Wikipedia collogue:Namin conventions

RfC on the naming of things that only have an "official" name in English

I believe there has been scattered discussion on this topic on the Discord server and elsewhere, but I would like to have a consolidated conversation on the wiki itself about the site's policy for naming things where the English name is important to list as the "official" name. This came up as I was going through Uiser:Soothrhins/Placename spellin the other day, where it was unclear whether I should be replacing the English names of post touns (eg in the infobox on the side of Aiberdour) with their Scots translations. Ultimately, because the policy was unclear and I didn't want to make a mess of things, I left the post touns as they were, but I think it is important to establish a policy on this.

What should be the policy for referring to post touns, railwey stations, and electoral districts in the text of articles and in article titles?

NB: I'd like to keep this relatively restricted to specific institutions or administrative divisions, so as not to intrude on discussions like the ones around Fowkrepublic, Wikipædia, the namin o kintras. If you don't feel that is appropriate, however, please bring it up.

Relevant examples of railwey stations include Innerness railwey station (which is currently under the Scots name for the city known in English as Inverness) Relevant examples of electoral districts would include Scots Pairlament constituencies, but no articles exist for any of them yet. However, for instance "Aiberdeen Central (Scots Pairlament Constituency" is included in Aiberdeen (disambiguation))

The options as I see them are:

1. Inglis names anely - eg "Inverness railwey station is the railwey station servin the Scots ceety o Innerness.", "Kevin Stewart is a politician representin the constituency o Aberdeen Central."
2. Scots names anely - eg "Innerness railwey station is the railwey station servin the Scots ceety o Innerness.", "Kevin Stewart is a politician representin the constituency o Aiberdeen Central."
3. Mixed - perhaps you think that I shouldn't be lumping together post touns, railwey stations, and electoral districts in this RfC, or that there should be different policies covering article text and article titles
4. NOTA - keep as is, no change

James Hyett (tauk) 17:22, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

• (in Inglis) For my part, I think it is best to have the mentioned categories be referred to using Inglis names anely, at least until Scots names are officially put out by the authorities that govern such things (eg ScotRail(?), the Scottish Government). James Hyett (tauk) 17:22, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
• (in Inglis) My first choice is Scots names anely, since the names of these places exist in Scots whether or not they appear officially in modern posters or signs. My second choice would be Mixed, because then if a thing has no official Scots name, a Scots translation of the name should be provided alongside the language it's originally in, for example "English name (Scots: Scots name)". This is what the English wiki does with foreign names that have no official English version. -Cobra! (tauk) 17:27, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
• I think Mixed with Scots as the default, an English as a reference for if anyone is going to make road signs in several languages. An if you dinnae ken the Scots you shouldnae be writing the Scots Wikipedia article. (An awkward corollary to this is that some placenames in Scots happen to be spelled exactly the same as the English) --Illandancient (tauk) 18:01, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
• (in Inglis) NOTA. For my part, I think that we might as well consider Scottish Gaelic names for the title of articles considering what little good constructed or English titles would do for us. However, I have also made it known privately that I am supportive of AllyD's small proposal on Meta. I don't know what the solution here is, but I'm at least skeptical of adopting a hard rule until we can be sure it's going to be right. –MJL ‐Tauk‐^☖ 19:17, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
• I'm minded towards Scots names anely, but a think this policy option needs to have ongoing flexibility built in. As a semi-hypothetical example: (en) Scottish Borders Council is currently named as The Mairches Cooncil, but if at a later time they adopted Cooncil o the Mairches or even Scots Borders Cooncil as their officially translated name, we should be updating our spelling accordingly. That's a pretty rare hypothetical, what I think is more likely is someone translating an English place name, unaware of a local dialect naming that probably should be used. Second preference would be Mixed. Whatever policy is settled on, needs clear examples of what's translated and not (in line with standards on other wikis), e.g. to my mind its Andy Murray not Andra Murray. soothrhins (tauk) 21:01, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
• (in Inglis) Comment - here I'll try to consolidate some of the related discussion, and propose some things. At AllyD's small proposal on Meta, there doesn't appear to be any dissent (though admittedly only @AllyD, Blythwood, Dave souza, Andrew Gray, GrounderUK, and MJL: weighed in) regarding article titles needing to meet a verifiability requirement, either being attested in material in Scots itself, or simply in Scottish material (as qualified by GrounderUK).

Chat in the Discord server last week on how to name Scots pairlament constituencies, which included Soothrhins emailing the Public Information Team, seemed to edge towards "gaun wi English as titles until they are officially translated (mibbe e'en note that in the airticles?)"

Chat from when I popped a link to this RfC in the discord included Cobra 3000 mentioning that "In Scots, you call it "Glesga", not "Glasgow", for example." (I interpreted this as referring to the railway station, but they can correct me if I'm wrong). While I don't doubt that that's true, I've found attestations in the Corpus for Scots dialogues that use the English names of stations (eg "Laurencekirk station" rather than Lowrenkirk, "Hawick Railway station" rather than Haaick). Also in the corpus: "Upha Station" (English: en:Uphall Station) -- this all simply points to a fact that we all know: Scots is not a standardised, uniform language (none are), and this is a complicated issue.

From what I can read in the discussion above (except for my very conservative vote up top, which I'm not married to at all), there seems to be a desire for flexibility (ie in the ability to change how the wiki refers to things) and inclusion (ie in terms of not including Scots names at the exclusion of English names or vice versa).

I don't know what the way forward with this is, and I think MJL is right to be cautious about setting a hard-and-fast rule, but I think that probably those of you suggesting constructions along the lines of

Innerness railwey station (Inglis: Inverness railway station) is the railwey station servin the Scots city o Innerness.

Kevin Stewart is a politician representin the constituency o Aberdeen Central (Scots: Aiberdeen Central). and

Haaick Inglis: Hawick
Post toun	Haaick (Inglis: Hawick)
Police
Fire
Ambulance

probably have it right, and if we allow for flexibility when things like "official" names become clearer in the future, then I think we should be golden. James Hyett (tauk) 18:24, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

• @James Hyett: Personally, I like all the examples you've just done. Seems to be in line with what Gàidhlig wiki does too. If it is settled on, I think it would be good to outline within the convention the correct steps that need taken should any ever need to be changed, and which proper nouns are correct to have in English (e.g. Scotland on Sunday). soothrhins (tauk) 18:47, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
• Having said verification is needed, had a keek and found John Grant; William Leslie (1798). A Survey of the Province of Moray: Historical, Geographical, and Political. Isaac Forsyth, Elgin. p. 68. a castle was uniformly at Innerness ... that commanded the town, Convention of Royal Burghs (Scotland) (1878). Records of the Convention of the Royal Burghs of Scotland: With Extracts from Other Records Relating to the Affairs of the Burghs of Scotland. Published for the Convention of Royal Burghs, W. Patterson. p. 663. inhabitants of the toun of Innerness in relation to the election of magistratts and councellers [1676]. Archaic, but supports the spelling. Similarly, old maps show Innerkip, which changed as in Inverkip railwey station. Don't know which version modern Kippers would think was right. . . dave souza (tauk) 21:12, 12 September 2020 (UTC)