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Talk:Ganges/Archive 2

< Talk:Ganges
Latest comment: 13 years ago by Deacon of Pndapetzim in topic Move Ganges to Ganga
Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5

Closure

Latest comment: 13 years ago16 comments8 people in discussion

Is there any claim that this discussion has reached, or is likely to reach, consensus to move? If not, no admin intervention is required and this can be closed by anybody. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:47, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Do not remove templates without discussion. If move is allowed the closure materialises. Also do not forget wp:NOTDEMOCRACY. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 17:25, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
Do not insert templates without discussion; especially when they are plainly controversial. Is the rest of this saying that Yogesh Khandke will only agree to close this discussion if he gets his way? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:54, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
It doesn't say that, but that's apparently Yogesh' position here — my way or the highway. Wanna bet he posts another long reply into this thread? What exactly else would If move is allowed the closure materialises mean... in plain English it reads "until this thing is moved, I will keep posting and arguing into eternity". Or how would anyone else read this? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 20:00, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
Unfair allegations friends All I meant is that, unless, it is admitted by members of both parties to the dispute, that it has been settled to their mutual satisfaction about the correctness of their position or otherwise, how can the dispute be considered to be resolved. The manifestation of the dispute is the move proposal. Unilateral declarations to the effect are without value. Keeping it short Choyoo. Thanks.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:25, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
The template was not manufactured by me. It was there. Where is its intended use but at an article about an Indian subject. Ganga(es). Anderson? Could you please explain its intended use, and how it is not appropriate here.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:25, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
I am still waiting to hear from Flam. why a person has the right to be sensitive about a username, and be careful about its correct use, but the same emotion is considered savage, when it comes to the correct appellation of a national icon, Jayen I hope you would be listening to the answer too.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:25, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
You don't get it, do you? I'm not and never was sensitive about my username/nick. What bothers/ed me of were your suggestions that "our side" is motivated by derogatoriness, offensivity, insensitivity and racism (and you wrote this more than once). Oh, yes you struck the remark after I pointed it out and stopped using these adjectives. But let there be no doubt: you haven't changed your ways: now you suggest that I consider your emotions as savage. I mean, come on, give me a break. Could you us show exactly where I wrote that? You're just using the Race card in order to gain some advantage. I don't deny that I wrote that you harbour jingoistic feelings. But if you're not jingoist then I'm the emperor of China. Flamarande (talk) 19:53, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
  • (1)Does the sharp remark for correction suggest otherwise regarding username. (2)Jingoism reads "Jingoism is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as "extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy". In practice, it refers to the advocation of the use of threats or actual force against other countries in order to safeguard what they perceive as their country's national interests, and colloquially to excessive bias in judging one's own country as superior to others – an extreme type of nationalism." Can you provide a diff that would substantiate the above, even if one assumes that you have used the term colloquially, for my side, jingoist = less cultured = savage, which is why I have used the word above, do not forget that this is not a forum for debate and name calling, I have merely used the example of an attachment with username, the erroneous use of which prompts a correction, and the same desire for correction is derided as jingoism. It is not personal Jayen I am merely making a point that the sensitiveness regarding a username should be extrapolated to that of the desire of the correct usage of the name of a national icon. I have stated above, when I admitted discomfort about tables and lables, one should not put people in compartments. The allegation of race card is simply baseless. How do I know what the ethnicity or the nationality of the editors here are? Flam. please give us specifec reasons for your opposition to the move proposal based on wp:V and other relavent wikipedia policy, please no wp:OR. If the move proposal is demonstrated as against Wikipedia policy and practice it would be withdrawn.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 00:38, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Let's please not have goes at each other; I'm sure we can end this discussion peacefully. --JN466 20:18, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
Of course this article should use Indian English, just like Mississippi uses US English, or Murray River uses Australian English, so the Indian English template is justified. Let's not quibble over that. --JN466 17:43, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
It's a no-brainier that this article use Indian English. I was perplexed by the unexplained removal of the template. It's important to initiate a discussion on the talk page when such non-intuitive removals are made. Zuggernaut (talk) 17:55, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
I removed the template because I considered it an act of WP:POINT given the timing of its placement.--RegentsPark (talk) 23:36, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
Both of us had an identical number of edits to this page at the time of the removal of the template. Given that the timing of the addition/removal of the template was also more or less identical, WP:POINT could apply to you just as much as it applies to me, if the essay is applicable here at all. Zuggernaut (talk) 02:43, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
Unfortunately there isn't much of a consensus what Indian English is, or (more relevant here) what its salient features are; there's not much in the way of an accepted authoritative source for it; see this discussion. Tijfo098 (talk) 13:25, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
Tijfo you asked a question, is there a dictionary, it was pointed above that there is one the Cosmo Dictionary of Indian English, then there is the High School English Grammar and Composition, by Wren and Martin - As revised by N. D. V. Prasada RaoYogesh Khandke (talk) 00:38, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Indian government usage

Latest comment: 13 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion
  • An Indian government source stating that the Ganges is officially known as the Ganga: [1].
  • The Ganga Action Plan is known as such on the appropriate Indian government website: [2].
  • Likewise the National Ganga River Basin Authority: [3].
  • A joint statement by the World Bank and the Indian government reported in the UK Independent refers to "the Ganga (Ganges)": [4]. --JN466 19:21, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
    Ironically, the first source uses 'Ganga' 12 times and 'Ganges' 25 times. No easy answer here (except, perhaps, the obvious one that that government site is comfortable with either term!) --RegentsPark (talk) 19:36, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
    And the obvious observation that they culled texts from various disparate sources to put the page together ... --JN466 20:01, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
    Presumably all Indian sources. Though, I hope you're not suggesting that the Indian government is incapable of reading what it puts together. :) --RegentsPark (talk) 20:19, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
    Hrmph. --JN466 21:24, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
    • There is no doubt that both forms are used, the point is contemporary use is predominantly Ganga in India, Ganges is not taboo. I do not consider this anachronistic. There is google search result for the site gov.nic.in that gives a result of 110 to 2 in favour of Ganga. (It is given above.)Yogesh Khandke (talk) 00:45, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Restart?

Latest comment: 13 years ago24 comments8 people in discussion

I am wondering whether we should restart the discussion and poll all those who voted early on to revisit the question. Over the past few days, a number of salient new arguments (like WP:VNE) have been presented in favour of Ganges, and there is evidence from google books, google scholar etc. above favouring Ganga which most of the early voters will not have seen. We could restate the most cogent arguments made, and once we agree that arguments have been presented neutrally, invite everyone to re-vote. Thoughts? --JN466 05:18, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Agree, one point we need to define the parameters and the boundary conditions, move if this happens, and keep it that. Also we need someone to act as a judge. Pfly comes to my mind, he has been active, and did not vote for or against. And he comes across as slightly pro-keep. So the move proposal does not gain from a sympathetic judge.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:26, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
Disagree I looked around but was unable to find anything about restarting a move-request (at Help:Moving a page). Is that even possible/proper/legal (I guess one could ask an administrator)? Let's not avoid the obvious: some will be free to argue that you simply want to restart everything mainly because "your side" is getting fewer votes (simply stating the obvious). However IMHO the debate lasted for so long and got the votes of so many users that to simply ignore the cast votes and to restart the whole process again is unwise. The process was started, ran for a long time already, we may as well wait for the final results. Afterwards you can freely appeal to whoever instances you wish to (the rules allow you to re-propose a move-request - say perhaps in one year or so). Flamarande (talk) 11:48, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
Almost all editors in this discussion had !voted before anyone had presented any data on how many publications there actually are, in google books, in google scholar, that use either Ganga or Ganges in the title. You felt certain that no Western sources ever had used Ganga; I managed to surprise you by showing you some that did. Again, almost everyone had !voted by that time. Likewise, no one had pointed to WP:VNE. If we reinvite editors, show them the evidence and the contradictory policy considerations we have identified since the time they voted, we can get a more informed decision. --JN466 16:11, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
If the move-request was flawed, lacking data, Wiki policies, and containing flawed arguments and mistaken reasonings it was not my fault. I'm not guilty of canvasing (going to selected users in order to ask for their vote). Again: I looked at Help:Moving a page and was unable to find anything about restarting a move-request. If we bother users which voted already we risk alienating them. Notice that all voters are free to change their vote at any time, until an administrator closes the move-request (just don't ask me how long it will take). Flamarande (talk) 16:27, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
WP:VNE was raised earlier. Kanguole 16:52, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
Though Jayen I don't get it how wp:VNE, weighs in favour of Ganges, from it the title should be Ganga - Ganges, with Ganga only gaining alphabetic precedence.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:30, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
Kwami I was referring to this[5] and subsequent related discussion.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:51, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
Flam.(1)Your refusal to comment on why your misspelled username hurts, but similar emotions about Ganga are pitiful, is unfortunate. (2)Also this place is seeing continued dis-satisfaction about Ganges, which you retort with no-comment. (3)Cognitive perspectives are strongly influenced by belief systems, that works with everybody, for example Zuggernaut was suggesting that a geographical location entitled a particular belief system, my opposition to the suggestion does not mean that it may not be manifest. I opposed because it looked like balkanisation Flam. which I too do not want. (4)My move proposal is not based on a belief system, it is based on my interpretations of Wikipedia guidelines, all I ask is that; is the interpretation right; if it is move Ganges to Ganga. (4) You are using POV, like it is some charm, please see its usage note, I request you to be a little careful. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 06:16, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
Yogesh, VNE tries to minimise the number of readers who will be completely unfamiliar with the term. Most Indian English speakers will have read the name Ganges occasionally; it does after all occur even in present-day Indian-English newspapers. On the other hand, many people in the West will have never consciously registered the name Ganga, because its use in the Western media is so patchy. So if you go by VNE alone, you'd have to use Ganges. On the other hand, if you go by WP:TIES or WP:COMMONNAME, you would have to prefer Ganga. Cynics say this is why it is so good that Wikipedia has so many rules. You can always find one that agree with you. :) Others say that contradictory rules have encroached so much in Wikipedia that to comply with one rule, you often have to break another. --JN466 16:55, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Reply to Johnuniq[6]: wp:Engvar goes like this: (1)The English Wikipedia does not prefer any major national variety of the language. Within the English Wikipedia, no variety is considered more correct than another. (2)Cultural clashes over vocabulary, spelling, and grammar can be avoided by using the following four guidelines. (a)Consistency within articles (b)Strong national ties to a topic (c)Retaining the existing variety - When an article has evolved sufficiently for it to be clear which variety it employs, the whole article should continue to conform to that variety, unless there are reasons for changing it based on strong national ties to the topic. (d)Opportunities for commonality. A clear vote in favour of endonyms, unless you can explain how. (3)On the other hand you have a point though, about the usage in sources, a very valid point. One that clearly works in favour of Ganges, assuming your statistics are correct. But that is one point against others in favour of the move. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 06:34, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Jayen: Johnuniq refers to sources used in writing the article, assuming he has counted right, he has a valid point.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 07:10, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
Yogesh, this is far from clearcut. If you look at the Notes section, with the cited sources, first of all there are only 17 sources cited. That is a fairly small sample to base a big decision on. Within that,
1. The first reference is an Indian gov't source which uses "Ganga (or Ganges)".
2. The second reference is a Western media source (60 Minutes), using "Ganges river, or 'Ganga' as they call it".
3. The third reference uses Ganga.
4. The fourth reference is the Mahabharata, and of course it uses Ganga.
5. The fifth source uses Ganges, according to the title given, but if you click on it, it has nothing about it.
6. The sixth source is Time Magazine, using Ganges.
7. The seventh source uses Ganga.
The next two sources I can't view, but it is an Indian publisher, the author is Swami Sudarananda, and I would be surprised if he used Ganges rather than Ganga.
The next four sources use Ganges, the next one (pdf report) uses both Ganga and Ganges, the reamining ones I cannot see.
It is clear that we have a fairly even mix in the cited sources, rather than a clear preponderance of Ganges. --JN466 16:38, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
The gap was far too wide at 2:1 for this to achieve any success if it's restarted. Unless I'm totally incorrect about the bias, talk pages aren't the right place to take this up or it'll simply be a repeat of the same thing. I've asked for advise at the relevant project. Perhaps new eyes there will provide different ideas/approaches. Zuggernaut (talk) 07:57, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
I am banking on wp:NOTDEMOCRACY, I cannot assume I am right, but the move has been proposed, and there have to be reasons not to affect. It cannot be trampled down by numbers. Plus if we agree to the rules, in that move if this, keep if that, and then get into it, it will be transparent, and I will respect the judgement, any takers?Yogesh Khandke (talk) 08:40, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
I get your point, Zuggernaut. It is documented in Wikipedia, that English Wikipedia suffers an Anglo-American bias. How do you apply it here, apply some handicap, to the result 2:1, and declare that the move proposal has prevailed?Yogesh Khandke (talk) 08:49, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm flattered by your suggestion, Yogesh Khandke. Unfortunately, I am currently much too busy to take on anything for a while. I've got family visiting, kid's birthday, and several days of vacation to a cabin in the wilds of Mount Rainier this week. I would like to see a summary of the various points brought up, for various reasons and uses (such as a FAQ for this page, as Zuggernaut mentioned above). But I know I won't be able to reread this page and make such a summary, at least not in the next few weeks. It seems to me the best way to proceed is to close this proposal and compile a summary of it, and then..., Zuggernaut's idea of requesting ideas/advice at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias seems worthwhile. Hopefully the project is active enough to get a decent response and new ideas about how to proceed. At some future date, a new move proposal can be started. If the new proposal is well written, with information about the various issues and relevant (and irrelevant!) wikipedia guidelines and how they might apply (or not), and yet succinct enough for people to actually read, then the odds of a more favorable response should be better. I could see this process taking at least several weeks, if not more. There's no great hurry. Better to take the time to do it well, I think. How about aiming for a new proposal sometime in early 2011? Pfly (talk) 09:53, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Jayen? Keep supporters? Yogesh Khandke (talk) 10:15, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
(1)Kwami? (2)Pfly (a) I don't know what they can do? Can they lean in favour of the move, or the other way? (b)Whoever wishes to contribute in the position I thought for you, should make the rules, "move" if I see this, "keep" if I see that. We can't have advocates on either side to make rules, of-course they need to agree. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 10:32, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

The key here is that there is a conflict between WP:AT (with its clear preference for using the most recognizable WP:COMMONNAME) and WP:MOS (with its preference for using local spellings and names). Before this debate can be settled, that policy conflict needs to be resolved. I would therefor suggest that no decision be made on where this article should go until the underlying policy conflict is resolved. Blueboar (talk) 15:33, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Where do you suggest we should have that policy discussion? --JN466 16:57, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I think a restart is a reasonable idea. Many new points have been raised (on both sides of the issue) and I think it is worth the effort for all of us to reevaluate our positions based on the discussion. My thoughts are certainly not as fixed as they were at the start of the discussion. I don't agree with the 'handicap' idea (the idea that Ganges is reflective of a systemic bias is itself POV), nor do I think we need an 'judge', but a discussion restart seems to be a constructive idea. --RegentsPark (talk) 04:11, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, if we restart, we need to summarise the evidence collected to date, and get agreement from everyone that the summary is neutral. Would you be up for drafting something, RegentsPark? --JN466 18:27, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
I'd be happy to, but I don't think YK would approve :) --RegentsPark (talk) 03:31, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Indian English name

Latest comment: 13 years ago18 comments8 people in discussion

The templated notice at the top of the page states "This article uses Indian English dialect and spelling. Some terms that are used in it differ from, or are not used in, American English and European English and other dialects of English." and it seems that Ganga is the Indian English name; those arguing for Ganges are using variations on "most common name in English" if I read this page correctly. KillerChihuahua?!?Advice 15:01, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Note: The template was added by an editor supporting the move after the move request was initiated. (FYI) --RegentsPark (talk) 15:19, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
Let us see. Should this article use Indian English or any other dialect? Yogesh Khandke (talk) 15:38, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Could someone explain the differences between British English and Indian English?, the article doesn't really cover what makes Indian English unique. Outofsinc (talk) 15:52, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

  • There is a Cosmo dictionary of Indian English.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 16:07, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
Discussions pertaining to Indian English only should be taken to the talk page of the Indian English article. Zuggernaut (talk) 17:24, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Generally, I would say that 'Indian English' is better defined by usage by English language publications in India (newsmedia, academic papers, etc.) than by a dictionary. If using Indian English is the primary reason for choosing a name for this article, then Ganga would be the correct title because it is more commonly used than Ganges in India. However, it should be noted that local language is a stylistic preference, it is not the sole stylistic preference, and there are other policies that have been stated above (for either title). --RegentsPark (talk) 17:01, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
Jayen That is why I used the rider, assuming Johnuniq is counting right, if he isn't, then the predominance in sources quoted would weigh in favour of Ganga.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 16:07, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
The present revision regarding the use of National varieties of English reads: An article title on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the variety of English appropriate for that nation. It is now aligned with wp:Engvar, we are not sure how long it is going to stay that way there. But if a rule is created just to keep Ganga out, I don't think that would make Wikipedia look nice. It would make it look decidedly stupid. These rules are for hundered of thousands of English articles, they should not be tinkered for one article title, that some are not comfortable with. Please see the discussion at the Wikipedia talk:Article titles Yogesh Khandke (talk) 16:07, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
I repeat from the last time this template was abused: it does not deal with vocabulary, which merely shows that this is an article on India; it deals with spelling and syntax (such matters as have/have done, got/gotten and honor/honour). Whether there is any distinction in these between Indian and British English remains to be shown.
The claim that only Yogesh's favorite form complies with ENGVAR remains a falsehood. WP:COMMONALITY is part of Engvar and has been for years; precisely to deal with situations when the blind following of national ties would interfere with communication. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:21, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
Hey! There is no need to make personal attacks. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 16:36, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
I got your point Jayen about wp:VNE. but I cannot see myself agreeing. The example given is aeroplane, airplane and the one that nobody uses Fixed wing aircraft, like a no man's land. We would have needed a third name, by that logic the river should be called Padma, because one wikipedia rule suggests that the name of the river should be one by which it is called near its mouth, so the award goes to not Bhagirathi, not Ganga but Padma.I cannot find the wikirule right now Yogesh Khandke (talk) 16:36, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
Noted. (That's a response to a comment I made further up this page. Yogesh, please have a look at Wikipedia:THREAD#Indentation. I know it's a pain sometimes finding where someone has said something, but overall it will help readability if you add responses to particular statements you remember directly below the statement in question, so that statements and responses to them are kept together. Most people check for new contributions in the talk page history, so they won't miss a new comment even if it is made further up the page.) Best, --JN466 09:40, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
I guess it means, disagree. The advise about replies in-situ, is a thing I am not comfortable with, but if history is how a discussion on a talkpage is followed, then it works fine. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:29, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
No, actually I don't disagree with you there; like you say, fixed-wing aircraft/aeroplane/airplane is not analogous to our situation here, where we only have two terms. The logically plausible argument that I accept can be made for Ganges on the basis of VNE is that Ganges has been common to all varieties of English, including Indian English. To me, however, this argument doesn't outweigh the other considerations that are in favour of Ganga, like WP:TIES, and the preponderance of Ganga in recent English-language sources – and that is why Ganga is still my preference. --JN466 17:31, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
(left) Thank you. False claims of personal attack are one of the signs that a discussion has reached a dead end. I discussed a claim, not a person. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:47, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Nobody uses "fixed wing aicraft"? [7] I thought it was a more accurate technical term, besides side-stepping the EngVar issue. Tijfo098 (talk) 13:20, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

How many instances of use can one find, statements like "Fixed wing aircraft" crashes killing all on board, or "Fixed wing aircraft" hijacked?Yogesh Khandke (talk) 19:33, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Ganga vs Ganges

Latest comment: 13 years ago38 comments20 people in discussion

Opinions sought. =Nichalp «Talk»= 09:41, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Ganga

  • Ganga is the correct name. Ganges is a colonial British corruption of Ganga. While Ganges may be used, it is becoming antiquated especially among Indian speakers of English. A search for 'Oxus' on Wikipedia redirects to Amu Darya, even though Oxus was the name used for centuries in the Western world. Therefore, the article should be under Ganga, with Ganges ridirecing to Ganga.
  • The name Ganga is prevalent among anglophones too, and as noted below, a google search indicates that it is more widely used than 'ganges'. The argument that more Indian pages using the name 'Ganga' overwhelms the non-Indian pages proves nothing. India has a large population that uses English as a first language (And if we're counting everybody who speaks english, first language or not, this number is likely to surpass even the population of the US) and is, therefore, correctly labeled a (partly) anglophone country. Why should Indian English be relegated to a status below that of American or British English? Spanish spoken in South America is still Spanish.
  • As for other arguments, Germans do not speak English, nor do they refer to their country as Deutschland when speaking in English, whereas many if not most Indians do, in fact, use the name Ganga in English.
  • Most Japanese (who do not speak English) use Wikipedia in their own language and therefore use the term Nippon, although the name Japan is almost always used in English, even in Japanese governmental bulletins issued in English. Indians who primarily use English as their first language (and I believe most users of WIkipedia fall in this category) may refer to the river as Ganga or Ganges, so 'Ganga' isn't the name of the river ONLY in Indian languages.
  • Yes, why compromise on actual and original name which is quite prevalent as well, Ganges can always redirect to Ganga. --Vjdchauhan 09:15, 26 February 2007 (UTC).
  • Its got more ghits and it is the correct name for the river.Bakaman 23:15, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I prefer Ganga as per the reasons given by the above two users .--Shyamsunder 13:16, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
  • "Ganges" should redirect to "Ganga" and not the other way around. The title of the article should be "Ganga." There is no reason to pollute Wikipedia with the arrogant stupidity of 19th-century British imperialism. It was not their prerogative to rename the river. Nor is there any linguistic reason why native English speakers cannot pronounce "Ganga." After all, it is part of the name of Kipling's famous poem "Gunga Din." The word "Ganges," however long ago it was invented, is a simple error. Wikipedia should work to eliminate ignorance, not exalt it.--Dieresis (talk) 01:23, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't understand why is it so difficult to name the article Ganga, instead of Ganges. It is an 'Indian' river. It is being called Ganga from ancient times. Its a no brainer really. All that is achieved by naming it 'Ganges' is that most Indians are going to get irritated about it. Its but natural. --Sidace (talk) 14:33, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Ganga not Ganges, Its a name of river, Name never changes in any language. So its not rocket science to understand whether its should be Ganga or Ganges. Its just simple name from ancient times. KuwarOnline Talk 14:53, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Bombay redirects to Mumbai as Calcutta redirects to Kolkata; therefore we should follow that lead and have Ganges redirect to Ganga. Plus reasons above, especially the Indian government's name for it. It's as clear as day. Elizium23 (talk) 04:56, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Ganga is the correct name.. Ganges is a colonial mispronunciation of Ganga. It is always best to keep the name in the way the local people call it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.113.47.66 (talk) 11:10, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Ganges

  • As a person whose ethnic origin is Indian but who lives in a English-speaking country, I believe Ganges it still by far the notable name. Ganga may have entered Indian English, but it is still essentially the name of the river only in the Indian languages. GizzaChat © 07:13, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes, the article should be moved to "Ganges". Ganges river, Ganga river should redirect there. In fact, at present Ganga is a dab page that enumerates all Ganga stuffs. IMO, Ganga should also redirect to Ganges, with an otheruses template for Ganga added in Ganges. Ganga and Ganges both primarily mean the river to the worldwide audience. Thereafter comes the meanings such as the goddess, or the dynasty etc. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 08:00, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I opt for Ganges. The river is referred to by that name. I assume the official Indian govt name is also Ganges, right? --Ragib 09:46, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Obviously not. The official Indian govt name is Ganga. This article should be called Ganga, and Ganges must redirect to Ganga. But hey, this website is mainly by (and for) English-speaking white (bespectacled) male Caucasians, that may be more comfortable with "Ganges" (and were probably taught that in their school) anyway, so let's stick to Ganges for all I care. :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.200.95.130 (talk • contribs)
  • Please don't add such racist comments about the demographics of Wikipedia readers. --Ragib 05:38, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Hah, that's only honest, not racist :-) It can't be *my* fault if the truth (about Wikipedia's demographics) didn't please *you* much, can it? :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.200.95.130 (talk) 05:46, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I also opt for Ganges. This is an English-language encyclopedia. As an English speaker of South Asian origin, I can say I've only heard "Ganges" (in English). Similarly, I would opt for calling the "Germany" article "Germany" on en-wiki, not "Deutschland", and the "Japan" article "Japan", not "Nippon". --SameerKhan 08:15, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Objectively, Google has 557,000 results for "ganges river" and 236,000 results for "ganga river". Thus, since I believe the primary term used should reflect what people most often encounter or use to find it, I vote Ganges. —CodeHydro 14:00, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
See this http://www.google.com/trends?q=ganga%2C+ganges. Shows Ganga is more popularly searched for than Ganges. --SpArC (talk) 07:38, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Comments

  • I partially agree with DaGizza. Although the word "Ganga" is used both as English and Hindi word for the river, but other English speaking countries predominantly use "Ganges" for the river. However, a googlefight between the two confuses me as "Ganga" gets 1.5 times ghits as compared to "Ganges". — Ambuj Saxena (☎) 07:26, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
  • may be this googlefight result is because of (a) Most Websites in India usually call it Ganga, and number of Indian websites mentioning Ganga outnumbers foreign/Indian websites using Ganges. (b) The other Gangas are also included in the fight. In fact, this googlefight of Ganga river vs Ganges river gives opposite result!--Dwaipayan (talk) 08:04, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm neutral =Nichalp «Talk»= 09:41, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Question Does anybody else think inviting Wikipedia:WikiProject Rivers members would be a good idea? We should therefore get more people from all around the globe who are interested in rivers to comment on this. Ah... I have also found the official river naming policy here in case anybody wants to see. GizzaChat © 11:03, 27 February 2007 (UTC
  • India has more English speakers than the United States. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a website that reinforces stereotypes. The people of India, where this river runs though, call it Ganga. Even the English media in India call it so. It is its English name. But it seems that here in Wikipedia, its only "English" if people in the United States call it "Ganga" rather than "Ganges." I support Ganga because its what the Indian people call it in English. The difference with Germany is that the government says that their country's English name is Germany. In India, however, the official name is still Ganga for English. I would consider this a bias to English speakers living in India.
  • [ellusion begin] While I fully agree with Shyamsundar that it should be indeed named Ganga, I do not think that it can be done due to the more notable name. Yes, it was erroneously named Ganges in lieu of Ganga (or my preference gangA/gangaa), but that error must first be corrected before Wikipedia can change the name. Wikipedia after all is an encyclopedia that strives a neutral position, naming article based on the most notable name.
  • I would also like to point out that the current naming of Ganges does not necessarily serve to foster or remove ignorance, it is merely a representation of current naming conventions. However, this does lead one to believe that were the page renamed to Ganga, that obviously people would be initially stumped when they get redirected to "Ganga" while searching for "Ganges". However, it is not that difficult to visualize the thought process that could occur. Namely "oh, so that's what it's called!" or on the flip-side "oh... maybe they got the page title wrong" Of course, a short blurb on the naming variants at the beginning would easily alleviate any doubts. I believe this type of name change would actually help educate the community on the proper name. As a side benefit, nobody would be harmed by the name change as it seems the main group of people negatively affected by the current name are Indians and I doubt any non-Indian would have issues finding the article either way.
  • My personal stance is that the correct name (Ganga) should be used, however I actively promote correct naming and pronunciation in all walks of life, in every language possible. I am not Vietnamese, but I refuse to pronounce "Nguyen" as "Win" considering that I now know how the right way sounds, albeit I cannot make it sound perfect. I encourage everybody to learn as much as possible, and actively promote the correct way as well as repair erroneous ways of the past. I suggest changing the current mindset of people from Ganges to Ganga. Now whether wikipedia should reflect current understanding (Ganges), or encourage proper understanding (Ganga) is a question for debate. [ellusion end]- ellusion - (talk) 18:10, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

There has been an extensive discussion on this here. So, until a consensus is reached, I urge LordSuryaofshorpshire not to change every mention of Ganges to Ganga. --Ragib (talk) 19:58, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Once again, I urge User:LordSuryaofShropshire to stop changing the river name spelling without reaching a consensus here. This topic has been discussed a lot here, and no consensus favoring the spelling Ganga has been reached. --Ragib (talk) 20:02, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

For how many decades we want to wait to reach a consensus here?? its more than been 3 years. What I can see that its already reached consensus to rename it to Ganga. KuwarOnline Talk 15:07, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
There is no consensus. Though Ganga does have a majority vote, consensus requires solidarity or near if not 100% agreement. As per WP:NOCONSENSUS, the [[status quo, or current name of Granges shall continue. —CodeHydro 14:09, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes, consensus is not a vote, but a debate. "Ganga" may be the name in Indian English, but "Ganges" is global, as well as being traditional. When maps, documentaries, and geography and history books in the rest of the world start using "Ganga", then we will too. As long as it's a provincial name, we should not. — kwami (talk) 19:14, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
  • You cannot use a 'foreign' colonial name for a river or town or whatever. See Alappuzha for instance. The name Allepey is the colonial/English name given to the city but Alappuzha is the actual name which has a meaning to it in Malayalam. Be accurate and original. 'Ganges' should redirect to 'Ganga'. Ganga is the name of the river. --SpArC (talk) 07:28, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
I suppose we must move India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh as well, since all of those are foreign names. — kwami (talk) 07:37, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Sir, Those are official names for those countries. Indian constitution refers to the country as India. If it were to change the name to Bharat, then would the article not change the name accordingly? Despite India being more commonly used. See Chennai for instance. It's colonial name was Madras. Similarly, the ministry of waters/central water commission refers to the river as 'Ganga' [1]. There is also a 'Ganga Flood Control Commission (GFCC)' a subordinate office of the Ministry of waters. --SpArC (talk) 08:26, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
If India officially changed its name to Bharat, we would not follow suit unless the majority of the English-speaking world did so first. China is not known by that name in China, but we use that term because that's how it's known in English. I see that Hindi Wikipedia calls it चीन, meaning that they also violate this supposed rule that we should use local names.
Then why were Chennai, Mumbai and Kochi changed from Madras, Bombay and Cochin? I'm sure you'll agree that Bombay is better known name in the majority of the 'English-speaking world' than Mumbai. --SpArC (talk) 10:41, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
You'll have to ask at those articles. Perhaps some of them should be moved back. — kwami (talk) 19:46, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Surely you must be joking. How can you achieve consensus when you have irrational people like this?--SpArC (talk) 05:32, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
The Ganges is a fairly unusual case of a major river with a single name along its entire length. (Note that "Ganges" is just "Ganga" with the Greek grammatical ending -s, much like "Moses" from Moishe and "Jesus" from Yeshua.) But what about the Brahmaputra? That river is called Yarlung, Yalu, Dihang, and Jamuna. We have it under Brahmaputra because that is the conventional name in English. Or the Indus, which is known variously as Sindhu, Sênggê, etc. Similar cases are the Nile, Yangtze, Amazon, Niger, Mekong, and Congo. Following local names doesn't work in general, because there are often multiple local names. We follow WP:Common instead. — kwami (talk) 09:14, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
'Ganga' is not a local name, Sir. Why would the Indian ministry of rivers call it 'Ganga' in their English website? --SpArC (talk) 10:38, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Of course it's the local name. What other local name is there? — kwami (talk) 19:46, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
I meant 'Ganga' isn't just a local name. It's the name that's been used even in English websites of the Indian government.--SpArC (talk) 05:35, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Move Ganges to Ganga

Latest comment: 13 years ago214 comments44 people in discussion
The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 23:58, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Ganges → Ganga — Fixing unlisted move request (see below), not expressing an opinion myself. —SpacemanSpiff 08:19, 16 November 2010 (UTC) The proposer provides the following arguments. ("proof" for all the following statements have been given above)

  1. Ganga is the spelling used in Indian English it is not a Hindi or Bengali word but a standard Indian English word.
  2. Ganga is the spelling used and understood in Asia.
  3. Together 1 and 2 make about 3 billion people with varying degrees of proficiency over English.
  4. The subject of this article is Indian and so Indian English should be the dialect used.
  5. Wikipedia uses pinyin to spell Chinese names and following a precedent should use Indian English spellings for Indian words.

This is what other editors have on the issue which comes across as pro-move.

  1. "Actually, there's a nontrivial WP:ENGVAR question here. If Ganga is really the name used in Indian English, then per the "strong national ties" clause, perhaps we should use it. One question, maybe, is whether India counts as an "English-speaking nation" for these purposes — as I understand it, an awful lot of Indians speak English, but very few natively; mostly, they learn it in school. But I could be wrong about that. The other question is whether Ganges is actually wrong in Indian English. If it's a reasonably frequent usage, then we might still use it per "opportunities for commonality". --Trovatore (talk) 18:37, 22 October 2010 (UTC)" It has been proved that Ganga is how the word is spelt in English, QED for Trovatore's query.
  2. "Ganga (the river) and Ganja (marijuana) are pronounced completely differently, the former uses g as in green, the latter uses j as in James. I'm not sure where you got the /ˈɡɑːŋɡə/ for Ganja. I can only state this for Bengali and Hindi ... but I assume other South Asian languages also use the j-sound. --Ragib (talk) 19:42, 22 October 2010 (UTC)"
  3. This editor has given his consent for the move, "Ok, personally I don't have a big problem with this. I think way too much time on Wikipedia is spent bickering over page names. That said, for now I abstain from one side or the other here. Pfly (talk) 04:45, 24 October 2010 (UTC)"

Yogesh Khandke (talk) 03:39, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Please don't misrepresent my words. I did not say I consented. I said I abstained. Pfly (talk) 03:47, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
That is why I have written "come across". The editor wrote, I do not have a big problem with this, he won't oppose the move, that is good enough, he is on the side of those who wish to move, unless of-course he has changed his mind. A few more views which look like pro-move.
No. Not opposing does not equal approving. It is not "good enough". I am not on your side. Pfly (talk) 04:48, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Like Pfly, I also request you not to misrepresent my comment. The comment you quote above is neither pro nor anti move ... rather it is merely a statement on the pronunciation of a different word. I'm striking out the comment above since you blatantly misrepresented it here. --Ragib (talk) 09:55, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
  1. "For how many decades we want to wait to reach a consensus here?? its more than been 3 years. What I can see that its already reached consensus to rename it to Ganga. KuwarOnline Talk 15:07, 5 July 2010 (UTC)"
  2. "You cannot use a 'foreign' colonial name for a river or town or whatever. See Alappuzha for instance. The name Allepey is the colonial/English name given to the city but Alappuzha is the actual name which has a meaning to it in Malayalam. Be accurate and original. 'Ganges' should redirect to 'Ganga'. Ganga is the name of the river. --SpArC (talk) 07:28, 13 September 2010 (UTC)"

Yogesh Khandke (talk) 04:42, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

  • Oppose: (1) The Indian govt uses both "Ganga" and "Ganges" it its publications, often in the same paragraph. (2) The term "Ganga" is local, being virtually unknown outside south Asia and countries culturally influenced by India. It is not listed in US or UK geographic dictionaries that I can find, whereas "Ganges" is. (3) "Ganges" is not a "colonial" form, unless by "colonial" you mean Alexander. (4) Once again, what the hell does pinyin have to do with anything? We're not talking about spelling, we're talking about form, like Bombay/Mumbai. If "Ganges" is good enough for the Indian govt, and is the internationally recognized form, then of course it's what we should use in an international encyclopedia. We use pinyin because the US, UK, and other anglophone govts follow the Chinese govt in using pinyin for transliteration. If the India govt has a preference for romanization, which you have not shown, it has nothing to do with whether we use "Ganges" or "Ganga". (5) I suppose we should change "colonial" Indus River to unassimilated Sindhu as well? — kwami (talk) 05:31, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Argument against opposition(1)What does it prove? That two spellings are used. The argument is which to use here. Many links above clearly and unambiguously demonstrate that Ganga is the predominant preferred spelling. (2)The statement Ganga is not unknown outside South Asia is false and has been demonstrated as such; is China South Asia? Is Indonesia South Asia? Is Africa South Asia[[8]]?(3)Does editor Kwami intend to suggest that the spelling Ganges written in the Roman script was decided by the Greek alphabet using Alexander? (4)Is wikipedia an international encyclopaedia or an Anglophone encyclopaedia that is the crux of the argument? Will Wikipedia follow US, UK governments in its spelling conventions, please editor Kwami prove that Wikipedia follows US/UK spelling rules for non US/UK names. Editor kwami is wrong, it is not about form it is about spelling, is not about Bombay x Mumbai it is about Cawnpore x Kanpur. (5)Ganga is what the river is spelt in Indian English, Indus is how the river is spelt in Indian English, wrong analogy given by editor Kwami. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:51, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Support to the extreme extent The arguments against it are ridiculous/utterly hypocritical. Why does the wiki page for Persia redirect to Iran? Or how about this - Which of these names are known/recognized better? Bombay or Mumbai? Obviously Bombay! Why is the wiki page named Mumbai? And Bombay made to redirect? Same goes with Madras and Chennai, the latter being the correct name. I can list more examples. You don't name an article as one just because it's more well known or recognized that way. You have to use the right name and redirect all the other names it is known by. This is an encyclopedia. Please see these discussions for the name changes for the cities above

--SpArC (talk) 08:13, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Opinion solicited by Yogesh Khandke --JaGatalk 19:56, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
If the point is to be encyclopedic, then perhaps we should follow the lead of the Encyclopedia Britannica, which has their article under "Ganges River", with the explanation, Although officially as well as popularly called the Ganga, both in Hindi and in other Indian languages, internationally it is known by its Anglicized name, the Ganges. — kwami (talk) 09:13, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
When they say 'other Indian languages' do they also include English? Because English is an official language of India as well. That's an ambiguous statement. So, no. Copying another encyclopedia wouldn't help here kwami. --SpArC (talk) 09:38, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Don't pretend you can't read. You know full well what they're saying. And it does help: international sources use "Ganges", not Ganga. The only question is whether we follow international usage, or local/regional usage. — kwami (talk) 09:54, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
The quoted statement is ambiguous. Why do you call this issue international vs local? English is not international to India. And in Indian websites which are in English, it is referred to as Ganga. In your own terms 'Internationally' the word Bombay is clearly more popular. Why is Mumbai the name of the wikipedia article? Please see the links I've posted above for your reference and research. I'm done repeating myself here. I've made my points. I wish you a good day, Sir. --SpArC (talk) 10:21, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Support the move It should be Ganga, 1.2 billion(may be more) people in India knows as Ganga so it would be better to move to Ganga than Ganges. I agree with User:SpArC comments. KuwarOnline Talk 11:27, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose. User:Yogesh Khandke has taken up fully half of this talk page with persistent and repetitive comments about the name of this article. It's becoming disruptive. If there was a clear consensus for this, he or she would not have needed to start so many separate discussions. Powers T 13:16, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Comments I really didnt got why you opposed? from above comments what I understood is you opposed due to Yogesh started another discussion? please be clear why you want to oppose with proper comments. thanks KuwarOnline Talk 15:05, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Editor Powers this editor had to repeat because arguments fell on deaf ears. The opposing editor has failed to counter arguments based on facts supported by evidence. Editors supporting the move, the move is not based on the logic Bombay --> Mumbai, but Dacca --> Dhaka, or Cawnpore --> Kanpur, which spelling should be used. Obviously the Indian spelling. Encyclopaedia Britanica has not dropped from heaven, there is no need that Wikipedia follow Britica, on the other hand we can make Wikipedia so good that Britinaca goes out of business. More over I found one mistake there check the entry for Mahabaleshwar, its location is wrong.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 15:21, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
It is my perception that this is a personal crusade of one editor, whose main method of arguing his case has been to repeatedly assert that the page must be moved. That's not very convincing. Powers T 15:41, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
That if you may allow me, is a baseless allegation, there have been many editors as have been quoted above, who have argued for the move, I have provided my arguments, please prove them false, or quote rules or conventions just as Johnchapple has below. Please stick to the point.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 16:06, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
The last five discussion sections on this page all begin with a statement from you. I see other people agreeing with you, but no one else who is remotely as adamant about this change as you are. Remember, in the grand scheme of things, this is not an important issue, and nothing bad will happen if your preferred change doesn't happen. Powers T 16:47, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
And the article's text will remain just as desperately in need of improvement. If a quarter of the effort spent on name change arguments was spent on improving the text we might have a semi-decent page instead of the mess it is. Pfly (talk) 16:54, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
This name change will affect many articles that refer to Ganga as a river, just as one article that I have started does, and where suddenly the name changed from Ganga to Ganges. Which brought me here in the first place. It is a generic change. I am not alone can be seen from comments above and below. If the issue is so unimportant and benign, why not move and then move on? Moreover it is not a matter of preference, it is a matter of what is standard to wikipedia, the move fits into the standards of Wikipedia as I interprete them Yogesh Khandke (talk) 17:08, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Argument against refering to wp:commonname
I am quoting commonname here:

National varieties of English Further information: Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English: All national varieties of English spelling are acceptable in article titles; Wikipedia does not prefer any national variety over any other. An article title on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the variety of English appropriate for that nation (for example Australian Defence Force). American spellings should not be respelled to British standards, and vice versa; for example, both color and colour are acceptable and both spellings are found in article titles (such as color gel and colour state). But when local usage is itself divided, we do not necessarily follow the majority or plurality of local English usage against the consensus of the rest of the English-speaking world: Ganges, not Ganga. Occasionally, a less common term is selected as an article title because it is appropriate to all national varieties, for example Fixed-wing aircraft. So the nomenclature for Ganga is mentioned as a specific exception to the rule. What is this based on? The reason given is that local usage is divided. This is simply baseless. There is no proof. I can provide evidence to the contrary, government of India website uses Ganges 20 times[9], and Ganga 1100 times[10]. For advanced search with the region specifier on India there were 2,180,000 results for Ganga[11] and 233,000 for Ganges,[12] less than 10%, that is no division. Another mistake is that Ganga is not local to India but is understood in Asia and elsewhere as shown above. So wp:commonname is wrong here on two counts and should not be refered here. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 15:31, 16 November 2010 (UTC)See

Just a quick comment re the above: those statistics are misleading, and shouldn't be given any weight in this discussion. Ganga is also a name given to people and companies, and thus the number of Google hits on "Ganga" don't necessarily equate to the number of hits referring to the river. For example, when I click the above, out of the first ten hits on the worldwide search for Ganga, only four of the first ten hits relate to the river, and all four also use the name "Ganges" in the articles. Google hits really don't work as a meaningful measure. - Bilby (talk) 02:27, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Being a common name in India does not make it a common name. As an American, I've never heard it called the Ganga and wouldn't have recognized it. I'm guessing that's true in most Western English-speaking cultures. The question is, then, would your average English-speaking Indian recognize the Ganges as referring to this river? If so (which I'm guessing is true), we should keep Ganges as the international common name. We don't want to give this very important article a name only reasonably recognizable to one continent. --JaGatalk 19:06, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Is Mumbai well known in Western English-speaking cultures? Or is it Bombay? Obviously, everyone in India and the entire world recognize Bombay better than Mumbai. Then why does Bombay redirect to Mumbai? --SpArC (talk) 13:49, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
Our present placement of Mumbai is based on the observation that Mumbai is now better known in the world at large than Bombay - and that its appearances in the world news show this. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:04, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
Exactly. A decade or so ago, Bombay was the better known name by far. But more recently, use of the name Mumbai has become common in international media. Perhaps in the next decade or so, the same will be true for Ganga. But Wikipedia is not a crystal ball; we follow the trends in the media and popular culture, not try to create new trends. --JaGatalk 01:39, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
And therefore we wait and see. Perhaps Mumbai will elect a different municipal government and change back. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:10, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Support. Imc (talk) 19:36, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Strongest possible oppose per WP:COMMONNAME, ie the English common name. – ukexpat (talk) 19:39, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
English is also a language in India or are you referring only to the English spoken in the west? Please change Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkatta to the "English" common names as well then. If you oppose this, you should oppose that as well. Be fair.--SpArC (talk) 13:49, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Support (or, if you wish, ultra-strongest possible hypersupport to offset some of the ridiculousness above) per WP:TIES. We use British English for British topics; Canadian English for Canadian topics; American English for American topics; Indian topics should get the same courtesy. Ucucha 21:07, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose per User:JaGa's comments above. Although WP:ENGVAR is a strong argument here, Ganga is largely unrecognisable outside of South Asia while "Ganges" is recognisable both within and outside of the region and has vastly greater usage over the sweep of time and space. — AjaxSmack 02:24, 17 November 2010 (UTC) This is addressed formally at WP:COMMONALITY. — AjaxSmack 23:09, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
How about Mumbai as against Bombay? Which is better known? --SpArC (talk) 13:49, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose WP:ENGVAR has several sections; one of them recommends that opportunities for commonality, for using words understood in all English-speaking countries, should be taken when available. I should add that colonial here is a meaningless term of abuse; English=speakers were using Ganges (as here, from The Wounds of Civil War) before they owned a foot of land in India - following Pliny the Elder and Claudius Ptolemy. This effort to be more Indian than Nehru (see the moving quotation in the article itself) should be rejected. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:59, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Arguments against opposition to move:
  1. wp:commonname uses premises that are invalid as pointed out above
  2. JaGa: The argument is not what Americans call the river, but what it is called in India in English, what the Indian English spelling is, and whether it is fringe? The spelling Ganga is used in Indian English, and is clearly understood in Asia, Africa and even in white-English nations as demonstrated above. Every one may not know it. For them it would be knowledge, one thing that an encyclopaedia provides.
  3. Anderson: Nehru wrote eighty years ago, we are referring to contemporary use, his quotation cannot be taken as a contemporary. Also the same quotation has the spelling Ganga used, see the African link above, so perhaps it is not accurate.
  4. Indians have a way for Romanisation just as the Chinese have. The Chinese system has been accepted on wikipedia. There have to be sound reasons why India should be treated by a different yardstick. Examples: Cawnpore x Kanpur, Poona x Pune, Jubblepore x Jabalpur. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 12:54, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
AjaxSmack's assertion that Ganga is unrecognisable outside South Asia (a name for the Indian sub-continent) is untrue and baseless as demonstrated by various links above, Ganga is used and recognised in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, has been used by white scholars, and in Africa too. All arguments against move are based on baseless assumptions so far wheras those for the move have solid proofs as demonstrated above, please go through the many links provided as proof. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 13:00, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
  1. Oppose Ganges is the English name of the river (Ganges delta, Ganges dolphin, etc.). --RegentsPark (talk) 14:59, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Reply to above opposition: The Ganges is the name in the English English dialect and not universal as per evidence given above.

  1. Oppose Common name in US, British and International english, also used in Indian english, so we should use the opportunity to commonise. Outofsinc (talk) 15:46, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment I saw at WP:COMMONNAME the suggestion of checking "geographic name servers", so I checked some entries at the US federal GeoNames Search. I realize this is hardly an international authority, rather a set of standards for spelling "foreign names" within the US federal government. So although it hasn't gotten me to decide to either support or oppose, I found the results interesting. I'd link directly via {{GEOnet2}}, but the template isn't working right for me at the moment. To verify you'd have to search for the terms via the search link above. The term "approved" means approved for use by the US federal government, sometimes with a qualifier for the nation for which the usage is approved; "short" means an approved shortened form; "conventional" means "in widespread usage" but not necessarily approved; "variant" names are recognized but not "officially approved", etc--it's a fairly intuitive system. Anyway, here's the results of Ganges, Ganga, and other terms mentioned in this thread:
  • Ganges River (Conventional). Ganges (Short). Ganga (Approved - India). Ganges River (Approved - Bangladesh).
  • Ganges Delta (Approved - India); Ganges Delta (Approved - Bangladesh); Ganges, Delta of the (Variant); Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta (Variant); Gangetic delta (Variant).
  • Ganges, Mouths of the (Conventional); Ganga, Mouths of the (Approved - India); Ganges, Mouths of the (Approved - Bangladesh).
  • Mumbai (Approved); Bombay (Conventional).
  • Kolkata (Approved); Calcutta (Conventional).
  • Chennai (Approved); Madras (Conventional).

I'm posting this merely as another bit of data, not to weigh in on one side or the other. I found it curious how "Ganga" is approved for India but not Bangladesh, and that even for India "Ganges Delta" is approved, with no mention of "Ganga Delta". Also there seems to be no issue with the city names mentioned above--Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai, all "approved", with Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras described as "conventional". It would be interesting to see if truly international organizations, like the UN or Red Cross, have similar naming standards. Pfly (talk) 17:30, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

GeoNet must be used with care. In particular, "Approved" forms belong to an "approved" systematic transliteration, whether the forms themselves are common or not; thus, Moskva is Approved; Moscow is Conventional. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:58, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the correction, I misunderstood the terms. I do wonder though, is the term "Ganga Delta" used in India? What about the Gangetic Plain, Ganges Fan, Gangetic basin, and other similar terms? Pfly (talk) 02:20, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment A remark here neatly sums up my position and the arguments for move Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles#.E8.99.9E.E6.B5.B7.27s_comments In Wikipedia, we should have a global view, rather than a western viewpoint. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:11, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment Yes we should see global view not only western viewpoint, as I said earlier Ganga is known by larger population (at least 1.2 billion or more) so if we talking about majority then this is good example to consider. KuwarOnline Talk
  • <banned>
  • Oppose, per WP:COMMONNAME. Flamarande (talk) 22:54, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
    • <banned>
      • Comment Please do not invoke WP:COMMONNAME, common name makes a special exception for Ganga wrongly assuming that Ganga is a divided issue locally, which has been proved as false. Those who quote WP:COMMONNAME should not be counted here, or they should be prepared to discuss and examin the reason why WP:COMMONNAME makes a special exception for Ganga. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 04:29, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
Answer to the comment above. Even those who don't agree with you should nevertheless be allowed to speak their honest opinion in all matters and vote according to their conscience ("should not be counted here"). IMVHO Commonname is more than a simple question of numbers. It's also a matter of use by international English-speaking media like TV channels like CNN, BBC News, Sky, Euronews, etc. These international channels overwhelmingly use the name 'Ganges' and don't use 'Ganga' at all. The same happens with English-written books and encyclopaedias, etc. IMHO 'Ganga' is not an English name at all, but seems to be a transliterated name, probably coming from Urdu and all but all but unknown outside of India. Flamarande (talk) 20:01, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Support, raname article title from Ganges to Ganga. I this goes through we should attempt for all Historical/Mytological figures as well e.g. Rama to Ram, Ravana to Raavan, Bheema to Bheem, Arjuna to Arjun, Ashoka to Ashok etc. Vjdchauhan (talk).
    Opinion solicited by Yogesh Khandke --JaGatalk 05:54, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
    • This editor has hit the nail on the head. It is about spellings. If I am off track or if I am breaking any wikirules please forgive me. Even though India does not have a committee for Romanisation like China and people sometimes use alternate ways of writing Indian names, there is a clear consensus regarding how Ganga is spelt. Is it India's fault that it is democratic and does not put those who break spelling rules to death like other despotic governments who have made rules for Romanisation? I have been using English for 38 years and live in India. Ganges fits into Indian English as well as a person in a top hat would in India. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:20, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose - English common name - Ganges. Off2riorob (talk) 14:32, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Ganga is not used across the English speaking world (in contrast to Mumbai and Beijing), and it is not Wikipedia's job to promote it. Kanguole 14:45, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose Common name in the English-speaking world (possibly with the exception of India, but for everybody else it's still the Ganges). Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 14:47, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment How would the advocates of this move react if it did pass, and we had to add a hatnote saying,
This article is about the river generally known in English as the 'Ganges'. For the drug, see Cannabis.
— kwami (talk) 14:54, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
If Ganga is truly a popular search term for cannabis, then in all honesty, why should anybody mind? From my limited experience with "for the <name_here> see <link_here>" have been with pages that have one overwhelming disambiguation, such as LSD-25. But again, I have limited experience. - ellusion - (talk) 04:08, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment: It could be Ganga also spelt Ganges, Ganga is pronounced gunja, and is a minority issue, the disambiguation page could take care of it. English speaking world is not synomyous with US/ UK please see several links above. Wikipedia is not promoting its use, it is an India interest article using the Indian English dialect, and Indian spellings, such as colour, Ganga. Please see links above, it is used in Africa, and other parts of Asia. A substantial use. Asian Development Bank uses it 471 times. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 15:31, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
You keep calling it a "spelling" difference, despite being corrected several times. Is this willful ignorance? Honour / honor is a spelling difference. Ganges / Ganga are two different, though related, names. — kwami (talk) 22:34, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
It is like Poona x Pune. I would request you to back your assertion with a wp:rs before accusing me of ignorance. It is how to spell a non-native sound. Please do not call names. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:23, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose Per Seb az86556. It's... MR BERTY! talk/stalk 15:55, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment: I don't understand why this article is not called River Ganges, as it is a river —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr. Berty (talk • contribs) 17:19, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose A quick google news search shows Ganges to be more popular. Ganges and Ganga get similar amounts of hits, however Ganga also seems to be a family name as several of the first page news results are about people with that name. This doesn't seem to occur with Ganges, so it would seem Ganges is a more popular name.--Crossmr (talk) 00:39, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Strongly Oppose. It is common practice to have generally accepted Anglicised names for many well-known places (such as Rome for Roma, Paris is pronounced as it looks - not as the French say, "Paree", etc., etc. This process happens in many other langauages as well - for example, Spanish speakers say "Londres for London", the French give Angleterre instead of England, and so on. There are thousands of such examplesw. Ganges is certainly bny far the most common name for the river in English. To try to change it at this point would only be unnecessarily confusing. Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 00:55, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose. "Ganges" is the most common name internationally, and the most common name among native speakers of English. That is the name we should use. — Gavia immer (talk) 03:43, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment I have to repeat because others repeat the same incorrect (imo) logic. And suddenly the red flag for being tendentious is raised. Unfair. One cannot clap with one hand. It is not like Roma X Rome, do the Italians spell Rome as Roma in English, or is Cologne spelt Koln in English by the Germans, Indians Romanise the Ganga as Ganga in English, For advanced search with the region specifier on India there were 2,180,000 results for Ganga[13] and 233,000 for Ganges,[14] less than 10%. (Although an editor says that even 10% is a division, can we have a discussion on that) Another editor says that some ghits are because of words like Ganga ram hospital, or Ganga das as a name, that does not make the argument any worse on the other hand it supports the arguments, it is an example of the Indian system for Romanisation of the Sanskrit Ganga, their names are derived from the river, like those of the Bombay Duck, which is derived from Bombay which is now fading into history, but Bombay Duck will always, as also Ganges River Dolphin, that cannot be considered a division.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:23, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
    • There is no argument about the fact that the use is divided globally, that should not sway the opinion, what is important is whether it is suffitiently common in India - it is, is it recognised globally the answer is it is. Lots of references given above. Hundreds millions of English users Romanise the name as Ganga, in scores of countries. Lots of references given above. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:23, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Support per Ucucha, above. India has a greater English-speaking population than Britain, and just like we use British English spellings and usage in articles on Britain, we should use Indian English spellings in articles on India. Ganga is vastly more common than Ganges in Indian English. [15][16] We are a worldwide and neutral encyclopedia. --JN466 06:25, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
The article Indian English clearly states that "Fewer than a quarter of a million people speak English as their first language" (the article might be mistaken?). That is certainly more that the whole population of the UK but less than the population of the USA. Furthermore both the British and American English-speakers use the name Ganges ('Ganga' is all but unknown outside of India). Please don't forget that while Indian English is also taught as a secondary language (in India itself besides other countries) American and British English are taught (as a secondary language) to a wider extent (e.g.: Germans will learn British or American English; Brazilians will learn British or American English, Chinese will learn British or American English, etc). A worlwide and accurate encyclopedia should use the common spelling: Ganges. Flamarande (talk) 08:23, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
Pardon me, but I think you forgot to read that values were 9 years back. In 2001, 90 million people speak English as there secondary language, India is second largest English speaking country in world It says that India has 223 million people who speak English as secondary and 8.77 million as third language. It also says that "Had the English user number been included, then the total number would be well over 750 million". If we consider English user then it has 750 million far more than US + British population. KuwarOnline Talk 09:21, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
If we are going to include number of users (secondary, third, fourth, etc language) I propose that we include Europe (where American or British English is taught at school - not in all countries). The same goes for Australia, South America, Africa, etc. You have to realize that in the overwheling majority of countries where English is taught as a secondary (or third, fourth, etc) language it is British English or American English but not Indian English. Flamarande (talk) 12:23, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
If I remember correctly, the Times of India is the most widely read English-language newspaper in the world. English is an official language of India, a country of well over a billion people, in which dozens of languages are spoken, and in which English is widely used as a lingua franca. --JN466 11:05, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
Are you talking about the newspaper which often uses the names 'Ganges' and 'Ganga' (showing yet again that both names are widely used in India)? Just go to its site [17] and type 'Ganges' in the search-field and hit enter. CNN and BBC World are the most widely watched international TV channels of the world and they use the name 'Ganges' (but don't use the name 'Ganga' at all). We can on and on with this line of argument if you wish. Flamarande (talk) 12:23, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
The argument is not whether Indian English is the largest dialect in the world, the issue is whether Ganga is how the word is written in this language, it is as proved above. And whether it sufficiently common, it has been proved it is. Another is whether it is internationally understood, the answer is it is across Asia, and even in Africa, UK/US scholars too use it, the US government acknowledges its use. For references to above please see links aboveYogesh Khandke (talk) 15:20, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
It is true that the ToI uses Ganges as well as Ganga, though the latter predominates. It is not true that CNN and BBC don't use the name Ganga at all. CNN examples: [18][19][20][21]. BBC examples: [22][23][24][25][26]. If we can make the change from Bombay to Mumbai, we should take the plunge (pun intended) with the Ganga too. There is no use fighting the inevitable. Given that according to Alexa, Wikipedia even today receives 50% more site traffic from India than it does from the UK, for example, it feels appropriate that Indian visitors to the site should see their country described in their version of English. --JN466 17:17, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
I'm truly surprised by the evidence that CNN and BBC used the name 'Ganga'. However this use is surely extremely rare (and I challenge you to prove the contrary). The statement about Alexa is IMHO a pitiful red herring: Wikipedia receives more site traffic from India (where 'Ganges' and 'Ganga' are used) than the UK (where 'Ganga' is virtually unknown) but way less than the USA (where 'Ganga' is virtually unknown). Let's not forget Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the other countries of the Commonwealth and the rest of the world (where British English and American English are more popular and that's a fact). And don't compare this with Mumbai/Bombay (or Peking/Beijing or whatever). Such changes might and undoubtedly will happen again and again. But Mumbai and Beijing had to wait a couple of decades and the name 'Ganga' is not there (yet?). Ganga might become the most common name for this river as far as the whole English-speaking world is concerned (in the future). When that day comes the name of this article will change, but not before and if we have to wait a couple of of decades waiting then so be it. We do not fight the inevitable, but we will patiently wait until it happens. Flamarande (talk) 20:26, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
Here a statement from the World Bank, referring to the "Ganga (Ganges) River", reported in the UK Independent: [27] Here an interesting article by a Western writer on the quality and national importance of India's English-language newspapers, referring to the "Ganga Plains": [28] [29][30][31] Here an example from the UK Telegraph, referring to the "Ganges – or Ganga". UK Guardian: [32][33]. I wouldn't call it extremely rare. --JN466 01:25, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
In our version of English. That is what is proposed here short and sweet. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 17:56, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Common name in English is Ganges. There are many, many cases in English where we have a different name for a geographic region than the "real" name used by the locals. For example, we call it Germany instead of Deutschland, we call it Greece instead of the Hellenic Republic, and we call it the Ganges instead of the Ganga. It may be ignorant, but it's English common usage and dat's dat. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:14, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
    • I respect your opinion, but the reasoning seems faulty, because there is no local variety of English anywhere in the world where "Deutschland" is the English word for "Germany" in the local variety of English. In India, on the other hand, Ganga is the normal English name of the river. --JN466 01:40, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment (I've already !voted above) I'm not sure what the big deal is. Within India, both terms are used and understood. Several hotels in Varanasi, for example, use 'Ganges' in their name (The Taj Ganges, Ganges View Hotel) with little confusion and no angry mobs on their doorsteps. So, concerns about Indian visitors to wikipedia being flummoxed, or concerns about offending Indians, or concerns that the 'Indian view' is not being reflected, or concerns that a 'western view' is being thrust upon Indians, by using the term 'Ganges' seem a tad over-rated. --RegentsPark (talk) 20:37, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose Neutral - Ganges is used in Indian English as well as being the common international name. The assertion that Ganga is used in other Asian countries besides India must be substantiated. Do you say that because it is the name in Bengali and other Indian languages? That is irrelevant if it is the name is not used when writing in English in those countries. Quigley (talk) 02:17, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
    • Substantiated: Dawn of Pakistan search for Ganga = 728 results[34], Nepal[35], Malaysia[36], Indonesia[37], Asian Development Bank site search gives 446 result[38], Bangladesh[39], Sri Lanka and south Asia(this site also informs that this region covers an area of approximately 42,916,000 km2, same as that of the continental United States but with four times the population, it is already one of the most densely settled regions of the world.)[40], China[41], Philippines[42], Republic of South Africa[43], Africa[44], International[45]
  • Support: I can not seem to find the reason why Mumbai is in use instead of Bombay (or the other examples given up above), but if the reasons for name changing those is the same as for Ganga vs. Ganges, then by all means I support the change. Also, the change I do not think would necessarily add confusion to the mix, and if anything may help alleviate some. There is much confusion that results from pronouncing it "gun-gaa" while seeing it spelt Ganges. - ellusion - (talk) 04:08, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose This issue is like the wars at WP:MOS where some editors want to educate readers by using kibibyte instead of kilobyte when describing amounts of computer memory, or by using cm3 instead of cc in articles describing motorcycle engines. All these are good ideas, and they will happen just as soon as reliable sources in the English speaking world lead the way and adopt that terminology. It is not Wikipedia's role to tell people the correct title is Ganga and not Ganges. Johnuniq (talk) 07:46, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose with some reluctance. I'm generally supportive of using local names where reasonable, but I don't really think this is one of those cases. The name "Ganga" is not well-recognised outside the Indian subcontinent. I acknowledge that WP:ENGVAR might be taken as support for this move, but in honesty, I think WP:COMMONNAME needs to trump ENGVAR here. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 09:28, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
    • I am glad you used the term Indian subcontinent.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 09:33, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment: I would like to make a small comment on the use of the "Indian" card here. Ganges is not limited to India only, rather it is a transborder river that flows through Bangladesh as well. In Bangladesh, "Ganges" is overwhelmingly used to refer to the river in English language media as well as in Government websites [46]. In fact, the joint river commission (between India and Bangladesh govt) website exclusively uses the name "Ganges" [47]. --Ragib (talk) 17:37, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
Actually for its length in Bangladesh it is called Padma, so the India card is valid[48], also please see that Britannica uses both the spellings Ganga/Ganges[49], and this treaty uses the terms Ganga/Ganges[50].Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:54, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Kwami Encyclopaedia Britannica uses both the names.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 15:03, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Britannica uses 'Ganges' as the English name and 'Ganga' as the Hindi name. (Quote: Ganges River, Hindi Ganga, [51] --RegentsPark (talk) 17:24, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
  • It is easier to be prejudiced than to read and be informed. Of course quote (57) has been seen, Kwami has quoted that earlier. The above comment referred to quotes (55), which reads Padma River, main channel of the greater Ganges (Ganga) River in Bangladesh. For some 90 miles (145 km) the Ganges River forms the western boundary between India and Bangladesh before it enters Bangladesh at the northern edge of the Kushtia district as the upper segment of the Padma River.,Yogesh Khandke (talk) 18:11, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps. But Britannica uses Ganges as the primary English spelling and, explicitly, states that Ganga is the Hindi name of the river. I'm just saying the Britannica example does not support your point.--RegentsPark (talk) 18:39, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
We all knew what Britannica said, we now know that it too refers to the river as Ganga, so Britannica is divided over the use and so ambivalent, both here and there. Not something that can be used to block the move with. Kwami??Yogesh Khandke (talk) 18:45, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Do you want me to repeat myself, again? You haven't said anything of substance. We all know Ganga is another form of the name; that's why we include it in the article! The EB uses 'Ganges' primarily. It files the article under 'Ganges'. They are not divided or ambivalent. You twist everything to support your POV. That isn't research, it's propaganda. No-one else is buying it. So, do you have anything of substance to say? Do you have anything new to say? Or are you merely going to repeat the same bullshit over and over and over and over and over until everyone else gets tired of your nonsense and drops out of your non-discussion, and then claim that you have "consensus" to dictate the English language? — kwami (talk) 22:12, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
  • (1)We know that there are two forms of the name. (2)We know that Britannica uses the name Ganges primararily, and also uses Ganga in English and not Bhojpuri or Rajasthani, so it acknowleges another Romanisation of the word (3) Count the oppose votes they are based on logic Paree, Wien or Mount Everest, which has been countered or wp:Commonname which has seen edits and reverts, or some who fear Balkanisation of the language, nothing to the point against the move. Any way wikipedia is not a democracy, we should look at the argument for and against, there are strong reason all over the place for move, one only has to look. I have seen Zuggernaut making great tables, a table would look great here.(6) Is there a policy that Wikipedia follow Britannica, Where ever that Britannica went Wikipedia was sure to go? I have not seen it anywhere. On the other hand encyclopaedias are not considered first class sources, see wp:rsYogesh Khandke (talk) 13:50, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Support. I think we really should leave the days of colonialism behind us, don't you? This is not a Gdanzig dispute, the name used in India is Ganga. It is far form being the only change to commonly used Indian names - Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata and so on are all now at their locally-correct names, and rightly so. A redirect will fix anybody looking in the wrong place and we can actually show the world that we care more about knowledge and education than about enforcing a WASP perspective on the world. Oh, and I'm one of the old colonial oppressors (a Brit), if that makes any difference. I have also conducted a comprehensive linguistic analysis that supports the move. Guy (Help!) 17:53, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
If India wants to leave the days of colonialism behind, they should drop the English language altogether. Anyway, "Ganges" is not a colonial, or even originally an English, name: it's Greek. India has fully incorporated their Greek imperial heritage. — kwami (talk) 22:15, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
  • If I had said something like that I would have been called a troll. Greek - Yavans? Empire?Yogesh Khandke (talk) 13:50, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
We're not talking about spelling, so your argument is irrelevant. — kwami (talk) 22:15, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
  • But it is about Romanisation and the above reads he supports the Indian Romanisation of the name.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 13:50, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
I m kind of agree with SlimVirgin, if we change the spelling to Ganga and other people want to read it as Ganges I dont think anybody will have problem. Its upto them how to read it as Ganga or Ganges. KuwarOnline Talk 10:00, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose Neutral. Why do so many Indians use the word Ganges when talking to non-Indians? Because they want to be sure we understand exactly to which river they are referring. Ganges is the most common usage in the global English-speaking world. Oh, and also oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. — SpikeToronto 07:16, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
Changing !vote from oppose to neutral. This change is not because of JzG/Guy’s comments below, whose diatribe directed at me was unnecessary and indicates a lack of knowledge about the multicultural nature of Toronto and of its enormous South Asian community and my interaction with it. Moreover, it characterized my previous position inaccurately, a position which had always leaned toward neutral. (I can only imagine what his position on Burma versus Myanmar would be!) No, my change from oppose to neutral comes as a result of sober dicussion elsewhere with Jayen466 that pushed me into the neutral camp where I had already placed a foot anyway. — SpikeToronto 19:39, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
That's a bogus argument. Many Indians also use the names Calcutta, Poona and Bombay, because they know that some in the West don't realise the newer romanisations. Incidentally, Bengaluru is coming down the pike at you as well. "We've always spelled it that way" is simply not a good argument for continuing to use a spelling that is now considered incorrect. The only two possible outcomes to this debate are "yes" and "not yet but soon". I'm guessing you don't work with many people from India, if you don't I would encourage you to do so. They are polite, clever and hard-working. They are also masters of their own culture after a colonial past, and this is all part of that calm assertion of a wonderfully rich national identity. Guy (Help!) 14:02, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose, primarily due to WP:COMMONNAME. Perhaps in the future the common name will change, as Bombay changed to Mumbai, but as this hasn't happened yet I think we're just making it harder on our readers to change it to the lesser used name. That doesn't mean that "Ganga" shouldn't be mentioned very prominently early in the article as a local name, of course. Lankiveil (speak to me) 11:02, 23 November 2010 (UTC).
FWIW, I've searched google news for the past month for "Ganga + river" and for "Ganges + river", and you get more hits for Ganga. So how does WP:COMMONNAME here work in favour of Ganges? Of course, you may say, "But those are mostly Indian sources ...", but are we now discriminating against Indian sources on the Indian national river? On what basis? And per WP:TIES, we should be using Ganga. --JN466 11:42, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
FWIW I've made a Google-search with the words 'Ganges river' and got "About 3,290,000 results (0.07 seconds)". Then I made a search with the words 'Ganga river' and got "About 959,000 results (0.24 seconds)". So how does WP:COMMONNAME here work in favour of Ganga? Of course, you may say, "But those are mostly non-Indian sources ...", but are we now discriminating against non-Indian sources on this international river (which also enters Bangladesh)? On what basis? Per WP:Commonname, we are using Ganges. Flamarande (talk) 13:02, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
I am sorry, when I click on your links, I get 538,000 for Ganges river and 7,510,000 for Ganga river. Perhaps we need to refine our searches a little. --JN466 13:08, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
Weird, when I click upon them I get the my written results (I changed the language settings from Portuguese to English but nothing more). Perhaps the google returns to the original settings. Flamarande (talk) 13:47, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
Basically, you can't trust google counts as far as you can throw'em. You used Portuguese google; here are the UK google results: 813,000 for ganges river, 962,000 for ganga river. It's not for nothing that our guidelines warn against using raw google counts. At least with google news you can see what you have, and you can narrow it down to recent sources reflecting present-day usage. (And just in case you're wondering, I am German living in the UK.) --JN466 13:27, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
Hey, you started to use the Google-counts. I honestly made searches in the international Google-site (which I copied) and got the written results. The UK results which you presented are as twisted as the Portuguese results (as matter of fact when I click upon your links I get the 3,290,000 for Ganges river and 959,000 for Ganga river - perhaps your setting are in German?). Tell me Jayen, what name (Ganges or Ganga) is taught in the English classes in the German school system? Did you learn American, British or Indian English? Flamarande (talk) 13:37, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
Comment. The problem with a Google search that uses Ganga, is that the results include the ubiquitous slang word for marijuana, ganga. Google.com is the international search engine for Google, not Google.co.uk or Google.pt. When one goes to Google.com, and searches Ganges + river, one gets 811,000 results. (See here.) When one goes to Google.com, and searches Ganga + river, one gets 448,000 results. (See here.) Jayen, one cannot initiate an argument based on Google counts, and then, when it is shown that the results are diametrically oppopsite to what one had interpreted, dismiss that methodology. One cannot have it both ways. — SpikeToronto 19:16, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
Spike, I presented an argument based on google news here. This is different from an argument based on google web hits, because you can actually view and count the hits, and limit them to current publications. FWIW, when I click on your google.com links, the numbers I get are again completely different: 3.4m for ganges river, 967,000 for ganga river. These numbers mean nothing, just like the 538,000 for Ganges river and 7,510,000 for Ganga river I got above clicking on Flamarande's links, and google.com is not any better or "more international" here than any country version of google web. --JN466 00:16, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
I learnt British English, and that was standard in the school system then. Basically you have to balance two interests here: the principle of least surprise for non-Indians, and that Indians should feel as at home here as any other group of English-speakers. A key part of the latter is having articles that are closely tied to your home country reflect your language and spelling. (As someone who speaks Portuguese and German, you'll appreciate this situation isn't unique to English.) American editors wouldn't stand for it, for example, if we insisted on spellings like United States Department of Defence or Centre (basketball), arguing that this is the spelling that middle-aged Europeans would have learnt in school, and that defence and centre are the dominant spellings across the English-speaking world (which they are). That is fine. Basketball is bigger in the States than in any other country. Now, the Ganga is bigger in India than in any other country. It's the national river, and I think it's churlish to insist on putting what English students in Germany or Serbia would have learnt in school 15 or 35 years ago. To those students, the Ganga was and is just one of many rivers in the world they will probably never see. And if they have a moment's cognitive dissonance because they get to Ganga when they type in Ganges, it's no big deal; they'll learn something about India in the process. Just like the people looking for Bombay or Peking learn something. And I know that school kids in Britain today do learn the name Ganga; this is a BBC page that helps kids prepare for their GCSE exam. --JN466 15:55, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
You have learnt British English as AFAIK that was the standard then, now and for the next centuries. It isn't the (British and American) English students in Germany or Serbia (and the whole world minus the Indian subcontinent) would have learnt in school 15 or 35 years ago. Ganges is the common name today. I do not challenge that Ganga is taught, I challenge that Ganga is to current common name now. Wikipedia doesn't (or shouldn't) use the names that "will be the most common in ten or twenty years in the future". Wikipedia uses (or should use) the common name used today, and that means using 'Ganges'. You again compare this with Bombay/Mumbai and Peking/Beijing. However you know that these names are already the common name not because the English wiki uses them, but because the English-speaking media uses them all the time already, and that doesn't happen with 'Ganga'. Flamarande (talk) 20:09, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
Note that when you say "the English-speaking media", you unconsciously seem to be restricting that to Western media. In terms of sheer frequency of occurrence in recent English-language news reports available in google news, Ganga outweighs Ganges. --JN466 00:40, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
Guilty as charged. I watch CNN, BBC World, Sky and Euronews (I tend not to watch English-speaking Al Jazera). I also watch English-speaking AXN, MOV, Fox, Fox life, etc. I'm truly sorry but my cable provider simply doesn't has a Indian English speaking channel. The problem is that I'm far from being the only one. How many international Indian English-speaking channels do you know? How many Indian English-speaking channels do you truly believe are available in Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Australia and I dare say Asia (minus the Indian subcontinent)? Now compare that with the international importance of CNN and BBC World (which are even available in China). Flamarande (talk) 02:34, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
Well, on the other hand, who do you think mostly comes to view this article? The Ganges is of peripheral interest to the average CNN viewer, but is of profound interest to the average Indian. It is the same with the articles on, say, the Mississippi River, the Thames, or the Des Moines River. --JN466 06:00, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
Well thats the real question, how many other(foreign) people really has interest in this river?, but if we think other hand ie Indians, who has most interest in this river, who are going to be most viewer then whats the problem is to change the name what most Indian understand?. This actually create an expression that Wikipedia is just for the western English speaking people, not for all. Thats pretty sad. KuwarOnline Talk 11:16, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
The problem is that the name (Ganga) which most Indians seem to use is the name which the majority of the English-speaking world all but ignores (doesn't know). However notice that (probably) all Indians also know the name Ganges, which is often used in the India (newspapers) . The articles of Wikipedia are not to be written to please a single nationality but for the easy understanding of the average reader. The majority of ppl who speak/write/read English (native or foreigners) use and know the name Ganges but the majority do not know Ganga at all. Therefore the logical choice is Ganges. Flamarande (talk) 21:42, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
Note that all government projects and institutions related to the river have "Ganga" in their names: the National Ganga River Basin Authority, the Ganga River Pollution Control Project, the Ganga Expressway Project, etc. I could not imagine any similar case involving a US or UK river, where we would give preference to foreign sources in how to name our article. --JN466 11:53, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
Well, we do have Kootenay River, if Canadian counts as foreign. Pfly (talk) 10:19, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose. While doing some research on a fish I'm creating an article for, I found it mentioned in a book on "The Ganga". I am a very well read person, and I had to search Wikipedia for "Ganga" to check that it was, as I suspected, the Ganges. The redirect told me I was right, and then I saw this debate. This is no Mumbai. Abductive (reasoning) 12:00, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Weak oppose per WP:VNE. Ganga is just too uncommon in non-Indian varieties of English right now, and Ganges seems accepted in IE. (By the way, is there a usage dictionary for Indian English? The article doesn't list any...) Tijfo098 (talk) 07:45, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
    • Thanks for linking to WP:VNE. That is a relevant and bona fide argument. I would still love us to go with WP:TIES in this case, given the river's importance to India, but I fully accept that WP:VNE militates in favour of using Ganges. --JN466 14:19, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Ganga is a Hindi word. Gangai is a Tamil word. Ganges is an English word. If anything is going to be moved anywhere, let the destination be Tamil. But this is an English wiki.Anwar (talk) 17:45, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Google web counts vs Google news results

Please note that google web counts ("About 1,600,000 results") are a useless metric. These numbers can be out by several orders of magnitude, and as we've seen above, different editors may get wildly different results even for the same search string. Some of the technical reasons for this are described here: [52][53], used as references in WP:GOOGLE. The situation is slightly better in google news, because if you search over a smaller timeframe, like a week, month or year, you get a manageable number of hits that can be manually verified, allowing you to weed out false positives and make sure the sources actually exist. Google news is far from perfect for frequency analyses (it misses some news sources), but it is less useless than google web count estimates. --JN466 02:24, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Google books

Google books lists 82 books with Ganga in the title and river in the text, vs. 88 books with Ganges in the title and river in the text. (Please make sure you click through to the end of the listing to get the accurate count, and ignore the "About X results" estimate you get on the first page. Note that river in the text is just to exclude non-English books.)

That's pretty even. If we analyse the publication dates, 11 of the books with Ganges in the title are from the 19th century (and there are a good few pre-1950s as well). All of those with Ganga in the title are from the second half of the 20th or the 21st century, so viewed from the perspective of WP:COMMONNAME, Ganga doesn't look bad. --JN466 06:03, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I did some careful googling, trying to eliminate false hits, and looked at Google Books, and various other sources (I didn't save my notes, so can't post them--at the time it didn't seem that important). It looked like Ganges was slightly more common, but it was close enough for the difference to be simple false positive errors. I still have no real opinion on the page name, it could go either way, really. Personally I had not until recently heard the name "Ganga" and still find it rather weird, and pronounced it in my head like it is spelled, which makes me think of ganglions. But my personal feelings are irrelevant here. I'm mostly curious to see how things go. This is the most borderline wp:commonname case I've seen, interestingly complicated by the use and role of English in India and the unfamiliarity of Indian English in the US and UK. Pfly (talk) 10:33, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure if "intitle:" works properly there, but I get [54] about 4K for Ganga and about [55] 10K for Ganges. Based on the authors' names however, there's very little "Ganga" usage outside Indian authors [56], [57], but Ganges is used by some Indian authors/publishers from the 1st page, e.g. [58] [59] [60], [61] Tijfo098 (talk) 08:12, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

The estimates on the first page of search hits are the result of a google algorithm. To show you the first ten results, google does not actually search all books, so these are very rough estimates that do not reflect the actual number of publications. In each such google books listing, you have to click through to the last page to see the actual number of titles in existence. The last page then updates the number of titles found, once google actually has searched its publications database. I discussed the question of google estimates with User:SpikeToronto on his talk page the other day, at User_talk:SpikeToronto#Ganges_vs_Ganga; if you are interested in google counts, that discussion lists some sources that will tell you more about how these estimates come about.
Now, three examples you give of books that have authors with Indian names, and Ganges in the title, are by Western publishers (Steven Simpson Books, Ashgate Publishing, Other Press); in addition, one is about the Ganges River Dolphin, which is known as such by science. The fourth is by an Indian publisher, but the title play on an established English saying. [62][63]. That said, I fully agree with you that the use of Ganga is currently still relatively rare outside India, and rarer than the use of Ganges within India. My argument is not that this is otherwise, but that given this river's importance to India and Indian readers of Wikipedia, we should reflect the Indian English preference per WP:TIES. --JN466 13:55, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
Google scholar
  • 961 for Ganga in the title, with river in the text.
  • 772 for Ganges in the title, with river in the text. Again, these include many 19th-century sources.

Are those results reproducible at your end? --JN466 06:29, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Google scholar results don't depend on the country. Tijfo098 (talk) 08:12, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
Google trends

Use as ganges is reducing. google trends Ganga is already more commonname Its matter of time the difference will be more than an order of 10. Avoid simple2 (talk) 17:38, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

JSTOR
  • JSTOR publications 2001–2010 with Ganga in the title and river in the text: 6
  • JSTOR publications 2001–2010 with Ganges in the title and river in the text: 4 --JN466 06:54, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
Occurrences of the name Ganga in materials for Western schoolchildren

Ganga can be found in some more recent materials for UK schoolchildren:

That is not to say that such occurrences are the rule, or more frequent than references to Ganges (they're not). Haven't checked equivalents from other Western countries.

  • Passage in the Country Studies/Area Handbook Series sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Army (availabe online at countrystudies.us) describing the river as "the Ganga (or Ganges)". --JN466 12:41, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose. This is the English language Wikipedia, and the form Ganges has been in use in the western world to unambiguously refer to the river for more than 2000 years. Unsurprisingly, it's the established form in English as well, as it has been for centuries. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 18:24, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Comment So is Oxus, but the river is titled Amu Darya here at Wikipedia, we cannot have different standards for Ganga, can we?Yogesh Khandke (talk) 19:27, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Summary is here please be free to edit.

Disclaimer: The epithet Hindu is used in its cultural context. There have been many frivolous objections to the move, which are not dealt with in the table. (1)It is a one man crusade. (2)The proponents of the move, betray a walled garden approach. (4)The international sources are not good because the authors are of Indian ethnicity (5)Arguments based on anecdotal evidence, my friends call it Ganges, I was looking for fish I came across Ganga which I didn't know about. (6)It is not there in my atlas. ((7)The name too Hindu and too Hindi, is not secular (8)US has sent probes to the moon, but the world follows SI, and not FPS. (9)The move is balkanising.

Sr. No argument for Ganges argument for Ganga
1 The Indian govt uses both "Ganga" and "Ganges" in its English-language publications, often in the same paragraph. In fact, the article that says that Ganga is the official name of the river actually uses Ganges more often than Ganga in the text.[65] "The river known as the Ganges is officially and popularly known by its Hindu name, Ganga" [66]. India's official cartographer The survey of India uses the name Ganga on its map. All government projects and institutions related to the river have "Ganga" in their names: the National Ganga River Basin Authority, the Ganga Action Plan (pollution control), the Ganga Expressway project, etc.
2 40? Google scholar publications with Ganges in the title, and river in the text, published in 2010, that actually call the river by that name. The actual result for Google scholar publications with Ganges in the title, and river in the text, published in 2010, is 27. On the other hand, there have been 36 (39–3) Google scholar publications with Ganga in the title, and river in the text, in 2010, discussing this river.

According to these results, Ganga predominates in international English-language scholarly discourse on this river today. Note that the vast majority of these publications are by Western academic publishers – Elsevier, Springer, Taylor & Francis, Wiley & Sons, American Geophysical Union. (The results for Google scholar publications since 2009 are very similar, with Ganga predominating: 84 (87–3) for Ganga, 60 for Ganges.)

3 The term "Ganga" is local, being virtually unknown outside south Asia and countries culturally influenced by India. It is not listed in US or UK geographic dictionaries whereas "Ganges" is. Encyclopedia Britannica online states that Ganga is the Hindi name for the Ganges River, and that Ganges is the international and conventional name. [67] Ganga is used in India, Asia, and Africa; it is not a fringe use. The Encyclopaedia Britannica wording (which dates back to at least the 1994 edition of EB, and may be far older) states that Ganga is the river's official name.

Examples of use in Western media: US National Science Foundation: [68] CNN: [69][70][71]. BBC: [72][73][74][75][76]. UK Independent: [77][78][79][80][81]. UK Telegraph: [82]. UK Guardian: [83][84]. The Asian Development Bank site uses Ganga well over 100 times in reference to the river. The languages of countries like Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and others in Indo-China have been influenced by Sanskrit, there are instances Ganga's use as a generic term for river, Ganga would be easily understood.[85]

4 Recent mentions of Ganges + river in Google News. These have a wide geographical distribution. Per wp:COMMONALITY: "Universally used terms are often preferable to less widely distributed terms, especially in article titles." Recent mentions of Ganga + river in Google News outnumber recent mentions of Ganges + river in Google News (go to the last page of search results to see the correct total in each case). According to these results, Ganga is more common across the totality of English news sources on this river today, when counted without prejudice as to geographical origin. WP:COMMONNAME simply refers to "English-language reliable sources"; it does not instruct editors to privilege or discount news sources from any geographical area. Ganga is presently the most common name in English-language news reports, regardless of origin.
5 wp:Commonname: when this question was brought up several months ago, it was considered obvious[by whom?] that it should be Ganges, and that was even added as an example to the MOS. The said revision was introduced on 2010-09-01, which read Ganges not Ganga, divided local use by an editor one who is also active pro-Ganges in this discussion, it was brought to notice that divded local use was false, and as there are over 3 million articles in English, it was agreed on wp:COMMONNAME that a specific policy for a specific article should not be created. At the present the pertinent guide line is "local and generally intelligible"
6 TIES (right) concerns minor grammatical and orthographic differences that do not cause problems with comprehension. "Ganga" is unintelligible to most non-Indians. India is a secular country with over 300 million non-Hindus and large swathes of the country where Hindi is neither spoken nor understood.

Generally, wikipedia should avoid using religion based arguments (and please note the WP:OWN caveat to WP:TIES). For example, in this Times of India news report, the Hindi usage of Ganga by the politician Sharad Yadav is translated into English as the Ganges River by the (Indian) reporter. Suggesting that, at least when translating from Hindi to English, Ganga becomes Ganges in Indian English.

WP:TIES. Ganga is used in Indian English, just as it is used in other Indian languages. The argument on the left refers to the title of a video clip, where as the text news-story from same source uses Ganga Dunk Rahul in the Ganga[86], they did Ganga is the normal name of the river in Indian English today. The use of Ganges in India is fringe.
7 Paree is Paris, Torino is Turin, Sindhu is Indus, Roma is Rome, Mount Everest has other names too Sagarmatha, Qomolangma, Chajamlangma, Chomolungma, Zhūmùlǎngmǎ Fēng; so Ganga should be Ganges These are not comparable. It is true that we do not call our article on Vienna for example "Wien". This is because "Wien" is a German name, which is not generally used in English-language sources. Ganga on the other hand is used in English-language sources, both news and scholarly sources.
9 Ganga would be confusing, as its most common use outside India is as a synonym for ganja (marijuana) Ganga for marijuana is a very uncommon spelling and unlikely to cause confusion. The standard spelling is ganja. We have disambiguation links to deal with such situations.

Thanks. I may do some work on this over the next few days. First thoughts: as it stands it's a bit too long. We also need to link to some of the google research. --JN466 13:02, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Added link from govt. website about the name. --SpArC (talk) 14:24, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid I had to remove the links to Goggle as they are misleading - I suspect Ganga is used more often on Indian government sites, but Ganga is also used to refer to a lot of things that aren't the river, so, as mentioned previously in relation to this, we can't trust a raw Google search. - Bilby (talk) 14:37, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
I agree in this case. --JN466 18:51, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm actually neutral as to what the article should be called, as it seems there are good arguments either way, but it seems to me this approach may not be the best one to head down. The more I read the points above - especially as they are developed - the more it seems that the problems from the earlier discussion are being repeated, rather than summarised. For example, the way the argument for Ganga in point two is presented suffers from selectively choosing links - dropping in a series of cases where Ganga is used in Western media is problematic, because it makes no statement as to extent. Similarly, the use of Ganges/Ganga + river reduces the number of false positives, but doesn't completely remove them from the search, and leaves open the question as to whether or not it is generally referred to as "the river Ganges" or just "Ganges", or "Ganga" vs "Ganga river" - just as an example. Perhaps "Ganges" is sufficiently recognisable that it doesn't need the "river" qualifier, while "Ganga" is not (and no, I'm not sure that this is the case, but it is the sort of problem you face when collecting stats this way).
Anyway, I'm concerned that this approach is flawed, as the points seem to have inherent POVs which make it difficult to evaluate the case from that list. - Bilby (talk) 20:48, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Jayen the links are there in the discussion above, all we need to do is copy them here. Bilby as with everything you are free to edit, RegentsPark suggested a summary, a summary has to repeat what has been discussed, it cannot have anything new in it, Ganges too would need a qualifier, it could be dolphin, hotel, delta, plain etc., that is what the context is for. Please do not use POV as a charm, the summary was suggested and it has been provided, it does not carry anybody's name under it, so how can it be a POV? Yogesh Khandke (talk) 03:00, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
I guess my point is that none of these statistics can be said to be reliable. It is possible to get a good idea of the usage of the two terms, but Google searches - even with "river" added (which was a good idea) - aren't going to be the way of doing it.
If I can suggest three things:
a) the list above isn't going to help;
b) the core issue is much simpler: if we agree that Ganga is the preferred term in India, and we agree that Ganges is the most common term outside of India (I don't see any reason to dispute this), then the question is not all of the stuff above, but whether or not we go with the currently preferred term in India or the most common term outside - anything else, like Google news searches - just needlessly complicate the issue; and
c) the current debate was so polarising, with tendentious editing on both sides, accusations of racism, and a lot of ill will, that it would be difficult get a true consensus right now. If this was left for a few months, so there was a bit of distance, you would be in a better place to conduct this on happier terms.
I'm not, and don't want to become, involved with the question of what term should be used, as I honestly think it is too complex and too borderline both ways for an easy solution. But I do think that if you want to find a consensus decision, you may need to let things cool down a bit before looking into it again. With borderline cases it is often good will that gets one side over the line. - Bilby (talk) 03:53, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
I think this has always been the case. The MOS example was on this very point: local vs. international usage. All the rest seems like a distraction. Question: when locals prefer one term when using English, but elsewhere people prefer another, which should we go for? (Generally in such cases I would expect that, like here, locals will understand both, but outsiders will not.) Secondly, a point which has been alluded to but largely sidestepped: does it make any difference whether locals are native English speakers? If the official language is English? If English is not official but used in education? etc. — kwami (talk) 06:12, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Reply to Bilby, (a) if the list is bad, trash it and come up with a better one, an editor wanted a summary, and I came up with as good a one as I could. (b) to be precise English American-Anglophone usage is predominantly Ganges, Ganga is prefered in India, elsewhere it goes depending on the user. (Please see point 2 in the summary) The trend for increasing use of Ganga, as demonstrated by Jayen, could point to the fact that, use of dialects and people using Ganga is increasing. (c)I have no issue with keeping the proposal on the back burner for the moment. Reply to Kwami(a) Wikipedia prefers endonyms. (b)The term local vs international is a very mis-leading term in the context of India/Ganga, because local is so numerous, local is more than international, numerically, in terms of instances of use of the term, as demonstrated by ghits, (although it has been pointed out that ghits are not accurate measures of incidence). Kwami, the purpose of encyclopaedias is not to perpetuate ignorance or indifference, that is why I have argued for Guangzhou at wp:AT, Wikipedia should not be at the mercy of kupamandukas. (c)I did not understand the statements regarding official/popular use of English.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 07:20, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Kwami, (1)you have removed text regarding the demonstrations of use of Sanskrit based names, the Hindu deites in Japan, Garuda as an international icon, the names of head of states, Bhumibol Atulyadej and Megawati Sukarnoputri, which carried links, calling them nonsense and then put a citation wanted tag, (2)you have removed the argument that Chinese study American/English English, but have devised a system for Romanisation, pinyin, which ISO and Wikipedia follow, and do not follow the English/American method in spelling for Chinese proper names. Erasing text, won't make the argument go away.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 07:34, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
  • If a point is consider mis-leading, another can be added, removing the point, is not constructive. Before 2010-09-01 wp:COMMONNAME was for preference to endonyms, then suddenly the Ganges not Ganga argument sprung up, without rhyme or reason or discussion. There have to be sound reasons for any clause, it was withdrawn as one was not found, there are over 3 million articles, a rule cannot be devised just to keep Ganges in or out. The moral of the story in Endonyms are in, Exonyms are out, that is Wikipedia policy as I understand it.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 07:48, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, it is constructive to weed out the nonsense. We should be presenting legitimate arguments pro and con, not falsehoods. We're trying to convince each other, not hoodwink each other. If I said it should be called Ganges because it's in England, that argument should simply be deleted, not debated for as long as I feel like making it. And what do Japanese deities have to do with anything? (In Japanese, BTW, the river is known as Ganges (Ganjisu).) What does Garuda have to do with it? Even if foreign names were reason to support an argument, and they're not, this has nothing to do with the river. — kwami (talk) 08:27, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
  • (1) I did not state that Japanese call the river Ganga, the reason for the inclusion of the influence of Sanskrit is that it makes Ganga closer than Ganges, are you sure that Ganjisu is derived from Ganges and not from Ganga? If the Thai king has a Sanskrit name, and the Indonesians call their language Bhasha and the Malaysians call locals Bhumiputra, they would not be uncomfortable with Ganga, a palace is called Tirthaganga, "the holy water of the Ganga in Bali. Mongolia caries Garuda on its flag, which is a demonstration of the influence of Hindu" culture, of which Sanskrit is an unseparable part, which would make Ganga perfectly easy to understand and as a corollary Ganges alien, notwithstanding what it is called in English/American English. (2)What was the reason to delete the argument that Chinese learn foreign English, but have their own system of English as far as proper names go, which Wikipedia accepts, pinyin, but we see these arguments against Ganga. (3)Calling arguments nonsense is easy, but an inadequate counter-argument. (4)Having a Kupamanduka view does not mean that a wider perspecitve isn't there.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 02:21, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
Just in regard to the comment above, no, I don't think the list is bad as such. The problem is that I don't think the list helps. If you want to work through a complex problem like this, you need to either summarise the arguments succinctly or bring the attention of those involved to the core issues, removing from the discussion the points which detract from the those issues. This list method, creating a complex summary of a complex discussion, does neither. I can't get a quick summary of all the issues, nor can I quickly see what issues I need to focus on. When faced with this problem, I would suspect that most editors will choose just to go with the status quo - there is no clearly compelling reason to change, and if there is a compelling reason it is hidden in the distracting and non-core issues being listed. If this is to be pursued now, I'd suggest trying to get an agreed short summary from each side (perhaps with a fixed word limit), or some other approach that brings the focus back to the material that matters.
That said, I still think this is being pushed at the wrong time. I don't see the urgency for change - the RFC seems to have come to a consensus for Ganges, so I'd normally recommend stepping back for a bit, letting the emotions recede a tad, then returning to it when everyone is fresh and willing to reevaluate the arguments. You're welcome to disagree, and this is fine, but it seems to me that the best bet after a heated discussion is to let things cool off before reengaging. Anyway, that's just one person's opinion, for what it's worth. - Bilby (talk) 06:55, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
(1)I repeat what I wrote earlier: (a)I have no issues placing this on the back-burner (b -i)Since you seem to be neutral, though leaning towards stay, I have no qualms in requesting you to arbitrate. (b-ii)You could decide the rules it moves if so and so is proved. it stays if so and so is proved. (c)Both sides agree on the rules (d)Then they submit their arguments (e)You decide and then both sides abide to your decision. (f)Then it stays that way for a predetermined period of time. As nothing is permanent on Wikipedia. (g)What say Stay advocates?Yogesh Khandke (talk) 07:16, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
I say place it on the back burner for now. This discussion is consuming too much time and is perhaps better taken up after a break of, say three months, when things have cooled down a little. I believe that the arguments that focus on 'religion' and 'giving the Indians what they want' are poor quality arguments that are bad for wikipedia and have tainted the discussion (they are a turn-off for some editors - like me! - who would otherwise be amenable to consider renaming the article Ganga. However, I can see that the choice of whether to keep pursuing this or to let it go is entirely in the hands of Yogesh Khandke, as the dedicated pursuer of the Ganga goal, so it is up to you, YK. --RegentsPark (talk) 14:31, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

(od)(1)Is it not unfair that the work of Jayen is completely ignored, he has provided more input than me. (2)You are repeating Power's argument that the move is opposed because it is proposed by an editor who is disruptive and tendentious. (3-i)I too am not comfortable with Jayen's remark, give it to them, the move to Ganga is not sought as some kind of affirmative action or concession, there is overwhelming evidence presented - a lot of it by Jayen which you ignore while picking on his stray comment, the evidence clearly suggests that Ganga is more commonly used globally and locally, contemporarily. (3-ii)The move proposal is not based on a wp:GREATWRONGS argument, the argument is based on wp:TIES, wp:COMMONNAME as it stands now and as it stood before 2010-09-01, at that time an editor put in a Ganges not Ganga clause, without rhyme or reason, or without discussion., all based on wp:V, wp:OR, while barring a few such as from Tjflo and Johnuniq, all the pro-Ganges arguments have either presented anecdotal evidence or countered the ghits and Google fights, and when invited to examin the ghits, have backed out. (4)You have missed the disclaimer about the meaning of Hindu here, which was there before your last post about your discomfort with religion, the issue is not religious, like CarTick said nobody in India uses Ganges, and "in India" it includes adherents of all beliefs.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 02:17, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

  • I agree that the table is far too long at the moment; TL;DR is a real likelihood. We need to pare it down to the essentials. --JN466 11:53, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
    • I have shortened the table, dropping the more narrative arguments such as Beijing/Peking Duck vs. Ganga/Ganges Hotel: [87]. The table has the best chance of being read and considered if we stick to WP policies and guidelines, and source research. But if any editor is unhappy with a particular argument being gone, please feel free to restore it. --JN466 18:02, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

How to present the Google scholar results

Let's do some work on how to present the google scholar results. I had added them as follows:

700+ Google scholar publications with Ganges in the title, and river in the text, 27 of which published in 2010.

900+ Google scholar publications with Ganga in the title, and river in the text, 38 of which published in 2010. According to these results, Ganga predominates in international scholarship on this river.

Kwamikagami has revised this thus:

24 Google scholar publications with Ganges in the title, and river in the text, published in 2010, that actually call the river by that name. According to these results, Ganga predominates in international scholarship on this river.

25 Google scholar publications with Ganga in the title, and river in the text, published in 2010, that actually call the river by that name. According to these results, Ganges predominates in national scholarship on this river.

Kwami has argued on their talk page that they "went through the results from 2010 to see which were actually about the river, not about the delta or plain or anything else". Personally, I don't see why we should exclude articles discussing the Ganga's flood plain, or its delta. I cannot see how Kwami arrived at the figures 24 and 25. Could we look into this, and arrive at an agreed number of "good" hits in the 2010 results? These are the links: [88][89] --JN466 12:52, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Kwami's argument for dropping the all-time results (700+ vs. 900+) is that it would be too labour-intensive to look through those, to weed out false positives. That argument has some merit, but it is still something we should discuss. We could present the results with a caveat, for example, or alternatively, we could look at results for 2009–2010 (86 for Ganga, 60 for Ganges), to get a slightly larger sample size which is still not so large as to involve a prohibitive amount of checking. --JN466 13:15, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Is it really worth going through? The results are pretty clear. Most of the Ganga hits are written by Indian authors, many in Indian English, for example omitting the word "the". The Ganges hits are written by both Indian and non-Indian authors, and mostly in standard English. — kwami (talk) 20:18, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Ganga proponents argued above that we shouldn't use the phrase "Ganges delta" to argue for using the name "Ganges". I accepted that. By the same token, we shouldn't use the phrase "Central Ganga plain" to argue for "Ganga", so I excluded them both. Likewise "Ganges River dolphin" and several other rivers with "Ganga" in their name. — kwami (talk) 20:18, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
I never argued that matches for Ganges delta should be excluded, and I don't recall anyone else arguing that. I am happy to waive the Ganges River Dolphin exclusion as well, even though that that is a recognized species name in science. As for the argument that most of the authors using Ganga have Indian names, this does not matter; all the more so as the 86 2009-2010 matches for Ganga are predominantly for international publications by Springer, Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, Wiley and so forth. --JN466 01:23, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
In the thirty-eight 2010 matches for Ganga, three (for Buri Ganga, Kalu Ganga and Adi Ganga) should be excluded; the rest are good. The twenty-seven Ganges hits are good (four or five are about the dolphin). I"ve updated the figures in the table accordingly. I'll do the same analysis for the 2009 publications as well. --JN466 01:50, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

How to present the Google news results

Kwami's revert: [90]. Now, the argument for Ganga is that Ganga predominates across all English news results, regardless of origin. I think we should present that as such. The argument for Ganges might be that the majority of news results for Ganga are Indian sources, but this does not change the fact that looking at the totality of English-language news results, Ganga predominates. --JN466 12:52, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

But it's not true. The Ganga results are predominantly from India. The Ganges results are mixed. We shouldn't present falsehoods just because someone claims them. — kwami (talk) 20:12, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
  • What is not true? Why this Injun sources and cowboy sources, Totally, globally, on this planet, and in this planet,(we cannot keep the miners out of this), Ganga predominates, Singh is Kinng and Ganga is too periodbased on Jayen's comments above, and assuming his stats. are accurate.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 06:49, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
RegentsPark has brought out a key argument, that was earlier hidden in the heart, Oh the secularists think Ganga is too Hindu and Hindi, it would hurt the feelings of 300 million minorities, and non-Hindi speakers. I would like to ask; is the Tamil Gangai (Mother Ganga?) closer to Ganga or Thames? Glad you brought it out Saru. Cut the Ganga lamb, but why not first do it in India, remember just as Wikipedia is not at the mercy of bigoted, stupid, retarded Indian nationalists in that it only follows - wp:V, unfortunately there is no affirmative action here- the secularist too have to follow the same Wikipedia rules, no special concessions; I suggest that the secularists/ campaigners against Hindu-Hindi hegemony should start a world wide campaign, make the UN pass a resolution, obliterate the name Ganga as a rabid neo-Nazi Hindu-Hindi name, then Wikipedia will follow and kick it out, till then we will have to bear with Ganga.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 02:44, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
Okay, now you're just being stupid. The question is a simple one: do we go with the name which is preferred in English-language media in India, the country where the Ganges is found and which should therefore be given preference, but which is generally not recognized in other natively or officially English speaking countries, or do we go with the international name which is also used in India, is generally used in those other countries, and is always used by those who, like nearly everyone I know, do not know the name "Ganga"? That's the question: do we go with the national name or the international name? — kwami (talk) 02:05, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
(1)I may be stupid, but that is not the issue. (2)You have to present evidence for your arguments, "everyone I now" is not a representative sample except of a kupamanduka, it is a poor argument. (3)The evidence put forth by Jayen demonstrates that Ganga is used more commonly globally, not just in India, it is the most common identifier for the river globally, I just hope this gets across.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 02:26, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Kwami you do not like the argument that though Chinese learn English form foreigners they have designed a system for Romanising commonnames, they do not spell proper nouns as the foreigners would, this system is now used globally, and by Wikipedia, and the same should be valid for Ganga? Why not???Yogesh Khandke (talk) 02:34, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
I didn't say you were stupid. I said your latest comments were stupid. Lots of intelligent people say stupid things from time to time, myself included. An intelligent argument deserves an intelligent response; a stupid argument deserves to be ignored or to be ridiculed.
The pinyin analogy is completely irrelevant. That's a difference of romanization, not a difference in naming. गंगा could be transliterated multiple ways: Ganga, Gungah, Ganggaa, Gaṅgā, ɡəŋɡaː, g̃ga, etc. We're not talking about that: it seems you could care less how we romanize it. What you're arguing for is a change in name, from /ˈɡændʒiːz/ to /ˈɡɑːŋɡə/, from a Sanskrit-Greek-English etymology to a Sanskrit-Hindi-English etymology. (Note that in English, Ganga has the opposite vowels of गंगा : it's pronounced more like गांग !) That is, the analogy is not whether we romanize the Chinese city in unmarked pinyin, Guangzhou, or in full pinyin, Guǎngzhōu, or in Wade-Giles, Kwangchow or Kwang3chow1, but whether we use any of those (the Mandarin name) or instead use Canton, the traditional English name. That decision is not based on what the Chinese want, but on what English sources use. Now, if the Indian govt engages in a campaign to get the whole world to use "Ganga" instead of "Ganges", and they do, then of course we would change too. — kwami (talk) 07:25, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
  • (1)I am sorry, you are giving IPA, you could as well have given Greek, it would be the same for me, all my fault. (2)Etymologies are sticky wickets, you will agree though what you say is partially right I would argue it is Sanskrit - English, as against Greek - English (3)The pinyin anology should not be streched, the Chinese said this is how we write out proper names, and wikipedia allows it, the official version, not Wade-Giles or the other one, that was an example of divided local use, but the Chinese government stepped in to achieve uniformity, and then the ISO complied and others (4)India is a democracy not a totalarian country, any such rule would bring serious opposition in the form of cultural policing etc., but people are voting with their feet, so to say, which is evident from the trends as Jayen has demonstrated. (5)English spellings give no hint on how they are pronounced, it would be platitudinous but I am giving an example put and put, put as in put it on the table and put as in shot put, that is why I have written earlier Indians have an informal method of spellings, Kaho na pyar hai is read as it should कहो ना प्यार है, the reader automaically converts it into Devnagari before reading, that is why the transliteration softwares Roman to Devnagari are so popular, if English English/ Americans would pronounce it as गांग or Gang (as in the Gang of 4) they should learn how to pronounce foreign words, just as they learn that Grand Prix is not pronounced as grand pricks or VW is not VEEdoublu but vouvee, and that Volkswagen is pronounced folkswagen, Wikipedia's bench mark should neither be the stubborn nor the ignorant. (6)You are forgetting that Jayen has pointed out that Ganga is the globally prefered identifier for the river, when all wikipedia requires for proper names to have reasonable local popularity. My daughter had a lesson on lazy Juan, it had a pronunciation help that Juan was pronounced wan. We have to learn.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 15:03, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Notice that these official campaigns 'to change the translation of the name of whatever' usually take a couple of years to be accepted. It took several years to change Peking into Beijing, Bombay into Mumbai, etc. IMHO Ganges/Ganga simply isn't there yet. And Wikipedia isn't not a place which should be used to popularize the "new name". Wikipedia should change the name only after it becomes popular. Flamarande (talk) 11:26, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Flam. (1) Ganga has been Ganga generations before Mumbai became Mumbai in 1995, Mumbai had an Indian English name Bombay and a Marathi name Mumbai, Ganga has always been the river's Indian English name, the situation before globalisation was that Indian English and English English or American English lived happily in their own worlds, now with one village there is jostling for space, and just as the largest circulating English and Roman script newspaper is written in Indian English, Ganga too is being used to a greater extent globally in comparision with Ganges. (2)In another way it is not like Mumbai and Beijing, perhaps because it is not a political entity but a geographical entity (in the sense of political and geographical maps). I started school in 1972, it was Ganga then (anecdotal, cannot be evidence), that is why the thing that happened to Mumbai and lately Bengalaru hasn't taken place in the case of Ganga. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 15:03, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Yog. 1)Perhaps 'Ganga' has been 'Ganga' for generations in the Indian subcontinent, but it has been (and still is) 'Ganges' as far as the majority of the English-speaking world is concerned. The situation before globalisation was that native names were translated into British or American English as best as possible and then used by ppl who speak and learnt British English and/or Amercan English in school. Now the locals/natives/whatever term you wish to use are translating the names into English themselves, argue that the former name was somehow offensive and demand that the English-speaking world use the new name now. The problem is that such changes demand a certain amount of time and sometimes the new names simply don't stick. Political arguments and political correctness are commonly used to defend the imposition of new names. 2) The name of cities and rivers are taught in school in a equal standing and it makes little diffrence if its a geographical or political feature. What matter is what is taught in school and used by the international English-speaking media (like BBC World, CNN, Euronews, etc). You should realize that the name (Ganga) which you learned in school in India is largely ingnored in the UK, USA, Australia, Canada, etc. There they overwhelmingly learn 'Ganges'. No one is going to deny that Ganges is known and sometimes used in India itself (the largest circulating English and Roman script newspaper is written in Indian English and it uses Ganges on occasion). The name 'Ganga' (for the river) is virtually unknown outside of it, and it's British and/or American English (but not Indian English) which is taught in North America, Europe, South America, Africa, Oceania, and I dare say most of Asia (minus the Indian subcontinent). Ask Jayen what name he learned in his English classes. Ask him which name is taught in English classes in German schools today. Ask him which name is used by British television, American channels, his friends. Ask him exactly when and where he learned about the name Ganga. Flamarande (talk) 17:55, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

(OD)Flam.(1)Just as a clarification Ganga is used in English in India for a few generations, Mumbai is used in English since 1995, Mumbai is newer than Ganga, your point was Mumbai is old and Ganga is some Johnny come lately, which isn't correct. (2)It is not about political correctness, it is about sheer numbers, see statistics provided by Jayen, Ganga is the predominent form globally at present, taken; school going children learn Ganges in English/American schools and European schools, but unfortunately a lot more children go to school in India and grow up calling the river Ganga in English. (3)Please see the Times of India comparision in point no 6 above, the video is titled Ganges the text uses Ganga. (4)There is no doubt that Ganges is prefered by British/American sources and European sources, but elsewhere Ganga predominates, in Asia the Asian Development site uses Ganga over 450 times, please check links provided above in the discussion, please go through discussion with Kwami, regarding the intelligiblity of Ganga in Asia. (5)The move proposal is not based on political correctness but on Wikipedia rules and evidence based on facts. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 19:13, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Yog, Riiiight. 2) We only have to forget that Jayen's results are largely restricted to the last year. It isn't only the schools in Europe and North America, but also the schools in South America, Africa, Oceania and the "rest" of Asia. Unfortunatly a lot more children are learning British and/or American English in the rest of the world. 3) You yet again avoiding the obvious: most ppl of India know what 'Ganges' means and even use it from time to time. Most the ppl outside of the Indian subcontinent believe that 'Ganga' is a narcotic. 4) Riiiight (again). Indian English is surely extremely popular in China, Japan, South Korea, Russia (Asian part), Phillipines, etc. None of these guys are even interrested in learning British or American English. NOT bloody likely. 5) Jayen used pc arguments and you used them too besides the race card more than once (and you went to the userpage of other users to ask for their votes). So please don't complain if I mention these facts. Flamarande (talk) 19:59, 8 December 2010 (UTC) It's useless to argue with a preacher. This debate is over.
(2)If you call them facts they have to be supported by sources do not forget wp:V. Jayen's statements are supported by quotes from wp:rs. Good you agree that the latest is that Ganga is predominant. Wikipedia is about the present and the future and not the past, the past was Ganges and the present and future is Ganga in the context of English. (3) Please see point no. nine in the summary above as a reply. (4)Regarding Chinese see point no. twenty in the summary (5)Your argument is that Ganges cannot move to Ganga because an editor out of ignorance and not out of malice solicited opinion from those whose opinions were known? That looks like a poor argument. I am ignoring other poor arguments of the same dimension, even repeating them would be in bad taste.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 20:34, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Kwami, it is true. Looking at the totality of English-language news results, Ganga predominates. It is a sound principle to look at the totality of English sources, without prejudice as to their provenance. There are simply far more Indian than Western news sources. This reflects the greater interest in India, which will also be reflected in our reader demographics for this article, and should likewise be reflected in our article. Ganga is not exclusive to India either; I gave Western media examples above, and linked to the US National Science Foundation using Ganga. --JN466 01:38, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
It was not true according to the sources provided. I agree that we're likely to get more Indian sources, but the question is, is "Ganga" largely restricted primarily to Indian sources, including Indian authors publishing outside India? It would seem to be. Of course, there are counter examples, like the solitary one you just gave, but no-one denies it's used occasionally. The pattern remains: "Ganga" is preferred with Indian sources, "Ganges" with non-Indian sources. That's the question: which should take precedence? — kwami (talk) 01:51, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
As I understand from Jayen's statements, Ganga is prefered Indian use, Ganges is the prefered UK/US use, but because there are more instances of Ganga in absolute terms, overall there are more examples of Ganga than Ganges, overall. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 08:45, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Exactly. --JN466 12:28, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
You are just forgetting Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, etc. How many countries of the English-speaking world do you truly believe use Ganga? Flamarande (talk) 13:18, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
These countries are not producing English-language sources on the Ganga in anything like the same quantity and depth. We are not counting countries, or even people (the Indian subcontinent is home to about 1.5 billion); we are counting published English-language sources, per WP:Article titles. We observe today a clear preponderance of Ganga vs. Ganges in English-language news items and international scholarly discourse. You are presenting the matter as though Ganga had zero use in Western publications, and zero use in Western school materials. That is false, and has been disproven above. Springer, Elsevier, Taylor & Franics, Wiley are Western publishers, publishing for a worldwide audience just as we are. --JN466 16:31, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Here you use the 1.5 billion figure again. You should know that most Indians are not native English speakers. Most of them learn English as a second, third or even fourth language (like Yog). Many don't learn English at all. So if you wish to include these guys I propose that we also include all 2nd, 3rd, and 4th British and American speakers. I don't deny that Ganga is sometimes (as in rarely) used outside of the Indian subcontinent. However use of the name Ganges is simply predominant in the rest of the English-speaking world. You stated that you live in the UK, so please tell us: What name do you use/hear/read more often? Be honest in your answer. Excatly where, when and how did you learn of the name 'Ganga'?Flamarande (talk) 20:31, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Flamarande, you are making an argument that the kind of English that kids learn in Argentina, or Germany, or Japan, should matter. Surely the kind of English kids learn on the English subcontinent matters, too? Kids in India, Nepal and Bangladesh are much more likely to look up this article than kids in Argentina or Japan. In the UK, I hear the name Ganges more often. If I were in India, I'd hear the name Ganga more often; and there are far more people in the Indian subcontinent than in the UK, the US, Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand combined. Schools in India have computers too ... --JN466 20:51, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
I arguing that IF/AS you are using the 1.2 billion figure which clearly includes 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Indian English speakers I can do the same with AE And BE speakers. The kids in the Indian subcontinent certainly matter. However the kids from the rest of the world matter too. And in the end you argue yet again that there are more ppl (which speak Indian English) in India than the ppl in the USA, UK, NZ, Australia, etc. However if you read the articles Indian English, English speaking world, etc you will realize that there not that many native English-speakers in India at all. However if you wish to count all Indians who learn/have learnt Indian English as a secondary/third/fourth language (like Yog), then I propose that we include ppl who learn/learnt British or American English as a secondary/third/fourth language like you and me. Flamarande (talk) 21:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
The situations of someone learning English in Japan and someone learning it in India are not comparable, because English is an official language in India -- an official language of the courts, the government, as well as the language of much of India's national press, business and higher education system. --JN466 21:35, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Jayen466. Even if we are to consider Flamarande's argument, here's a reason why Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc should be given only very limited and nominal weight.
English speakers in the world by percentages
USA: 27.4
India: 25.3.4
Australia: 1.8
New Zealand: 0.4
South Africa: 1.4
This is from the data/sources in List of countries by English-speaking population Zuggernaut (talk) 17:13, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Your list of percentages ends more or less at 56% (I can only wonder why you stopped there). You seem to forget Canada, the UK, Ireland, the former colonies in Africa, etc. How many of those countries do you believe speak Indian English? Flamarande (talk) 20:31, 9 December 2010 (UTC) PS: I'm speculating but in the end the results would probably be: Indian English (Ganga)= 26/30 % VS American or British English (Ganges)= 84/70%.
The question is also, who views this article? According to Alexa, Indian readers make up 6.5% of all traffic to all the Wikipedias combined. The precise figures are:
  • United States 21.7%
  • Japan 7.6%
  • Germany 7.1%
  • India 6.5%
  • Russia 4.3%
  • United Kingdom 4.3%
  • Italy 3.6%
  • France 2.9%
  • Mexico 2.5%
  • Spain 2.2%
I think we can safely assume that most of the traffic from Japan will be to Japanese Wikipedia, most of the German traffic will be to de:WP, most of the Russian traffic to ru.wp, most of the Italian traffic to it.wp, most of the French traffic to fr.wp, and most of the Mexican and Spanish traffic to es.wp. The countries in this list predominantly surfing to en:WP will be the US, the UK, and India. Together, these three countries represent 32.5% of all Wikipedia traffic; exactly 20% of that is from India (note that this is one-and-a-half times UK traffic). Now ask yourself how likely a person from Missouri or Suffolk is to look up this article, vs. a person from India. Or vice versa, ask yourself how likely a person from Maharashtra is to look up Mississippi, versus a person from Missouri. Indian readers quite possibly make up more than 50% of the audience for this article. --JN466 21:11, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
In other words: you are in favour of "balkanizing" the English wiki along cultural/linguistic lines in order to satisfy national POV's/feeling. A least that's how I see your reasoning and I'm certainly free to disagree. Flamarande (talk) 21:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
You are welcome to disagree with me; it is through disagreement and debate that we all learn. I would certainly prefer what you call "balkanization" to monolithic dominance of Wikipedia by American and British English. Wikipedia was not set up in that spirit; it was set up to be a free encyclopedia for the world. --JN466 21:35, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
The problem is one of intelligibility. The US is the only country to have sent probes to the outer planets. Should all distances and dimensions of those planets and their moons therefore be given in miles? Of course not: We don't use miles and ounces, despite the huge amount of traffic from the US, because they're largely unintelligible to the rest of the world. Likewise, we shouldn't use "Ganga", despite the preferences of some Indian editors, because it's largely unintelligible to the rest of the world. International accessibility trumps national ownership. — kwami (talk) 07:18, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
That's a compelling argument in favour of staying with Ganges, and I invite you to present it, as compellingly as possible, in the table above. There are equally, and to my mind, more, compelling arguments in favour of Ganga. The idea is to present these arguments for review and then ask people to look at the work we have done. --JN466 00:48, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
As far as Jayen's results go, Ganga is the most favoured form internationally, globally, allegations of unintelligibility for which there is no evidence apart from anecdotal comments cannot be taken seriously. The probes analogy is entirely irrelevant.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 13:03, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

(od)We have Wikipedia rules and conventions for titles, evidence demonstrates, (assuming Jayen's stats are correct), that Ganga is more common than Ganges, globally, and not just in India. Wheras Ganga's prolific local incidence would have been enough for the title to be Ganges, here we have a global preference for Ganga. The large numbers regarding India have been presented just for one reason, that is to demonstrate that when arguing within the boundaries of local use, the term local is not an indication of wp:fringe, as in the case of ganga as a fringe slang for ganja, but represents a large population. Anecdotal evidence has no value. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 00:33, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion

We are editing each others text on a talk page, which is not good practice, when I wrote please be free to edit, I meant we could add more arguments, and not edit each others arguments which is not how the protocol is on a talk page, how about having a sub-page, with a project page, where we can edit, and a discussion page where we do not edit each others text.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 04:27, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

My understanding is that this is a summary with unsigned comments. There is nothing wrong with editing comments in a summary. The alternative is to go back to the normal threaded mode of argument. Either way is fine with me. --RegentsPark (talk) 14:16, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
(a)I agree with you RegentsPark. That it is just not traditional here is bugging me. (b)You make an argument, I think it is wrong I make a counter-argument, I do not remove that argument, removing it changes meanings, aditionally, there are two columns, one column should be used for pro-Ganges arguments another for pro-Ganga arguments, one should not have a pro-Ganga argument in the pro-Ganges column and vice-versa.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 01:52, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Problem, proposal

Kwami, this edit is a problem.

  • You are inserting a phantom figure of "40?" for Ganges in the title and river in the text, which is not borne our by the search results page, which says "27".
  • You are actually making the statement wrong by adding, "when the authors are Indian", because across the totality of google scholar publications in our search results, most of which are by Western publishers such as Springer, Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, and Wiley, Ganga predominates in the search results.

I would suggest that proponents of Ganges edit the left half of the table, presenting their arguments as they see fit, and proponents of Ganga edit the right hand side of the table. If proponents of Ganges want to link to a search results page and say there are 40 links on that page when there are actually 27, they are free to do so, but I suggest it will not look good for their cause. I will be presenting the same link on the right hand side of the table and point out what the actual search result is. --JN466 11:47, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

You're using different standards for counting the two sides: mine, which yields a lower number, for "Ganges", and yours, which yields a higher number, for "Ganga". That is as unacceptable as giving proponents for one side a vote each, and those of the other side 3/4 a vote, as we used to do in the US. — kwami (talk) 07:13, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
I don't follow you. Could you explain? --JN466 00:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Other articles

Apart from Ganges, these articles use "Ganges" in the title:

If Ganges became Ganga it would be necessary to edit the article to replace most instances of "Ganges" with "Ganga". What would happen with the titles and content of the other "Ganges" articles? I also noticed Ganges (BBC TV series) which suggests that the BBC thought "Ganges" was the appropriate name for their audience in 2007. Johnuniq (talk) 07:41, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

It would be case by case, for example though the name of the city has been changed to Mumbai in English, we have Bombay Duck, Bombay High, etc, one reference is where the names refers to the river it would change to Ganga, for example Sharing the water of the Ganga, Ganges Basin will be Ganges Basin, Ganges stingray or Ganges dolphin will not change.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 09:55, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Yogesh; we should be making decisions on a case-by-case basis. I would argue for Ganges and Indus river dolphin, for example, as the name of the animal almost universally uses Ganges, while I would probably argue for Ganga basin, based on such official institutions as the National Ganga River Basin Authority and apparent predominance of Ganga basin (568) vs. Ganges basin (454) in Google Scholar. --JN466 12:02, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
I doubt it will be an issue. The arguments for keeping Ganges are compelling and well done. I'm surprised this move request is still open. Surely everything that could be said has been said by now! --JaGatalk 17:42, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
Most of the people !voted before any source research had been done. The idea is to present the most compelling arguments for either side, and then re-invite those who commented earlier. --JN466 00:46, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
  1. ^ http://cwc.gov.in/main/webpages/statistics.html#3
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