Talk:Chalcidian League

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the move from Chalkidian League to Chalcidian League[edit]

The arguments in favor of keeping this page as Chalkidian is that in makes the pronunciation clear. In English Chalcidian can easily be read as Chalsidian. Transliterating kappa as k is by contrast completely unambiguous. It is true that Chalcidian is more common (due I presume to the influence of Latin), however, I don't think that is substantial enough reason to justify a move. Dejvid (talk) 11:02, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, Wikipedia does not have a clear policy on this matter, nor does anyone else. The choice between transliteration and latinization therefore often depends on the context and the prevailing use. For instance, in Byzantine-related articles, scholars increasingly use the more direct transliteration from Greek (e.g. Κομνηνός to Komnenos, instead of Comnenus or Comnenos). In the context of Antiquity however, the latinized forms are overwhelmingly prevalent. Consequently, for the present issue, there is no doubt: Chalcidice is the established form for the peninsula in English, hence the adjectival form will also use the "c". The precedence is given to identification of the term, not pronunciation. Pronunciation is always a problem, and isn't restricted to the issue of c versus k, as the pronunciation of foreign names is habitually massacred all over the world, regardless of how they are written (English-speakers in particular have a propensity to turn even the simplest transliterations into gobbledygook: just watch the 300 movie and listen to how they pronounce "Leonidas". Dreadful.) If we turn pronunciation into the primary criterion, then we should by rights move the page to "Khalkidian League", and then go on changing just about every Greek article there is. Constantine ✍ 11:34, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The case for Chalkidian is not simply pronunciation. Chalkidian has been used by significant number of academics. I think Wikipedia is right not to lay down rules where there two equally valid ways of writing something and leave it to editors to sort it out as we are doing here. You seem to be arguing that because English speakers mispronounce foreign words so badly then we should just give up. But in this case there is a very easy solution. Spell kappa as k and no English speaker will mispronounce it. Chi, as far as I understand it, has several possible pronunciations so Ch is probably as good as any other transliteration. So why latinize the name of a state that was destroyed at a time when Rome was still a minor Italian power?Dejvid (talk) 12:30, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not quite. My case is that pronunciation cannot and should not be our criterion. As English is a non-phonetic language, with a completely non-standard way of pronouncing the same letters, there is no "correct" form for foreign names. If we want to make sure that pronunciation is "correct", the right way is to add an IPA form. But the pronunciation of "Chalcidian" as "Chal-s-idian" or "Chal-k-idian" is irrelevant, as long as the reader can make the connection to Chalcidice. Now I know that the "Chalkidian" form is also used by scholars, but a Google search (and a Google Book search, which is more reliable as to scholarly usage), gives a very great advantage to "Chalcidian". Anyway, this is a rather trivial case. If your are determined to make the change back, it's not an issue I will raise a fuss about. Just pointing out why I moved it in the first place. :) Constantine ✍ 12:53, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For people who are studying Greek history in an academic setting the spelling is probably not too critical - they will encounter the correct pronunciation often enough spoken. For anyone who is learning about Greek history in a non academic setting the pronunciation is a big issue as they will encounter names written more often than spoken. This is my situation - but I do every now and then have to speak it and risk sounding dumb due to my pronunciation. The English alphabet is not fully phonemic (no language has a phonetic alphabet). Quite often there are two or more possible pronunciations of a grapheme but often there is one that will be the obvious pronunciation. In this case k is unambiguous while c is not. It is true that in attic Greek the first letter would not have be pronounced as ch but this is a widely used academic pronunciation.Dejvid (talk) 14:25, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]