Talk:Khambhat

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Rferences[edit]

Aren't their rather a lot of references for one section? Are they all relevant? The Syed Amir Ali book, for instance, seems out of place, but I will check the book later. Energyworm (talk) 23:26, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move to Cambay per WP:EN[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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move the page, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 21:05, 21 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Khambhat → Cambay – Cambay is 5.5 times more common in English according to ngrams ([1]). Khambat has never been more common then Cambay. The only name that has is Cambaia (Portuguese), for a few years in the 1700s and 1904-1906. Cambaia has had almost no use in English since 1950, so it should not be the title. Cambay (https://www.google.com/search?q=cambay&oq=cambay&aqs=chrome..69i57.846j0j1&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=91&ie=UTF-8#q=cambay&tbm=nws) has 525 news results for the past month, compared to Khambhat's (https://www.google.com/search?q=cambay&oq=cambay&aqs=chrome..69i57.846j0j1&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=91&ie=UTF-8#tbm=nws&q=Khambhat) 4. One of those 4 results is Czech, and therefore doesn't count. Even if Khambhat is the official name, that doesn't matter for wiki purposes, see Ivory Coast  Relisted Andrewa (talk) 17:50, 16 September 2014 (UTC) Bobby Martnen (talk) 22:20, 8 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose, due to similar pages keeping their Indian names in past discussions. ONR (talk) 22:40, 11 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Each case is unique. Cambay is clearly more common in English, so WP:EN clearly applies here. Bobby Martnen (talk) 15:44, 13 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Is it more common for the present-day city, as opposed to the city in history? Andrewa (talk) 17:57, 16 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The reason I checked news results is because they are almost always about current events, not historical events. Bobby Martnen (talk) 00:27, 17 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Which past discussions in particular? Wikilinks and/or diffs please. Andrewa (talk) 17:55, 16 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Your reasoning is faulty because those Google ngrams make no attempt to distinguish between the different uses of the terms Cambay/Khambhat. By a similar use of ngrams e.g. [2] you can also show that the current article on Constantinople should be merged with Istanbul. Imc (talk) 16:35, 20 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Yes, each case is unique. I haven't looked at usage for this place, but I know that the reception of name changes in India generally has followed a different pattern each time, and the nominator makes a pretty convincing case. —innotata 21:10, 13 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support DeistCosmos (talk) 21:32, 15 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. This would also be consistent with Cambay State, although that can be argued both ways... I wonder how many of the ngram hits refer to the history of the city? The article is focused on the present-day city. Andrewa (talk) 17:48, 16 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Google ngrams shows how many books a word has appeared in, not how many times a word appears in a book. (In other words, "Cambay" appearing 50 times in a book has the same affect as if it appeared once.) The fact that so many recent books mention "Cambay" but not "Khambhat" means that "Cambay" is still more common in English. If "Khambhat" had widespread English acceptance, it would be mentioned alongside "Cambay" in books. However, it is not. Bobby Martnen (talk) 00:27, 17 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Disagree. Even if "Khambhat" had widespread English acceptance, it would not necessarily be mentioned alongside "Cambay", not at all. Any passing reference to Cambay would make the book a hit, but in those books in which the topic is old Cambay, the modern name would only be mentioned if there were at least some details given rather than just a passing mention. Andrewa (talk) 02:14, 17 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I Disagree. If Cambay is the topic of any recent book, "Khambhat" would be mentioned, even if just in passing, which would still register as a hit. A modern book about the Ch'ing Dynasty that mentions Peking in passing would almost certainly include a note like (now known as Beijing) or something of the sort. Bobby Martnen (talk) 23:48, 17 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
But the whole point here is that we are not talking only of books of which Cambay is the topic. We are also talking of ones in which it receives just a passing mention; These also appear as hits in the evidence cited, and the ngrams don't tell them apart. There may be a valid argument here concerning the parallel to Beijing, but it's mixed up with this invalid one. Would you like to try to disentangle them? Andrewa (talk) 15:41, 17 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I may have been ambiguous here. By books in which the topic is old Cambay I mean all those that at least mention this topic, rather than just those that focus on it and give at least some details. The topic to which I refer is that of a passage in the book rather than necessarily that of the whole book. I thought that was clear, but obviously it wasn't. Andrewa (talk) 15:49, 17 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
A passing mention of a place where the historical name differs from the common English name will still almost always mention the common English name. Oxford, the most accurate and complete English dictionary still uses Cambay, with Khambhat as an alternate, both in British and American English. (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/Cambay-Gulf-of) and (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/english/Cambay-Gulf-of) but both say "Mumbai (Bombay)". This shows that If an Indian renaming has gained acceptance in English, it will be the primary name, but if it hasn't it will be mentioned as an alternate name. The same is true of dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Cambay?s=t). The Cambay Oil Fields have a website (https://www.oilex.com.au/our-projects/india/cambay-field) which contains information from this year. There is no mention of "Khambhat" anywhere on the site, even when talking about the geography of the region. (If this page is moved, then the article about the gulf should be moved too.) Bobby Martnen (talk) 22:23, 17 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]


  • Relisting comment: The possibility that the evidence above relates more to the city's history than to the article which is focused on the present-day city should be investigated IMO, also the claim by the one oppose to date that there are precedents against this move. I would not relist just for this latter reason, but together and in the light of the complication described at #Caution below I think it's justified. Andrewa (talk) 17:55, 16 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Here's an article from 2009 with a map. Notice that Vadodara (on the map, not mentioned in the article) is not called "Baroda", but Cambay is still called "Cambay". (http://www.energy-pedia.com/news/india/gspc-to-tie-in-six-wells-at-tarapur-6-area) Bobby Martnen (talk) 23:48, 17 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. To develop Andrewa's comment above, it is not just the history of the region that needs to be considered. The names Cambay and Khambhat are used for several subjects, and there has been no attempt to discriminate between them when developing the above arguments. These subjects include the town (which this article is about) but also the bay, the history of the region, part of which is reflected in the article Cambay State, and the oilfields and associated projects in the bay. The history of the town and former princely state represent much of the book listings. The oilfields represent significant industry and are the subject of much media interest. A simple Google search for "Cambay town" in quotes brings 179 hits, "Cambay oil" brings almost 4k hits while Khambhat town produces 680. The argument for the move needs to show that the current usage for the town specifically is mostly for the name 'Cambay'. The one Gujarat government website I've looked at ([3]) as far as I can see use Khambhat only. Imc (talk) 06:55, 17 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - I'm actually Goan, but I lived in Cambay from 2003 to 2013 (I live in chicago now). When speaking English, natives of the city said "Cambay" virtually all the time. (And not just to Westerners, but too each other as well.) SitaramNaique (talk) 13:34, 17 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question - do we have a naming convention for Indian cities? And how is this different from Mumbai/Bombay? Guettarda (talk) 17:54, 17 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The Wikipedia naming convention says: "The choice between anglicized and local spellings should follow English-language usage." "Cambay" is clearly the most common name in English. "Khambhat" may catch on eventually, but has not become more common than "Cambay" yet. The reason it is different for Bombay is because both of those cities are much more important, hence the name "Mumbai" will appear more frequently in news stories and travel guides, and become accepted into English much more quickly. Bobby Martnen (talk)
I was asking about whether there was an Indian-specific naming convention. As for common usage in English - the version of English that matters here is Indian English, correct? (As for Mumbai/Bombay, can you point to a specific point the archives of Talk:Mumbai where "accepted into English" was the rationale? The rationale for the page move, as far as I recall, had nothing to do with usage in English and everything to do with Mumbai being the 'proper name'. I might have missed something, but I can't find anything such in the archives.) Guettarda (talk) 04:20, 18 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's a bit mixed but in general WP:ENGVAR has usually carried the day in requested moves of this nature and what matters is the use in English in India, not what some paper in Chicago calls it. Timrollpickering (talk) 13:31, 18 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Even in Indian English, "Cambay" is more common. (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/Its-destination-Cambay-for-ex-babu-Sanjay-Gupta/articleshow/7624368.cms) (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/Gujarat-learned-Chinese-paper-making-art-from-Arabs/articleshow/42702364.cms) (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/Mausam-tidings-Heritage-wave-nears-Gujarat-coast/articleshow/38953645.cms) (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Mausam-to-link-10-Gujarat-sites-to-Indian-Ocean-world/articleshow/38948880.cms) (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Cambay) All of these articles are less than 2 months old. Bobby Martnen (talk) 13:37, 18 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
None of the listings in the Times of India that you have referenced relate to the modern town. The first one is for the Gulf, the second and third are about the history of the town and region, the last is about the oilfields. A search of the Times of India website will show that it carried precisely no articles about the town today, which is not surprising given the scale of it in relation to the country. I refer again to my previous post above, in which I pointed out that there is more than one subject with the name of Cambay, and that the town is most often called Khambhat. Imc (talk) 16:31, 20 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
An n-gram search for "City of Cambay" vs "City of Khambhat" yields 1 result for the former and none for the latter. (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=City+of+Cambay%2C+City+of+Khambhat&case_insensitive=on&year_start=2000&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=1&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ccity%20of%20Cambay%3B%2Cc0)
So does a search for "Town of Cambay" vs " Town of Khambhat" (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Town+of+Cambay%2CTown+of+Khambhat&case_insensitive=on&year_start=2000&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=1&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ctown%20of%20Cambay%3B%2Cc0)
And a search for "Port of Cambay" vs "Port of Khambhat" (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Port+of+Cambay%2CPort+of+Khambhat&case_insensitive=on&year_start=2000&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=1&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cport%20of%20Cambay%3B%2Cc0)
Searches that produce few results don't actually demonstrate anything. Imc (talk) 07:08, 30 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The State Bank of India still uses Cambay (http://bank-ifsc-code.biz/state-bank-india-cambay/)
The SBI uses Cambay for its original branch in the town, but uses Khambhat for the address. It then uses Khambhat as the name for its newer branch in the same town. Imc (talk) 07:08, 30 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
("Gulf of Cambay" is more than twice as common as "Gulf of Khambhat", so no matter what the result of this discussion is Gulf of Khambhat and Marine Archeology in the Gulf of Khambhat should be moved to Gulf of Cambay and Marine Archeology in the Gulf of Cambay, respectively. (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Gulf+of+Cambay%2CGulf+of+Khambhat&case_insensitive=on&year_start=2000&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=1&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2CGulf%20of%20Cambay%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3BGulf%20of%20Cambay%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bgulf%20of%20Cambay%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CGulf%20of%20Khambhat%3B%2Cc0)
Bobby Martnen (talk) 23:00, 20 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If proposing this you should also demonstrate that the majority of marine archaeology references use the term Gulf of Cambay and not Gulf of Khambhat. Most references that use Cambay for the gulf are from the oil industry which naturally dominates the hits. Imc (talk) 07:08, 30 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
A map that uses "Cambay" for both the gulf and the city. Please note that it uses the names "Mumbai" and "Kolkata", with "Bombay" and "Calcutta" in parenthesis, showing that those names are common in English, while "Khambhat" is not.
(http://www.rigzone.com/NEWS/image_detail.asp?img_id=3293)
This is an oil industry reference. As mentioned elsewhere, the oil industry refers to the bay, and is not concerned with the town. Imc (talk) 07:08, 30 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
A dictionary entry for cambaye cloth. Notice the etymology mentions "Cambaia" is the Portuguese name, and then has "Cambay" in parenthesis, implying that "Cambay" is the proper English translation of "Cambaia".
(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cambaye)
Bobby Martnen (talk) 20:12, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per evidence on common usage presented above. If that usage changes, we can easily revisit the issue. —  AjaxSmack  03:19, 23 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The usage has already changed and the evidence provided aggregates multiple topics. Imc (talk) 07:08, 30 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Reference works seem to use "Khambhat". "Cambay" seems to be Britich Empire era poor transliteration. Seems the same as Kolkata/Calcutta. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:40, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The origin of "Cambay" vs the origin of "Khambhat" is irrelevant. What is relevant is what is the most common name in English.
Google Translate translates "ખંભાત" (the Gujarati name) and "खंभात" (the Hindi name) as "Cambay". Google Translate's sources are mostly UN meetings and published books.
Bobby Martnen (talk) 13:38, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Google Translate is not a reference, but the names in Gujarati and Hindi scripts quoted above both are transliterated as Khambhat. Imc (talk) 07:08, 30 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
How they are transliterated is irrelevant. Transliteration is converting a foreign script to the Latin alphabet, while translation is replacing all foreign words with their English equivalents. Case in point, Google Translate transliterates "Αθήνα" as "Athína", but translates it as "Athens." Bobby Martnen (talk) 13:38, 30 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I'm going to restate my points above and say that I believe this move request addresses the wrong subject and is misplaced. The article is about the modern town and it is correctly named, according to common usage, evidence below. There are two other significant subjects connected with the town, first the history of the region, including early European contacts. This is reflected in the article Cambay State. The other subject is the Gulf of Khambhat which is named after the town, and of the oil deposits found there (actually described here in the article on the Bombay High oilfield). The majority of the book and news hits relate to the latter two subjects. Hence to rename the town because of these two uses is inappropriate - see my comment about renaming Constantinople to Istanbul above, which the same reasoning would justify. When you try to disambiguate and get references to the modern town, the results are different from the overwhelming proportions for Cambay given above.

  • Web search disambiguated with district name, and placed in quotes to be more precise.
"khambhat, anand district" 24300 hits
"cambay, anand district" 7 hits
  • Web search disambiguated with the word 'town'
khambhat town 1230 hits
cambay town 187 hits
  • News searches with the district name produce one and zero results respectively, too low to count.
khambhat, anand district 1 hit
cambay, anand district 0
  • News searches with the state name produce more results; but many are off topic.
khambhat, gujarat 7 hits
cambay, gujarat 28 results, but most of those shown were about the oil field or about history.
  • Book searches with the district name are more useful.
khambhat, anand district 2650 hits
cambay, anand district 1580 hits

Now replace the disambiguations with other terms such as oil, gulf or state, and see the hits for Cambay go up massively. But those are different subjects. Imc (talk) 06:48, 30 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Searching for "Cambay, Anand District" vs "Khambhat, Anand District" is not a good test, as the form "City, District", is pretty much only used by governments, which naturally prefer the official usage over the common one. Common usage favors "City, Country" or just "City". If you don't believe me, think about how many people say "Frankfurt, Germany" instead of "Frankfurt, Hesse". Bobby Martnen (talk) 13:38, 30 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - per modern usage as above. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:25, 8 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose The modern town is called Khambhat. The Portuguese and British Indian era state/port (Cambay state) was popular as Cambay; the historical use of the name is captured in the Google results does not the modern day usage of Khambat as name of the town. If we go through the most recent news reports, we observe that none are referring to the town, but to the oilfield of "Cambay Basin" which like Bombay High (Mumbai), retains the colonial name though the name of the city that gave it its name has changed. Redtigerxyz Talk 15:23, 16 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Caution[edit]

The target has a large and possibly significant history, which probably needs to be preserved for copyleft reasons. There's a worrying edit [4] in 2005 that may be an uncorrected cut-and-paste move. I can find no discussion regarding a merge if that is what it is. Either way the history is significant. Andrewa (talk) 17:48, 16 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

della Valle book[edit]

The Travels of Pietro della Valle in India, Vol. I (Hakluyt Society, 1892) includes an interesting account of Khambhat (spelled as "Cambai") and its surroundings from della Valle's visit in the 1620s. The book is available for free from Google Books at: https://books.google.com/books?id=dUQPAAAAYAAJ. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.81.167.240 (talk) 04:03, 8 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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