Talk:Gairola

Notability

While individual people with the last name "Gairola" may be notable, and while some people may establish websites to bring people with the same last name together, that does not make the group notable. What makes a group notable is discussion about them as a group in third party authored and published reliable sources. Please see the Notability Guidelines for more information. Especially see Self promotion. --Bejnar (talk) 23:17, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Indian vs Indo-Iranian name

There may be a name of Indo-Iranian derivation, but the problem here is that the entire article only provides sources for Indian and my search on gbooks and gscholar has only reinforced that. If there are indeed two derivatives, then they should have properly disambiguated articles and we shouldn't mix the two up. —SpacemanSpiff 14:27, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

@SpacemanSpiff: Actually, I don't believe that there are two, or that they are mixed up. Indo-Aryan is actually more specific than Indian, which encompasses Tamils and others. The Gairola are distinctly Indo-Aryan, speaking an Indo-Aryan language of the Indo-Iranian language family. They are not any of the other Indian ethnicities. The article already says that the Gairola are basically Garhwali people. And the Garhwali are an Indo-Aryan ethno-linguistic group who primarily live in the Garhwal Himalayas of the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand. Yes, some sources are less specific, or may refer to the nationality rather than the ethnicity of the clan, but that does not mean that they are mixed-up. --Bejnar (talk) 15:40, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

I think I didn't explain myself properly in the earlier post, and stuck to just the idea of two independent terms: Indian is a geographic classification while Indo-Iranian is a linguistic classification, so I don't think specificity is the issue. Indo-Iranian is a catch all for almost all languages north of the Tapti and Mahanadi, but specifically for clans on the Himalayas and lower Himalaya ranges it excludes the influence of Tibeto-Burman languages (which has a significant influence in Uttarakhand), and in the absence of any sources that discuss whether this particular name is of Indo-Iranian or Tibeto-Burman origin, it's better to simply stick with the geographic classification. Also, sticking something at the top of a category tree isn't really the right thing to do -- then everything in Hindi, Bhojpuri, Sanskrit, etc etc would move in to the Indo-Iranian category, or anything related to Tamil, Malayalam etc would belong to the Proto-Dravidian cat. —SpacemanSpiff 16:09, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

So then you certainly don't want to use "Indian" in this discussion, even as a geographical, since "Indian" is top-of-the-tree as you put it. "Himalayan" would be descriptive geographically, as in the book entitled Himalayan Folklore: Kumaon and West Nepal. However, as this clan was a priestly clan, See Blunt's Caste System of Northern India and the religion is Vedic, Indo-Aryan is pretty much assured and there is no suggestion of Tibeto-Burman influence. But if you don't like it, we can certainly leave out both "Surnames of Indo-Iranian origin" and "Surnames of Indian origin". --Bejnar (talk) 02:03, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

I can't actually see a source for Indo-Iranian in the article and it is my belief that we should not categorise unverified claims. More, this article needs to be split: one for the clan, one for the name. Except the name is most likely not notable anyway. - Sitush (talk) 18:20, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

... and a very quick search suggests to me that the clan is not notable either, so perhaps the article should be redirected to (the dreadful) Sarola brahmin, since the Gairola appear to be a clan of that community. - Sitush (talk) 18:50, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Sarola subgroup of the Brahmin caste

On 20 June 2014, editor Sitush removed the citation to Blunt, Edward A. H. (1931). The Caste System of Northern India. London: Oxford University Press. pp. 137–138. OCLC 6882357. that supported the proposition that: "The Gairola belong to the Sarola subgroup of the Brahmin caste of this region." No reason was given for the citation's removal. Absent a good reason, I have restored the citation, in the Bold, Revert, Discuss tradition. I am open to a discussion of Blunt as a source, and also the work of Crooke, William (1896). Tribes and castes of the North-western provinces and Oudh. Calcutta: O.S.G.P. OCLC 4770515. upon which it was in part based. --Bejnar (talk) 16:48, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

There was a good reason given. And Crooke is no better a . source: we've been through these things hundreds of times on caste etc articles and Raj sources are simply not acceptable. I'd rather not reinvent the wheel here but you may wish to read, for example, James Tod and H. H. Risley (the latter being Blunt's guide). - Sitush (talk) 19:33, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

So you are prejudiced against the sources because the British were prejudiced against Indians. How does that relate to their accuracy? --Bejnar (talk) 20:09, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

WTF? Tod was far from being prejudiced against Indians. Do you have any idea what you are talking about? First you claim that I gave no reason for removal, now you clearly haven't looked at the Tod article and, I suspect, you think that I am Indian. If you can't see the difficulties regarding accuracy when scholar-administrators such as Risley, Blunt etc favoured the methods of scientific racism, had no training, took what they were told for granted, used Brahmin translators, engaged in their "studies" for the purpose of ensuring British control etc then I think you need to visit Reliable Sources 101. They were not reliable in their own time (like Tod) and they ain't reliable now. - Sitush (talk) 21:06, 21 June 2014 (UTC)