Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Germany)

Introduction

Before beginning a major revision of the Germany part of Wikipedia, we need a style guide. I have not been able to find any other summary in one place of naming rules for Germany. What I have offered here is a summary of modern practice by English speaking journalists and authors. Tacitus 15:01, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I've expanded the page, and hope I am not going too fast, but the points made below will surely be considered as we revise. The suggestion is that we clearly differentiate between historic and contemporary usages. Tacitus 12:05, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Placenames

A couple of points. Firstly, "Brunswick" is used at least as often in English as "Hanover" with one "n", and usually in the same contexts - largely historical ones. I would say that most usually, references to the modern cities are "Braunschweig" or "Hannover," but that references to the historical Guelf rulers are almost always "Brunswick" and "Hanover." If "Hanover" is a common english form, it seems to me that "Brunswick" pretty clearly is as well. There are other cities which, in some contexts, at least, are referred to by anglicized names. I've never heard of the Council of Konstanz, for instance, but I don't think there's any clear dominant usage between Konstanz and Constance overall. Similarly, Aachen is, in certain historical contexts, still referred to as "Aix-la-Chapelle," notably in reference to the treaty signed there in 1748, and to the Congress of the Powers held there in 1818. Other formerly used Francizations/Anglicizations like "Mayence," "Ratisbon," "Treves," "Cassel," and so forth seem clearly obsolete. I can't think of any other cities that are normally anglicized, though. I will add that "Mecklenburg-Vorpommern" appears to me to be more common than the translated name. john k 00:58, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll add that I'd never heard of the "Ore Mountains" before reading this proposal. I've always just heard them called the Erzgebirge. john k 04:51, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

As an English-speaker living in Germany, my perceptions are perhaps somewhat biased, but I would always spell "Hanover" with one "n" when writing in English (and do in my capacity as a professional translator), while "Brunswick" sounds to me as obsolete as "Mayence" or "Aix-la-Chapelle" (except as the name of a brand of bowling ball). I'd never heard of the Erzgebirge called the "Ore Mountains" either; it's probably due to Wikipedia's to maintain an NPOV with respect to the German vs. the Czech name. —Angr 14:30, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

"The Duke of Braunschweig was mortally wounded at the Battle of Auerstadt"? "Ernst August became the last Duke of Braunschweig in 1913"? "The Duchy of Braunschweig was a state in the German Empire"? I've never heard any of these things said in English. I've also never heard reference to the Treaty of Aachen of 1748 or the Congress of Aachen of 1818. Mayence is, indeed, no longer used, but Aix-la-Chapelle and Brunswick are both used in certain contexts. Brunswick is still the standard English name of the former state, and in historical discussions one tends to see the city called that as well, if only to avoid confusion. Aix-la-Chapelle is only used in reference to certain events, rather than in references to the city itself, but it is still standard in those particular usages - the 1668 and 1748 treaties, and the 1818 congress in particular. And we don't have to use some made up equivalent simply because two alternate names are used, if one is used in English and the other is not. Krušné hory is not a term that's ever found in English, so I don't see why its existence means that we can't use the German "Erzgebirge". john k 15:20, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not talking about historical usage, I'm talking about modern usage. I wouldn't say "All France is divided into three parts" either. —Angr 15:25, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Different issue. That's an issue of a new name, this is an issue of whether we translate a name. And "Brunswick" is still used for the state much more recently than "Gaul" - the state of Brunswick existed until 60 years ago. john k 23:45, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I first heard of "Ore Mountains" only four or five years ago too. Even though it does appears a neologism, it may help keep the peace.Tacitus 12:05, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Upper Palatinate for the contemporary administrative region of Oberpfalz does seem to be a case of translation overkill. Would it not be more consistent with Wikipedia practice elsewhere to head the relevant history articles "Upper Palatinate" but just use the German for the grey bureaucrats of today? In the 21st century, the two Palatinates have got nothing to do with one another.Tacitus 12:27, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

You're probably right. When it comes to the names for current places, I always want to follow my instinct as an English speaker in Germany. I can't imagine saying to someone "I'm going on vacation to the Upper Palatinate"; I'd always say "I'm going on vacation to the Oberpfalz". I don't know how verifiable that is though. —Angr 12:40, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

This should not be a limiting list; there are others which John didn't happen to think of; Meissen, for example. If we are going to give authority to this page, then Frankfurt an der Oder should be moved back to its traditional designation from Frankfurt (Oder), which is the recent German name, not received in English. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:08, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not happy about all this Palatinate stuff. The modern states of Germany have perfectly good names in the vernacular. Soccer fans have no trouble pronouncing FC Bayern. I'm in favour of at least allowing use of the modern German names for the states; if not going so far as banning the English names. They all link to each other anyway.

I should point out though that Germans and their civil servants (especially in the tourist information business!) are enthusiastic about translating placenames into English where ever they can.Nankai 22:17, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

and another thing... we are here to facilitate communication, it should all be judged on the ability to convey information to the reader: "Ernst August became the last Duke of Braunschweig" and "I'm going on vacation to the Upper Palatinate" can both clearly be ridiculed as impenetrable. Nankai 22:24, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

We need to be careful about deciding on naming policy based on what we might or might not say. Our own experience or preference may be a poor indicator of correct usage. In my translations I have referred to the geographical section of a major dictionary such as Langenscheidt's Muret-Sanders, on the basis that they've probably researched this rather better than I could hope to. In fact it would save a lot of debate if we selected a respectable source like that as a baseline which we could then add to Bermicourt (talk) 17:05, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Hello Bermicourt, nice to find you here. I still think, however, that a 50%-translation is not such a good idea. Also, using a dictionary does not answer the question wether the name should be translated at all. Or not. KapHorn (talk) 12:06, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Counties

On the Genealogy Wikia, people are writing about places their ancestors lived in. I like to match "en" WP names as closely as possible. This evening I looked up a link to WP, which redirected to County of Bentheim. On the face of it, that style of name is inconsistent with other countries' WP county names such as Los Angeles County.

I know that a significant difference is that the English-speaking ones were never ruled by Counts; but that's a weak reason for difference. An equally valid reason for making them match would be that the U.S. and other modern counties are generally officially called "County of ....", but WP reverses that for them so why not for Bentheim?

No specific standard seen on the couple of pages I've looked at here. Can someone point me to a WP "recommendation" page that I can link to, so that we more easily maintain harmony with "en" WP as far as possible for former placenames (without having to look up each one individually)? Robin Patterson 13:10, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

As you said, it's a different type of county. The County of Bentheim is a county as in "territory ruled by a Count". The modern German "Kreis", the equivalent of US "county", is translated as "district" following European Union suggestions, see Wikipedia:German-English translation requests/Translation guide. County of Mark is consistent with Duchy of Cleves, Archbishopric of Trier, and Lordship of Myllendonk: it seems to be common to use the "type of place" construction. For these places ruled by counts, searching Google Books and Google Scholar yields far more results of "County of place" than for "Place County", so ours seem to be the preferred translations. Kusma (talk) 13:39, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

That will do me, thanks. Robin Patterson 13:57, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Referring to Landkreise

I just came across this example on the Heilbronn page:

Heilbronn (German pronunciation: [haɪlˈbʁɔn]) is a city in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is completely surrounded by Heilbronn County and with approximately 121.989 (Statistisches Landesamt 30.06.2008) residents, it is the sixth-largest city in the state.

The term Heilbronn County grates to my European ears- and I had to flip to de:wiki to find out that this means Landkreis Heilbronn- and the article to which it links is Heilbronn (district). Has a policy been agreed? If that is the policy- shouldn't it be overturned? What do we do with this example?- It is completely surrounded by the Landkreis, (often translated as the district of) of Heilbronn. - would be my choice as no information has been lost. Then, if this has been done here, how many other articles are similarly unintelligible? --ClemRutter (talk) 21:25, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

You may not have heard it, but "county" is a common translation of Kreis or Landkreis used, for example, by the British Embassy and its liaison staff in Germany and has the advantage that names for subdivisions of a town, like Stadtteil or Distrikt, can be translated "district". However, "district" is apparently the EU translation. There is no hard and fast translation of many of these terms, because every country organises itself differently and many English terms have no precise meaning. One very confusing area is that Germans use Stadt to refer to both a town itself as well the area and villages it is responsible for, wheareas we would probably use "town" and something like "borough". Stadt can also mean "city" (I usually use the Großstadt definition for "city" i.e. population over 100,000). So, in summary, Kreis can be "county" or "district" as this convention already suggests. Take your pick, but please don't change existing articles willy-nilly. --Bermicourt (talk) 05:43, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I can just about stomach the sloppy translation from Kreis bis County, though I suggest that in future it will have to be re-examined- my issue is referring Landkreis Heilbronn to Heilbronn County. The only county name in UK that includes County in its name is County Durham- which would suggest that County Heilbronn would be the way to join these two nouns. (And that sounds awful!)When we consider Kent County Council, Kent quantifies which County Council but we could never say Kent County on its own. I am looking for a consistent policy, of how the words Landkreis and its nominal are joined in a description. I am not advocating 'district' as it is ambiguous, an imformation is lost in the translation but similarly I cannot justify making up pseudo-English, in the way (see above 2006) that Ore Mountains has been invented to refer to the Erzgebirge. The term county itself is problematic on UK articles- refering to either the traditional county, the administrative council and the ceremonial county. I have edited articles on a district,Heaton Moor that is in a different county on each count. Now with unitary authorities, metropolitan and non metropolitan counties and London boroughs all this seems very shaky. --ClemRutter (talk) 23:38, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

The convention agreed by the project is to follow the EU and call Landkreis rural district.--Boson (talk) 06:16, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Excelllent. And what a good read the EU guide is- particularly how it refers it readers to Wikipedia (but not in a way that would cause circular references). But to hammer this point: and establish the definitive answer.

Heilbronn (German pronunciation: [haɪlˈbʁɔn]) is a city in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is completely surrounded by Heilbronn County and with approximately 121.989 (Statistisches Landesamt 30.06.2008) residents, it is the sixth-largest city in the state. is the example I am considering.

Using the principles in the EU guide- do we translate this as

Heilbronn (German pronunciation: [haɪlˈbʁɔn]) is a city in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is completely surrounded by the separate Heilbronn rural distict and with approximately 121.989 (Statistisches Landesamt 30.06.2008) residents, it is the sixth-largest city in the state.

Or, use the local name where no common English name exists- and assume that local usage is to call the Landkreis- Landkreis Heilbronn.

Or, assume the local usage is to call it just Heilbronn- and to add a further explanation so it is unambiguous.

Heilbronn (German pronunciation: [haɪlˈbʁɔn]) is a city and urban district in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is completely surrounded by Heilbronn rural district with approximately 121.989 (Statistisches Landesamt 30.06.2008) residents, it is the sixth-largest city in the state.

With that question answered I think we will be bomb proof. --ClemRutter (talk) 13:28, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, my suggestions is as follows:

Heilbronn (German pronunciation: [haɪlˈbʁɔn]) is a city and urban district in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is completely surrounded by a rural district of the same name and, with approximately 121,989 residents, is the sixth-largest city in the state.

I try to avoid using terms like Landkreis in the text as the average English reader will not have a clue what is meant. I have also corrected the thousand separator and moved the source as a reference. Hope this helps.

• I tend to think we should just use Landkreis, untranslated. I am apparently in a minority on this. john k (talk) 20:59, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Referring to Stadtteile/Ortsteile

Does anyone have any suggestion for a standard practice on referring to Stadt-/Ortsteile? I just translated the Weinstadt article from German to English and found that to be a difficult problem. (And I only just now discovered this conventions page, so hopefully there aren't too many convention errors!) In any case, I've seen Stadtteile described as "city districts" and "neighborhoods", and en.wikipedia links "Stadtteil" to the article on Quarter (country subdivision). None of those terms apply sensibly to the Stadtteile of Weinstadt, which are group of historical (physically separate) towns that are now under the same city administration. In the Weinstadt article, I used the German term (with an explanation at the beginning of the article). Is there a better, recommended, or standard way to handle this? --Paigemorrison (talk) 12:06, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

The whole area of German administrative and settlement names (Großstadt, Stadt, Dorf, Kreis, Gemeinde, Ortsteil, Stadtteil, Kreisstadt, Stadtbezirk, Ortschaft,' etc.) is a minefield and nomenclature varies from state to state. The EU definitions used in the convention are IMHO inadequate to deal with all but the simplest cases. I was hoping to propose an improved guideline, but it's going to need more research!

To turn to your specific question. Weinstadt is a Stadt or "town" (since the population is <100,000, otherwise it's a Großstadt or "city"). But Stadt is used in two senses: it can refer a) to the town itself (the main built-up area) or b) the territory it administers which may contain a mix of town districts (also called suburbs, quarters, wards or neighbourhoods) and separate villages. For b) I translate Stadt as "borough", because it makes no sense to say a "town consists of 5 villages". Ortsteil is a generic word for a subdivision of a settlement. An Ortsteil may, for example, be a Stadtteil, which is a "subdivision" of a town. To translate it accurately you really need a map to decide what type of subdivision they are. I would say that Weinstadt is a town and its borough is divided into 5 municipalities (based on the extant German articles). Hope that helps. Bermicourt (talk) 20:32, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Bermicourt! I thought "borough" was only appropriate for a (Stadt-)bezirk, which is a division of Großstadt. In this case, the subdivision are existing settlements with a united local government -- i.e., they if you look a map, they are isolated from each other by hills or agricultural land. I think you've hit the nail on the head with the observation that "Stadt" can refer to both the administrative body and the territory, though. And a more thorough set of standards would be very useful. Looking into this a bit has given me an appreciation for how differently from British-influence European English my Californian/American English handles some of these subtleties. (In regular conversation, I would refer to "Weinstadt" as "city" rather than a "town," for example.) --Paigemorrison (talk) 22:55, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

No worries. I may have a go at translating the German articles on de:Ortsteil etc into English, which may help, but I need to do it carefully to avoid confusion! Bermicourt (talk) 06:17, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Universities

A contributor to the Germany Project page argued for native German names for universities. That does not seem to represent mainstream opinion. In general, Italian, Chinese and other Wikipedians do not seem to force foreign-language university titles on readers. I've suggested here how the headwords for universities can be presented in a way acceptable to the Wikipedia community internationally. As far as I can see, the majority of Wikipedia university entries employ simple descriptive headwords of the form "University of [[Placename]]", which is to say, regardless of what it calls itself, it is "the university" that is situated at that place. Further adornment needs only be prefixed if a town has multiple universities. The "of" form has the advantage of allowing for such a prefix, e.g. Technical University of Wagga-Wagga. In text, Wikipedia articles also naturally take this form, "In 1951, he switched to the University of Heidelberg where he majored in ..." (Kohl biography). Tacitus 22:11, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

It would make life a lot easier. Agathoclea 23:19, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Abbreviations

I suggest avoiding "GDR", "BRD" & "FRG", as I doubt that many English speakers outside the German speaking countries will know what they mean - and I suspect that not many more will know what "DDR" means. "East & West Germany", on the other hand, will be understood by almost all those who know what the cold war was. --87.187.77.229 16:58, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

For most articles in Wikipedia I would agree: the informal names are clear and well known. However "GDR" and "FRG" would be appropriate in articles about those pre-1990 political entities per se.Tacitus 19:46, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Capitalization in film titles

In film titles, the foreign version often becomes the title of the article, so we are having a discussion in Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (films)#Capitalization in titles, trying to establish what is correct for each language. It is clear the German nouns are capitalized, but how do we we go about the non-noun words? We would appreciate if you could drop us a line about it. Hoverfish Talk 20:57, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

English titles tend to capitalize most words. Exceptions could be things like of but it should be easy enaugh to find out how any particular film is spelt by going on imdb or similar. Agathoclea 18:17, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Format for German places

Since there is now a concentrated effort at Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany/Cities to bring articles on municipalities/towns/cities up to standard, perhaps it is time to come up with some sort of format for these articles. At the moment, the focus is on making sure that all articles actually exist. The next step is to add content. We probably don't need something as detailed as de:Wikipedia:Formatvorlage Stadt but some clear guidelines would help. I've started up a page at here, giving what I believe to be the necessary minimum requirements for such articles. Any comments and help with setting this up would be appreciated. - 52 Pickup 15:28, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Existing guidelines

Large parts of this should be considered for inclusion on Wikipedia:Naming conventions (settlements). There is also a discussion on the possibility of a world-wide convention on its talk-page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:59, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposed standard practice within the project for names containing ßäöü

Where there is no common English name (like Munich), it seems to be standard practice for articles on German locations to use the correct German name, including ä,ö,ü,and ß. This takes account of the need for correctness.

In order to cater to American readers unfamiliar with both the correct names and the standard transliterations, I suggest making the following additional measures declared recommended practice in the project:

1. The template {{Foreignchar}} (or an equivalent) should always be used (explaining each "foreign" character, with links).
2. A redirect should always be provided for the standard transliteration (ß->ss; ä->ae; ö->oe; ü->ue)
3. A redirect should always be provided for the non-standard (American) transliteration omitting diacritics.

Thus, the article on a place called Füßen would start with

and would have a redirect from Fussen as well as Fuessen. In this case, of course, Fuessen would have to be a disambiguation link rather than a redirect, because there is als a town called "Füssen". --Boson 14:21, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

in this case actually:

The other template is for single characters only. Agathoclea 19:16, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

The main confusion here is that a "ß" is likely to be read by the uninitiated English speaker as a "B". That's why respected guidebooks such as Michelin, Lonely Planet, etc, translate it to "ss", but leave the umlauted letters as they are. The trouble is that many of the German articles are either created by Germans or by German-speakers like myself, so we're happy with "ß" and fully understand it. But one of Wikipedia's principles is to aim articles at the lay reader. So shouldn't we default to "ss" with the German spelling in the introduction? Bermicourt (talk) 16:38, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

It is not our job to translate but to record the commonly used spelling. In the absence or common different English usage it defaults to the original. Agathoclea (talk) 13:46, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

We do aim for correctness, so we often enough try to explain the pronunciation of a word using IPA or a sound sample. We shouldn't have to choose between "correct but inaccessible" and "accessible but incorrect". Instead, we can use what is correct and use hyperlinks to explain it, for example using the {{foreignchar}} template. Kusma (talk) 13:50, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

But our job is to translate where other languages and alphabets are concerned. Otherwise articles would be intelligible. And the commonly-used original spelling can be added in brackets in the introduction. With languages like Chinese and Russian we cannot leave names in the original; hardly anyone would be able to read them. Here we only have one letter that causes real confusion, the ß. That's why most guidebooks convert it to "ss" - it's sensible English practice. The phonetic versions don't help the layman either (and aren't part of the title); you need to learn another language to be able to interpret them. I love the ß and was disappointed with the new spelling rules that got rid of many of them, but we need to think of the vast majority of English-speaking users, not us 'experts'. 81.137.199.176 (talk) 13:03, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

While using ss instead of ß isn't as bad as using l instead of ł, a instead of ä or n instead of ñ (the only case where confusion can arise is when writing Masse (mass) instead of Maße (measures)), we should nevertheless strive for correctness. Chinese and Russian names we transliterate in a mostly uniform way; for languages that use the Latin alphabet we usually use the local form unless there is a clear preference in English for a specific spelling (the classic example are Czech-American ice hockey players who have their names spelled in the way US newspapers do). To avoid confusion for the layman, we create redirects from alternate spellings and note possible transliterations where necessary. Anyway, part of the problem is that there is an established standard in English to write "Cologne" and "Nuremberg", but no established standard exists how to write the names of local subway stations (I'm not sure we should even have articles about those; and they don't usually appear in scholarly literature in English). It may be convenient to transliterate the ß to ss for those, but this is only helpful to readers who know that they mean the same thing. Else, people might start believing that Vossstrasse and Voßstraße are different things or places. And don't you think articles should be intelligible? Kusma (talk) 13:17, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Of course articles should be intelligible, that's why I'm advocating the "ss" in titles and text (with the original German as an explanation). And we should aim for correctness too, but correct doesn't mean unchanged? Even the German-speaking world can't agree. In Switzerland and Lichtenstein "ss" is always acceptable, so it's not a black and white case at all. And clearly, good practice from the guidebook industry is to make it easy to read for their readers. They don't see it as a problem. I wish English-speakers had a higher literacy of the German language - I hate to hear them mispronounce stuff which is so obvious to me - but the reality is, they don't have...and we should respect that. Even the Wikipedia article on ß says "English speakers unfamiliar with German orthography may also confuse ß with B (the Latin letter which is derived from the Greek beta), which is also incorrect." This is not about me - I love the German language - it's about others, the majority, who don't. But we're not going to agree on this, so let's do some independent research. What do the main written English-language encyclopedias do? I'll go with them. 81.137.199.176 (talk) 13:36, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Other encyclopedias don't tell us what the established English spelling for obscure topics is... anyway, we follow the scholarly literature and use Meissen for Meißen, but in the absence of English-language publications about Großpösna, there is no reason for us to confuse people by giving a new spelling for it. There is really no reason to treat the ß differently from diacritics (don't you agree that we should use those even though most people don't know what they mean? I don't know how to pronounce ő,ť, or ŗ, but we should include the diacritics to warn people that we don't mean o, t, or r) Kusma (talk) 13:48, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

The difference is that with ő,ť, or ŗ we recognise the basic letters. But no English-speaker would recognise ß. So Voßstraße looks like "Vobstrabe". It's Greek to him! And if the Swiss can get away with "ss", and they understand German(!), why force it on foreigners who don't? And about encyclopedias: we don't need to find a word match for every individual word, we just need to discover the rule they use to write words with ß (excluding Meissen). The Michelin Guide for Germany is very clear; they convert to "ss" in every case. But what about Encyclopedia Britannica? I'll have a look sometime! 81.137.199.176 (talk) 17:40, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Even though the various german-speaking areas don't always agree, a place usually has only one name, with just one correct spelling, and that should be found here in the english wikipedia. Wether as a re-direct or article remains to be seen, depending on importance and so on, but otherwise, the encyclopedia would be incomplete. Personally, I think an article on a german place should be found under that place's name, modified if commonly used so in english (Meissen instead of Meißen), but not under more or less common alternatives. KapHorn (talk) 12:06, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes an uninitiated English speaker will have problems reading ß ä ö ü but surely it is the job of an encyclopedia to educate. The correct spelling should be the the article title but the alternative spelling (ss ae ...) should be in the first line. Also the alternative spellings as redirects is a good idea. Traveler100 (talk) 19:40, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Yep that is what {{Foreignchar}} is for. Agathoclea (talk) 20:46, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Please see Talk:Gießen, Talk:Weißenfels, and Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(use_English)#Modified_letters: Wikipedia does not decide what characters are to be used in the name of an article's subject; English usage does. Wikipedia has no rule that titles must be written in certain characters, or that certain characters may not be used. Versions of a name which differ only in the use or non-use of modified letters should be treated like any other versions: Follow the general usage in English reliable sources in each case, whatever characters may or may not be used in them. --Espoo (talk) 23:47, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that English usage varies. Most texts accept ä, ö and ü; although you occasionally see ae, oe, ue as substitutes. However some sources use the ß and others the ss. Of course the Swiss (and Austrians?) never use ß anyway. I now use the German spelling in my translated articles, not least for consistency. --Bermicourt (talk) 09:26, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Where there is no single established English name, the German rules should be followed.--Boson (talk) 15:47, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

But, as pointed out above, even that varies! Straße in Germany, Strasse in Switzerland and Lichtenstein! --Bermicourt (talk) 17:20, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, indeed. Perhaps WP:Naming conventions and WP:Naming conventions (use English) should be changed to read "follow the conventions of the language (and language variant) in which the entity is most often talked about", which seems to be the convention actually applied, giving Langstrasse in Switzerland and Leipziger Straße in Germany.--Boson (talk) 17:41, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Wilhelmstrasse has been moved back and forth and Voßstraße has been another locus of debates. Haukur (talk) 18:42, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I would like to propose the following convention for spelling of German proper nouns: ÄÖÜäöü are retained, because they do not confuse the reader of English, but ß is resolved to ss, because it's not generally recognized as an s-z ligature. This is in keeping with (a) common publishing practice (I'm a translator by trade) and (b) the very EU style sheet cited in the lede here! It says on p. 29: "5.2 Personal names should retain their original accents, e.g. Cañete, Malmström, Šefčovič. However, the German ß is replaced with ss, e.g. Clauss." To get ahead of a few arguments that have appeared in specific cases: The s-z ligature has, in recent decades, come to be considered a letter in German. In English it is not a letter, it is the typographical representation of two letters -- ss (archaically, sz) -- in German too, it was originally two letters, ſ (long s) and z or later s. (Traditional German typography also has ligatures for ck, ch, ſt and tz; we can be glad those have not been carried over into Roman typefaces as well!) Hence the proposed convention is not about German spelling; it's about English typography. Second, Germans readily substitute ss for ß themselves wherever the ß glyph is not available. Until recent typographic reforms, it was customary to do so when hyphenating or when capitalizing. Third, Switzerland has as good a claim to the German language as anyone else, and they do not use the s-z ligature at all. Fourth, persons whose native language is not English are kindly requested to abstain from this debate, since the perceptions of native English speakers (readers) are a considerable part of the issue. Wegesrand (talk) 15:06, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Brackets in town names

is the rule that the German disambiguation system for town names is left out, and not done by brackets still enforced? Towns with brackets in their official German name, like Frankfurt (Oder) and Fürstenwalde (Spree), should be moved by that rule? There has been few support for this rule in Talk:Frankfurt (Oder), when the move has been discussed. Probably because the resulting creations like "Frankfurt an der Oder" could be original thought. I'm active in the German Wikipedia, and we have lots of rules that are not enforced and objected by the "reign of the minority". We even have articles move-protected by admins who don't want to have them at the discussed headword. I don't hope this will also be such a big problem here in en.wiki. --androl (talk) 20:16, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

• I did, and still do, support moving to Frankfurt an der Oder, or even Frankfort on Oder, until the parenthesis catches on in English - if it ever does. We do not usually have admin problems; we have small handfuls of patriotic users of different nations, each of which wants to make en.wiki use their national style. None of them seem to reciprocate by moving fr:Londres or de:Kalifornien, though....Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:15, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Subdivisions ?

Hi there, I've asked there: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Germany/Cities#Naming convention ? about naming conventions of subdivisions. May somebody have a answer for the Hamburg-Foo question or it is the Foo problem ? Plz ;-) Sebastian scha. (talk) 19:01, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Placenames (2)

The guidance on translating placenames so far is extremely useful, but problems and debates still occur in some areas. There are at least 2 relevant rules: "Use English" and "Use the original if there is no established English usage". For proper nouns this would be easy except for one feature of German: the compound noun, where a proper noun and an ordinary noun are combined. Having looked at major dictionaries and tourist guides it is clear that there is no absolute answer, but there appear to be 3 groups:

Group A

Use the original full German word, unless there is an accepted English equivalent. "River" may be added for disambiguation purposes:

• Cities, towns and villages: Wuppertal, Passau; but Munich for München and Nuremberg for Nürnberg.
• Lakes and mountains: Ammersee, Zugspitze, Kreuzberg; but Lake Constance for Bodensee and Lake Brienz for Briezersee.
• Rivers: Aabach, Main, Lech River; but Rhine for Rhein and Moselle for Mosel.

Group B

Split the compound word, do not translate the proper noun, unless it has an accepted English equivalent, and translate the ordinary noun e.g. "tal" as "valley":

• Valleys: Rhine Valley for Rheintal, Moselle Valley for Moseltal. In the text it could also be rendered "valley of the Rhine". Usually capital "V" when it follows the proper noun. Possible exception: use the original word where it refers to a district or town e.g. Rheintal district (or perhaps where the valley is not named after the river??).
• Bridges and viaducts: Theodor Heuss Bridge (Düsseldorf) for Theodor-Heuss-Brücke, Weihe Valley Bridge for Weihetalbrücke, Landwasser Viaduct for Landwasserviadukt.
• Mountain passes: Oberjoch Pass for Oberjochpass, Feldberg Pass for Feldbergpass and Julier Pass for Julierpass.
• Ravines and gorges: Wutach Ravine for Wutachklamm
• Tunnels: Rennsteig Tunnel for Rennsteigtunnel
• Glaciers: Palü Glacier for Palügletscher, Aletsch Glacier for Aletschgletscher

Group C

Not compound nouns, but added for completeness. There are two words in German; leave the proper noun in the original, but translate the ordinary noun:

• Dams: Rappbode Dam or even Rappbode Valley Dam for Talsperre Rappbode.
• Bays: Eckernförde Bay for Eckenförde Bucht, Bay of Mecklenburg for Mecklenburgische Bucht
• Castles: Hohenschwangau Castle for Schloß Hohenschwangau, Falkenstein Castle for Burg Falkenstein
• Waterfalls: Lichtenhain Waterfall for Lichtenhainer Wasserfall

Additional guidelines

• Adjectives: Convert to a noun, e.g. Lichtenhain Waterfall for Lichtenhainer Wasserfall, unless there is a recognised English adjective, e.g. Bavarian Forest for Bayerischer Wald
• Hyphens: remove (in Groups B and C) unless they would be used in English, e.g. Theodor Heuss Bridge for Theodor-Heuss-Brücke, Main-Neckar Railway for Main-Neckar-Bahn
• Original German name: For Groups B and C, the German name should be a redirect, should be included in the introduction and should be interwiki-linked

A fair question is "Why are the Group B words treated differently from Group A?" In the case of valleys I think it is that they are named after another feature - the river. So you are unlikely to hear an English-speaker refer to the Rheintal or Maintal, he would say the "Rhine Valley" or "valley of the Main". In German it's the same, but the word for valley is added to the end of the proper name to form a compound noun. Perhaps the same doesn't apply to e.g. lakes and mountains because a) valley is always "-tal", whereas mountains can be e.g "-spitze", "-berg", "-kuppe", "-horn", and b) lakes and mountains aren't usually named after a separate geographical feature. Also, even in English, we tend to refer to mountains by their name only: "I've climbed Snowdon", "at the top of Everest"; but we always use e.g. "valley", "bridge" or "pass" to describe other features. What do others think and, just as importantly, what are the precedences in other reliable sources? --Bermicourt (talk) 17:32, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

As nearly a month has passed with no comment, I propose to move the above guidelines shortly to a new section in this article (noting that the article is clearly tagged as a "proposed" guideline anyway). I see this as "work in progress" and hope others will help me to continue to add to it in due course. --Bermicourt (talk) 17:35, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

OK. FWIW, I didn't comment because I liked it, and had no objections. :) Amalthea 21:24, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Wether it's Eckernförde Bay or Bay of Eckernförde for Eckernförder Bucht is I think a more inner-english matter to decide - I would have thought Bay of would be the more common expression, but that's just me. And you know my opinion about valleys :) - still think it should be Höllen Valley, not Hölle Valley (no river Hölle there, remember?). I appreciate the trouble you went to as much as the result you came up with. KapHorn (talk) 13:35, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I suggest we only use "Bay of XXX" if this is already the accepted English name (e.g. "Bay of Biscay") otherwise it sounds a bit prententious. That said general phrases like "the valley of the XXX", "the bay of XXX", "the bridge over the XXX" would seem fine (but note the capitalisation). I agree with you about "Höllen Valley" where there is no geographical feature after which it's named, but one of the Höllentäler has a village of Hölle in it. In the end there will always be exceptions and difficult ones which we need to thrash out on a case-by-case basis. The guidelines should hopefully cover the majority. --Bermicourt (talk) 20:38, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Shortly, this isn't the place. You're right. Sorry. Guess I'll just have to drop by Hölle and ask (when, if ever), then might get back to it. KapHorn (talk) 06:50, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Hölle appears to be named after the village in the valley (or the other way around) I can just remember the red figure of the devil standing on the roadside the last time I drove through. Agathoclea (talk) 09:19, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

• There is a request for comment at WT:NCGN, which led me here. I have seen this before, and, like others, didn't comment because it seems quite reasonable. For those who care, Bay of X is a little more formal than X Bay, and usage probably varies from case to case; follow English sources. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:01, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you to all who have commented. I have now added the above to the guidelines and tried to dovetail it into the existing sections. Feel free to improve on this in the normal Wiki fashion. I hope it proves helpful and encourages greater consistency across WikiProject Germany's expanding contribution to Wikipedia. --Bermicourt (talk) 19:55, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! Amalthea 20:31, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Lacks

As presented here, the rules are deficient:

There are lots of compound names, all parts of which are general terms, such as Schneeberg, Feldberg, Hoher Berg, Höllental, Bärental, Neuer Graben, Großes Meer, Neustadt, Lange Brücke, Eiserner Steg.

Translating half of any of these names would be a linguistical mess.

Translating them totally would make it difficult to identify the original, sometimes.

Sometimes total translation, used as title, would distroy regional tradition (Oldendorf and Altdorf mean Old Village, both).

In other cases the specified part of a name has lost its original general meaning, such as town names on "-burg".

In some cases total translation would neglect or invent etymology: Is Fellhorn a Pelt-Horn or a F(j)ell-Horn?

Imagine, what would happen to English names, if they were translated extensively: "Goat Fell" would become "Geißberg", "Newton-on-Ouse" would become "Neustadt an der Ouse" or "Neuveville-sur-Ouse".

Half translations wouldn't be better: Chippendale has not to be Chippental. Rainhill shloud be neither Regenhügel nor Rainhügel ("Rain" could be either untranslated or "Riverside"), in German WP, Brentwood neither Brennholz (a nice translation) nor Brentwald.

Therefore translations of names should be kept very reserved.

Sometimes one should be flexible: "Hölllentalbahn" is represented well by "Höllental Railway", for "Zugspitzbahn" (consisting of Zugspitze an Bahn) either "Zugspitzbahn" or (for German ears ugly) "Zugspitze Railway".

In some translations, the different conventions of German and English nomenclature have to be take care of: "Elbe-Havel-Kanal" is better translated to "Elbe and Havel Canal" than to "Elbe–Havel Canal".

--Ulamm (talk) 17:41, 5 April 2010 (UTC)+--Ulamm (talk) 18:06, 5 April 2010 (UTC)+Ulamm (talk) 22:24, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

No guidelines will be perfect or cover every situation. But to answer your points:

Many compound nouns you mention are already covered. Schneeberg, Feldberg and Hoher Berg are hills that would not be translated. Höllental has been debated and left because it is not the valley of a river Hölle. Ditto Bärental. Most of the others would probably go untranslated except that Lange Brücke (if it's a manmade bridge) could well be "Long Bridge" with the German after it.

Most of the other examples you quote are clearly don't make sense to translate, but be careful not to use extreme examples to justify a general rule. There are many others that it does make sense to translate or which have common English names e.g. Lake Brienz or the Red Main. And where there is no English equivalent because the subject is not well known, we should take cognizance of how more famous subjects of the same type are handled.

I agree with your point about canals - i.e. we should use English naming styles for them with "and". I think there is also a case for doing this with railways, where we use the form "Exeter to Plymouth Line" or occasionally "Newcastle and Carlisle Railway". But that would need a separate discussion! Bermicourt (talk) 06:34, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguation of place names

The guidance on disambiguating place names is generally helpful, but I have just come across one case which it doesn't seem to cover. Currently we have Hassel (Bergen) and Hassel, Lower Saxony. This is not clever because both are in Lower Saxony! The first is in the borough of Bergen, Lower Saxony, the second in the district of Nienburg, Lower Saxony. German Wiki lists them as Hassel (Bergen) and Hassel (Weser), but this approach is deprecated by the convention which suggests the second one at least should be something like Hassel am Weser, but there is no evidence that this is a name used in German. Since both are in Lower Saxony, possible options might be:

• Hassel (Bergen) and Hassel (Weser)
• Hassel, Bergen and Hassel, Weser
• Hassel, Bergen and Hassel, Nienburg
• Hassel, Bergen, Lower Saxony and Hassel, Nienburg, Lower Saxony - follows similar convention for US i.e. town, county, state

Views? --Bermicourt (talk) 19:59, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I am not actually sure that the convention laid out on the project page makes sense or really describes current practice. The US convention of naming the state (and county) is never used in Germany; I wouldn't like to impose it here as that means "unnatural" names for many cities. For independent entities, the disambiguator is (in German) essentially a part of the placename these days, and they are disambiguated in different ways that are standard to each city. For examples, see de:Neustadt: there is de:Neustadt/Westerwald, de:Neustadt (Hessen), de:Neustadt an der Weinstraße. I recall a move request where it was decided to move the city name to Frankfurt (Oder), which is the form of the name used by people in Frankfurt (Oder). My suggestion would be to follow German practice when this doesnt' conflict with other (non-German city) article titles. In case of conflict of that type , I would rather add ", Germany" or " (Germany)" than add the name of the state. Kusma (talk) 04:24, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I think there is a logic in following the German convention e.g. Verden (Aller) since it is de facto a disambiguated system already. I would also be happy with the full title e.g. Verden an der Aller which also needs no disambiguation. In either case the text and the redirects need to cover the recognised alternatives. If we go down this route, we may also need to explain to the WikiProject Geography folk why their overall convention isn't optimal for German (and Swiss and Austrian??) place names and seek a refinement of it for the German world. --Bermicourt (talk) 18:10, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

The German conventions of the parenthesis and the slash are barely used in English, and are recent innovations in German. We should be calling the city Frankfurt an der Oder, as German used to, and English still does. Similarly, here, Hassel an der Weser; like most rivers, except the Rhine and the Main, it is feminine. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:17, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

WP:NCGN acknowledges that different systems suit different countries. We do have an unusual problem in that we have to disambiguate towns which are uniquely named in Germany, but have towns named after them in Australia or Alberta or Kansas. German usage ignores this problem, but we can't. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:21, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

A very good point. In which case why not go with e.g. Bleckmar if the name is unique, Hassel (Bergen) if it needs disambiguation within Germany, and Herne, Germany or Worms, Germany if it needs international or English language disambiguation. In other words, if disambiguation is needed let's use the existing official Germany system where possible; if not, follow standard Wiki practice and use "Xxxxx, Germany". Exception: if there is an accepted anglicised name like Munich. --Bermicourt (talk) 16:43, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Which existing official system? Berlin-Spandau is not what the community is called in English; Berlin/Spandau verges on the unintelligible; we should call it Spandau, and disambiguate (as we do). Similarly, I prefer Verden an der Aller to the short form. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:09, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

There are "official" disambiguators for all independent communities. The type of disambiguation can vary from city to city, but is more natural than following American convention and adding the state after a comma. I don't really know what the best way to disambiguate boroughs or localities is, but Wedding (Berlin) is probably okay. Kusma (talk) 06:40, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Wedding (Berlin) is fine, and probably unavoidable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:33, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

We are confusing two practices. First the practice of hyphenating city districts e.g. Berlin-Spandau which is a similar, but separate debate. Second the practice of disambiguation of German village and town names in brackets e.g. Hassel (Bergen) which appears to be officially sanctioned and IIRC is shown on roadsigns. Basing it on personal preference will lead to anarchy, whereas following the authoritative naming system, where disambiguation is needed, will lead to consistency and avoid confusion. In particular, the approach of using the full name works for Hassel an der Weser, but not for Hassel [which is not an der] Bergen. --Bermicourt (talk) 20:45, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Natural regions

I have created a number of articles on Germany's natural regions (see natural regions of Germany) which has entailed tracking down the English equivalents of these regional names where they exist in the sources. I have added a section which briefly summarises this in the convention. --Bermicourt (talk) 08:25, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

En-dash for Main-Neckar Railway?

I have just noticed this:

• Hyphens: remove (in Groups B and C) unless they would be used in English, e.g. Theodor Heuss Bridge for Theodor-Heuss-Brücke, Main-Neckar Railway for Main-Neckar-Bahn

Shouldn't that be "Main–Neckar Railway", with an en-dash (both here and in the article name), like Rhine–Main–Danube Canal? The English Wikipedia MoS seems to require an en-dash. There should, of course, be a redirect. The German Wikipedia may regard it as a Bindestrich rather than a Streckenstrich, but I think we would have to regard it as a from-to dash, which requires an en-dash.--Boson (talk) 15:22, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

No, because the railway is not running from the Main to the Neckar rivers, but is named after them. The convention is en-dash for routes e.g. Celle–Soltau railway, as you rightly point out, and hyphen for normal linking of two nouns. Watch out for railway companies which are named after the two places linked by their main railway, but where a hyphen is used regardless because it's a company name. This is the same convention as on German Wikipedia and seems to work well. Trust me - I've translated hundreds of railway articles! Gruß. --Bermicourt (talk) 16:46, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

• That railway links Francfort-on-Main to Heidelberg-on-Neckar. Any look on an appropriate map shows that it's running from the Main to the Neckar rivers, no doubt.
• Furthermore I suggest to adapt the English lemma to English customs of naming. That way it ought to be “Main and Neckar Railway”.--Ulamm (talk) 01:02, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Hesse-Cassel or Hesse-Kassel

possibly foolishly, I have re-opened the C-or-K naming dispute at Talk:William VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel#Proposed move (3). If you have a strong opinion either way as to whether we should use the C form or the K form in the articles in question, please express it there. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 09:28, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

My understanding is that the German language switched from C to K during the early 20th century (1920s?). So Cassel was the original name and is probably more correct for historic articles, whereas Kassel is the present-day name. Likewise Köln used to be the very odd-looking Cöln. I think same occurred with the letters th which became t i.e. Thal became Tal. --Bermicourt (talk) 20:45, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Cities, towns and villages

Again, to bring a degree of consistency and clear the confusion over whether a Stadt is a town or a city, I would like to propose an addition to the convention along the following lines:

Settlements

In general, terms for settlements may be translated as follows:

• Weiler as hamlet (place). In Bavaria, a settlement of less than 10 homes. Otherwise loosely defined.
• Dorf as village. A settlement of 10 homes or more (Bavaria) and under 2,000 (in Austria 5,000) inhabitants.
• Stadt as town if between 2,000 and 100,000 inhabitants or as city if over 100,000 (see Großstadt).
• Großstadt as a city, defined in Germany as a settlement of over 100,000 inhabitants.

It should be noted that Stadt is often used more widely than the guideline above, e.g. there are towns such as Arnis, Germany with under 2,000 inhabitants which were granted Stadt status (town privileges) in the distant past.

Any comments? --Bermicourt (talk) 18:55, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Did you know this: Wikipedia:German-English translation requests/Translation guide? Sebastian scha. (talk) 19:19, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, yes. That's the EU list of definitions of German administrative units which the convention has already imported. My concern is mainly how to refer to cities, towns and villages when either the context is not clear, or the word Stadt is used which can mean any one of those three. --Bermicourt (talk) 21:25, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

'kay, is there any convention of a wikiproject:settlements (or whatever name)? then I thin we should just take these. I'm absolutely not in favor for many detailed rules or guidelines, if a 'higher' convention exists. Sebastian scha. (talk) 06:32, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

If you mean where did I get the 'definitions' of size (e.g. 2,000 < German town < 100,000) - they come from the German Wiki articles on Stadt and Dorf. These point out that the definition of town varies from country to country (e.g. a town in France is over 2,000 people, in England over 10,000), so I've gone with the German definitions. Why does it matter? Two examples: Places over 100,000 are often referred to in German as a Stadt e.g. de:Hannover, but with a population of half a million we would invariably call it a city. But then where's the boundary? I'm suggesting it's 100,000 which is the German qualification for a Großstadt. Secondly, places are often referred to as Ortsteil, Ortschaft, or Gemeinde which can be translated as "community" or "municipality", but often the context suggests "village" or "town" e.g. Dohnsen is described as an Ortschaft and with a population of just 857 is clearly a village. Again where's the boundary though? I'm not suggesting we follow this slavishly, it's a guideline like the rest of the convention, but it helps me in translating articles on places. Does that make sense? --Bermicourt (talk) 20:00, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

• • • German interwikilinks reformated Agathoclea (talk) 07:29, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, maybe some historical aspects are important too, like Stadtrecht (town or city rights?). See Arnis, Germany, only now 300 people, a former Flecken (de:Flecken (Ort)) but got city (town?) rights in 1934. But to differ generally the population seems to be okay. Sebastian scha. (talk) 21:59, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

You're right - there are exceptions, hence the caveat above (which I've amended to include the link to town privileges). Incidentally I've just changed the "city" to "town" in the Arnis article: another example of the confusion in translating Stadt! --Bermicourt (talk) 06:52, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

The arbitrary >2000 must go. The key is the German Stadtrecht (see also City#The difference between towns and cities which on very cursory reading suggests that there is an lower limit for giving the right now, but there is no disqualification for going below that number after that. Incidentally the 10000 limit in England is not quite right as Parishes can elect to be a Town and the City of St Davids - don't get me started on that one. I personally was never happy using the term town for cities <100000 but have come to appreciate the consensus that has developed here over the years and the importance of a consistent nomenclature. Agathoclea (talk) 07:29, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Flag, country of birth and nationality

When I made a few minor additions to Johann Friedrich August Gottling, I noticed that the residence had been entered in the infobox as residence = Germany and the nationality as nationality = German, and that these entries seem to be incorrect for the dates 1753-1809. The same may well apply to the countries of birth and death, which have been entered as Germany. Are there any guidelines for the correct usage of flags, countries and nationalities in historical articles about Germany? Coyets (talk) 10:41, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

WP:FLAGBIO applies regarding the birth/death places. Nationality is a tricky one going back in time. If needed particular care must be taken to get it right. Agathoclea (talk) 22:39, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the link to the Wikipedia guideline on the use of flags. In the article I mentioned, there are no flags for the countries of birth and death, and this seems to be correct. The Wikipedia guideline states that the historically correct flags should be used, but surely the flag in this infobox is not the national flag between 1753 and 1809. The article on the flag of Germany states, "With the formation of the Weimar Republic after World War I, the tricolour was adopted as the national flag of Germany". So surely any use of this flag for any residence or nationality before 1919 is incorrect. Do the guidelines on nationality and residence mean that in the article I mentioned, Germany should be replaced by Holy Roman Empire throughout, or should the country of birth be Holy Roman Empire, the countries of death and residence Saxe-Weimar and nationality German (without a flag)? Coyets (talk) 11:00, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I would only put down a nationality that you have a reference for. As for flags: this edit suggests a dislike for those kind of flags. More so, that you actually link to the images and do not use {{flagicon}} or {{flagcountry}}. These templates have the advantage that it hides the flag from users who (like myself) choose not to see those flags, while making them available to the rest. See {{Country data Germany}} for the various available variants. Agathoclea (talk) 22:44, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Sounds right - no anachronisms in the guise of pretty decoration. The rule is simple: if in doubt, leave it out. If the nationality or appropriate flag is unclear or debateable, remain silent on the matter. It is better to say nothing than risk misinforming. Knepflerle (talk) 12:58, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Titles of royalty and nobility

Forgive me if I have this wrong, but the example of a German nobleman's title given in the project page here seems to contradict its own convention which says we should translate their Christian names into English. Unless I am mistaken Ernst August, Prince of Hanover (b. 1954) should be Ernest Augustus, Prince of Hanover (b. 1954), shouldn't it? --Bermicourt (talk) 20:58, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't see Christian names being mentioned - only titles. Agathoclea (talk) 18:00, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Durn, you are right. But there does seem to be a (perhaps unwritten) convention of using the English version of German (French, etc) Christian names for nobility, e.g. Henry the Lion (Heinrich), Henry IV of France (Henri), Charles the Fat (Karl), Conrad II (Konrad), Philip of Swabia (Philipp), Wenceslaus (Wenzel), Francis II (Franz), Albert II (Albrecht), Frederick the Fair (Friedrich) and so on. --Bermicourt (talk) 19:29, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

We translate when that is the most commonly used form in English, but not when it isn't. Note that we don't have John Charles I of Spain, even though we do have Charles IV of Spain and John II of Castile. john k (talk) 13:45, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Redundancies

I'd like to know wether there's a convention regarding resulting redundancies in translating names by adding a descrpitive term? Article in qst. is the Invalidenfriedhof Cemetery, which currently is listed as "Cemetery Of The Invalids Cemetery" - that's kinda awkward. The issue sounds familiar, but I can't recall where I read it before. --G-41614 (talk) 14:29, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Berlin city translates it as "Invalids' Cemetery" as does ww2museums. Certainly the titles "Invalidenfriedhof Cemetery" and "Cemetery Of The Invalids Cemetery" (where does that appear?) are clumsy and tautologous. I have moved the article to Invalid's Cemetery. Interestingly, this would appear to add a "Group D" to our guide on translation of place names: i.e. compound nouns where both parts - the proper noun and the descriptor - can be sensibly translated into English. Unless anyone objects I will amend the convention accordingly in a few days time using this as an example. --Bermicourt (talk) 19:15, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Thnx for beating me there - would've been the first time I'd have moved a page. I certainly did make myself not clear when I wrote above post - it was never listed anywhere as "Cemetery Of etc. etc.". That was just me interpreting the lemma for those who do not speak german. Sorry. On amending the convention - that I think is a good idea, basically. Except there may be a need to distinguish somehow between terms that need translation and those that don't. Or perhaps distinguish between those that need to be translated because they might not be generally known in english by their german names (like aforementioned Invalidenfriedhof) and those that might not. I'd have a hard time imagining someone searching on en:wiki for e. g. Lake Wann. But perhaps that's just me. Regards, --G-41614 (talk) 11:00, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Wannsee is in Group A - do not translate - although there are exceptions. Bermicourt (talk) 12:06, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Oops - thnx. --G-41614 (talk) 08:51, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Höllental and Hölle Valley

I have extracted this discussion from the above section and created a new section header as it is becoming a 'hot topic' for some users. Please do not move articles until this discussion is completed. --Bermicourt (talk) 11:10, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

To Hölle with this! After rereading, I'd like to add that to the inconsistencies in group A, Höllental needs to be added. You just mentioned that Wannsee goes there (greatly appreciated), Ammersee's there, too (Ammer Lake? Yes, it's a compound), so - no dropping letters. Or I'll be so mean as to ask why it's Wannsee, not Wan Lake. Ok, that's just kidding. But I will continue to maintain that you will have to get off this ridiculous idea of Hölle Valley. C'mon, it's one valley - the exception that proves your rule about valleys. Besides, we're in agreement that the valley was not named after any river, right? Here I go again, --G-41614 (talk) 16:20, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Translation is not an exact science and the convention is not meant to be black and white, implying all other options are wrong. It's meant to bring a consistent and acceptable approach. Höllental is a difficult one. Normally XXXtal refers to a valley through which a river XXX flows. In English we would usually call it the "XXX valley", "XXX Valley" or, in the text, "the valley of the XXX". XXX does not get translated because it is the proper name part of the German compound word. However, Höllental has a least 3 possible derivations:

• It may be a valley named after a river called the Hölle; in which case the convention works i.e. "Hölle valley"
• It may be a valley named after a village called Hölle - see Hölle Valley (Franconian Forest) - in which case "Hölle valley" might still be acceptable. Or leave it entirely in German.
• It may derive from the German word for "hell" (Hölle) - Hölle Valley (Black Forest) - in which case we can either leave it entirely in German or translate it as "Hell Valley". The latter is often used by tourist organisations because it is a clearly understandable and 'attractive' term, so it is not wrong.

So what I am saying is that it depends on the derivation of the name for that particular valley and that, unless it is named after a river, we don't have a hard and fast rule, but at least 2 acceptable choices. Exceptions to the main convention are okay, provided we have some logic for them. What do others think about the Höllental question? --Bermicourt (talk) 07:03, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Far as I'm concerned, you delivered the answer yourself in your third point. I'd like to add the opinion that an english speaker, of whatever nationality, who finds a Hölle Valley would likely be looking for Hölletal in Germany, but perhaps not necessarily understand that it ought to be Höllental. Sure the german name is mentioned in the article. But who of us is immune to reading along one's expectations? It would be easy to miss that additional "n" when one is reading an article about "Hölle Valley". As to the valley, you got several Höllentäler, but only one comes with a Hölle nearby. I just saw that now there are two disambiguations, one for Höllental and one for Hölle Valley. Sorry, but now I'm wondering again - would an english speaker look for Hölle Valley on en:wp when he read the german Höllental? Read u later & regards, --G-41614 (talk) 09:25, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Don't forget that we can use redirects so that whether a user enters Hölle Valley, Höllen Valley, Hölletal, Höllental or any other spelling that we think is likely they will be redirected to the right place. That's why there are two disambiguations. Perhaps you could help us understand what changes you are proposing to the article names and/or the convention itself. --Bermicourt (talk) 20:40, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Got too long, so I took the liberty and mailed you. --G-41614 (talk) 11:31, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

With that taken care of, it seems to me few people are interested in offering their views. Any suggestions? It may seem petty to you the way I keep coming back, but I'd like to see that solved. As you said, the convention is neither blakc & white, nor always binding, and this is an exceptional case. By the way, I got a reply on my e-mail: "der Name Hölle soll vom keltischen "Hel" (zerklüftetes Land) abgeleitet sein." Here's a new one. I of course still propose redirecting the Hölle Valley disambiguation to Höllen Valley or Höllental disambiguation, and moving all articles with related lemmata to either of those forms. I'd sure like to see other opinions on this, especially if they give a reason for their take on this. Any idea how to induce this? Regards, --G-41614 (talk) 12:07, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Be aware that User:Ulamm has made sweeping changes to convert all the Hölle Valley articles to Höllental without entering this debate. One result is that we now have two more or less identical dab pages called Höllental and Höllental (disambiguation). He has not responded to a request to come and discuss it here. Any suggestions as to the course of action? I have reverted the changes as far as I can. If they get changed again without any discussion here, I will report it as edit warring. --Bermicourt (talk) 07:03, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

"Hölle Valley" is nonsens: None of these valleys contains a river named Hölle, which would justify "Hölle Valley" according to "Rhone Valley".

The meaning "Hell" is strengthened by toponymes in the Black Forest Höllental. On its upper end it opens into the large bassin of Zarten at the hamlet of "Himmelreich", which means "heaven".--Ulamm (talk) 11:31, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

That in the Franconian/Thuringian Höllental there is a village named Hölle, does not suggest the contrary. If a bright place beneath a dark "Hell Valley" could be called "Heaven", a dark place in a dark "Hell Valley" could also be called "Hell".--Ulamm (talk) 11:43, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Comparisons: Nobody would make Côte d'Azur ("Blue Cost") an "Azur Cost", Costa Brava ("Wild Cost") a "Brava Cost", or Costa del Sol ("Cost of the Sun") a "Del-Sol Cost".--Ulamm (talk) 11:36, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

May I suggest that we now raise the level of the debate and base our convention on what authoritative English sources do in cases where the XXX in XXXtal is not a river. --Bermicourt (talk) 18:27, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

What they do, if XXX of XXXtal is a general term! Unfortunately, I haven't subscribed Encyclopædia Britannica. But some Wikipedians may have done so.--Ulamm (talk) 19:27, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Thought we had finally arrived at the point of the matter that in case of the various Höllentäler, the convention does not exactly apply because the underlying idea does not fit, due to the lack of places from which the valleys might have gotten their names? Because XXXvalley, with XXX being valley, river, or other, simply does not apply here. Further, since you never mentioned one, I would have to assume that there is no authoritative source for "Hölle Valley". I at least haven't found one. Neither did the BE-online, but that was just a quick check. Simplest solution for now would be to delete "Höllental" or "Höllental (disambiguation)", make sure everything is correctly linked, then search for mentioning of "Hölle Valley" and change those, too. I would have preferred Ulamm's involvement in this before he moved, too, but, well - he just did what I wanted to do, so I'm not going to complain too loud. Read you all later, --G-41614 (talk) 09:00, 7 April 2010 (UTC) Afterthought: Or just change the convention to say that the original name is to be used when a valley is not named after another feature. I'd really like to see more discussion on this, but so far it seems to be between me and Bermicourt, unless Ulamm is going to join. But really, is this nonsense language necessary?

Ulamm and I have amended the convention so that the original XXXtal is retained if the valley is not named after a river called XXX. This seems to conform to practice in the literature and is a sensible compromise IMHO. --Bermicourt (talk) 19:36, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Oberbaurat

Anybody got a translation for that title? Should be explained at least, I think. Regards, --G-41614 (talk) 08:40, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

My Langenscheidt Muret-Sanders megadictionary calls a Baurat a 'planning department surveyor', so Oberbaurat could be a 'senior..." one. Dict.cc has Stadtbaurat as 'head of the municipal planning and building control office'. And de.wiki (see de:Baubeamter) equates Stadtbaurat with Oberbaurat. But these appear to be modern translations; I think it also has a historic context. --Bermicourt (talk) 11:27, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Thnx - think I'll try and use this to improve in Richard Ermisch. --G-41614 (talk) 15:40, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Hesse-Kassel vs. Hesse-Cassel (again)

See Talk:Hesse-Kassel. We should really agree on one spelling. I moved the articles that were using "Hesse-Cassel" (and one that was using "Hessen-Kassel") so that all now use "Hesse-Kassel." Then I proposed a move of all articles to "Hesse-Cassel". If there is a consensus for it to be "Hesse-Cassel," so be it. If there is a consensus for them to stay at "Hesse-Kassel," so be it. But can we all agree to just use one form? john k (talk) 14:22, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Bringing a particular issue to your attention

On the talk page for an article I have made a brief case for why we ought to avoid "ß". It is used extensively in this article, but I think it should not be. This German character, pronounced "ss", is not generally well-known to English speakers who may be interested in learning more about German history. Your thoughts will be welcomed. (Here or there, but I'm not as concerned about that article as I am in learning more and possibly suggesting a change to our conventions. So here is probably best for the philosophical discussion.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:58, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I think that the current state of the conventions are quite fine. A general avoidance of the letter "ß" is not helpful as this would exclude a reader of the Wikipedia from seeing the original name. Check out this request for help to see to which extent other English-speaking people go to get this right. And I also think that in cases like Groß-Gerau the initial notice at the head of the article is quite helpful. How a German entity is spelled throughout an article should, IMHO, mainly depend on the actual English literature. The Wikipedia should neither avoid "ß" nor aggressively introduce "ß". Instead the correct German spelling for German names should always be given at the beginning of the corresponding article and the general spelling used should follow the common practice in English literature. In the case of Großdeutschland (correct German spelling) vs Grossdeutschland you will find examples supporting both variants (see, for example, here and here). However, "Grossdeutschland" appears to be more commonly used and "Großdeutschland", if used, is set in quotes or set in italic (see here, for example). --AFBorchert (talk) 14:15, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

The German question article may be a special case (involving problems of non-POV translation and scholarly usage). For a general convention, we might want to distinguish between names of places and people on the one hand and other uses of foreign proper names or historical terms on the other. If we are talking about changing the conventions on non-English Latin characters, we might also want to distinguish between separate characters (such as ß and Þ) and diacritics (though the distinction may not be clear cut). So, are we also talking about Günter Kießling, Voßstraße, Łódź, Þjórsá, Fürth, and Furth? --Boson (talk) 14:44, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

This has been the subject of heated debate; the most recent being here. My sense is that there are 2 camps. Native Germans/Austrians or German-speakers, like me, tend to favour ß because we're familiar with it and substituting "ss" looks odd. On the other hand, non-German speakers dislike it because it is strange and looks like a "B". I suspect ß has prevailed because most editors of German/Austrian articles are members of the former group. But Wikipedia is supposed to be based on authoritative sources, so I did a survey of 17 books on Germany and Austria - covering history, geography and travel (published 1927 to 2010, but most in the last decade). 12 use "ss" (3 geography, 3 history and 6 travel) and only 5 used ß (1 history and 4 travel). That is over 3 to 1 in favour of "ss", sadly! In addition, Switzerland and Lichtenstein only use "ss", never ß and I believe both are acceptable in Austria (someone confirm please). There are exceptions: Meissen and Giessen are almost always "ss" in English. I'd like to keep the ß (and it's less common anyway following the spelling reform in Germany) but I have to concede that the literature appears to be against us! --Bermicourt (talk) 19:34, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I wonder if everyone who commented here can comment as well on the question of specialist literature versus literature aimed at the general public. I would expect that if we consult material written by specialists in German history for specialists in German history, it would not be at all unusual to have not only ß but also to have a fair number of German words left untranslated, on the assumption that other scholars would be familiar with them. However, books of popular history (and I don't mean that in a disparaging way, but rather: books aimed at intelligent readers but who are not presumed to be specialists) would tend to avoid such things, using translations where possible, explaining German words left untranslated, and using the English alphabet to the maximum extent possible.

My point should be obvious: Wikipedia is aimed at the intelligent general reader, not at specialists. Therefore, we might want to consider more strongly high quality works, written by authoritative scholars, and aimed at the same audience.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:19, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

No, oddly it's the other way around. The specialist literature tends to use "ss"; it is a (large) minority of the more modern travel guides - e.g. the latest Michelin Germany and Michelin Austria - that leave names untranslated and tend to use ß. But that's based on a quick survey; someone needs to do a more comprehensive job. But exclude road atlases - they invariably use native spellings for obvious reasons. --Bermicourt (talk) 06:37, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Travel guides have a very strong tendency to leave names in the original spelling, even in such obvious cases as München and Nürnberg, for the same reason as street atlases: it's what's on the street signs. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:36, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

As I said before at another talk page: even in English the ss instead of ß (as in geographical names or after a long vowel) will become more and more rare, because of international conventions to which the U.S. or the UK are committed demand to use endonymic spelling of names. In the geonames database of the National Geographic-intelligence Agency you will find ß in the approved name version. That is a result of the Eighth United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names in 2002 (for more background start @ United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names though that's a pity of an article) which eventually even the Encyclopaedia Britannica will accept. One reason for using diacritics is standardization. Der German ö as in Göttingen is spoken almost like the u in to burn (it's less open) – would anyone write Guttingen? (in a better example: the Cyrillic letter Ч, which does not have an equivalent letter in Roman script is usually represented by it's sound when transcripting. That leads to ch im Englisch and to tsch in German. Because this leads to different spellings of the same name, Gorbachev in Englisch and Gorbatschow in German, this can result in confusion. Thus linguists started substituting ch and tsch trough č.) --Matthiasb (talk) 14:03, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a crystal ball - and this is speculative even for futurism. One could equally well speculate that the next German spelling reform will imitate Switzerland's, for the same reason: keyboards which handle French and German must boot something. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:36, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello, first comment I've made here:

Alphabet The Wikipedia convention is to use the 30-letter German alphabet in proper names, in line with the broader Wikipedia convention of using local Latin alphabets. It is helpful to explain near the top of an article how to convert a name to the 26-letter alphabet.

1. I suggest this is blue-linked and explained for example:

the general Wikipedia convention is to use the 29-letter Swiss German alphabet (including äöü but not ß) in proper names, in line with the broader Wikipedia convention of using local Latin alphabets. It is helpful to explain near the top of an article how to convert a name to the 26-letter alphabet.

• • • Note that I am not proposing the use of the Swiss German alphabet, I am just using it as example of bluelinking and explaining whether or not Jimbo's suggestion above is taken up. It could also link 30-letter BRD German alphabet (including äöü and ß)

2. The strikethrough of It is helpful to explain near the top of an article how to convert a name to the 26-letter alphabet. is a second suggestion - it would be better written "where ä ö ü ß genuinely do have common exonym conversions in English; such as Franz Josef Strauss "(German: Franz Josef Strauß)", and Arnold Schoenberg "(born Arnold Schönberg)", then these should be noted in lede. For bios with no exonym conversions in English - typically articles which have been created based on sources with typographical limitations then typographical limitations do not constitute established exonyms; for example German paralympians Jörg Frischmann, Isabelle Förder, Reinhold Bötzel, should have redirects from Joerg Frischmann etc., but explanation "(English Joerg Frischmann)" is not required in lede per WP:OPENPARA.

3. I suggest two shortcuts WP:GERMANNAMES and WP:Naming conventions (German) be planned to provide easier access to the page when it is ready to go live.

Well that's my three pennies. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:05, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguation

This page recommends and describes the German methods of disambiguation for two places in Germany with the same name. But suppose there is a placename which is ambiguous with something on which we have an article, but is not a place; for example, the village Iven, in Hither Pomerania, is ambiguous with a first name which arises either as a form of Evan or Ivan.

For the particular case, it is possible to leave the first name at Iven (given name), since nobody is called just Iven; but there will be other cases, not so easily soluble. Do we want to disambiguate by the Bezirk, the Land, the region (here Pomerania, rather than Mecklenburg-Vorpommern), Germany, or (town)? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:45, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

My understanding is that the normal Wiki convention in the case you describe would be to disambiguate by describing what it is i.e. (town) or (village) as opposed to, say, (surname) or (name). --Bermicourt (talk) 13:12, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Talbrücken

This is a proposal to amend the naming of pages describing a Talbrücke.

After finding out different conventions were used for the page names Göltzschtalbrücke and its sister Elster Valley Viaduct, I went searching for the convention and found it here, under Group B. It demonstrates the convention with Weihe Valley Bridge.

I then [[checked with Grahamec (the author of the Elster article) whether changing it to Elster Valley Bridge would be okay (I am the author of the Göltzsch article and have no problems changing its title), although I was quite curious about the rather consistent use of the word viaduct to describe a bridge of this sort in Wikipedia articles. His response was as follows:

I suppose we go with the convention. On the other hand large bridges built over valleys in English are normally called viaducts and were also called viaducts in mid 19th Germany and still are in German Switzerland. The term Talbrücke was invented as part of 19th century nationalism, when Germans removed many words of Romance origin from their language. Translating it back into English literally seems odd to me because we don't normally use the expression "valley bridge" in English. Göltzschtalbrücke and Elstertalbrücke could of course also be translated as Göltzsch Viaduct or Elster Viaduct.

User_talk:Eddyspeeder#Viaducts

Based on this response, I would like to discuss the possibility to change the convention and speak of either RIVER Valley Viaduct, or as Grahamec proposes, RIVER Viaduct (RIVER in this case being Elster, Weihe, Göltzsch or other railway and road bridges).

What are your thoughts on this? And if changed to Viaduct, how does this affect other bridge names in Germany? -- Eddyspeeder (talk) 07:15, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Ernst's Wörterbuch der Industriellen Technik (Dictionary of Industrial Technology) translates "Talbrücke" as "viaduct". And according to the Wiki article, a viaduct is a multi-arched bridge often spanning a valley. So this would seem to make sense and, as the initiator of the ABC convention and several articles using "Foo Valley Bridge", I propose to change the convention to "Foo Viaduct" unless someone has good evidence to the contrary. From a quick trawl, the US, UK and Canada all use "viaduct" or "bridge", but hardly, if ever, use "valley bridge". Any objectors before I "speedy amend" the convention? --Bermicourt (talk) 12:59, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Checking for conventions by surrounding countries' WikiProjects yielded no naming conventions on bridges or other landmarks, so no conflicts can occur with bridges across borders. I have some questions to further standardize bridge names:

• What will the amendment change about the "general" bridges? Should for instance Nibelungen Bridge (Regensburg) be changed into Nibelungen Viaduct (Regensburg)? Or does it stay Bridge? Is there a certain standard that defines whether Brücke should be translated to Viaduct or Bridge?
• Perhaps you could also look up what Ernst says about the word Hochbrücke (Rendsburg High Bridge) and Sundbrücke (Fehmarn Sound Bridge)?
• What to do with nicknames such as Blue Wonder. Should this be renamed to Loschwitz Bridge or Loschwitz Viaduct?

Forthermore, I have assessed the railway and road bridges to make sure active contributors to the articles in question have been notified of this discussion. My selection criterium was: registered user has made textual contributions on multiple dates less than one year old, or a frequently returning registered user who has contributed in previous years and has contributed to the article at least once in the past year. Three invites were sent to editors who meet this criterium. -- Eddyspeeder (talk) 13:35, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I have difficulty, from the foregoing, in determining what is being suggested. But here are general thoughts.

The usual translation of Brücke is Bridge. I would vote for any proposal following that model.

The word Viaduct is not, heutzutage, as frequently used as the word Bridge, at least in British English. It tended, in the past, to be reserved for larger and higher bridges, so therefore bridges over steep sided valleys, and it tended to be reserved for those larger bridges with several arches. My wife's 2008 Oxford English dictionary (ie British English) says:

"Viaduct ... a long bridge-like structure, typically a series of arches, carrying a road or railway across a valley or other low ground"

My father's 1959 Webster's Dictionary (ie US English) says:

"Viaduct ... 1: a bridge, esp when resting on a series of narrow reinforce concrete or masonry arches, having high supporting towers or piers, and carrying a road or railroad over a valley, river or other low lying obstruction. 2: a steel bridge made up of short steel spans..."

The point seems to be that all viaducts are bridges. But not all bridges are viaducts. So if you want to fix some general wiki rule, it's most likely better to go with "bridge" and let the subsequent text spell out what sort of bridge you are describing.

I hope this contributes helpfully. I am not an admirer of too many wiki-rules on the English language. Neither the English language nor the anglophone cultures are as rule based as those which you will take for granted if you grew up with German (or Dutch, or even French) as your mother language. But where they exist, it seems logical that wiki-language rules should try and respect existing dictionary definitions and not try and remodel the language.

Regards Charles01 (talk) 14:46, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for this, Charles! I appreciate your consideration and for me this has really clarified the bridge/viaduct issue. The above started off as bringing consistency into the naming of Talbrücken, but I then noticed that other bridges in the categories road- and railway bridges in Germany (to which this page also belongs) lack consistency. There were already some conventions specified here. Naturally any decision we make should be subject to proper English and Wikipedia conventions, and not create language, so I agree with you on that. Wikipedia first and foremost prescribes translation of a foreign name to English, so if I were to translate Göltzschtalbrücke in a literal sense, it could become Göltzsch Valley Bridge. But the Webster (1959) dictionary definition shows that "Valley Bridge" is indeed a viaduct. Hence, Göltzsch Viaduct, Elster Viaduct, etc. seems the proper English translation of both Talbrücke and Hochbrücke, and quite probably also Sundbrucke considering bridging a sound would usually require a bridge type akin to a viaduct. Germany is known for having a many viaduct-like structures.

As a result, my proposal would be as follows: articles describing a Hoch-/Sund-/Talbrücke should be translated to "Foo Viaduct". Articles describing a Brücke should be translated to "Foo Bridge" unless it meets the English language description of a viaduct. All current "Foo Bridge" articles are reassessed for being a viaduct, in which case they will be renamed. Is this a good solution? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eddyspeeder (talk • contribs) 17:05, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't call the sound bridges "viaduct", see for instance the Øresund Bridge, Zeeland Bridge and Fehmarn Sound Bridge (which crosses the Fehmarn Sound). More generally, let's use "viaduct" only for bridges that cross land (and maybe a small stream in the middle). Most "high bridges" wouldn't qualify as "viaduct"s either IMO. Markussep ^Talk 18:11, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

The Fehmarnsundbrücke is a bridge over the Fehmarn Sound, not a sound bridge over the Fehmarn. So "Fehmarn Sound Bridge" is entirely apt. Ernst's Technical Dictionary gives Hochbrücke as "viaduct" as well and "High Bridge" is not a common generic English term as far as I can tell. So I suggest the convention (which is only a guideline - justifiable exceptions allowed) is the following slight variation on Eddyspeeder's proposal:

1. Brücke is translated as "Bridge"
2. Talbrücke is translated as "Viaduct"
3. Hochbrücke is translated as "Viaduct"

Let's try that and see how we go. Translation is an art not a science! --Bermicourt (talk) 19:58, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

(unindent) I agree with your solutions for Brücke and Talbrücke. I would call the Rendsburg High Bridge simply "Rendsburg Bridge". The article de:Hochbrücke gives me the impression that the term is used for a limited set of bridges only. For instance the Köhlbrandbrücke is higher, but isn't termed "Hochbrücke". Markussep ^Talk 20:22, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I am very happy to see this topic receives a good amount of constructive discussion. I'd just like to thank you all for shedding your insights. My primary goal is that there will be a clear standard and I really see that happening here. I went into this discussion open about the use of bridge or viaduct but in my more recent posts I hope I do not seem like an advocate of using viaduct. My primary interest is that if we decide to use viaduct where appropriate, that it gets applied consistently. My below two replies are examples of this.

Re:de:Hochbrücke - good idea to check the German Wiki. It says that the term "Hochbrücke" was introduced in the ordinance for the construction of bridges over the Kiel Canal. Later, bridges of at least 42 m tall and 140 m wide would also be referred to as Hochbrücke, but this is not very common. My interpretation is that as a result, all Hochbrücke fit the description of a viaduct, so in keeping with the use of the word viaduct where appropriate, I would favour viaduct.

Re:Zeeland Bridge - my personal opinion is that this bridge would actually classify to be named Zeeland Viaduct. This is because of an interesting discrepancy between Dutch and English when it comes to using the words bridge/viaduct vis-à-vis "brug"/"viaduct" (Dutch). The terms are not directly interchangeable. The Dutch refer to everything that crosses water as "brug" and every grade separated junction as "viaduct" (or in cases where water crosses over a road, an "aquaduct"). In the case of the Zeelandbrug, that means "Zeeland Viaduct" is be a proper translation, but so is "Zeeland Bridge" because as someone pointed out above, all viaducts are bridges, but not all bridges are viaducts. --Eddyspeeder (talk) 21:37, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't think "viaduct" is commonly used in English when the main purpose of the bridge is to cross a (large) body of water (as opposed to maintaining height and avoiding descent into the valley to cross a narrow river using a non-viaduct bridge. However, I don't think there is a bright line. --Boson (talk) 23:53, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

My Oxford Dictionary of Architecture defines a "viaduct" as a "structure, often a series of arches, carrying a road, railway, etc., over a valley", which bears out your point. I think the only tricky one here is Hochbrücke which could be either depending on the bridge's situation and design. Most of the examples at de:wiki look to me like viaducts in appearance (very long, multiple-span bridges) even though they're crossing a canal! I'll adjust the convention for Talbrücke and let the discussion run over Hochbrücke. --Bermicourt (talk) 07:13, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Well we seem to have sorted out most of the article titles in line with the above discussion, except for a minor inconsistency. I am not clear whether the Wiki convention in this instance is "Foo Bridge, Foostadt" or "Foo Bridge (Foostadt)". We have both, as well as "Foostadt Foo Bridge" which must be wrong! I am reluctant to start changing them unless I know I'm heading in the right direction!

Hängebrücke is not to be confused with a Hangviadukt.--Grahame (talk) 00:35, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

BTW I will add that Hängebrücke is "Suspension Bridge". --Bermicourt (talk) 19:13, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I would interpret WP:PRECISION to mean that if there is only one notable bridge over the Foo (and therefore only one article on a "Foo Bridge") or if the bridge in question is much better known than other bridges with the same name, then the name is "Foo Bridge"; and if disambiguation is required, the town where the bridge is located may be added in parentheses, or after a comma.--Boson (talk) 23:37, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

@Boson. That seems reasonable.

@Grahamec. Amusing. I like it! We have to be careful with translation and sometimes I find the only way to resolve a meaning is to actually eyeball what they're talking about. Especially where one word can have 2 or more alternatives in English. --Bermicourt (talk) 12:50, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

@Boson: agreed, I did this among others with Elster Viaduct (Pirk), a road bridge less well-known than the Elster Viaduct (even though both have a mentionworthy history). --Eddyspeeder (talk) 16:57, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Subsections misplaced and redundant/inconsistent

The section on Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany/Conventions#Contemporary placenames contained two subsections that did not really belong there:

Translation of Stadt

which is about the translation of the word "Stadt" not about places with Stadt in the name, and is discussed elsewhere.

Disambiguation

which has its own section.

I have provisionally moved these sub-sections to the appropriate sections where they are already mentioned. This makes the redundancy more apparent. I have also tagged one of the (now more obvious) inconsistencies. The current text is unclear or inconsistent on which conventions are German and where they should not be used on English Wikipedia. Also, the material on hyphenated disambiguation really doesn't belong under Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany/Conventions#German abbreviations, so something will have to be changed there. It's probably best to put it all directly under a revised disambiguation section. Perhaps it would be best to briefly discuss how German disambiguation works (e.g. official names using abbreviations and rivers, use of hyphens for subdivisions of towns, etc.) and then specify how English conventions differ (no use of rivers where not part of official name, no use of German abbreviations, no use of hyphenation for subdivisions, no unnecessary disambiguation of subdivisions, etc.). --Boson (talk) 11:51, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi Boson,

Stadt: you're right about the section on the translation of Stadt. I've moved it to the section on "Additional guidelines" where it seems more appropriate.

Disambiguation: I'm not sure why there is an "inconsistent" tag after river. German officialdom disambiguates by all the variations shown including rivers and an example is given.

Administrative units: it is right to quote the EU guide, but we should also mention other common usages or equivalents e.g. Kreis as "county", because that is its rough equivalent and is the standard term used e.g. by the British Embassy and British Forces in Germany, and Regierungsbezirk as "province". The danger with "district" is that it ends up being used to translate almost anything - Kreis, Bezirk, Distrikt, Amt, Stadtteil, Stadtgebiet, Ortsteil - and ends up being almost meaningless. The EU guide hints at this in its inaccurate translation of Kreisfreie Stadt as "urban district" and as a "town constituting a district in its own right" which is a description, not a translation! But it doesn't really address the issue because the guide doesn't cover the whole range of terms. One of my pending projects is to thoroughly research all the present and historical German admin terms against their English source translations and see if there's any way this can be reconciled. --Bermicourt (talk) 15:04, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi Bermicourt,

re "inconsistent" tag for river: Partly because there were two sections headed "disambiguation", I changed the heading to read "Disambiguation in German", but that was after inserting the tag. Particularly the example Velden (Pegnitz) seemed to be saying that it was OK for the English Wikipedia to disambiguate using the river name in parentheses, but this is inconsistent with the last sentence of the previous section, which reads

• "River names are not used in Wikipedia as disambiguating terms in parentheses, since their meaning, especially in the case of minor streams, is not intelligible to English-speaking readers outside Germany."

I think it still needs some more work, but I wanted to reorganize a bit first without changing too much substance and wait for feedback.

re county: No objection to mentioning "county" somewhere. I don't think it belongs where it was (unless the text is changed a bit) , because that section is supposed to be a summary of the EU guide. I removed it when I updated and checked the link. Another point is that "county" often sounds American to me when used in this sense. That may be because it is not normally used as part of a name in British English (i.e. like Orange County in the US). "Province", to me, is normally the largest subdivision of a sovereign state (possibly a unitary state), whereas a "Regierungsbezirk" is a large administrative (in the sense of delegated authority) sub-division of a state such as Bavaria, which is a federated state within a federal state (I think this is one of the few contexts where we need to distinguish clearly betweeen those two). I think it would probably be best if we reworded the introduction to that section so as to present the advice as our own rather than a summary of the EU guide (but , of course, leaving a reference to the EU guide). --Boson (talk) 18:04, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Inconsistency tag. Yes, you're righ, that is confusing. I think the 2 statements are talking about different things, but I'll take a closer look.

County. I agree. I don't think we should include county in the name. Currently we drop the Kreis or Landkreis in the title (e.g. Schaumburg), unless it's part of the name (e.g. Heidekreis). "District" is only used as a disambiguator (e.g. Hildesheim (district) to distinguish it from Hildesheim the town itself). I wouldn't change any of that unless we discover that there is a stronger argument for "county". However, we shouldn't ignore the fact that it's widely used and that the use of "county" in the article body isn't wrong as some editors think. And I agree that e.g. "the county of Heidekreis" is preferable to "Heidekreis county" which sounds a bit odd.

Province. Again all true. However, we already have "state" or "Bundesland" for the principal administrative division of Germany and Bavaria has not only been a kingdom but classes itself as a free state and has a government and parliament, so in a sense it is rather like a country! Certainly the Bavarians think so! And the Regierungsbezirke are not arbitrary bureaucratic artifices but based on historic regions. "Government region" sounds like a made-up, literal translation; AFAIK we don't use the term in any English-speaking countries. Finally an admittedly superficial search on Google books reveals 653 results for "province of Upper Bavaria", but zero for "government region of Upper Bavaria", so the sources seem to agree.--Bermicourt (talk) 19:27, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

The usage of "county" for Landkreis is not optimal.

Don't forget that in almost all regions of Germany there were lots of Grafschaften which is the correct equivalent of "county".

And the state of Prussia was divided in Provinces.

It is well accepted to write about French "departments" (départements) and about Polish "voivodeships" (wojewodstwa). Most "Landkreise" can be called Kreis(e) as well. See the sections of the list of former breweries in Bavaria:

"2 Niederbayern

2.1 Kreis Deggendorf

2.2 Kreis Dingolfing-Landau

2.3 Kreis Freyung-Grafenau

2.4 Kreis Kelheim

2.5 Landshut

2.6 Kreis Landshut

2.7 Passau

2.8 Kreis Passau

2.9 Kreis Regen

2.10 Kreis Rottal-Inn

2.11 Straubing

2.12 Kreis Straubing-Bogen"

"Kreis" is quite an easier word than "municipality". Even "landkreis" is shorter than "municipality", and not too difficult to read, see Landcross, Devon.--Ulamm (talk) 21:56, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree municipality is a mouthful. It really means any administrative unit, but we currently apply it to Gemeinde, Ortschaft, Ortsteil and Stadtteil.

Kreis: you can't take these things in isolation. If we use Kreis then, logically, we should use German words throughout, plunging our non-German readers into confusion. Most dictionaries have a translation for Kreis; there's your clue.

Grafschaft and Provinz: by that logic we shouldn't use "district" either because Distrikt is also a historic German term.

Department: (note the English spelling) is fine because the term is well known, probably because of Britain's proximity to France.

Voivodeship:is not good, because it's not well known and the term "district" is far more common in English sources, but I suspect it's the result of a Polish-speaking lobby on Wikipedia.

This whole area is very complex which is why I haven't proposed a revision, because it needs extensive research first. For example, what about Gemarkung, which isn't even mentioned here? Bermicourt (talk) 08:42, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Feedback requested

There is an on-going discussion at Talk:East_Germany#Before_an_edit_war_starts concerning whether the article title should remain East Germany or be changed to "German Democratic Republic". - SummerPhD (talk) 18:04, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Some comments

• The German alphabet is usually considered to have 26 characters (the Latin alphabet), not 30. The ä, ö, ü, ß are sort of on top of that.
• The article says: "NB "-gebirge" is often dropped in German anyway."

I'd like to see an example for that. It will certainly not work with the examples given here. You can't just say "Wiehen" or "Rothaar" and expect anyone to understand what you are talking about. And I would certainly not recommend anyone with a limited knowledge of German drop "-gebirge" from a place name just because this page said you could do it.

• Stadtkreis: I have never heard this term and had to research it. Apparently, it's a term used locally in Baden-Württemberg. Don't expect anyone outside of Baden-Württemberg to understand it.
• Landkreis: A "Landkreis" is by no means necessarily a rural district, as in contrast to a "Stadtkreis" being an urban district. In almost all of Germany, the urban districts are also called "Landkreis". As a matter of fact, I would think that in American English the term county is closest to the meaning of "Landkreis".
  
• Just curious: You are translating all kinds of stuff, even parts of proper names like "Theodor-Heuss-Brücke". Why wouldn't you translate "Hauptbahnhof" which is not even a proper name?

--84.190.85.67 (talk) 22:54, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for raising some interesting questions.

• According to German Wikipedia there are 26 Grundbuchstaben or primary letters, plus the three umlauts and the "eszett" or "ß". The implication is that there are primary letters and secondary letters i.e. 30 in total. This is reinforced by this list of letters. So I felt more research was needed before changing the text.
• Several German Wikipedia articles on the different "Foogebirge" that clearly state they are often referred to as "Foo". This seems to be fairly common practice in German and confirms that they see "-gebirge" as a compound noun which they are quite happy to split. It is good translation practice to identify German compound nouns and assess whether it makes sense to split the proper noun from the generic noun. For example, Rheintal is usually translated "Rhine valley" and, of course, the Germans would refer to the Rhein as the proper name for the river, thus splitting the compound noun as we do. However, we wouldn't advocate using "Wiehen" or "Rothaar" without qualifying them at least initially with "...Hills" or "... Mountains"; calling them by their German compound names, "Wiehengebirge" or "Rothaargebirge" doesn't help either since most English speakers have no idea what a Gebirge is, so we'd still have to add "hills" or "mountains" first time round. In a similar way, we wouldn't usually refer to a less well known river as e.g. the Werra without qualifying it first time by calling it the Werra river.
• Stadtkreis. Yes you're right, at least in Germany. However, it's also used in Switzerland and was used elsewhere historically.
• Landkreis. I agree "county" is a better translation of Kreis or Landkreis; interestingly that's what the British Embassy and British Forces in Germany use. However, the EU in its wisdom has chosen to translate Kreisas district and Landkreis as "rural district". IMHO that's problematic because "district" is also a plausible translation of other words. For example, the Langenscheidt Dictionary gives "district" as translation of Bezirk, Distrikt, Gemarkung, Kreis, Stadtquartier and Stadtteil. That is not helpful and I have a long term project to try and find the optimum translation(s) to explain these terms in a way that reflects English usage more closely.
• Hauptbahnhof. Haha. I and one or two other editors proposed translating this as "Central Station" (which is the nearest English equivalent; we don't use "Main Station" in proper names for stations) a couple of years back, but it was met with fierce opposition from one editor who persuaded the majority that we English speakers call them "Hauptbahnhofs", while continuing to translate Bahnhof as "[railway] station". So, yes, it's a bit of an odd man out! Bermicourt (talk) 10:07, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your comments! Sorry I didn't see them earlier.

• I won't insist on the alphabet. It's just that German students are used to think of their alphabet as having 26 letters. We don't really count ä,ö,ü,ß as part of the alphabet I guess.
• I (German native speaker) have never heard of either "Foogebirge" or "Foo", so I really can't tell you what it is called. The German Wikipedia doesn't know it either. It has Foopass, Foostock, and "Alp Foo", but no "Foogebirge". Which means I have yet to see an example of a name where "Gebirge" can simply be dropped.

Furthermore, one example - even if we find a valid and well-known one - can hardly prove what this article claims, namely that this is supposed to be common practice in German.

I am not quite sure I get your point about the Rhine valley example. The name of the river in German is "Rhein", not "Rheinfluss", so there is no other way of splitting "Rheintal".

I understand that for non-German speakers, you might have to add "hills", "river", or whatever. But that doesn't say anything about being able to drop that part of the name in German, does it?

• "Stadtkreis": Then it should be marked as "Swiss" or "Baden-Württemberg" or "obsolete". It's completely unknown in most parts of Germany, making this a really inappropriate translation.
• "Landkreis": I guess we have to stick with the silly EU terminology then. "District" certainly is a stupid choice. How are you to know if someone is talking about the precise administrative district or just about some vague area?

And it's just as silly to differentiate between "Kreis" and "Landkreis". Those are synonymous, for all I know.

• Hauptbahnhof: Yeah, that's the way Wikipedia works! I am sure that this "fierce editor" brought convincing sources to prove that English speakers call them "Hauptbahnhofs"? ;-)

--93.212.228.201 (talk) 23:00, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

No worries. Just a couple of clarifications and changes I've made:

• Alphabet: I've amended the wording to address your concern.
• Sorry I didn't mean to confuse you. "Foo" is Wikipedia's way of saying "Somesuch", I guess the equivalent of Dingsda. So there is no "Foogebirge" as such but lots of ranges called "...-gebirge". As far as I recall, the German articles on "Wiehengebirge", "Kaisergebirge" and "Fichtelgebirge" all suggest that "Wiehen", "Kaiser" (e.g. "Wilder Kaiser") and "Fichtel" are acceptable short variations of the name. There are probably others. But regardless of that a common English rendering is "... Mountains" or "... Hills" without the -gebirge as that would be tautology.
• But in practice, English writers tend to drop or translate the generic part of the name, so we wouldn't say "Theodor-Heuss-Brücke Bridge". And we don't use the hyphens either.
• "Stadtkreis". I agree, so I've added a footnote as you suggest.
• "Landkreis". Totally agree. I tend to use "county" in articles, but other editors sometimes change it to district. But I can't change the EU guidance.
• Hauptbahnhof. Yes he quoted German timetables and signs and any source that used Hauptbahnhof. Of course, many do, but e.g. more English sources use Munich Central Station than München Hauptbahnhof. It didn't help that there was also a dispute about how to translate it i.e. a literal translation is "Main Station", but a good translator looks for the nearest equivalent English term, not the literal one. Otherwise Hauptmann would be "main man" and not "captain"! Anyway, it's water under the bridge now. The term "Central Station" was even deleted from the lede paragraphs in a zealous campaign to eradicate the term. Bermicourt (talk) 08:20, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Disambig-Class Germany articles

What are the criteria for including a dab article in this category? I was surprised to find it has been added to Talk:Luckenbach (disambiguation) as the article only includes one article link that is to do with Germany - all the others are US places/people/ships etc. Davidships (talk) 17:02, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Davidships, I am not aware of any formal criteria for this, but I guess we should go with whatever appears to be most useful. The only point I see in having WikiProject banners on talk pages of disambiguation pages is the following: if a disambiguator is unsure what to do with certain links, they get a suggestion which projects they could ask about it. For that, it makes sense to be fairly liberal with the range of project tags on the talk page. But we can ping Ekki01, who added the project tag, and ask them what their criteria are. —Kusma (t·c) 19:25, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

It will be initeresting to learn Ekki01's perspective. To be honest, I'm struggling to think of what kind of uncertaintly an editor would have with a simple dab page (which after all just grabs a short description from the article being linked). Perhaps it's the other way round - effectively creating a checklist for Project Germany members to police. But let's see if there is more to this than meets my eye. Davidships (talk) 20:49, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

For me it was quite simple. When I came across the disambiguation page, I noticed that it mentioned the place Luckenbach in Germany. Since there is a category for disambiguation page on WikiProject Germany I added it. That was the rationale behind it. If, however, you feel that the category banner is misplaced, I don't have a problem with you removing it. Ekki01 (talk) 21:19, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Stadtbezirk, Stadtteil, Ortsteil, Ortschaft

See this discussion about a consistent way to translate the administrative divisions Stadtbezirk, Stadtteil, Ortsteil and Ortschaft into English. Markussep ^Talk 06:50, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Airports, train stations...

I note that we have Munich Airport (for Flughafen München) but we have München Hauptbahnhof (for Munich Central Station). Should the rail station be moved to the English name, or should the airport be moved to the German name? Which style is correct? Asking after a conversation with @DaxServer:. - UtherSRG (talk) 16:55, 3 October 2022 (UTC)