Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2020 September 5

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September 5

Anyone have access to the Brill Encyclopedia of Islam?

I've been trying to dig up some sources for the article on the now-ruined city of Tubunae in Algeria and came across this Google Books snippet: [1]

From what little I can see here, it looks like it says something about how the city was sacked and destroyed, leading to its current uninhabited status, but I can't see enough to figure out when this happened, who did the destroying, etc. Does anyone have access to this source?

Thanks,

3 kids in a trenchcoat (talk) 04:40, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

We have a dedicated page for other editors to look up resources, it's the Resource Exchange; you might be better asking there. LongHairedFop (talk) 09:14, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

User:LongHairedFop: very helpful to know, thanks! 3 kids in a trenchcoat (talk) 20:54, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

User:3 kids in a trenchcoat, by the dark arts of Google-fu and a lot of luck, I have located p. 580 of the Encyclopaedia of Islam which you can see here (second page down). I suspect that the copyright status is somewhat iffy, so I wouldn't link it to the article. Alansplodge (talk) 11:15, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

User:Alansplodge, that's exactly what I was looking for, thanks! 3 kids in a trenchcoat (talk) 20:54, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Diversity Visa Lottery and Trump travel ban question

In this article, it states that people who won the Diversity Visa Lottery from countries on Donald Trump's travel ban were unable to actually get their US visas:

https://eurasianet.org/kyrgyzstans-lucky-losers-rue-their-dashed-american-dream

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone knows if this has actually changed since then. I feel so sorry for these people and hope that they can finally make it into the US. Futurist110 (talk) 06:27, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Diversity Visa Lottery Winners Are Out Of Luck With Trump's Ban On The Program (9 July 18, 2020) from WBUR-FM. Alansplodge (talk) 11:22, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Nain Singh Rawat - which is the surname?

Howdy reference desk! Looking for someone who is familiar with Indian/South Asian naming conventions. I'm doing some research to expand Nain Singh Rawat, and I noticed that several sources (and several other languages' versions of the article, for that matter) just refer to him as Nain Singh. There are definitely sources which refer to him as Nain Singh Rawat, though. I'm trying to figure out whether his family name should be listed as "Singh" or "Rawat" - perhaps "Rawat" is a title or clan name which is treated differently from a surname? I'm quite ignorant in this area. Thanks in advance! GeneralNotability (talk) 16:46, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Rawat (title). Is the "Rawat" in "Nain Singh Rawat" this usage? --Khajidha (talk) 17:08, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Not sure if this helps but Rediscovering India Abode Of Gods: Vol 37 (p. 59) has: "The principal castes amongst them are Pangti, Jangpangi, Rawats and Dhammasattus, rest of them add the name of their village after their surname e.g Gunjiyal, Martolia, Burfal and Netwal... They began to work with the survey parties and won laurels the most remarkable figure being Pd. Kishan Singh and Nain Singh." Alansplodge (talk) 17:23, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Khajidha: I don't think so, from my reading so far I don't think he was from a noble family. Alansplodge, ahh, so it could be a caste...that sounds plausible. GeneralNotability (talk) 19:23, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

I should have linked Bhotiya which is the ethnic group described in the link above. I had previously thought that the Singh name was a marker of Sikhism, but apparently not exclusively. Alansplodge (talk) 19:39, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

To muddy the waters a bit further, we have Rawat language and Ban Rawats. Alansplodge (talk) 19:51, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Our article Singh says ""Singh" is generally used as a surname (e.g. Manmohan Singh or Yuvraj Singh) or as a middle name/title (e.g. Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mahendra Singh Dhoni). When used as a middle name, it is generally followed by the caste, clan or family name". Peter Hopkirk's Trespassers on the Roof of the World indexes him under N as Nain Singh, and his cousin Mani Singh Rawat as Mani Singh. It may be that we shouldn't seek to impose a "forename, surname" pattern here. DuncanHill (talk) 02:34, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

DuncanHill, sure, I'm mostly trying to figure out what to use as the list as/sort by parameter, and whether the article needs to be renamed Nain Singh vice Nain Singh Rawat (I note that we moved it from Nain Singh back in 2008). Regardless, thank you to everyone here for your help! GeneralNotability (talk) 14:39, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Well then what you need is what I provided with Hopkirk. Sort as Nain. DuncanHill (talk) 14:45, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

We have quite a few articles with a title of the form "XYZ Singh Rawat", where XYZ can be any of: Bachi · Bharat · Chandan · Dhan · Dilip · Gopal · Harak · Harish Chandra · Jaswant · Kedar · Kehar · Krishna · Mani · Manish · Meharban · Mohan · Nain · Nitendra · Priyanka · Rajinder · Rasa · Shankar · Suraj · Suresh · Tejpal · Tirath · Trivendra · Upendra. With few exceptions these have a corresponding sort key "Rawat, XYZ Singh". The exceptions are:

• No sort key:
  • Shankar Singh Rawat
  • Suraj Singh Rawat
• Sort key "Rawat, XYZ" (without "Singh")
  • Jaswant Singh Rawat
  • Krishna Singh Rawat
  • Nain Singh Rawat
• Sort key "Singh Rawat, XYZ"
  • Nitendra Singh Rawat

What I know about Indian names is mainly that it is a very complicated issue, so I am not stating (or trying to suggest) that any of the above is (in)correct.  --Lambiam 17:08, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

@GeneralNotability: Although I am have south Asian studies background, you may wish to reconfirm my perception from some native Hindi language speaker,

My perception is it seems to follows pattern of "middle name is a portion of a personal(first) name that is written between the person's first given name and their Royal clan name (Rawat) as surname." My perception is many north Indians self opt for middle name of their choice (I may be wrong here). But in this case middle name Singh seems to come as part of First name to signify royal male of royal linage. In any case Singh does not seem to be Surname in this case most likely to be part of First name itself.

If there is special value to clan name then many times family surnames if any dropped and clan names are used as Surnames to signify social status, in such cases formally it tends to work as surname. There is one more possibility that Nain Singh himself never used Rawat as surname officially but people around him kept using his clan name as a marker or mark of respect. So answer to your main question it is safe enough to use Rawat as his Family name and not Singh.

I hope this helps to an extent un till you confirm with official documents and reconfirm naming convention from some native Hindi speaker,

Bookku (talk) 17:54, 6 September 2020 (UTC)