic names.
Our naming conventions don't require us to use English words, but to follow common English usage, i.e. to use the names most English speakers are familiar with.
The fact that we're dealing with English usage and not necessarily Englishness is mentioned in the first general guideline of our naming conventions for geographic names. It currently states that "[w]hen a widely accepted English name [...] exists for a place, we should use it. This often will be a local name, or one of them; but not always" (underlining is mine).
It clearly says "this often will be a local name". That is, "this often will be an Albanian or Serbian or French or Italian or Chinese name, which happens to be the one commonly used in English-language publications and the one most English speakers are familiar with".
This approach of following the usage of English-language publications, irrespective of the name's Englishness, has various advantages for the English-language Wikipedia:
Local names only become relevant as a tie-breaker of sorts where no established English usage exists. The first general guideline of our naming conventions for geographic names. It currently states that "[if no common English usage] exist[s], the modern official name [...] should be used." See also the "No established usage" section of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English).
(The wording of the naming convention for geographic names should probably be clarified or modified from "modern official name" to something along the lines of "modern local name", to avoid arguments about which official name to use. In the case of Kosovo: the one used by the city itself, by Pristina or by Belgrade ? In essence, in these disputed places choosing an official name can imply deciding which authority has jurisdiction over it... something that the neutral point of view policy ask us to avoid.)
Luckly for us, in the case of Kosovo a general usage does exist in English-language publications: see the "English usage related to Kosovo" sub-section of Talk:Kačanik. - Best, Ev ( talk) 17:02, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm trying to follow this discussion, but I can't really. Could someone answer me these questions:
? Nikola ( talk) 21:21, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
We follow them because they are long-standing policy, while this Manual of Style for Kosovo-related articles remains a mere proposal that has yet be approved.
In my opinion, we shouldn't follow the new proposal, because it runs contrary to the long-standing policy on the issue & to the advantages it has for a site of Wikipedia's characteristics (details in the "Anglicised" section above). "We shouldn't follow the new proposal" = we shouldn't approve this Manual of Style for Kosovo-related articles until it becomes compatible with our general policies.
On Talk:Vučitrn I raised and 2 supported the idea of a RfC on the subject. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Kosovo-related articles aka WP:MOSKOS seems the appropriate location.
rough example: Question : following the disputed 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence (not recognised by Serbia and Russia) usage of Albanian place names has begun to increase versus traditional Serbian place names in some English sources. How should en.wp respond to this? e.g. Should a Talk:Gdansk/Vote take place? If so what should the question be? And if so should involved editors (meaning any Balkan connection) !votes be excluded or !counted separately?
In ictu oculi ( talk) 08:03, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia can sometimes reach a compromise on whole groups of geographic names. See for instance Talk:Municipalities of South Tyrol, where the controversy is whether places should have an Italian or a German name. But imagine how many thousands of words were expended in that page, and ask yourself how much time and patience you have. For a person outside the disputed area (Kosovo or South Tyrol) the names probably have little importance one way or the other. The important thing is for places like Pristina to get sorted out in a reasonable way. The present draft of WP:MOSKOS *does* treat the high level issues reasonably. Where it goes astray (in my opinion) is thinking that the local official placenames should determine what the place should be called. I admit that such a rule, though unlikely to be approved, would save a lot of discussion. The only conceivable grounds for doing that that would be that nobody cares. But in practice both the Serbian and the Albanian sides would care a lot. EdJohnston ( talk) 21:14, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
@In ictu oculi, restricting WP:COMMONNAME to any time interval should be done with care especially in this case. If we restrict it to past 2 years or less we should have a margin wide enough for the other variant of the name to be considered as not common. I am not sure this is the case at the moment. Anyway, comparing this type of name change to the case of one celebrity changing stagename is frivolous at best. Even when companies or schools change names it has a much smaller impact than this type of change has: not only does it convey the preference of one language over some other but it has a significant if not the biggest influence on how one perceives one entire settlement completely with its history together.
Also, if one cares so much to suggest that editors totally unknowledgeable of this name situation are necessary, why not invite them then? A situation of such importance to be called a politico-ethno-linguistic one surely deserves input from as many sources as possible.
And this mention of the need for only the non-Serbian/Albanian editors to express/repeat their opinion here; if a casual passer-by wouldn't have read the words "meat" and "sockpuppeting" within this same comment, they surely would've thought an editor writing this were an inexperienced editor, because how they mentioned only the 3 of the non-Serbian/Albanian editors' opinion is necessary here for the "progress" of "this". --biblbroks (talk) 21:52, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
FkpCascais has been canvassing again. When the stalking and the canvassing stops, perhaps pages like this may make more progress towards neutrality. bobrayner ( talk) 18:23, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
Hi guys, I'm not sure how many people have this page still on their watch list but I'd like to bring this discussion to your attention: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Kosovo#Languages of Kosovo. I'd most certainly like to hear your opinions. Thanks in advance. Kind regards IJA ( talk) 14:07, 28 October 2016 (UTC)