[WikiEN-l] River names Oder/Odra and Neisse/Nysa

Tue Feb 18 22:15:02 UTC 2003

Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Mirko Thiessen wrote:
>
>>I'd like to ask the community, which name is used more often by 
>>native English speakers.
>>
>
>On the other hand, [[user:Space Cadet]] on User_talk:Taw has written:
>
>>Or, why don't we just wait a couple more months until the "official
>>English name" changes to the original "ODRA" and everybody's happy?
>>Let's look into the future!"
>>
>I'm not sure what this means, exactly, since there is no such thing as
>"official" English, but I assume it means something, and whatever it
>does mean, is probably an important factor.
>
>What do dictionaries say?  What does Britannica do?  Encarta?
>U.S. government sources?  British and Australian government sources?
>
I looked at this last Nov. 6 and remarked at [[Talk:Oder]]

> Wikipedia is an English language encyclopedia. As such the names 
> should be the English language names without regard to local political 
> sensitivities. Here "Oder" is the correct conventional name in 
> accordance with NIMA: http://www.nima.mil/gns/html/index.html
>
I hadn't looked at the other river then, and I now find that it uses 
"Neisse" as the conventional name.  

Space Cadet made a similar response in a slightly more expanded version 
on that talk page.  It seems that in repeating himself he changed 
"conventional" to "official".  His waiting for the "official" name to be 
changed may be an exercise in wishful thinking.  The simple fact that 
English is a Germanic rather than a Slavic language also favours the 
affinity to Oder and Neisse.

Eclecticology