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Re: How should (European) peak names be spelled ?

PostPosted: Tue Nov 02, 2010 2:08 pm
by visentin
Yes and no.
"Iser mountains", even if "correct" (ok, the Germans call it Isergebirge) is not used anywhere.
I'll leave it in the page's text, along with explaining its origin, but change only the title of the area page.
You're not the one who mispells the most places, far from that. Just look at the High Tatras area and count the number of Slovak peaks spelled in Polish...

Re: How should (European) peak names be spelled ?

PostPosted: Tue Nov 02, 2010 2:28 pm
by yatsek

Re: How should (European) peak names be spelled ?

PostPosted: Tue Nov 02, 2010 2:44 pm
by Petro
As stated above - it's not a question of the language articles are posted in. It's English and nobody is arguing that it should be anything else. It's about diacritics that are not always intelligible for English speakers and non-latin alphabets that require some kind of transcription/translitaration.
I think that the original versions of toponyms should be used in the texts themselves plus a transcription should be given in the beginning to get the pronunciation right e.g. Polish "Małołączniak" pronounced Mow-o-won-chnyak/Slovak "Malolúčniak" pronounced Mal-o-looch-nyak. Then there's a question which version should be used in the text - Polish or Slovak as in this example. I stand for both ("Małołączniak/Malolúčniak").
I also agree with Borut that a version lacking diacritics is helpful for the search engine.
For alphabets other than latin a transcription should be used but the original form should also be mentioned in the beginning.

Translating names is just stupid - "Dolina Pięciu Stawów" is not "Valley of five ponds/Five Ponds' Valley" although you can literally translate it this way.

P.S.
The fact that English is commonly used as lingua franca doesn't change the fact that it's still not the most popular native language in the world. We use it to communicate internationally not because we find other languages useless. People using English as their second language don't automatically forget their mother tongues and still spend most of their lives speaking them. The thesis that we will soon stop to do so is pure nonsense and a sign of complete arrogance.

Re: How should (European) peak names be spelled ?

PostPosted: Tue Nov 02, 2010 2:54 pm
by peterbud
Well said, Petro. :)

Re: How should (European) peak names be spelled ?

PostPosted: Tue Nov 02, 2010 3:13 pm
by yatsek
Petro wrote:Translating names is just stupid - "Dolina Pięciu Stawów" is not "Valley of five ponds/Five Ponds' Valley" although you can literally translate it this way.

Depends on the translation (I'd say/write "the Valley of the Five Polish Tarns/Lakes"), the person (I like to know what e.g. Piatra Craiului/Kiralyko means) and being practical/impractical.

Re: How should (European) peak names be spelled ?

PostPosted: Tue Nov 02, 2010 4:23 pm
by Bruno
Yaksteak, Petrol and Byzantin,

Why argue so much on spelling issues? :?: Especially when almost everybody is basically saying the same...

Re: How should (European) peak names be spelled ?

PostPosted: Tue Nov 02, 2010 4:33 pm
by yatsek
Bruno_Tibet wrote:Yaksteak, Petrol and Byzantin,

Why argue so much on spelling issues? :?: Especially when almost everybody is basically saying the same...

Brutus,
Back to page 2.
yatsek wrote:It's never been me who feels unhappy because other SP members spell toponyms differently. To my mind, if someone feels uncomfortable with the English language and culture, why don't they look for fulfillment and happiness on a non-English site? (And I'm not referring to those who choose not to speak on the forum.)

Hope your snow leopards are having a blast anyway. :)

Re: How should (European) peak names be spelled ?

PostPosted: Tue Nov 02, 2010 8:31 pm
by visentin

Re: How should (European) peak names be spelled ?

PostPosted: Wed Nov 03, 2010 12:14 am
by yatsek
Nanuls wrote:This whole thread seems to be a whole lot of fuss about nothing...

Re: How should (European) peak names be spelled ?

PostPosted: Wed Nov 03, 2010 12:57 am
by MoapaPk
Most of my relatives are French-Canadian, and lots have aigus and graves in their names. We just learned to deal with it. It's a pain to put accents in with this English keyboard. I guess we were the predecessors for text messaging!

Re: How should (European) peak names be spelled ?

PostPosted: Wed Nov 17, 2010 2:44 pm
by Bruno
yatsek wrote:Hope your snow leopards are having a blast anyway. :)

Woaw, you have an incredible memory! It took me long to understand the allusion to the snow leopards. Now I got it! :)

So far, “my” snow leopards are doing very fine without me... I mean I still haven’t seen any after all these years... But a few weeks ago, a huge wolf just came running across our way while we were driving down a 5000m high pass near the Nepal border. That was a very nice encounter, as the previous I saw was unfortunately a dead one.

Interestingly, I am currently reading this book by Peter Matthiessen, but despite the evocative title, after 273 pages he still hasn’t spotted any snow leopard. But there are still 80 pages left, so there are still hopes...
Cheers,
Bruno

Edit: Oh, I am just reading the link I provided above, and saw that
The famous irony of The Snow Leopard is that Matthiessen never spots the elusive creature during his adventure.
Maybe I'll have more chance with a Yeti!

Re: How should (European) peak names be spelled ?

PostPosted: Sun Nov 21, 2010 10:11 pm
by yatsek
Bruno Tibetus,

Well, this will never be forgotten :D

Image

I hope one day you write an article entitled "The infallible method to become powerfool by bulk loading thousands of worthless pix, each of which worth a thousand words on a meaningless SP page."

But above all, I hope you see your snow leopard when the time comes. I hope to see my Carpathian lynx too!

Re: How should (European) peak names be spelled ?

PostPosted: Sun Nov 21, 2010 11:41 pm
by lcarreau
"Maybe I'll have more of a chance with a Yeti!"

Image

I always thought the universal language was "body language." Hey, just saying...