Talk:Leuven

Foreign names

The French name "Louvain" has been officially abolished to avoid confusion with the town of Louvain-la-Neuve, and the German name is not used in Germany anymore.

True. When you talk about "Louvain" in the Grand-Duchy of Luxemburg, they think you're talking about Louvan-La-Neuve. Say "Leuven" and they know directly what you're talking about! Erik Van Thienen 21:43, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Unlike Nederlands, there is no "official" lexicon of English, so the French spelling "Louvain" in English remains current, though far from universal. --Dystopos

Is Lovan another english name for Leuven? It is well-known that dutch-speakers are strangely monomaniac about placenames in Foreign names anyway... David Descamps 09:30, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

The English name "Louvain" has not been officially abolished. In English speaking countries, we do have "standard reference works". They include the dictionaries that we use as guides to spelling and usage of words (such as the Oxford English Dictionary) and encyclopaedias (such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica and Encyclopedia Americana, note differences in spelling). You will find "Louvain" in ALL the standard references but only passing reference to the Dutch translation "Leuven". The University of Louvain and the city of Louvain are well known in Britain and Ireland and the eminence of the university makes it truly an international university. There is immense historical value to its name. Abolishing the ENGLISH name "Louvain" by editting it out of Wikipedia goes against the spirit of this work. I do bow to Flemish sensibilities and their pressure to enter the name Leuven into the English language by putting it at the title of Wikipedia articles, but please leave the reference to the English name and do not remove the knowledge that Leuven is the Flemish name. Laburke 03:27, 13 September 2007 (UTC)Laburke (D.Sc. University of Louvain) 04:16, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Point taken. I agree. Both names should be mentioned, maybe even the english version as the title of the article since that seems to be the standard for all other place names on Wikipedia. Key to the city 19:28, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

and another point, pronunciation of Leuven. There are very few words in English with the vowel combination 'eu' and all of them are pronounced like "feud" or "feudal". There is no sound in English like the Dutch "eu". If the Flemish want to change our spelling of Louvain to their Leuven, then they should not be surprised when we pronounce Leuven "lee-ou-ven". Laburke (talk) 02:22, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Not so. "eu" is found in the words neuron, neurosurgery, neurotic and associated words where the pronunciation is similar to Leuven. On the other hand the ou in Louvain could easily be pronounced as in loud and the vain as in the English words vain or vein.

Thank you. You make my point. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the pronunciation of neuron "nj-" but the American pronunciations with or without the ye sound "n(j)-". Laburke (talk)Laburke (talk) 23:13, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I am all in favour of using the commonest name in English, but I don't think Leuven has enough prominence in the English-speaking consciousness to retain an English/French name rather than a native one. Booshank (talk) 17:10, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Not to be contrarian, but I frequently see references to Louvain (meaning Leuven) in Belgium, most notably on the rail system. (Their online route planner seems to translate all place names to their French ones, and "Louvain" seems to be what they put on the signs at rail stations in French-speaking areas outside of Brussels.) And on the opposing viewpoint, it seems to me that "Leuven" has become much more common than it once was in English. An anecdotal illustration of this is that Googling "Louvain" tends to return links to universities and historical accounts, while Googling "Leuven" brings up tourist information and the other sorts of things you generally expect to see when you Google a city name. FWIW, I myself, a native English speaker, have always known the city as "Leuven," and most native English speakers I know pronouce the name either as "LOO-vin", "LYOO-vin", or a close approximation of the correct Dutch pronounciation (and I know more than one native Belgian who says "LOO-vin" himself, though whether it is from dialect or from exposure to English I do not know). Where the article is concerned I think it is entirely appropriate to leave the title as-is -- it is certainly A common and valid name for the city in English, and if it is the name the Flemish themselves are pushing then it is sure to eventually replace Louvain to the extent that it has not already.--Sneeuwfuif (talk) 16:21, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you all for your contribution BUT you are confusing different universities:

Suppreme Court of Belgium 26 november 1846 in, Table générale alphabétique et chronologique de la Pasicrisie Belge contenant la jurisprudence du Royaume de 1814 à 1850, Brussels, 1855, p. 585, column 1, alinea 2. Also: Bulletin Usuel des Lois et Arrêtés‎, 1861, p.166. "The Catholic University of Leuven can not be considered as the continuation of the old University of Leuven. The original French text says: "L'université catholique de Louvain ne peut être considérée comme continuant l'ancienne université de Louvain; et lorsqu'un acte de fondation a désigné pour collateur un professeur de cette ancienne université, il y a lieu d'y pourvoir par le gouvernement".

My proposition is following.

Central place:

"Universities in Leuven" (=place name) (redirection for "Universities in Louvain", "Catholic University of Leuven", "Catholic University of Louvain", "University Leuven", "University Louvain", "Catholic University Leuven", "Catholic University Louvain",

"Universities in Leuven" can stand for

1. The old University in Leuven or Studium Generale Lovaniense in Latin for the period between 1425 and 1797; (subarticle: Studium Generale Lovaniense) 2. The State University in Leuven or Academia Lovaniensis in Latin for the period between 1817 and 1835; (subarticle: Academia Lovaniensis ) 3. The Catholic University in Leuven before the split for the period between 1834 and 1970 (redirect "Catholic University of Mechlin" and merge page of "Catholic University of Mechlin"); (subarticle: Catholic University of Leuven) 4. The Catholic University in Leuven after the split for the period between 1970 and now a. Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (subarticle: Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) b. Université Catholique de Louvain (subarticle: Université Catholique de Louvain)

Bear in mind that the website of the city of Leuven is talking about the University of Leuven (but they do translate Brussel in Brussels) whereas the website of the University isn't even translating the name of the University. Sources, http://www.leuven.be/en/tourism/sightseeing/university.jsp http://www.kuleuven.be/english/

Library of Leuven

The destruction of the library of Leuven in August 1914 is an event of some notoriety. I wonder if we can say more about that. The event figures in Allied accounts of the lack of civilization and barbarism of the Germans. I am guessing it is more complex than that. Anyway additional details will be helpful to the reader. 64.48.158.34 05:09, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I found out that there is a bit in the Treaty of Versailles about reparations to balance the destruction of the library of Leuven. "Germany undertakes to furnish to the University of Louvain, within three months after a request made by it and transmitted through the intervention of the Reparation Commission, manuscripts, incunabula, printed books, maps and objects of collection corresponding in number and value to those destroyed in the burning by Germany of the Library of Louvain." (Article 247 of Part VIII, [1]). Maybe it can be mentioned in this article. Best, 64.48.192.31 04:26, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Fonske

I was a resident in Leuven for a total of four years, and from what I remember, "Fonske" was to remind the students that only beer -or- wisdom could be in the head at one time, not both. Notice the Dutch diminutive "~ke" ending to the Latin word "Fons" for "Fountain".

Fons is also a Flemish and Dutch variant af the name Alphons. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.241.179.3 (talk) 01:21, 25 February 2007 (UTC).

Student Forum

This link (External Links, Student Forum) claims to be a student forum, but it's limited to economics students. I don't see the point of linking such a specific group's forum in the Leuven article. To be honest, I think it's just an attempt at advertising their forum. Remove it? Key to the city 12:01, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm in favour of removing it.

Erik Van Thienen 21:43, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Miscellaneous

• I can hardly see why the comments about ‘the smallest bar’ in the miscellaneous section are relevant. Please revise, as this is once again just an attempted self-promotion act.

Counts of Louvain: request move to Counts of Leuven

Hello everyone, for those interested: you are free to participate in the move request put here: Talk:Counts of Louvain#Requested move2. My argumentation behind this move request is that "counts of Leuven" has a much higher contemporary usage than "counts of Louvain". Google shows an overall preference for "counts of Leuven", on average (=including all counts) there are five times more "of Leuven"'s than "of Louvain"'s. Morgengave (talk) 21:48, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Husserl Archives

Is it really necessary to mention the Husserl Archives in the introduction? The introduction is particularly for topics that pertain the city as a whole, while the archives have not really anything to do with the city as such. Maybe it is more appropriate to give it a separate section in the article. Atlas89 (talk) 23:17, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

You're right. I've moved it to 'culture', but there's a case to be made for its removal entirely. Oreo Priest ^talk 16:33, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Death of the Burgomaster

I have removed a sentence, which either used a bad source or improperly understood it, that stated that the burgomaster of Leuven was killed by German soldiers during the sacking. While many inhabitants of Leuven were indeed brutally murdered in cold blood by German soldiers without any serious inquiry, the burgomaster survived and fled to the Netherlands where he advocated the Belgian cause. He died soon after the war, but peacefully. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:1811:90E:D000:3541:CACE:7A61:3B49 (talk) 20:34, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Do you have a reliable reference for that? Materialscientist (talk) 21:37, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

That whole sentence is wrong, neither the burgomaster nor the rector were shot. Here is biography of Leo Colins, the mayor of Leuven in 1914. He returned as mayor after the war. http://www.oorlogsdagboekleuven.be/bio-leo-colins/ The rector of the university also wasn't shot. He also fled Leuven http://www.oorlogsdagboekleuven.be/rector-op-de-vlucht/. He continued as rector until 1940. Here is a news paper article recounting the hostage taking of the rector: http://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20140825_01231830. It also explicitly says he's survived. See also https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lijst_van_burgemeesters_van_Leuven and https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulin_Ladeuze. I'm removing that sentence from the article. Anton3ss (talk) 09:16, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Timeline of Leuven

What is missing from the recently created city timeline article? Please add relevant content! Contributions welcome. Thank you. -- M2545 (talk) 17:28, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Geography

No geography section. Anyone know anything? is the river called Dijl? 95.144.182.222 (talk) 17:22, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Intercultural instability

Leuven has experienced extreme political instability since the death of black engineering student Sanda Dia, the only black of his undergraduate school who was killed six months before graduation. Can we add demographics of race and ethnicity to the page? There is a severe level of political instability and it needs to be measured. There is severe level of covert apartheid violence and it needs to be measured. There have been many racial killings and tortures since Sanda's death in Leuven, since the 2015 migrant crisis. Namely forced euthanasia organized by 'Broeders van Liefde' and the courts of Leuven. SOS Very high level of racial stratification and white supremacist networks in police force and very high level of neo-Nazi related judicial corruption. 94.225.153.245 (talk) 14:15, 5 September 2023 (UTC)