Talk:Jäneda (river)

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Requested move 17 September 2016[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No consensus. It's time to close this, but there is really not even the slightest consensus to move either way. Since the current title is not apparently wrong, it could as well stay here for the time being. No such user (talk) 09:47, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]



Jäneda (river)Jänijõgi – More common official name. Flying Saucer (talk) 06:53, 17 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well but "jõgi" just means "river" in Estonian. Our article on the Volga is titled Volga River and not "Volga Reka" because "reka" like jõgi is not an English word. "Jänijõgi" means "Jäni River", but because of the way Estonian works when you separate the words you use "Jäneda" (thus "Jänijõgi" but "Jäneda jõgi", according to the Estoniian Wikipedia article), so "Jäneda River" (or "Jäneda (river)")
I do understand that it's tricky because "river" is both part of the name (in a sense) and just a descriptive word of what it is (in a sense). But looking at our articles on large rivers we have Volga River and Congo River and Amazon River and Yenisei River and Yellow River and so forth: all of our river articles when disambiguation is needed (as it is here) seem to use the English word "river" rather than the native word and further use the form "X River" rather than "X (river)". So per WP:AT, Point #5 ("Consistency") of the Five Virtues of Article Titles, I request that the article be returned to its title of "Jäneda River". (My reading of WP:PLACES and WP:NCRIVER also supports this.)
It's an interesting question because Estonian seems to have two forms, one of which omits the space. It's as if we could equally use "Colorado River" and "Coloradoriver" for that river. But so there's no space, so? Anyway apparently in Estonian ""Jäneda jõgi" is perfectly OK, and this fits in with how English works, which has the advantage of presenting the reader with a title that contains the useful word "River" to help them immediately suss what the article is about, so win-win to use that. Herostratus (talk) 15:51, 17 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to Jäneda River per Herostratus. I don't see any evidence that Jänijõgi is the more common name in English, and none is presented above, so that being the case and given the explanation by Herostratus that "jogi" means "river", it seems sensible to make it consistent with most of our other river articles.  — Amakuru (talk) 08:43, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I'm not seeing much evidence that the construction "Janeda River" is in use.[1] However, "Janijogi" is in use in English sources, sometimes as "Janijogi River" or "River Janijogi".[2] "Janeda" is used regularly, but it's not clear how many references intend this river. I don't know what the best title is here.--Cúchullain t/c 19:00, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I also don't see that "Jäneda River" or just "Jäneda" is commonly used for the river in English. Can anyone find reliable sources? But I certainly know that Jänijõgi is the main and preferred official name in Estonian [3]. Herostratus suggests that the suffix "-jõgi" simply refers that the subject is river, but in Estonian language it's part of tha name. For example see Emajõgi. The same principle is used in titling many Finnish river articles (see Category:Rivers of Finland). So the comparison with Volga and Congo seems a little inappropriate. Flying Saucer (talk) 19:46, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, you have a point. The Estonian Wikipedia article beings "Jänijõgi (ka Jäneda jõgi)..." which Google Translate renders as "Jänijõgi (also Jäneda River)...", so it seems that "Jäneda jõgi" (Jäneda River) is a valid construction even in Estonian. But it's not the preferred construction in Estonian I assume, since it's given as a secondary "also..." construction. But we don't care what the name is in Estonian! We follow English sources. But there really aren't many (or any?) English sources for this small river. So then we are thrown back on our manual of style.
It's an interesting question. If English was such that "Coloradoriver" and "Ohioriver" and "Missouririver" were the normal constructions (but with "Colorado River" etc as secondary but also valid constructions), What should (say) the French Wikipedia do? "Coloradoriver" or "Rivière Colorado"? I would consider using the latter since it imparts more information. It tells the reader, right up front so she doesn't have to delve into the article to find out, that the article is about a river. That is one of the virtues of article titles, to make the subject of the article instantly manifest to reader.
But ultimately its a question to which I don't know the answer. Herostratus (talk) 21:01, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose as proposed. The proposer has made no case in terms of WP:AT, and nor has anyone else. See also WP:official names. Whether natural disambiguation is preferred to the current parenthetical disambiguation seems doubtful. Andrewa (talk) 08:22, 1 October 2016 (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 or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.