Talk:Eswatini

Map of Eswatini's Territorial claims in South Africa

Does anyone know of a map that shows Eswatini's territorial dispute with South Africa? It would useful for the article to include those claimed areas on the map as we do for disputed areas in the articles of other countries like Venezuela and India.XavierGreen (talk)

Referencing the temporary capitalization of the name as eSwatini

NOTE: There is some slight revisionist history here. When I made the comment below, I tacked it onto a section which was suggesting that the proper common name is eSwatini. That is not true today, as has been clearly established. Tacking my argument that we should mention the temporary name onto that discussion was a mistake, one I am correcting now by splitting my comment of 09:25, 10 May 2023 in half. Hopefully this makes thing's clearer. RoyLeban (talk) 05:32, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

A few days ago, I added text which mentioned the changing of the name's casing. RoyLeban (talk) 09:25, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

I suggest you read the ample past discussions of the topic. Greenman (talk) 10:29, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Greenman: I suggest you reread what I wrote instead of what you think I wrote. I don't know about the past discussions, but I know about the truth. The country's name in English is currently Eswatini. When it was renamed in 2018, it was capitalized with a lower case e, apparently to mirror how it is capitalized in Swazi. That's not my opinion, it's a fact, and it was widely reported at the time. See, for example, citation 35: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14095711

It's possible you are confused because Eswatini changed previous references retroactively to only use the Eswatini capitalization; they did the same thing when they changed from Swaziland to eSwatini. You can find some older information has been updated as if the name Swaziland was never used.

There also may be some confusion about the common name vs. the official name. After all, the official name is "Kingdom of Eswatini", not Eswatini. Originally, the common name was eSwatini, as reported all over the place; now the common name is Eswatini.

I don't understand why you object to this fact being present in the article. I will be restoring it, though I'm open to different phrasing if you think the common name issue is important enough to be in the first sentence. Which of these references do you prefer?

• The BBC reference above
• https://edition.cnn.com/2018/04/20/africa/swaziland-eswatini-africa-monarchy-intl/index.html
• https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/swaziland-changes-name-eswatini-other-country-name-changes-history-culture-spd
• https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/africa/Swaziland-new-name-eSwatini-now-official/4552902-4568130-36hn9sz/index.html
• https://www.africanews.com/2018/05/19/swaziland-name-change-to-eswatini-is-now-official/
• https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Swaziland%27s_King_Mswati_III_signs_gazette_to_rename_country_to_eSwatini

RoyLeban (talk) 10:06, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Greenman I'm giving you the courtesy of a chance to respond before I adjust the article to reflect what actually happened. I know that the fact that Eswatini changed documents retroactively complicates matters, but Wikipedia doesn't do that. We haven't expunged the name Swaziland and we should similarly reflect that the common name was originally eSwatini. One thing I do not know is why, and I haven't found a source for that. I'm a bit reticent to make what is an obvious claim, that it was capitalized that way to mirror how it is capitalized in Swazi. I think what I will do is simply say that it matched/mirrored the Swazi name, because this is an obvious fact, without ascribing any motivation. RoyLeban (talk) 11:59, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

I would oppose including this detail. Unless there are actually reliable sources specifically discussing it (and preferably including the rationale for the change, which you say is unknown). It's possible it was just a communication error or a hasty change of policy, but either way inclusion based only on cherry picking a handful of contemporary sources looks like WP:SYNTH to me. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 12:59, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, Amakuru. There are many contemporaneous news articles, probably hundreds at least. As a word geek, I remember well when it happened and I read up on it. Of course, my memory isn't sufficient, but the news articles still exist online and can easily be found. They just confirm my memory and provide reliable sources for inclusion. I didn't cherry pick articles — I just linked to the first few that I found in a very quick search. I think this information should be included because it is a fascinating piece of information — I know of no other country that has had either its official name or its common name start with a lowercase letter or have an uppercase letter in the middle. And the Swazi name still has that — Umbuso weSwatini.

Your supposition that "perhaps it was a communication error" is just that, a supposition. I've seen no evidence to support that. But, if it was, that actually makes it even more interesting. A communication error in the act of renaming a country!! Wow. If there is any reliable source for that, it should definitely be in the article.

Note: The words "contemporary" and "contemporaneous" can be ambiguous. The key thing is that articles published at the time of the country's name change are not just relevant but valuable. For example, we don't say that information from articles about the Titanic that were published in 1912 are not relevant. Sources from the time of a historical act are more relevant, not less relevant.

RoyLeban (talk) 09:19, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

See also discussion at Requested move 12 October 2018. This seems to indicate that eSwatini was used for multiple months after the change. Again, not suggesting that lit is correct now, but the fact that eSwatini was used initially as the common name is interesting and appropriate to include in the article.

Also, considering the trivia we have in Wikipedia about every person who's had a single at bat in Major League Baseball (etc., and yeah I know that's Other Stuff Exists), this rather interesting fact about a country is worthy of inclusion.

I would say that it need not be in the lede, but the only place the name change is mentioned is in the lede, so I see no other place to put it.

RoyLeban (talk) 02:35, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm not why you think this is such a big deal. The capitalization was simply changed to fit standard English orthography. This is blindingly obvious to anyone who can read the note that the Swazi name is eSwatini. As for the move request you linked to, it shows that after the name change English sources were inconsistent before settling on the more anglicized form.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 05:28, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

It's not that this is a big deal. It's that it is interesting and I think appropriate for inclusion. Why is it a big deal to exclude it? I won't nitpick, but I'm sure I could easily find information in the article which is less interesting, but is included. I'm surprised there is opposition; I only realized it when an editor removed my change. RoyLeban (talk) 02:44, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

@RoyLeban: Not bothering to read previous discussions shows disrespect for other editor's time, who may have to rehash things for you, and also means you are intentionally not following up on discussions that may be pertinent to the point you're making. Your point about the page not being able to start with a small letter is incorrect. If you'd read the history, you'd see that the article was titled eSwatini at one point. You have provided sources with this spelling. The sources you've provided show that there was confusion about the spelling (since there are sources with the other spelling), but where are the sources stating that the name was first changed to eSwatini and then to Eswatini? It's more believable that inconsistencies in usage resulting from the siSwati, South African English and broader English usages were simply corrected, and if you wish to include a statement to the contrary, strong sourcing is required. Greenman (talk) 07:30, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

What makes you think I didn't read previous discussions? If there was a previous discussion about whether to discuss the name change (rather than about what the article was named), I'll admit I missed it — I did not read all archived discussions. I'll respond to other points below. RoyLeban (talk) 04:14, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

Responses to Greenman's comments above.

1. I made a mistake when I tacked this discussion on top of one that suggested that the current common name is eSwatini. It is not and I have split this into a new section to make what I am suggesting clearer.
2. My comment about the page not being able to start with a lowercase letter was in response to the comment from IP Editor 51.37.98.236 who cited technical reasons for not naming the page eSwatini. They were wrong. There is a well known technical deficiency in MediaWiki that a page URL can't start with a lowercase letter but this does not apply to page names (e.g., see iPhone); it also has nothing to do with this new discussion.
3. Yes, I'm aware the article was titled eSwatini at one point! See the Requested move 12 October 2018 that I referenced above. Please don't accuse people of not reading previous discussions when you apparently didn't read my comments immediately above yours.
4. Since Eswatini has engaged in revisionist history (shades of Nineteen Eighty-Four), evidence is a bit hard to come by. I looked at the Wayback Machine but it didn't crawl relevant pages frequently enough. Fortunately, a very quick google search for "swaziland renamed to eswatini lowercase" turned up good evidence.
5. Take this article on Political Geography Now:

Journalists reporting on the name change when it first happened in April spelled the new country name "eSwatini", with a lowercase "e" and capital "S". That's the way the country's name is properly written in the Swazi language, and it was also spelled that way in the government's official transcript of King Mswati's September 2017 speech to the United Nations (which was delivered in English). Capitalizing only the second letter of a name is unusual in English, but then, that doesn't stop you from shopping on eBay with your iPhone.

The link to the official transcript in the article is dead, but here it is on the Wayback Machine. This is the official transcript of the King Mswati's September 2017 speech, which was delivered in English, not Swazi, so it was not translated. It is spelled "Kingdom of eSwatini" six times and "Kingdom of e-Swatini" once. In the legal order, from 2018, changes it to Eswatini. This seems to be pretty strong sourcing!

I also found these pages:

• Condé Nast Traveler, July 30, 2018: The Kingdom of eSwatini Might eXasperate Copy eDitors
• The Guardian April 19, 2018: Swaziland king renames country Kingdom of eSwatini
• National Geographic, November 29, 2021: These countries changed their names. Here's how it worked out. — particularly interesting because it uses both Eswatini and eSwatini.
• BBC, April 19, 2018: Swaziland king renames country 'the Kingdom of eSwatini'
• Mental Floss, April 30, 2018: Why Swaziland Was Just Renamed eSwatini

Yes, I'm aware not all of these are citable Reliable Sources. I didn't try more exhaustive searches because the above information is sufficient.

I have now spent way more time on this than I should have. There is pretty clear evidence of the initial English spelling and the fact that it was changed later. I also think this is an interesting piece of information, worthy of being in the article. Does anybody still object and, if so, why?

RoyLeban (talk) 05:32, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, with all due respect, everybody in this thread other than yourself has objected to this and absent further evidence I think it's time to WP:DROPTHESTICK on this point. I'm well aware that there were some early English sources, both official and unofficial, which used the eSwatini spelling, as it is rendered in the Swazi-language version, but that was before the consistent Eswatini version had become bedded down. This point would only be considered even a possibility for inclusion if reliable sources had coverage of the capitalisation change itself, specifically discussing that. And even if it was discussed by sources, we'd still have to consider whether the matter was significant enough to include in the article per WP:DUEWEIGHT. As things stand though, all we have is a set of sources from one point in time which use eSwatini, and another set of sources from a later time which use Eswatini. Drawing conclusions from that which have not been independently drawn from reliable sources would be WP:SYNTH and original research. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 11:23, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

All of those sources are just the announcement of the change or reporting on same. They don't impact common name. What followed was a period during which both forms were used, showing that the basic name change had been accepted but that the capitalization was in flux. This soon settled down to common usage of Eswatini. So, no, there never was a period when eSwatini was the common name. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 22:30, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Amakuru: You don't think the original, official transcript of King Mswati's September 2017 speech matters? It's not one time. It's seven times. It wasn't a typo. Condé Nast Traveler also seems reliable to me and it is an article specifically about the capitalization. Both you and Khajidha are making statements here that are not backed up by any articles either, yet you are arguing that your version of what happened is true — in other words it is WP:SYNTH and original research. Your argument basically says people at The Guardian, the BBC, and many others are idiots.

Here are the facts:

• King Mswati's speech (September 2017) used a lower case e.
• For a period of time after that, many sources used a lower case e. Unfortunately, we can't time travel to see the full extent of every official document from back then.
• The earliest official source that I see which uses Eswatini as the common name is 2018 (there's no month, but that means it's at least 5 months later, and there is some indication from other sources that it is summer).

We can include this interesting information without drawing any conclusions as to why it happened. I believe it is interesting and the WP:DUEWEIGHT argument is irrelevant — this isn't a viewpoint issue. It is simply reporting on something that happened. It is not OR. Here is a proposed addition:

When the country's name was changed, the official transcript of King Mswati's speech of September, 2017 presented the country's common name as eSwatini, and many sources used that presentation. The unusual capitalization was covered in Condé Nast Traveler, among other places. It is unknown if this capitalization was intentional at the time, or if it was an artifact of the fact that it mirrors the capitalization of the name in Swazi. Later, the country promoted the capitalization of Eswatini, and that is what is used today.

(yes, those links should be footnotes)

With regard to sticks, that is an uncalled for attack. "Everybody" is three people, hardly a massive number of editors. I reached out to Greenman before making a change after their initial objection. I'm responding to points others have raised, providing evidence I'm not sure anybody is reading. I'm not beating a dead horse. You might want to reread WP:DROPTHESTICK.

RoyLeban (talk) 06:00, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

You're still making it more complicated than it needs to be. What we can really say is that the king announced that the country's Swazi name was to be used in English, but that English usage settled on a more standard English capitalization pattern. Which is getting really close to "sky is blue" territory. "English changes things to fit English patterns" isn't really all that interesting a thing to say. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 11:21, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

The interesting thing is not that "English changes things to fit English patterns" but what happened before that, that "the King's initial announcement used the Swazi capitalization, which is pretty unusual in other languages". Are you aware of any other country that ever did the same thing? Or even any other language that has such capitalization? If this was the Swazi Wikipedia, this would probably be uninteresting. But it's the English Wikipedia and it is interesting. RoyLeban (talk) 13:05, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

"Swazi speaker capitalizes Swazi word in Swazi manner" isn't interesting either. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:08, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

This is pretty much the equivalent of English usage dropping the accents from Quebec and Mexico. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:25, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

You keep thinking I'm saying things I'm not.

1. "Swazi speaker capitalizes Swazi word in Swazi manner" is the opposite of what I'm saying. Intentional or not, an official proclamation went out, in English, with the capitalization eSwatini. Many, many news organizations used that spelling (I believe "most" but I don't have a source for that). That is the interesting part, again, whether intentional or not. (I believe it was intentional and they changed their mind while I think you believe it was a mistake; neither of us can prove we are correct, unless somewhere happens to know King Mswati and can ask him). At least two sources wrote explicitly about it, including the article in Condé Nast Traveler. It is an indisputable historical fact, and that is the interesting part. But, if you read the current Wikipedia article, it didn't even happen.
2. The eSwatini capitalization is very unusual in English. It's not at all like dropping the accents in Montréal, Québec or México or mañana, which is extremely common in many languages, not just English, and likely an artifact of the fact that many typewriters had no way of typing most accents. This is English Wikipedia, not Swazi Wikipedia.

I think it's clear my proposed edit is clear, accurate, and sourced. And I think it's interesting, though some others do not. I am going to be WP:BOLD and put it in and I request that nobody here remove it on the grounds that they personally do not find it interesting enough. Let's give it some time and see if it survives. And let's all move on. Thanks.

RoyLeban (talk) 23:36, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Common usage name

From my understanding, the common usage name of article subject is what should be used as opposed to official or legal names. In the context of countries a recent one that has been debated the crap out of, and defeated every single time it is raised is the Czech Republic >>>> Czechia. The main reasoning is that the former is the common name despite Czechia increasingly being used as the name for the country. By this logic this article surely should be reverted back to Swaziland. Swaziland is a far more widely known name for this country than Eswatini is. It makes zero sense for this article to be renamed. UaMaol (talk) 21:42, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Here are the discussions that led it being moved: [1][2]. Largoplazo (talk) 00:06, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Sources from after the name change overwhelmingly use "Eswatini". Which fulfils the criteria for determining the common name.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 00:06, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

That's correct. Per WP:NAMECHANGES: "Sometimes the subject of an article will undergo a change of name. When this occurs, we give extra weight to independent, reliable English-language sources ("reliable sources") written after the name change. If the reliable sources written after the change is announced routinely use the new name, Wikipedia should follow suit and change relevant titles to match. If, on the other hand, reliable sources written after the name change is announced continue to use the established name when discussing the article topic in the present day, Wikipedia should continue to do so as well." Rreagan007 (talk) 17:16, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Upload war over flag color

There is an ongoing dispute over the color of the Eswatini flag which has resulted in an upload war (COM:UPLOADWAR) on Wikimedia Commons. As a result, both options are now separate files, and it is no longer possible to upload new versions over either one:

• File:Flag of Eswatini.svg - Uses the original colors as uploaded in 2015
• File:Flag of Eswatini (78A3CD blue).svg - Uses the colors that the other group of uploaders prefer

It is up to each local project to decide which version to use. The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 02:31, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

If we have no way to determine dispositively what the colors of the flag are supposed to be, then we have no business pretending to present either of them to the world as though it were reliable information. Until this can be settled, all Eswatini flags should be removed from this site. Largoplazo (talk) 10:07, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

You can find the colors of the flag often on the Swazi government owned media, website and social media sites.

See:

• https://www.facebook.com/EswatiniGov

• https://www.gov.sz/

• https://www.youtube.com/live/6QM79-iS7oM?feature=shared&t=803

Ludvonga (talk) 05:45, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Pronunciation

In English Wikipedia there is a pronunciation key here (/ˌɛswɑːˈtiːni/ ESS-wah-TEE-nee) which emphasizes the 1st and 3rd syllables. Other sources emphasize the 2nd and 4th. I have no expertise here, but I'm questioning 1st and 3rd given that the Swazi spelling capitalizes the S and I've always heard "Swaziland" with the Swa stressed. Grahamaross (talk) 23:53, 7 February 2024 (UTC)