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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Quadell (talk | contribs) at 13:43, 3 August 2005 (→Saudi royal family). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Starting the project

As many of you know, there is no one standard way of transliterating from Arabic to Roman letters. So "Mohammed", "Mohammad", and "Mohamed", and "Muhammad" are all quasi-correct ways of spelling the prophet's name in English language texts. This can be quite a hassle on Wikipedia.

It seems to me that three things are needed.

  1. We need people to provide the names in for Arab figures. For instance, Abu Sayyaf (organization), Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (poet), and Taif (city) are lacking their names written out in Arabic. If I can get some volunteers, I'll try to collect a list of articles that need this.
  2. We need to see if we can agree on some sort of standard spelling for Arabic articles on Wikipedia. For instance the "El" in Mohamed ElBaradei and the "al" in Mohammed Atta al Sayed are spelled the same in Arabic letters, but are translated differently in English. Is there a reason for this? (Both people are Egyptian.) If we can agree on a standard, then we can move articles to standard names (with redirects, of course).
  3. We need to make sure we have proper redirects for alternate spellings for Arabic articles. For instance, if someone looks up Muhammad Atta, this needs to redirect to Mohammed Atta al Sayed. This can be confusing. Doing a little Googling, I found that the most common spellings for Mohammed are "Mohammed", "Mohammad", "Muhammad", and "Mohamed". (This applies to the Prophet as well as other people with this name.) The common spellings for Abdullah are "Abdullah", "Abdallah", and "Abdulla". Etc.

If I can get some volunteers, I'll try to organize a project. Who's in? – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 15:24, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

  1. Me. – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 15:24, July 14, 2005 (UTC)
  2. I was going to start making the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Arabic) policy, so I think I have a lot to contribute and many ideas that could help. 500LL 21:11, July 14, 2005 (UTC)
  3. I have a basic knowledge of Arabic and am familiar with the alphabet. Would like to be involved. - ulayiti (talk) 17:04, 28 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

First decision: should there be consistent spelling in article names?

Should we pick a single spelling for "Mohammed", for instance? There may be one figure named Mohammed whose name is most often spelled "Mohammed", and another person named Mohammed whose name is most commonly spelled "Muhamed". Should we pick a spelling as standard, and make sure all articles use the standard format?

Three options:

  1. We pick a spelling as standard, and make sure all articles use the standard format.
  2. We use whichever spelling is most common for the specific person.
  3. We use a standard spelling for article names unless there's a very strong preference for a non-standard spelling for that particular person.

I'm leaning toward option 3. Anyone else? – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 17:03, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. Though I think it should be a priority to retain the spelling used by the person themselves in case it's known and noticeably differs from the standard (such as Mohamed ElBaradei). - ulayiti (talk) 17:04, 28 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Alphabetization and al-

I'd like to try and get a consensus going on how to render the definite article, especially in names. Should it be al Afghani, al-Afghani, Al-Afghani, Al Afghani, Alafghani...? There are three issues involved:

  1. Include or do not include the definite article?
  2. Dash or no dash?
  3. Capitalize or do not capitalize?

And as far as alphabetization (in both lists and categories), it seems to me that the definite article is superfluous and we should take the first letter after it as the starting point for alphabetization. Otherwise, we get a long, long list of people under "a" for no good reason. Thoughts? --Skoosh 14:08, 24 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to be semi-standard to use Xxxx al-Yyyy as names (e.g. Jamal al-Fadl.) I like this standard myself. But there are exceptions. Mohamed ElBaradei is almost never written as "Mohamed al-Baradei". Should we do so to keep the standard? And Ramzi Binalshibh is a much more common spelling than "Ramzi bin al-Shibh".
As for alphabetization, I agree that the al- shouldn't count. (Neither, I think, should "bin".) But then there's the question: should Arabic names be alphabetized by first name or by tribe name? Is Jamal al-Fadl listed under J or F? – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 18:19, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

Thoughts on transliteration

I've just been redirected to this page from village pump. I hope this doesn't seem like too much of a splurge, but I've been working on a few ideas about Arabic naming conventions already, and these seem to fit well with the discussion above.

I can see the usefulness in recognising four degrees of transcribed writing:

  1. Arabic — the Arabic word written in Arabic script. In some cases we might want to use vowel marks, etc, but, in most cases, thestandard would be not to.
  2. Scientific transliteration — there would be value in having a scientific standard for use throughout Wikipedia. ISO 233 could be the standard, but it might be too hefty for our purposes, and a slightly older standard (ISO/R 233 or DIN 31635) might be more applicable.
  3. Conventional transliteration — there would be value in having a less strict transliteration system that would render Arabic into a handy transcription for English speakers. This transliteration should use as few diacritics as possible.
  4. Customary spelling — we all realise that it would be inappropriate to apply a transliteration scheme on a name that already has a customary spelling in English media. In such cases the custom should be followed, but the transliteration given bracketed in the lead paragraph.

An example of these might be:

  1. القاهرة
  2. ISO 233: ʾˈalqaʾhiraẗ, or, less strictly, al-qāhira
  3. al-Qahira
  4. Cairo

Where there is a customary name, articles should be listed there (a page with the conventional transliteration as its title could redirect to the customary title). Where there is no customary name, or there are different customs in use, the conventional transliteration should be used as the article title. The Arabic should be included in the lead paragraph of the article and accompanied by either one of the transliteration schemes, but not both.

The advantage of agreeing schemes of transliteration first is that we would not be haggling over the transliteration of each name, but applying principles that had been agreed upon beforehand.

As for the definite article, ISO 233 says that it should be ʾˈal and connected directly to the following word without space or hyphen. This is done because the transliteration is trying to reproduce what is written. The conventional transliteration should use a hyphen to separate al- from the following word, and it should assimilate with a following sun letter: ash-shams. This makes it far easier for a English-speaker to read and pronounce.

Personal names should be listed under the personal name, this is the most important convention in Arabic.

I have been working on transliteration systems here. Any thoughts?

--Gareth Hughes 11:52, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your thoughts! Your expertise is very helpful. I have a few questions and comments.
  • I would agree that all articles be named by their customary spelling, if one exists. Otherwise, the article should be named by the conventional transliteration, as you have suggested.
  • I would propose that all articles on Arabic topics list the conventional transliteration and the Arabic script. The scientific translation, in my view, is unnecessary except in cases where the pronunciation is important to the topic.
  • What did you mean by "Personal names should be listed under the personal name"?
  • What did you mean by "The conventional transliteration. . . should assimilate with a following sun letter: ash-shams."
Thanks! – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 13:19, August 1, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. I think I typed that 'personal name' thing without thinking how it would read! I meant that Saddam Hussein should be listed under Saddam rather than Hussein. This is standard practice in the Arabic-speaking world. The assimilation of the definite article into the beginning of a word that starts with one of the sun-letters is a feature of spoken Arabic, but not the written language. Many transliteration systems show this assimilation in writing. The example I gave was for the Arabic الشمس. Although it is written al-shams, it always pronounced ash-shams. I think that this feature would help English-speakers pronounce the Arabic in articles more correctly. Such assimilation is used in the DIN German standard, the older ISO/R 233 international standard and by the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names. The current ISO 233 and the Library of Congress transliteration systems insist on al always. --Gareth Hughes 13:44, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I think that a conventional transliteration system should be used with as few diacritics as possible. However, it should include some diacritics to mark the lengths of vowels, as this is very important in pronunciation. In addition, my old Arabic teacher used this system where the emphatic letters were differentiated from non-emphatic letters by the vowels that followed them: for non-emphatic letters, fathah, kasrah, and dammah would be a, i, and u respectively, but for emphatic letters a, e, and o. I find that useful (even though there's no difference with fathah). What do you think? - ulayiti (talk) 13:53, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
My original proposal was to have two transliteration systems: one strict or scientific, and the other less strict or conventional. However, I found it difficult to decide when a certain one might be used. If an article's lead paragraph uses the less strict version, someone will come along and add all the diacritics we could dream of: it's just simply in the nature of WP contributors. My version of convetional transliteration is quite lossy: it does distinguish between many of the letters, most notably the emphatics. I still think that it's useful to have a strict standard for some instances (for example, a transliteration directly after an Arabic example), and to have a less strict system for other places (for example, in article titles and in the body of the text where no customary name exists). --Gareth Hughes 14:22, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Articles needing Arabic script

I have created a list of Articles needing Arabic script. If any of you are familiar enough with the Arabic script, and would like to add these to articles, here's a list for you. – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 14:34, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

What wonderful sleuthing! Keep them coming, and I'll try and add the Arabic! --Gareth Hughes 14:41, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I have created the template {{Arabic}} and the associated category for easier tagging of these articles. You're welcome to use that (and please edit it if it's not satisfactory). The template can be seen below:

Template:Arabic - ulayiti (talk) 14:59, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I'll use that instead. – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 17:46, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

Family name

I'm glad that this project had a boost, but one thing: In the project page you wrote:
People with Arabic names should be alphabetized by their given (first) name. For instance, Taqi al-Din should be listed under "T" in places where people are listed alphabetically.
I don't understand it, usually in lists of people, people are listed alphabetically by their family name, so why do we have to change that? The only problem is with the "al" and "el" before the family name. In my opinion it should be ignored and Taqi al-Din should be listed under "D" not "T".
Concerning categories, I suggest [[Taqi al-Din|Din, Taqi]] instead of [[Taqi al-Din|al-Din, Taqi]], a mistake that makes most of the people in categories concerning Arab people are listed under "A" or "E". CG 16:10, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I would prefer Taqi ad-Din, but there we go. His full name is تقي الدين محمد بن معروف الشامي السعدي. It is most appropriate to file this name under T for تقي. His family name is certainly not ad-Din. --Gareth Hughes 17:05, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The Arabic naming system is different from the English one. I think the decision on how to alphabetise the names should be made on a case-by-case basis, depending on the usage of the name of the person in question. But 'al-' and 'el-' should obviously not be used for alphabetisation, and instead be treated like the prefix 'de' for Spanish people. The exception here, I think, is when the name is usually spelt as one word, such as Mohamed ElBaradei (to be listed under 'E'). - ulayiti (talk) 17:27, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well then, there are lots of borderline cases. Binladen. Binalshibh. Aljazeera. – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 17:44, August 1, 2005 (UTC)
Taqi al-Din is not necessarily a good example: despite the fact that it consists of two words, it's one name (like Salah al-Din or Abd al-Rahman). As regards the general principle, I'm not at all sure about listing by first name. In Arabic academic works, it's common to list references by surname. Where would you expect to find Nizar al-Qabbani: under N or under Q?
Also, the extra letters proposed for the transliteration system have a nasty habit of not displaying on computers in use in Arab countries. Is there a way around this? Palmiro 18:01, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

We need a guideline on this. Saddam Hussein al-Tikrit is alphabetized under "S". (Right? Not "T"?) Taqi al-Din is under "T". But how about Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud? Mohamed Atta al-Sayed? Osama bin Laden? – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 13:36, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

Region names

Regarding literal translation (i.e. writing the name of an Arabic region/city in English words with meaning rather than just using Latin alphabet of the same name); although "المنطقة الشرقية" means "eastern province", it is extremely rare to see something like (Al Mantaka Al Sharqiya). Instead, "Eastern Province" is predominant and used much more often in English texts (more than 99%) AND in more credible sources, e.g. government agencies. In this case, which one should be used?

Moreover, it is extremely rare to see a combination such as "Ash Sharqiyah Province" which is currently used as a title for the article. It is a half-translation name for the Arabic one, making it very awkward. Not to mention that the spelling varies greatly, unlike Riyadh, Jeddah, or Dhahran for example.

See the debate in Talk:Ash Sharqiyah Province

Also note that I'm not asking to rename the Riyadh article to "Gardens" or Abqaiq to "Little Bedbug".

In short, all names of Arabic cities, regions, and -sometimes- people should be standarized to avoid any confusion. -- Eagleamn 06:55, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, Eagle. I think you have come up with an increadibly important point. I can see that the article you give as an example would be better served as being:

Eastern Province (Template:Lang-ar al-Manṭaqä aš-Šarqiyyä) is a province of...

However, I think there are some Arabic names that can be easily translated into English that are best left in the original:

Bab Sharqi (Template:Lang-ar al-Bāb aš-Šarqī, the Eastern Gate) is one of the gates of the Old City of Damascus...

I think the difference is what we were discussing about a customary name above. The first example given was that Cairo should be called such, even though its official name is al-Qahira (I'm not sure how this sits alongside Bombay asking the world to call it Mumbai). We could say that Eastern Province is the customary English name, but that Eastern Gate is not the customary name (even the guide books call it Bab Sharqi).
--Gareth Hughes 11:10, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Definite article in article titles

A lot of English Wikipedia articles with titles from Arabic words retain the definite article. In some cases, this is because the the title is better known in English with the article, for example al-Qaeda and al Jazeera. However, other articles retain the article for no particular reason, for example ash Sharqiyah Province. I would think that the Arabic Wikipedia could tell us something here, just look at ar:عراق to see that the article is not used in a title. --Gareth Hughes 12:14, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. Feel free to move any articles to more appropriate names. – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 12:32, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Saudi royal family

As an example, let's look at Bandar bin Sultan, an important figure. What should the article be titled?

I would recommend that we use "XXX bin YYY al-Saud" for all members of the Saudi royal family. What do you think?

This also brings up two related questions.

  1. When is it appropriate to use "bin", and when is it appropriate to use "ibn"?
  2. Is it best to write "Abdul Aziz" or "Abdulaziz" or "Abdelaziz"?

– Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 19:40, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

  • Keeping with the standard transliteration, I'd recommend 'Abd al-Aziz (have we agreed on how to transliterate the letter 'ain?). The name al-Sa'ud should also be spelt with the 'ain if at all feasible. - ulayiti (talk) 10:08, 3 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Okay, thanks! I still need an answer to question 1 though. – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 13:43, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
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