Talk:Umm Al Nar culture

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Let's get more info up on the page. The first version was created just to get a page up.

I listed it as a culture rather than a period. It seems bronze age is the period. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cgall (talk • contribs) 12:57, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

The name

Any idea why the English title for this article is Umm an-Nar when the Arabic one is Umm al-Nar? Signposts in the area use "al-Nar" in both Arabic and English, as does the Abu Dhabi government website. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaavaaguru (talk • contribs) 07:33, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

@Jaavaaguru: It's more usual to transliterate the way something is pronounced, rather than the way something is spelled. --YOMAL SIDOROFF-BIARMSKII (talk) 02:59, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Re: Umm al-Nar Culture

@Joe Roe: Apologies for misspelling your surname in my comments - I think I must have been watching too much cricket! Whether "Umm an-Nar" is the correct term or not, it is used in various sources to describe "Umm al-Nar" and this fact should be included in the article so that the uninformed reader is aware of the difference. Sources referring to "Umm an-Nar" include: Friefelt, Karen, "The Island of Umm an-Nar" <https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rNOodJuqAuoC&dq=umm+an+nar+culture&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjetqKttJXYAhXBYVAKHV0lDqoQ6AEILzAB> Potts, D.T., "In the Land of the Emirates" <https://www.academia.edu/1945116/Potts_2012_-<https://www.academia.edu/1945116/Potts_2012_-<_In_the_land_of_the_Emirates_The_archaeology_and_history_of_the_UAE_Trident_Press_and_Sultan_bin_Zayeds_Culture_and_Media_Centre_Abu_Dhabi_> UNESCO site <http://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5660/> RAK Heritage <http://www.rakheritage.rak.ae/en/Pages/Umm-an-Nar-Tomb.aspx> For these reasons, I have reverted your edit. Thanks, Rama226 (talk) 06:26, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

@Rama226: I hope you don't mind but I've moved this section from my talk page to here so it's more visible to other editors. The edit summary doesn't leave a lot of room to explain, so I don't think I explained by revert well. I'm not disputing that both al-Nar and an-Nar appear in the sources. Nor am I saying that one is more "correct" than the other. What I'm saying is that they represent the exact same Arabic word. It's just that in Arabic, the final letter in al (lam) changes based on the first letter in the word it proceeds, so al-Nar (as written) is pronounced an-Nar, al-Sham is pronounced ash-Sham, etc. Systems of transcribing Arabic into Latin letters then differ in whether they use an orthographic spelling of al (e.g. al-Nar) or a phonetic one (e.g. an-Nar).

My point being this is an inconsequential and routine transliteration variant rather than a significant alternative name. Anybody familiar with Arabic or Arabian archaeology would recognise that al-Nar and an-Nar are the same thing. As does Google – so it doesn't affect any searches. It's not significant enough to include in the lead, for the same reason we don't list both al-Nar and al Nar (plus an-Nar and an Nar!). If we did, we'd have to include it in every article title that included an Arabic al + a sun letter, which would be silly. – Joe (talk) 09:18, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

@Joe Roe: Thanks for your extensive reply. I can only say that, not being an archaeologist or Arabic speaker, I found it rather confusing when I first came upon the subject and certainly it would have helped me to know that there was a difference in spelling. I don't think that including "Umm an-Nar" sets a precedent requiring every other title discrepancy on Wikipedia to be addressed. Umm an-Nar is a special case, though the hyphen really is inconsequential. Why special? Because recognised experts in the field (Frifelt, Potts) have used that spelling in authoritative publications. It is still my view that the Umm an-Nar spelling is noteworthy and should mentioned in the lead so that the reader is immediately alerted to a significant different spelling. Rama226 (talk) 13:43, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Move to Umm Al Nar

Hi folks. Umm Al Nar is the modern spelling of this place, its adoption being hindered by the extensive use of archaic transliteration. Originally widely referred to as Umm an-Nar which, as others have noted above, didn't actually make very much sense, it then started to be called Umm al-Nar because of the 'al', Arabic for 'the'. The argument popular until a few years ago was that as 'al' is the definite article, it doesn't take a capital letter. This has since been resolved, at least widely in the UAE, by using it in titles with a cap (which simplifies search and gives a nice standard treatment for things rather than having a mish mash of Al al al- Al- and so on). We have now standardised Ras Al Khaimah, for instance and that has now been reflected in Wikipedia, with the recent (this year!) move to Ras Al Khaimah and Umm Al Quwain. With that in mind, I'd propose a MOVE of this page to Umm Al Nar and the creation of any required redirects to manage the older spellings still in use. Any views? Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 08:20, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Okay. Clearly no point of contention for nigh on a year, so finally got around to doing it! Alexandermcnabb (talk) 14:59, 18 October 2019 (UTC)