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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Fbd (talk | contribs) at 17:18, 8 October 2005. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Requested move

Höðr → Hodur Use English name. CDThieme 02:39, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Add #Support or #Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~

(5/12)

Support

  1. Support per the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) policy: Hodur seems to be the most common of the English spellings. Jonathunder 07:17, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Support - This is an English-language encyclopedia, any number of English language versions of the name should be used before the current article title. DreamGuy 04:06, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  3. support Tree&Leaf 04:51, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Support Hodur is established English name. Septentrionalis 05:59, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Support. Let's not bewilder our readers by imposing foreign characters on article titles when English names exist. CDThieme 15:02, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

  1. Oppose. Hodur is not "the English name". There are many different ways to anglicize the name (Hodr, Hothr, Hödr, Höthr, Hod, Hoth, Hödur, Höthur, Hothur, Hodur, Hodhur, Hödhur, Hodhr, Hödhr, Hödh etc.) this is just one of many. Let's stick to the current spelling standard for Old Norse mythological names. And if you don't agree with the standard then please let's discuss the standard rather than individual cases. - Haukurth 09:11, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  2. OPPOSE, because there is no conventional spelling in English, as Haukurth says. A case when the standard applies.--Wiglaf 09:39, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Oppose. Anglicizations are a nuisance. They are common in popular works and retellings, but not in scholarly treatises. We are trying to write an encyclopedia here, not a new Bullfinch's Mythology. --Salleman 13:14, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Oppose Fornadan (t) 21:43, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  5. emphatically oppose (see discussion below) P.MacUidhir 08:21, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Oppose see above. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 08:52, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Oppose as per P.MacUidhir --Bjarki 09:27, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Oppose, strongly. All the many reasons have been given...--Sterio 10:33, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Oppose, as per Haukurth. Wikipedia should adhere to scholarly standards. Tupsharru 11:24, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Oppose --Cessator 13:32, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  11. oppose, this is taking on BC(E) proportions, with anti-diacritics-squads moving articles to score points without any involvement, or knowledge of the matter. This is unwikilike behaviour. As per Haukur, we need a solid policy for Old Norse names. dab (ᛏ) 14:42, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Strong Oppose. Firstly, this is a decision to made by the page's regular editors, not some outsiders looking to tidy up loose ends. At the very least we should wait their is a policy before we start ignoring the voices of those who are knowledgable. Secondly, the page is more professional as it is, we need only ensure that all synonymous terms redirect here, or to a disambig linking here. Sam Spade 20:52, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  13. 'Oppose - I agree with Haukurth, translating a proper noun like this will just add confusion. Also, the most correct form of course is Höðr, a redirect from other known Anglicized names is sufficient. --Friðrik Bragi Dýrfjörð 17:18, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral

  1. Neutral on this particular page, but I would have hoped both sides would have refrained from moving pages until a policy developed. (Extended commentary below). --Tabor 21:45, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Add any additional comments
Just a quick note. We all agree on following the "use English" convention. But we believe that this case falls under: If there is no commonly used English name, use an accepted transliteration of the name in the original language. Latin-alphabet languages like Spanish or French should need no transliteration When there is a commonly used English name - like "Thor" - we use that. But one there are several options available we follow a convention we've previously agreed upon. As an aside Höðr is already an anglicization since the standardized Old Norse spelling has an o with a hook rather than an 'ö'. The larger point is that there are several different systems for anglicizing Old Norse names (see Old Norse orthography) and we'd prefer to be consistent throughout. Tracking down what happens to be the most common form in each case would be a daunting task and lead to us using forms from several different systems. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 08:13, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
English is not a language whose forms are consistent throughout. It does adopt many forms from many systems. That's the way this language is. If you try to impose a system of spelling, especially one based on another language, you will title articles with forms that most of our readers do not recognize. Höðr is something most readers will not find familiar at all and will not know how to read. Jonathunder 09:38, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to quote what I think was an interesting point made by Markussep: "I don't think the pronunciation should be an argument in this discussion. There are many names without diacritics of funny foreign thingies that don't give the average English speaker a clue about how they should be pronounced, like Zschopau, Clwyd or Worcester." Wikipedia will have articles on entities with names foreign to most English speakers. It will not be clear from the spelling of those names how they are pronounced. This is a problem that cannot be legislated away and the purpose of the "use English" convention is not to do that. When a common English name exists (Moscow, Cologne, Thor, Odin) we use that. In other cases we use the native name (Kraków, Seyðisfjörður, Hávamál, Veðrfölnir). That's what Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) means to me and that's how it's applied in practice. In the long run I'd like to provide pronunciation information for all of these, preferably both with IPA and sound files. I've also been working on providing the many different anglicizations of individual names (see Lóðurr for example), which will help people to find the articles no matter what form they have. And of course redirects are cheap and should be used generously. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 10:23, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I was reading the Britannica's article on Germanic religion and mythology. It is devastatingly much better than our article on Norse mythology, but when it comes to names, it's totally Wild West over there, even though they give the original names in parenthesis:

  • Sometimes they drop accents (Rigr instead of Rígr), and sometimes they don't (Mímir)
  • Sometimes they split the æ-ligature (Aesir), and sometimes they keep it (landvættir), as they do with Hœnir's œ-ligature
  • Freyr can have his nominative case marker, but Heimdallr (Heimdall) cannot
  • The ð first becomes a d (Hlódyn instead of Hlóðyn), and then it is kept (seiðr)
  • Gerðr is first styled as Gerd, in the next sentence as Gerdr
  • Rindr is bestowed with an –a ending (Rinda), but Frigg can do without
  • Lastly, Baldr is Balder, whereas Höðr is (*dum-duh-dum*) Höd.

All in all, we see that there are really but two solutions available: standardized Old Norse names, or madness. --Salleman 01:09, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A very interesting study, thank you! The confusing thing here is that if there is an 'ð' anywhere in the text readers will assume that it's used everywhere it should be. Thus they will assume, incorrectly, that 'Hlódyn' does not have an 'ð'. Britannica also has some patent mistakes, at least the online version does. I've seen such nonsensical forms as *Jörðr and *Audhumia. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 08:17, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, English spellings follow many patterns, sometimes by complete historical accident, and can seem quite crazy. Given the alternatives, however, of imposing rules of a non-English language on article titles on the English wikipedia or using the most common English title for any given article, the latter gives a more readable and familiar result for the majority of our readers. Jonathunder 03:12, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still waiting for you to show that Hodur is the most common anglicization of Höðr. Could you quote some recent books and articles? And complete chaos is not very readable for those of us who know Old Norse. There's also a difference between accidentally occurring chaos and intentional creation of it. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 08:17, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Following the same logic, Hermann Göring would be found at Hermann Goering, since that is the most common misspelling of his name in English. And btw, some Google testing reveals that Hod and not Hodur is the most common misspelling of Höðr. --Salleman 03:46, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It isn't a mispelling in English. Do you realize telling someone his native language does it wrong can come across as quite offensive? Jonathunder 03:53, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It's not the English language itself that spells things. English speaking people do. I suppose misspelling is not the best word. Even Germans will spell Göring as Goering in an ASCII context. I will also spell my name "Haukur Thorgeirsson" in an ASCII context. But where 'þ' is available (as it is on Wikipedia) I much prefer to have my name written as I've written it since I was 4 years old. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 08:17, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I was being rash. The main point is (1) there is no standard anglicization, and you, Jonathunder, contradict yourself when you hint that the Britannica is using the English name, when in fact their name is different from what you have proposed; (2) most anglicizations are, in fact, not proper anglicizations (such as valkyrie for valkyrja), but simply the actual names without diacritics, letters not found in English and nominative case. Why don't you go over to Māori, el Niño and Niccolò Machiavelli and tell them to get rid of their diacritics as well? --Salleman 13:09, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If we wanted to be pedantic about this issue, we could do a survey of texts in English translation that contain the name, but all that would do is establish that there is no standard spelling for the name - much like every other proper name found in Old Norse saga translations, barring rare exceptions like Thor and Odin. This would be pointless. As Haukurth mentioned, the issue that needs to be addressed is the standard set of orthographic rules to use here at Wikipedia rather than individual cases. I am completely opposed to any changes of the sort proposed here until the standards debate is concluded. It can be found here: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Old Norse/Old Icelandic/Old English) I recommend that anyone interested in this topic go there to hash it out rather than wasting time with just one proper noun from a group of tens of thousands of possible proper nouns from Old Norse that could be used for article titles. P.MacUidhir 08:33, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A few comments here:

1. Quoting Sam Spade above: "Firstly, this is a decision to made by the page's regular editors, not some outsiders looking to tidy up loose ends." Well, the article was created and had 40 edits over a period of 4 years as "Hod (mythology)". Wiglaf came along and moved it to Höðr as his very first edit to the article. So the "regular editors" argument does not hold too much water.

Wiglaf and I are regular editors of Norse mythology in general. I, for example, scanned in that picture of Höðr and the wood maidens. - Haukur

2. The regular editors of the original articles may not even be clear, because of cut-and-paste moves that split the history. Example: Thrud -> Þrúðr. Similar to this article, the name change was the first edit Haukurth made to the article.

I'm sorry about that, I did that cut and paste move at a time before I understood the moving process. I would have done it properly if I'd known. - Haukur

3. On waiting for a policy -- This was exactly my point on Haukurth's talk page here when Haukurth and Wiglaf put up a new proposed policy page on May 21 and started moving articles on May 22. However, even clearly voiced disagreement was no object, because the pair just continued to move pages. They certainly weren't hung up on waiting for a policy to develop.

Prior to our tentative standard there was no standard of any kind and page moves were common. The month grace period was only supposed to mean that we wouldn't justify any moves with that standard until after that time. - Haukur

4. I am disturbed by comments that display a complete disregard for the community. For example: Wiglaf's comment to Haukurth [ ] "it seems like you and I are the only ones at Wikipedia who care at the moment, so if you want to have standardized Old Norse forms, I guess standardized Old Norse forms should be regarded as a consensus decision." (I suppose this may be true when you ignore objections).

There were no objections at that time and Wiglaf and I were just about the only ones working actively on the pages in question. Since then Salleman has become quite active and he largely agrees with us on the issue. - Haukur

5. Or Haukurth's recent edit summary [1] "ordering Icelanders by first name. I got away with this in Hrafnkels saga (FA) so I'm hoping to get away with it here" ... as if circumventing the community is something to do when you can "get away with it".

I'm obviously not trying to "circumvent the community". What I'm saying is that the Hrafnkels saga article went through the FA process without anyone objecting to the way I arranged the references section. FAC is just about the highest degree of oversight any article gets around here so that's what I meant with "getting away with it". Ordering Icelanders by first name is common practice in English works dealing with Icelandic topics. It seems natural to me that we should follow that here. In articles on other subjects when an Icelander happens to be referenced I think we should order the name by his or her patronym. Of course you can disagree and I'll be happy to discuss the matter with you and the larger community. - Haukur

--Tabor 21:41, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Tabor, I hope you have checked the edit history for how many people who were engaged in the discussion. If I would have had the standard I had preferred, it would not have been the present standard, but due to the lack of comments, the discussion appeared to be dead. It was a statement of disappointment on the lack of interest in the issue, but if I remember correctly, you commented on that statement directly and you did not assume good faith.--Wiglaf 21:48, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Nor is the standard exactly as I originally proposed. Compromise is good :) - Haukur Þorgeirsson 22:04, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
A response to Tabor-
1. These points need clarification. There were no regular editors for Hod (mythology), that is true. Wiglaf's change from Hod (mythology) to Höðr, however, was his second edit of that article, not his first.
2. The point concerning Thrud is a valid one. In reading the old naming conventions archive Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Old Norse/Old Icelandic/Old English)/Archive 1, my first assumption was that they would wait a month before making the changes that were decided at that time, but such was not the case. At worst, their phrasing of their intentions was flawed, not their actions, considering that there was a grand total of nine interested editors for that discussion from its beginning until 22 May 2005, all of whom had the opportunity to make comments during that long span of time. Since the discussion has been reopened, this is a dead issue.
3. A better standard should have been decided before large-scale changes were made. In that I agree with you. Haukur Þorgeirsson's comments, however, are relevant: there really were *not* that many people who cared about what was being discussed at that time, as the history page for the archive plainly demonstrates. Their actions seem a bit arbitrary on the surface, and perhaps a bit hasty, but with no other input from other interested parties, who can fault their decision on the basis of objections? I see objections that are given, but also are adequately addressed. Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Old Norse/Old Icelandic/Old English)/Archive 1 The policies of Wikipedia:assume good faith and Wikipedia:be bold! seem very applicable throughout this discussion of actions and intentions, and particularly so in this case.
4. Haukur Þorgeirsson's latest comment on this says it best. I will sum it up- what community? There were nine people who commented on the subject up to that point (22 May 2005). Old Norse orthography is not exactly on par with Metallica in being a popular topic of discourse, here or elsewhere, so this is not surprising. In fact, I am very pleased to see that anyone at all cared enough to discuss this subject here at Wikipedia. If people are inclined to want to learn Icelandic, it is doubtful they want to get so in-depth in the subject as to concern themselves with the evolution of its orthographic standards. How many people here have even read the First Grammatical Treatise, or any of the others since it was written? Not many, I wager. Making a vague reference to the broad English-language Wikipedia community is pointless when discussing these subjects- 95% could care less, but the other 5% *do* care quite a lot.
And as for his change to the references section of History of Iceland, his assertions given here are quite correct, though they do not represent a 'standard', only a convention used by many scholars (most of them Icelandic, admittedly) in writing on Icelandic subjects in the English language. Gunnar Karlsson's "The History of Iceland" is a fine example of that convention in print by a well-regarded scholar. He does not seem to be circumventing a community. He was ignoring a Wikipedia suggestion for English-language article citations in favour of a common format used in texts published in the field of Icelandic historiography (texts in English as well as in Icelandic and other languages). Quite plainly, those references look fine to me, and I see no issue there until Wikipedia *does* have a final 'set in stone' guideline for citing published works. Until then... why quibble? There are valid reasons for his choice. I disagree with him on the choice, since in principle I prefer a uniform standard rather than lots of different standards, but there *is* no uniform standard here for citing published works. If you know of one that applies which also has more authority than what is common in Icelandic historiography, please do mention it here.
My own opinion is that the standard should be to use modern Icelandic spelling rules since Old West Norse/Old Icelandic did not have standardised spelling rules that were uniformly adhered to until recent centuries, so there *is* no uniform set of spelling rules for Old West Norse/Old Icelandic that has any authority superseding that of using modern Icelandic, which logically more people will be familiar with anyway, and also retains a degree of accuracy in the spellings used- English spelling of proper Old West Norse nouns is far from uniform, so modern Icelandic is the best source on which to draw for making a standard here. I also say that liberal use of redirect pages should be employed. This will form the nucleus of my own comments in the Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Old Norse/Old Icelandic/Old English) page. P.MacUidhir 22:51, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments, Pádraic. Just a couple of points.
1. We haven't been moving pages massively to confirm with our tentative standard. Personally I mostly move pages when I want to make some other improvements on them anyway. There are still plenty of articles in the Norse mythology category which do not adhere to our spelling guideline. I was expecting to have consistency (and a collection of near-FA articles) no sooner than 2010 (see my home page for those I've rewritten already). I'm still expecting that if we don't get mired in requested page moves along the way.
Fair enough. I will look more carefully in the edit lists for your account and Wiglaf's. A cursory survey showed a lot of activity with spelling and other minor changes, but I did not parse the lists in detail.
- P.MacUidhir 00:36, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Feel free to study my edit history if you want to. There are certainly many minor changes related to spelling. Once I've rewritten an article about, say, Sjöfn I'll typically go through every page that mentions Sjöfn and standardize the name usage. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 01:14, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
2. Since the 19th century scholars have consistently used a particular standard for Old West Norse names. Ask 10 scholars what the standardized 13th century Icelandic spelling for X is and they'll all give you the same answer. That's why we want to use this standard, it's just about the only consistent one available. Arguably Modern Icelandic is another one but we'll never get consensus for using that in a million years :)
- Haukur Þorgeirsson 23:28, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Acknowledged on both points. That system is familiar to me. My comments here are leading us even further afield from a discussion of Höðr, though, so I excerpted this tangent to the actual Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Old Norse/Old Icelandic/Old English) page.
- P.MacUidhir 00:36, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Some more clarifications

I might add that for months now my user page has had the following displayed prominently: "If you're interested in Old Norse mythology then please help us arrive at an orthographic standard for it at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Old Norse/Old Icelandic/Old English)". And already in February I made the following addition to the Norse mythology talk page: [2] calling for discussion on the naming convention. I've made every effort to involve interested people. The suggestion that Wiglaf and I were trying to sneak something past community oversight does not hold water. It really did appear to us at the time that we were basically the only people who cared about this after Jallan left and Io took a long break. It's nice to have this sudden interest, of course. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 00:28, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. It did look a bit grim for a while there with few people taking any interest. As far as I am concerned, the more interest in anything concerned with Old Icelandic sagas and related literature, the better, but you already know that. :)
- P.MacUidhir 00:38, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I second that, Pádraic :) And I look forward to seeing your contributions in the future. Haukur Þorgeirsson 00:47, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

And I don't mean to imply that only Wiglaf, Salleman, Jallan, Io and myself have ever made useful edits to Norse mythology topics. Obviously a lot of the groundwork was laid even before any of us signed up for an account! But we have made a very significant contribution and we are still doing so. Take "Category:Images_from_Norse_mythology" as an example. 101 images, all of them properly sourced, many of them painstakingly scanned. Over 90% of those were added by Wiglaf, Salleman and myself. So give us some credit, even if you disagree with us on the arcana of Old Norse spelling :) - Haukur Þorgeirsson 00:47, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It wouldn't hurt to take a look at Wikipedia:How to create policy. Some of the suggestions there:
  • Add the {{proposed}} tag to the top of the article. This will add a notice and add your proposal to Category:Wikipedia proposals [I see this has been done today]
Get feedback!
and
The central place to discuss policies is Village pump (policy).
--Tabor 01:04, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Good ideas, all of them. We never really meant this as policy, though. It was intended as a guideline for how to apply WP:UE to Old Norse names. But I learn something new every day here, thanks for teaching me about this. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 01:10, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Odin and Rind

Was it Odin and Rind, or Odin and Frigg? I've changed it to Frigg, because Frigg was Odin's wife, but I'm not 100% certain that I'm right.

I believe it should be Odin and Rind. And I thought there was some discrepancy as to whether or not Hod was actually killed, or whether Vali is always hunting for him. I will have to pick up a copy of the Prose Edda and verify.

Article expansion

It's such a shame to spend a lot of time arguing about spelling rather than improving articles so I've started expanding this one along the lines of some of my previous work, like Ullr and Lóðurr. Unfortunately I don't have my research library here in London so I have to rely more on web sources than I would like. I don't, for example, have Dronke's translation, Simek's dictionary, Lindow's handbook or Finnur's Lexicon. Once I get access to those again I'll work some more on the article. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 14:15, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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