Talk:Empire of Great Fulo

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Requested move 4 February 2024[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: No consensus. And request was also "withdrawn" below. — Amakuru (talk) 15:41, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Empire of Great Fulo → Denianke Kingdom – 'Empire of Great Fulo' is a name that was given by external observers (Europeans) to an African political unit, and not one that the Fula used themselves. In fact, contemporary Europeans seem to refer to the state more commonly as the land or empire of the Great Fulo (or some such variant) rather than an empire that is called 'Great Fulo'. Calling this state the 'Empire of Great Fulo' would be equivalent to calling the British Empire the 'Empire of Big British' or 'Empire of Queen.' While many articles and books talk about the 'Great Fulo' when quoting Portuguese sources, they generally do not refer to it as such in their own prose. Terms such as the "Denianke Kingdom' or the 'Denyankoobe' are more common. This is particularly true for Senegalese authors. Different spellings are possible, but I think any name that reflects local nomenclature is better than 'Empire of Great Fulo'. Catjacket (talk) 21:02, 4 February 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. ❯❯❯ Raydann ^(Talk) 16:37, 12 February 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. BilledMammal (talk) 19:16, 19 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: WikiProject Africa has been notified of this discussion. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 23:26, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: WikiProject Former countries has been notified of this discussion. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 23:26, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Very weak support. Normally I'd support decolonizing the title. Unfortunately, "Great Fulo" seems to be WP:COMMONNAME and changing it would affect recognizability. "Great Fulo" appears frequently in RSs without a mention Denianke (e.g. [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]), particularly in more general works, whereas the converse is rarer (e.g. [6]) and usually confined to more scholarly works. And I tend to weigh general works over specialist works. Isn't "Big British" just "Great Britain" (:)). Denianke is a dynastic name, so that would be equivalent to calling it "Windsor Kingdom", which is not much an improvement, so my temptation is to go with "Futa Toro", but that is definitely not common (and causes confusion with earlier Takrur, etc.; there already is a Futa Toro article). The various alternative spellings for Denianke doesn't help things. "Great Fulo" also has the advantage of being identified as a Fulani state. Can't make up my mind. I'm tossing in a very weak support, but willing to revise. Walrasiad (talk) 19:18, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Those are all good points. I've been digging mostly into French language sources, many written by Senegalese authors, and they never use 'Great Fulo' except when quoting. I would think using the name that local historians use would be the move, but you may be right that 'Great Fulo' is more common in English than it is in French. Is there a policy on balancing local names vs. common name in English? Catjacket (talk) 20:16, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. From the sources Walrasiad showed Great Fulo is the more common Engish name. Oumar Kane's study of Futa Toro, the best study of the state as of writing, uses Great Fulo repeatedly[7] while only using Denanke or Denianke once in a chapter bibliography [8] [9]. There are english sources which use Denianke but they don't specifically use Denianke Kingdom. This study uses Denianke regime for example, which is different from Denianke Kingdom [10]. Per WP:COMMONNAME Great Fulo needs to be used. Along with this, Empire of Great Fulo also describes the state better than Denianke. The name speaks of the vast empire the state founded in the decline of the Songhay and Mali Empires. It was an empire, and the name should reflect this aspect of the state. Kingdom does not capture this aspect of the state's height in power.

HetmanTheResearcher (talk) 08:10, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Oumar Kane's study was what inspired this name change proposal in the first place. As your examples indicate, and as is clear if you read the whole thing in French, 'Grand Pullo' and it's variants are used only in the context of the European perspective or when speaking of the satigi as an individual. Kane uses the term 'royaume deeniyanke' to describe the state. We could spell it 'Denianke', 'Deeniyanke', or any manner of other ways, and we could call it the Deeniyanke Empire instead of kingdom. What matters to me is that we use a decolonized term, one used by modern-day Senegalese historians, rather than one derived from European sources.

All that being said, I recognize that 'Empire of Great Fulo' is the most common term in English-language works. I hope that eventually English-speaking scholars will follow Kane and use Denianke kingdom or something like it, but alas we're not there yet. I withdraw the move request. Catjacket (talk) 16:16, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.