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Sḵwx̱wú7mesh versus Squamish?

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I have noticed the English word Squamish is shown in this article and others, such as the Stanley Park article in the Squamish language, as "Sḵwx̱wú7mesh", as opposed to in the English language? Forgive my ignorance of any earlier discussion or controversy on this issue other than the first section on this discussion page, which outlined problems with browsers displaying the characters etc and appeared unresolved. Is there a reason for this? Is it simply out of respect to or due to requests or edits by the Squamish people? Just curious as this appears inconsistant to most of the rest of the English Wikipedia. Thanks :-) MsBatfish (talk) 11:05, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No input? I see that there was discussion about this some years ago. It doesn't personally affect me, I just noticed that the name of this article does not comply with Wikipedia naming conventions, in that all article titles are supposed to be in the language of the Wikipedia version, in this case English. For example, Chinese people don't call their country China, but that is the English word for it so that is the name used (and of course there are hundreds of other examples). I can only conclude that some "Sḵwx̱wú7mesh" people had a strong feeling about this issue, perhaps feeling that it was offensive to use the Anglicized word? Are people going to get upset and/or immediately revert it if I were to change the title? MsBatfish (talk) 11:09, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note that the language article has been moved to Squamish language. Even linguists can't be bothered with tongue-twisters and special character tornados in an English context, and especially linguists are aware of the utility and validity of having endonyms; this monster (that I don't even want to copy & paste because it is so completely unnecessary and I don't want to promote it) is just not an English word: it's a Squamish word, just like français is a French word. Political correctness gone haywire, again. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:33, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, note WP:ENGLISH, which was the policy used to justify the move. This is still the English Wikipedia, not the Squamish Wikipedia. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:37, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe I'm missing a controversial or political issue, but Squamish seems like the right title for this English article. Certainly Sḵwx̱wú7mesh could be prominent in the intro sentence if it is notable and verifiable. But, as others have said, this is the English Wikipedia and the name of these people is most often and most expected to be written Squamish in English. This can be verified easily and is actually reflected in most (but not all) of the references and bibliography. Question... Do most peoples around the world not have English Wikipedia articles titled in English instead of their own language? Or is there a difference here? Just wondering what principle is at work here. --Ds13 (talk) 00:44, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like a few years back there was a debate held about whether the title should be Squamish or Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and it appears that those who felt it should be the latter spelling as opposed to the English spelling won. I can only assume that it was because the people who were on the "it should be Sḵwx̱wú7mesh" side felt strongly about it and inferred it was symbol of repairing some of the past wrongs done to the indigenous peoples and that it would be politically and culturally insensitive to spell it "Squamish". However, this doesn't mean that we aren't allowed to disagree with that decision or change the name of the article to fit with Wikipedia's policy. This is the English language Wikipedia and article names are supposed to be in English, (even the text of articles is supposed to be in English). I was trying to be sensitive by asking here whether there was anyone who currently objected to the article name being changed to "Squamish", but as of yet no one has voiced any arguments as to why the current title should stand. So, is there a procedure by which we have to apply in order to have the article title changed?

This article is not the only inconsistency; I have been able to find a couple other articles that uses non-English spellings for names of Canadian first nations tribes (and a few place names), one example being Stó:lō people. However, most first nations tribes articles are titled with their English names. --MsBatfish (talk) 10:20, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

UPDATE: I placed a move template on the article page and posted a rename & move request below for discussion. --MsBatfish (talk) 11:18, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
further update This comment "I have been able to find a couple other articles that uses non-English spellings" was in the wake of undiscussed speedies by a certain editor who ignored previous name discussions; but even without those, now reverted but only some, there are tons of others; Mi'kmaq was a main page until the same editor converted it into a disambiguation containing Mi'kmaq people; ; Tsuu T'ina is not Blood people, Ojibwe is not Ojibway. The premise that undiscussed speedies can be used as examples when they were all controversial and any attempt to change them back was vociferously opposed by the same lone editor, on endlessly trivial grounds and despite demanding sources, provided none of this own. The result of your RM nomination below has been a completely unworkable ill-advised category name, and now suggestions that all ethno-tribal categories be deleted. Nice....very constructive. The Skwxwu7mesh article was started by a Skwxwu7mesh person; he's part Kwakwaka'wakw also and started that article and its category, the Dakelh article was started by the pre-eminent scholar in that field, who also started that category. That not all guidelines have been examined in the following RM, nor the prior consensus re terminology and paradigms because of differences between the concept of peoples vs band governments vs language groups, and the scattered application of mis-used guidelines, has resulted in time-consuming chaos and yet the original speedies remain unreverted despite the obvious fact that they were faulty and have resulted in useless confusion....and a very bad category name, very bad indeed.Skookum1 (talk) 09:20, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
and re "English wikipedia"....on Canadian-content articles, terms used in Canadian English (as Skwxwu7mesh is, though not to the same degree as Sto:lo and Secwepemc and St'at'imc etc......., IS English. The pretense that English should be standardized is not valid, nor are guidelines hard and fast when other conditions and circumstances apply. That people unfamiliar with the places and peoples who naming and categorization are affected,and do not take the time to consider why these things were named and organized as they are, are the ones "voting" does not add up....votes based on false premises or insufficient knowledge/information, and knee-jerking about "what is English and what is not" I see more and more of; the result is, in teh case of indigenous articles, re-enforcing inadequate, confusing and archaic usages on people who themselves, and who mostly speak English, do not use and largely disregard and consider incorrect.Skookum1 (talk) 09:25, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Requested Move (Nov 23, 2011)

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The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:54, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Sḵwx̱wú7mesh → Squamish people – Rationale for the proposed page name change: current title is not in the English language, in contrast with the English Wikipedia naming convention guidelines. Please post whether you support or dispute the proposed renaming (and why). I am listing this article at Wikipedia: Requested Moves because I am treating it as potentially controversial. Thanks! --MsBatfish (talk) 11:18, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Yes, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh is their name in their language, not in English. The special characters were developed in order to create a written language (that uses some characters from the Latin/Roman alphabet) because their language was originally oral only. "Squamish Nation" is the government of the Squamish people. See the Wikipedia article Squamish Nation. Squamish is a disambiguation page with numerous possible articles, so I figured that "Squamish people" would be the most appropriate title for the rename for this article. And it seems to be in line with the names of (most) other articles on specific indigenous peoples of Canada (at least the ones that fit the naming convention guidelines). --MsBatfish (talk) 01:56, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: My understanding from previous discussions, reinforced by Squamish Nation, is that some Sḵwx̱wú7mesh regard "Squamish" as offensive, because the name is part of a government that they regard as imposed and perhaps illegitimate. I don't know if any of the editors who held that view are still active. One of them I believe made the claim that "Sḵwx̱wú7mesh" was used in English conversation and writing to distinguish the First Nation and its people from the imposed government.
Other native American groups have endonyms which are demonstrably more widely used in English: Diné, Tsalagi, Absaalooke, Muskogee, Lakota, and Tohono O'odham. Only the last two are not redirects to the traditional English exonyms. In the case of Lakota, the exonym "Sioux" refers to other groups as well, and the Tohono O'odham have put a lot of effort into pushing their endonym, to the extent that it is probably more used today in English than "Papago".--Curtis Clark (talk) 04:38, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Still, that's a political reason to title the article Sḵwx̱wú7mesh. There could certainly be some mention of the controversy about the name and it's history in the article (provided there are sources for it of course). I don't see how it justifies going against the article naming guidelines solely because some people dislike the spelling Squamish. --MsBatfish (talk) 06:48, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not arguing either way; I just wanted to provide some perspective on how it ended up at this title. Certainly many other Wikipedia articles have names for political reasons, in many cases after carefully crafted compromises. In this case, it seems that the editors who strongly supported "Sḵwx̱wú7mesh" are either no longer around or else don't have this article on their watchlists. User:OldManRivers, who I believe is Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, last edited in June 2010. I also notice that the endonym Kwakwaka'wakw is used as the article title ("Kwakiutl", the commonest English exonym, is inaccurate); perhaps endonyms are more often used in Canada, or at least in British Columbia.--Curtis Clark (talk) 17:22, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I know you were just explaining what happened in the past & why to your knowledge :-) I was just explaining that I understood but still disagree with the naming. Wikipedia is not the place to try to bring about changes in the public vernacular. I also think part of the contention with this article in particular is that it uses non-English characters & diacriticals which are not widely known. At least the Kwakwaka'wakw title is in English characters (although I would still debate whether it's the most commonly known English word for it - even in BC Canada where I live). But I'm not saying that some of the other article titles don't also need to be changed, (as In ictu oculi mentioned), if they violate Wikipedia:naming conventions. I am not trying to be insensitive - I am part native myself - but I just find article titles like "Sḵwx̱wú7mesh" confusing and to be in contradiction with the pertinent policy. --MsBatfish (talk) 01:45, 28 November 2011 (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. No further edits should be made to this section.
  • Comment This move has turned out to have disastrous consequences as it was used to speedy-changed the ethno category to Category:Squamish which is now undergoing an arduous and, because of this article-title, seemingly intractable CfR where the premise that article titles and category names "must" match, despite the existing standards within IPNA and WPCAN to use the endonyms where appropriate (as they were here). This is not a matter of sensitivity or a confusing title (as if it were alone in Wikipedia in being a term most people don't recognize). The move should have been to remove diacriticals only; the mess that's created is deplorable, as are the arguments by rule-biters who resist any logic to the need for a better category name; both article and category should be at the un-diacritical Skwxwu7mesh or of -mesh isn't redundant for people, Skwxwu7mesh people. The current situation is untenable and this RM and others that happened re the St'at'imc and Nlaka'pamux and others need revisitation........Skookum1 (talk) 14:33, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • "the pertinent policy"?? you mean that all the deliberations in WP:Indigenous peoples of North America were just hot air and produced nothing worth looking at or even looking into? Guidelines are not hard and fast rules, and if there are reasons to make exceptions (as there are in all these cases) ignoring those exceptions is contrary to the guidelines....claiming they are "policy" when there is no legislation about this, and when guidelines are amendable, is a weak abuse of the languageSkookum1 (talk) 14:35, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Palus, for the Palouse people, is still the way it is because (a) that's preferred by the people affected and (b) to distinguish it from other uses of the same term (Palouse"). user:Chris Clark is correct in his guesstimation that endonyms are indeed now the increasing norm in Canada, particularly in BC, and for good reasons, both ethnographically and in terms of indigenous-sensitivity. Category:Anishinaabe is not in English either (not sure what the equivalent in English would be, in fact not sure there is one...) nor is Category:Mi'kmaq (where Micmac is the old English language norm, though rarely seen now because of acceptance of the endonym. Gitxsan and Nisga'a have replaced "Interior Tsimshian" as they used to be called (the Nisga'a were spelled as the Nishga, which is pretty much how that's pronounced but is not used in media or academic sources any longer; Skwxwu7mesh does appear in print in BC, including media, depending on the speaker/reporter.Skookum1 (talk) 14:42, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The category names are irrelevant. If people are improperly renaming categories, then that should be addressed there. — kwami (talk) 19:55, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OH really?? Fine thing for YOU to say after all the reckless speedy moves you'd done which provided the terms for the close on the RM that caused Category:Squamish and would have caused Category:Lillooet, Category:Chilcotin, Category:Shuswap and other completely confusing namespace collisions if your speedies hadn't been corrected after long and arduous argument with YOU, no matter how many cites were brought forward you still dug in your heels and opposed any and all cites, citing specious reasons to ignore them and insist on your own way. Fine thing to SAY that category names don't HAVE to match main article names, but too many others have been operating as though they must be changed, which is what happened to what is now Category:Squamish and also {{Squamish}}. You're been reckless, arrogant, and once again, as here, incredibly smug.Skookum1 (talk) 04:08, 28 June 2013 (UTC)`[reply]

what happened to the explanation of the name that used to be here?

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I came looking for what I know had been here about the meaning of the name.....where'd it go? Been lots of vandalism here of late, maybe it didn't get reverted once it got deleted; it's not on the language page either.Skookum1 (talk) 10:36, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I may have removed it until I get get a proper citation. Or it got deleted in some of the edits/vandalisms. I can’t remember which took place. Haha 02:02, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Reason I was asking was re the -mesh ending....is that "people" such that "Skwxwu7mesh people" is redundant?Skookum1 (talk) 06:41, 10 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting note on that. There are theories that /-mesh/ and /-mexw/ have similar origins. They both mean "people" in different Coast Salish languages. Hence, Snuneymuxw. The word for people in hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ is xʷəlmexʷ, where as in Sḵwx̱wú7mesh it is stélmexw. Similar, you see. Then you travel to the interior where we get Sƛ’aƛ’imxǝc and Nlaka'pamux, with the same ending. In the Washington side of things, we have Sʼabš (Samish) or Suqʷabš (Suquamish). The /b/ at one time may have been an /m/ instead, which would result in all those being amš, which is similar to -mesh. Hence, when we look at the languages, one can see how the Coast Salish and Interior Salish are related. I will look for reference/citation to include the explaining of -mesh on the Squamish people article though. OldManRivers (talk) 01:17, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
K, thanks, would be good to know before attempting an RM....the slashed lambda re St'at'imcets by the way, pretty sure if you use that there's no need for the apostrophe; in the Van Eijk orthography for St'at'imcets that's now official with the SN/LTC and USCCLES the /t'/ represents that "ƛ" sound, it's not a glottal stop or, as it is in Chinookan, a plosive 't'.Skookum1 (talk) 02:48, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, having said that, the older official orthography, still used by the Stl'atl'imx Tribal Police and the Lower Stl'atl'imx Tribal Council, has an apostrophe in it, maybe there's an implicit glottal-stop or voiceless marker, I'm not sure; the old orthography is the closest to English-style romanization of the sounds, Stlatliumh, which you'll see in older writings and on older maps, sometimes as Slatliumh...."people of Sat'" it means, where Sat is the Bridge River Fishing Grounds. The name Lillooet wasn't applied to the Fraser River or Lakes groups until the town was renamed in 1860, just as since then the "people of Sat" meaning is now used by the Lil'wat and the Lower Lillooet (Skatin, Samahquam, Xa'xtsa/Douglas), though for the language they prefer the name Ucwalmicwts down that way (that's on the title of the primer from the Upper St'at'imc Cultural and Language Education Society I have in storage somewhere....so is the norm within the language; Ucwalmicw is of course cognate to your Uxwuimixw or whatever it is....Skookum1 (talk) 02:56, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 2

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The following discussion is an archived 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: not moved. With the exception of the nominator, unanimous consensus is that the name most used in reliable English language sources is the appropriate article title. Xoloz (talk) 02:25, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Squamish people → Skwxwu7mesh – THis RM is being filed in the context of the proposal to change Category:Squamish people "back" to Category:Skwxwu7mesh.

    • (1) The various discussions and points-of-fact and convention and context can all be found in that CFD and need not be replicated here;
    • (2) noting especially what is now at the end of the third paragraph of MOS, namely "If discussion cannot determine which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor."
    • (3) The previous RM, as I have pointed out there, was flawed in numerous ways, not the least of which was the namespace collision with the PRIMARYTOPIC of "Squamish" being overwhelmingly the District of Squamish (referred to as "the town", "District" is a municipal status), which became manifest when someone speedied the category this is the main article for to Category:Squamish and also votes from at least one person who thought another people entirely was the subject of discussion (the Suguamish).
    • (4) Consensus is emerging (thank God) to move the category back to something easily distinguishable from the town or other uses; naming a main article after a category isn't in the rule book (and really naming a category after a main article isn't a hard and fast rule either, but gets used as if it were...with unpleasant and confusing consequences, as in this case) but if indigenous nomenclature wins there, there is no reason to resist here, especially given the short-time closure of the last RM and that, within it, it's even said that the decision has to respect the wishes/intent of those who created and built the article, namely OldManRivers and myself, because we weren't around anymore and therefore our opinions/preferences don't matter. MOS now says otherwise, and I have in fact this morning alerted OldManRivers to the CfD and the RM at Talk:Stawamus, which is related to all this, and he should be joining us shortly with print citations from the Squamish Nation libraries and current academic work.
    • (5) Searching for his real-life name and "Skwxwu7mesh" I found this example in The Tyee of the use of Skwxwu7mesh in English. And on this poster from squamish.net. This search for "Skwxwu7mesh", excluding "snichim" (which when coupled with the main term is the name of the language, so I'm excluding publications about the language), has 16,200 results. This search for "Squamish people", excluding "Wikipedia", yielded only 4,450 results].
    • (6) Please note, from that first google search, the Skwxwu7mesh Lil'wat Cultural Centre at Whistler, which is an Olympic legacy (and needs an article as a now-major museum and tourist attraction), and that the name Skwxwu7mesh was also used in the opening ceremonies' English narration, alongside Tsleil-waututh and Lil'wat ("Burrard" and "(Lower) Lillooet" peoples).

I'll be back later with excerpts from the St'at'imc/Tsilhqot'in/Ktunaxa and other RMs from last year about respecting indigenous languages and emergent norms for same in Canadian English and Canadian society. Skookum1 (talk) 05:23, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Shouldn't it be moved to Sḵwx̱wú7mesh? —  AjaxSmack  05:39, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • That would definitely be User:OldManRivers' preference, as you'll find in lengthy discussions much earlier on this talkpage, some maybe archived by now. The pure-Skwxwu7mesh snichim version, with diacriticals, is very much his own preference, but the reality is that when the name does occur in English sources, as on that Tyee link, it's not with all the diacriticals. From my own end of things, it's practicality that leads me to have proposed Skwxwu7mesh on the CfD, and on last year's CfD, and here again; that it's easier to type. Similar stripping-of-diacriticals was done on Sto:lo/Category:Sto:lo, St'at'imc/Category:St'at'imc, which had to be copy pasted for use because of the complexity of the diacriticals and various special characters. "St'at'imc" and "Sto:lo" occur in English regularly - but not with all the diacriticals; in the Sto:lo case it's also a bit political as the heavily-diacriticalized form is used and promoted by one of the two tribal councils but expressly not by the other; I don't know how the independent bands use it, but most likely without the diacriticals as most Sto:lo don't speak Halqemeylem. If it's a matter of respecting the original creator's choice, then I'm OK with the diacriticalized version if need be, I just think the undiacriticalized version is (a) how it's used in English, when it is used in English and (b) easier to type.Skookum1 (talk) 06:10, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - This is English Wikipedia, we use the English language not the Squamish language. IJA (talk) 14:22, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reply - I don't suppose you have clued into the fact that "Squamish" isn't English either; it's only an older-era attempt at romanization of what is spelled (with special characters and diacriticals) in Skwxwu7msh snichim as "Skwxwu7mesh". "Squamish" is not any more an English word than "Skwxwu7mesh" is. And I won't start listing all th article and category titles in Wikipedia, not just in indigenous topics, that are "not English". Have a look in Category:First Nations in British Columbia and at Xeni Gwet'in and Dune Ka Ziyeh Provincial Park, Tsii Aks Provincial Park and more. Please educate yourself on (a) what the range of article/category titles are foreign words that are used in English, and are already in use in Wikipedia and (b) the increasing acceptance of indigenously-prefered names in Canadian English. Not in your English maybe, but Canadian English prevails on articles about subjects within Canada. And please look up anglo-chauvinism and have a read and maybe even educate yourself on the native cultural revival. Gee, you might even consider reading the article before commenting on it again (had you even?).Skookum1 (talk) 14:37, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I couldn't help chuckling at Anglo-chauvinism being redlinked. Inasmuch as it is such, this chauvinism is policy at Wikipedia; see WP:UE (use English) as determined by WP:UCN (use common names). The place for correct Squamish usage would be at the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Wikipedia. As far as the names of other peoples go, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Non-English names may be increasingly accepted but that does not make them the most common or the most accessible to a general audience. While native cultural revival is laudable (from my perspective, anyway), it is not Wikipedia's job to promote it. Wikipedia should reflect what is already used commonly in reliable English sources. —  AjaxSmack  19:21, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per WP:UCN (use common names). "Squamish" is overwhelmingly more common in a variety of contexts and seems to have official sanction as well.[1] If I am missing something, please enlighten. —  AjaxSmack  19:21, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. Sigh. This is all old ground, and answers to your points are in the current CfD and in the last one, and in the history of the name discussions about this article you will find above if you go look for them. Here's some immediate responses:
      • "Squamish" is indeed "more common in a variety of contexts" and it is far more common in those contexts, particularly the town (District of Squamish), than for the people. It is because of those other contexts that convention has risen within the membership of the Squamish Nation and in communities living around them to use "Skwxwu7mesh" to distinguish between all those other more common uses. You will find a comment from VolcanoGuy on the CfD about how the use of Skxwwu7mesh for clarity for anyone frequenting the Squamish region makes one whole lot of sense. "He was a Squamish living in Squamish by the Squamish River" is only the start of it.
      • The usage of the Squamish Nation website does not indicate the usage for the people as a whole. "Squamish Nation" is the band government's legal name as registered with Indian Affairs under the Indian Act, "squamish.net" refers to the government, not the people. But you will also find on that site many uses of "Skwxwu7mesh" in English phrases, and you will also find it in media and academic writing in BC and community news and bumpf from Squamish and the North Shore (i.e. North Van, where two of the largest reserve communities are).
      • "Sḵwx̱wú7mesh" was the preference of the article's creator (please note again the end of the third paragraph of the intro to MOS) and may indeed better belong in a Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Wikipedia. But "Skwxwu7mesh" is a standard English-publication version of that and it is used in English. It is also the same word as "Squamish" only spelled more accurately, so the argument that a name has to be English to be in Wikipedia can be thrown right out the window in any such case of an adopted native term; the "OTHERSTUFFEXISTS" shibboleth doesn't serve to recognize the conventions about indigenous names in Canadian English - in Canadian ENGLISH - that are represented by the other material in the same categories and topic areas you are waving away by invoking that guideline out of context to the whole. The Fifth Pillar "There Are No Rules" always seems to be lost in the shuffle of people throwing around guidelines without actually knowing or caring about the topics their "input" is affecting. Endonyms were chosen for ethno category/article names for good reason, especially in BC, where such terms are not part of standard English (they may not be in your ENGLISH, but CANENGL applies here), among those reasons were a host of PRIMARYTOPIC collisions with major geographic placenames; hence Nuxalk vs Bella Coola, St'at'imc vs Lillooet, Secwepemc vs Shuswap, and so on; but you'd have to know BC to "get it": OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not a reason to toss out efforts to maintain a convention that was established with good reason and by thoughtful deliberation by several editors who know the turf, and the topic.
      • I've already demonstrated via the google search in the proposal that, when referring to the ethnographic group, "Skwxwu7mesh" IS more common than "Squamish people", especially in more recent texts. So "UCN" falls down, especially if you're saying that it's "common" because it's used on the name of the river, the band government, the municipality, the regional district, and on a host of company names which have nothing to do with the Skwxwu7mesh as a people. There are various exceptions and interpretations in UE and in MOS about romanization and more; but it always boils down to someone saying "it's not English". Well, neither, and very pointedly, is "Squamish"...and the presence of that spelling as a common name on the local geography is NOT relevant to the name to be used for the people, and saying "we don't care what they prefer to call themselves" is if you stop and think about it a BLP violation. Why shouldn't we care? Who are we to say different? Who are you, if you've never been to Squamish and never met a Skwxwu7mesh person, to say it's not an English word. The Olympic organization used it, academia in BC use it, the Squamish Nation and the Howe Sound school board use it. IN ENGLISH. If you insist on it being in English, the name of the people -and the town and the river - should be "mother of the wind" or "sacred water" or "dreamkiller". Squamish is no more an English word than Skwxwu7mesh is; and in recent years, especially, Skwxwu7mesh is common and is found in lots of reliable sources, including school curricula, academic papers, publications of the Squamish Nation government, and in Vancouver media.
      • The further matter at hand here is that the conversion of this to its current title precipitated someone else (twice) invoking "category name must match main article title" as if it were a RULE (and not a guideline only) and we wound up with the completely unworkable Category:Squamish twice. The primary topic of the word "Squamish" is the town, and that is the problem here also; most "FOO people" titles (other than in indigenous topics, were "people" was wantonly added needlessly to lots of articles that were just fine at "FOO") mean "people from FOO" or "people who are FOOish", .e.g English people, French people. The -mesh ending happens to mean "people" but never mind that; here the title tends to mean "people from the town of Squamish"
      • All this is old ground, and I get dissed for "walls of text" as an excuse for nobody taking time to understand or research the issues. Potshotting guidelines as nostrums here for 'easy answers' doesn't work, and the results invariably by such actions, taken out of context with conventions and practices in these categories and in articles related to this one, taken by people who don't know the context, don't realize the PRIMARYTOPIC issue, make assumptions about "NOT ENGLISH" and "COMMONNAME" that don't bear up to scrutiny and more; see the other RMs at Talk:Stawamus and Talk:Wuikinuxv and try and slog, if you will, through my explanations of so much and more on the CfD and my responses to the previous RM, and also to OldManRivers' thoughts on this.....him being an expert on the subject and all, and who per MOS should be deferred to as the article's creator; changing it to an "English" usage has caused all kinds of problems, it was stable where it was for a long time until people started coming along and tossing around guidelines like snowballs...who didn't even read the article, or know about the town. Also the pretense that it's fine for Wikipedia to be insensitive and chauvinist is rubbish....and simplistic, as well as yielding unsatisfactory results.....Skookum1 (talk) 05:34, 2 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • I won't "diss" your "wall of text" (and I appreciate the effort) but there is not much new and some of your comments implicitly rest on ownership of this topic. Although I quoted guidelines and policy, I did my homework, too. I did a number of searches before arriving at my opinion using various word combinations with Google web search and Google Books/Google Ngram and I am astute enough to discern references for the town versus for the people. You are right that there has been a recent increase in web uses of "Skwxwu7mesh" and that that name has some official sanction but "Squamish" is more common across the board and it, too, still has official usage as I pointed out. I don't deny this may change in the future but it is not Wikipedia's job to instigate this change. I considered the WP:ENGVAR issue (Canadian English for Canadian topics) but feel that WP:COMMONALITY trumps it in this case. Wikipedia is a general reference for all English speakers. —  AjaxSmack  07:21, 3 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • I get the "walls of text" and TLDR excuse so much I'm naturally defensive.....but re:
it is not Wikipedia's job to instigate this change.
Nor is it Wikipedia's job to resist this change. We heard the same thing about St'at'imc/Secwepemc/Ktunaxa/Tsilhqot'in/Nlaka'pamux etc - at least in those cases those endonyms are in wider usage, locally and lately internationally; except on a certain wiki-linguist's dusty shelves of older books with the archaic forms. I did resist the [[Haida Gwaii] name change until such time as it became official, likewise Salish Sea. But if recent results show a dominance of the new usage, arguing that it's Wikipedia's job to throw cold water on that rather than recognize the new linguistic reality is highly questionable. This is what is exactly the case with Wuikinuxv, which like Sta7mes was speedy-moved without discussion and yet the weight of citations does not support what they were moved to; the mover of Wuikinuxv didn't even get the archaic spelling right, or chose one that's by far in the minority of several (Owikeno as I recall, it's now at Owekeeno people And if you don't winnow out non-BC/non-Canada linguistic/ethnographic writings, and non-Canadian writings in general (other than from Germany where they're "up" on indigenous cultures/revivals), then your data will remain skewed against the emergent Canadian cultural/lingistic reality.Skookum1 (talk) 16:23, 3 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
One other thing that's being glossed over again and again; that conventions in given categories that were long-standing until being piecemeal-messed with; instead they were ignored and RMs even pulled on their main articles to try and foment speedy changes to "more English" archaic/distorted terms (in the case of Kwakiutl, completely unacceptable for all but a few bands). The convention to use indigenously-authentic endonyms I must underscore was expressly created after discussions here and there around IPNA and WPBC and WPCAN about geographic name conflicts with PRIMARYTOPICS. As I noted, I should have added Squamish -> Squamish (disambiguation) and Squamish, British Columbia -> Squamish to this RM, and may yet (see below). The town which is the core of the municipality called the District of Squamish is decidely the PRIMARYTOPIC and also the MOSTCOMMON usage of "Squamish". The rationale that www.squamish.net is "proof" that it is "somewhat official" is offbase; the name of a band government is not the same thing as the name of the people/ethnographic group (Lytton First Nation is easily the largest of the Nlaka'pamux bands to refer to only one example. And the "Okanagan people", whose name we confabbed about because of the variable spelling of it from one side of the border to the other (Okanagan/Okanogan, in the case of the river resolved by favouring the US spelling as the majority of the river's length is in the US; the opposite is the case with the Kootenay/Kootenai River), their website is www.syilx.org. They do go by, as a political organization spanning both sides of the border, the Okanagan Nation Alliance but they refer to themselves as the Syilx overall (those in the Upper Nicola Band at Douglas Lake call themselves Spa7omin; there may be a variant spelling of Syilx among the Colvilles I'm not sure - another case of that infamous /7/ glottal stop that gets people's knickers in a knot (they don't similar complain about the colon in Sto:lo though). So with only a very few exceptions, when there was no clear endonym in use, and because many of the major peoples are very well-known by their endonyms within English, the decision was made, collectively, by people familiar with the topics AND the geographic issues, to use the endonyms across the board in ethnographic categories; in the BC category one exception is Musqueam, as there is not one standard romanization of the Hunquminum name, but competing ones (different political factions, perhaps); Shishalh was also established by OldManRivers, and also moved without discussion to Sechelt people ("people from Sechelt" is really teh convention for what that title should mean); I'm not sure we got around to establishing Category:Shishalh for lack of articles to put in it; but Category:K'omoks is still in the offing and has a reason to exist, nb Comox, British Columbia should just be Comox by Canadian disambiguation "rules" but like Squamish and Lillooet I'd created a disambiguation page early on without knowing about comma-dab-nope on unique placenames. Oh, and about guidelines, it was User:Phaedriel who invoked the Fifth Pillar about all this ("There Are No Rules").
I reject the accusation of WP:OWN. What I'm seeing is people "owning" guidelines and insisting on them without even reading the article (not you I know); there is nothing wrong with standing up not just for convention but for good reason, and resisting thoughtless application of guidelines in isolation.....or to allow prejudiced comments to stand in an RM, for that matter. The premise that "Squamish" is English while "Skwxwu7mesh" is also, upon close examination - and you don't have to even look too close - completely fabulous and rather, um, bizarre. And also standing up for PRIMARYTOPIC against people who voted for this move who didn't even know where Squamish was, hadn't heard of the people before, one who confused them wit the Suguamish etc...I'd say knowing the turf and speaking up for it should not be branded as WP:OWN. WP:OWN seems much more to be the trait of those who toss around WP:UE without even realizing the names they are changing aren't English either. What I do see here, with the original convention dissolving with so many attacks on it by people invoking guidelines out of context, often without proper citations or justifications or based on misconceptions or even outright prejudice. Bear in mind, too, that this main article reversion to its original-long-standing title is being RMd because of the CfD underway at Category:Squamish people and its wildly unacceptable twin Category:Skwxwu7mesh. It was because this main article was so rashly and rudely moved that the category was speedied (within hours...perhaps immediately, I didn't look close) and that defenders of "English" have been fighting tooth and nail to obstruct the return of the title to its original state, as "owned" by its creator and principal author and which was stable for years until the previous RM. So who's owning what? Those who mostly run around Wikipedia articles invoking guidelines like Holy Writ, and who don't care about the consequences or the import or have any respect for an expert author and a highly visible convention, or those who are trying to keep some sanity to indigenous categories and article titles so that they aren't run roughshod by the half-educated-though-guideline-equipped. Guidelines are not rules, and even "policy" can have exceptions; and the Fifth Pillar is the Big Exception, and was invoked here for good reason; instead of arguing why this change is a bad thing and mandating that Wikipedia should resist change by invoking "MOSTCOMMON" citations using the overwhelming preponderance of the archaic names, or respect such change; and also in terms of BLP show some deference to what a modern people choose to call themselves and why they call themselves that (to distinguish themselves from the town, and from the English name of their "Indian Act government" (as OMR calls it) which is not the same thing as them. See OMR's comments on the Talk:Stawamus RM.....and that Wikipedians in distant countries oblivious to the experience of his and other peoples having their names taken away from them and dictated by people from distant lands...well, it's just not a very pretty context, let's put it that way; he's indicated he'll be by here soon to comment also. And he is the ultimate "reliable source" (other than his elders). No doubt someone will try and dismiss him as COI and/or POV....more guideline-tossing....Skookum1 (talk) 16:23, 3 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I should have thought to make this a multiple RM. I was the creator of the disambiguation page at Squamish and now see, that, given the PRIMARYTOPIC being easily provable as the town, that that title should be where Squamish, British Columbia is now and the disambiguation page should be at Squamish (disambiguation). This is to clarify that the MOSTCOMMON usage of "Squamish" is not the ethnographic group/people/"tribe" but is the town; it was out of deference to the people that I originally made the dab page with them as equals to the town, being its namesake (indirectly); but once OldManRivers came along and provided the authentic in-use-in-modern-English term used among his people to distinguish their community/identity from their band government, and the town, and I learned that comma-province on town names was not necessary if there were no other towns of that name, that the dab on Squamish, British Columbia is completely unnecessary, likewise on the Category:Squamish, British Columbia which is where what should be in Category:Squamish are for now. How to add second and third items to an RM listing I'll look into later; explaining the obvious - what is obvious to anyone in BC, and anyone familiar with Canadian English adoption of native-preferred terms - over for the fortieth time. Please look beyond your guidelines, and get your mind out of the shoebox about what you think is English and what isn't. This requires wisdom, not blind guideline-tossing. Yes, indeedy, "other stuff exists", and you should find out about some of that in the meantime, also.Skookum1 (talk) 05:34, 2 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. It's irrelevant what they call themselves. What's relevant is what most reliable English language sources call them and it's clearly not true that this is Skwxwu7mesh. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:14, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Alrighty then, so how do you propose to solve the namespace collision problem - and the implications of "FOO people" - which have severely impacted category name issues? COMMONNAME cannot be viewed in isolation like this when other conventions covering groups of article are at play; and I keep on bringing ujp the Fifth Pillar, which was in fact invoked when the names in Category:First Nations in British Columbia and their corresponding main article titles were all hashed out at the dawn of wiki-time; moving this one to where it is now was done for all kinds of wrong reasons vs what had been there - not the least of which is obvious prejudice - and the conventions about using indigenous names in Canada ignored; "Nootka" and "Kwakiutl" are still common names for the Kwakwaka'wakw and Nuu-chah-nulth, and Bella Coola for the Nuxalk; that doesn't mean that they should be article titles; COMMONNAME is being used as a bludgeon here and other issues concerning these names are being shoved aside.... and the PRIMARYTOPIC problem here isn't going to go away by constantly shaking COMMONNAME around as if it were an ironclad rule which it is NOT. As noted above this RM was launched because of the emergmence, slowly, of a consensus at the CfD that "Skwxwu7mesh" has a case; and is in fact growing in currency though is not as well established as Tsleil-waututh, Sto:lo, St'at'imc, Tshilqot'in etc.....the imposition of COMMONNAME as if all that mattered here without regard to the convention very clear elsewhere means that this article (and the category) would be an exception to a very beneficial convention. A very beneficial convention that also avoided the namespace collision with important local geography. Because let me assure you, the COMMONNAME most often referred to by "Squamish" is the town, not the people....it's funny how much COMMONNAME is invoked by people who don't "get" that....and how all the other parallel articles and their titles are disregarded - or perhaps under threat? - by making COMMONNAME some kind of holy icon. There are more issues here than just that; but I guess if someone wants to find blinkers to wear, they will cinch them on tight...Skookum1 (talk) 04:42, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Opppose For the exact same reasons as Necrothesp. The name used locally is not the driving factor. What's most relevant is the most commonly used named in reliable English language sources.--Labattblueboy (talk) 21:48, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Squamish people is an acceptable common name, and has the great advantage of being pronounceable by most readers.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:10, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment/response Why is it that all of you who trot out that refrain continue to recognize the PRIMARYTOPIC collision with the town of Squamish? Why is it that you all ignore the "FOO people" paradigm for article titles, and for category titles, is for "people/individuals who are FOO"? e.g. English people, French people. I note that there are various "FOO people" ethno main-articles out there, nearly all of them with one or two exceptions (Mohawk people), that were created by "someone" (Kwami) going around adding "people" to them so he could make disambiguation pages which weren't needed? (e.g. Mi'kmaq/Mi'kmaq people. Why is it you all refuse to acknowledge that back in the mists of wiki-time people familiar with this topic area hashed out a workable convention that you all very pointedly are ignoring even discussing? The PRIMARYTOPIC problem here is not going to go away; those Canadians who commented on the problem in the CfD have all been ignored in favour of the same old refrains of the same old guidelines being invoked as if they were ironclad. Seems to me people around here care more about invoking guidelines out of context than they do in taking the wider view and recognizing that there were valid reasons why the old diacritical-text title was accepted by so many editors for so long; there would be other diacritical titles out there too, if *I* hadnt' changed them. The notion that Squamish is "more easily pronounceable" also doesn't register, like at Talk:Stawamus re Sta7mes, that it's the wrong pronunciation?? And what about Mi'maq, Kwakwaka'wakw, Sto:lo, Sheshatshiu and scores of other article names which aren't readily/obviously pronounceable either?? You are always proposing simple guideline-invocations which ignore all of the parallel precedents and the reasons why they exist...and don't shove that OTHERSTUFFEXISTS rationale at me, it's as insulting as TLDR. The people informed and aware of the town and the people have supported me in the CfD, and the previous RM here almost passed....if I hadn't been targeted as a "problem" in the way of doing the right thing, even though it was me who had provided all the points that leant that decision in that direction; the original RM here, I will continue to maintain, was biased and based on false assumptions and no reference at all to conventions about this class of ethno article; and was closed hastily, and without anyone involved who was familiar with the town and/or the people taking part, in only seven days. The same bad reasons to keep it here continue to be presented, the other reasons as to why not continue to be ignored.....and I'm backed into a corner because any time I criticize those reasons is construed/branded as a "personal attack". This title is anamalous within Category:First Nations in British Columbia and related main articles there; and the conventions very evident in both instances should be taken into consideration - but they are always ignored. The blinkers-on attitude re COMMONNAME as if it were the only consideration this should be judged on, actually ignores other guidelines....that this article name has twice been used, first by speedy, then by a rash action to re-create it after it was changed by CfD, to create the category name Category:Squamish despite the geographic/PRIMARYTOPIC issue there, which is overwhelmingly about the town, not this people, is a further reason why this title is not workable; and why it was not chosen in the first place (as is also the case with Kwakwaka'wakw, Nuu-chah-nulth, Sto:lo and others.....winnowing googlestats to exclude uses of "Squamish" for the town and the band government et al, i.e. for "Squamish people" vs "Skwxwu7mesh" are, last time I looked, in favour of the latter; especially if results from earlier times are disregarded. That the Olympic-funded Skwxwu7mesh Lil'wat Cultural Centre in Whistler got no "must be English" response from the IOC or the BC/federal governments points to the acceptability of this term (and the correct pronunciation) in English; invoking one guideline out of context to all else is not serving anyone's interests here, and not providing a solution to the PRIMARYTOPIC namespace collision or the aberration from other ethno article title conventions that have long been in place. That this change sat since 2011 or whenever it was because I was inactive, and OldManRivers absent, is only a matter of how glacially-slow Wikipedian procedures are, and how exhaustive they can be to get the most simple thing done; so we stay away from them, because of the CABAL effect Ottawahitech points out in the CfD, rather than engage; then when we do we are told that our reluctance to challenge the existing power group in each procedural area means that the term has stood in place for a while and so therefore is now acceptable. Despite its problems, despite the conflicts with other guidelines, even despite the evidence that this term is now at least, if not more (and may be more) than the current title. This one article will form the precedent to DAMAGE to the other categories and articles in the same area. None of you seem to get that...... just as you refuse to see the geographic problem with this name, or the emerging cultural/linguistic reality in Canada.....but hell, we're just a colony and should do as we're told and accept what Wikipedians from beyond have to say about it, just like the native people whose input and their own usages in English should be tossed aside as "Wikipedia doesn't have to acknowledge that" as if there weren't wikipedians who disagree with such thinking. One thing I know about Wikipedia is it doesn't acknowledge a lot of its own problems....and that the people talking like that cherrypick guidelines and ignore whole other areas of guidelines, and their various exceptions....Skookum1 (talk) 05:01, 7 March 2014 (UTC)Skookum1 (talk) 04:49, 7 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • COMMENT as your probably know by now, I have filed a further RM for:
    • Squamish → Squamish (disambiguation)
    • Squamish, British Columbia → Squamish
    • by rights, and if I'd given it more thought before filing this RM, I should have included those at the same time, to give emphasis to teh PRIMARYTOPIC problem that is consistently - persistently - ignored here. WP:POINT perhaps, but who can say that was not the agenda of those invoking UE and COMMONNAME here, in isolation of the rest of the context of the name, and of the related ethno titles/categories. I have filed a similar RM at Talk:Comox in exactly the same context. Others out there I may yet consider e.g. Lillooet -> Lillooet (disambiguation) because that town name, like Squamish, is unique and technically - according to yet another guideline - does not need/want the comma-province dab on Lillooet, British Columbia despite the supposed (but disprovable) "COMMONNAME" argument about the ethnic group, who go by St'at'imc and which has been acknowledged in complex RMs last year. There are other cases to consider, but these are part of the context of the adoption of native ethnonyms as placenames in Canada and the modern introduction of alternate forms that are romanizations of the terms now preferred by the peoples themselves, and which mostly are now common fare in Canadian English. Making this one an exception because someone doesn't like a '7' in the name or thinks it's unpronounceable (when there's lots of unpronounceable titles out there, particularly in indigenous topic areas) is really trivial by comparison.Skookum1 (talk) 05:37, 7 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The recent RM result at Carrier people -> Dakelh is also relevant here, not in the least because the latter title was, like Skwxwu7mesh, applied by the reigning expert in the field; a similar decision expected at Owekeeno people -> Wuikinuxv where, as with Skwxwu7mesh, recent citations indicate that COMMONNAME is not fixed in stone....unless reliance is kept on older citations.Skookum1 (talk) 05:57, 7 March 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.
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Underrepresented Views

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I just wanted to provide some feedback for possible edits to be made! I think that there are some underrepresented views in this article that can be improved upon. What I mean by this can be first seen in the sections discussing the land and geographical history of the Squamish. Although a very substantial, painful aspect of the Squamish history is the forced unsettlement of their land by the Canadian government, this was glossed over in the "European colonization and the Indian Reserves" section. There is just one small portion that discusses how lands were "sold away" both "legally and illegally". The section also cites one specific instance but sums it up in one sentence by saying "families were forced into leaving". Here, I think it would be helpful instead to elaborate on how the Squamish people were unsettled. For example, one piece by Jean Barman goes in-depth into a particular instance where premier Richard McBride pushed the Squamish people out of their homes by citing the 1911 Amendment to the Indian Act which allowed the government to remove Indigenous People from reserves without their consent (Barman, Jean). When the Squamish were forced out, the government burned down the homes there. Stories such as this are extremely important in understanding the Squamish history and Canada's place in it. Another edit that could help would be adding some more pictures of modern-day Squamish people. For example, pictures of Squamish people playing lacrosse or at city hall? Although it is important to showcase the Squamish people in their cultural attire and through historical pictures, it is also important to showcase a modern-day Squamish. This is because depicting every Indigenous person as a warrior ensures that we continually paint them in that light, exclusively. Lastly, I think adding a section about sports would be extremely valuable. The Squamish people have strong ties to canoeing and lacrosse, which many people are unaware of. In fact, the Squamish people have played lacrosse in "pre-contact" times (Teiontsikwaeks). It is important to show that the Squamish were their own people with their own games and sports and that they introduced these to the colonists, not the other way around. Being wary of not accepting the European colonial version of history is crucial I think making the aforementioned edits would help bolster the article as a whole and allow it to represent the views of the Squamish equally. Geec22 (talk) 16:07, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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