Disputatio:Varanasi

Transliteration

De: "Is it OK to give Kāśī in standard transliteration? I think it's a Sanskrit rather than an international name." I don't know the answer; I was just using the article to raise the question! IacobusAmor 19:38, 11 Martii 2009 (UTC)

Forma nominis urbani

Btw, Varanasi undoubtedly has an attested Latin form as Benares, so I'll add that in; and the question then becomes which should be the first-listed variant of the lemma: an attested Latin one, or an older indigenous one. IacobusAmor 16:59, 11 Martii 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with Benares -- as with Bombaya, it's just a non-Indian-language version of the Indian name. In these circumstances, as we are writing Latin, we normally adopt the attested Latin form. So I think I would take "Benares". (I was going to dispute your declension of Varanasi: if you change to Benares, no need!) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 18:11, 11 Martii 2009 (UTC)

One seems impaled on the horns of a dilemma: (1) lemmata should be attested forms when they exist; but (2) a modern tendency, perhaps driven by newfound intercultural sensitivities, is to downplay old attested forms in favor of indigenous forms (e.g., Bombay → Mumbai). ¶ As for Varanasi, I agree that the declension as given (so far) is disputable. Since the final vowel is long, one imagines a native Latin speaker instinctively declining it as Varanasi, Varanasorum, Varanasis, Varanasos, Varanasis, like the Apulian town of Rubi, Ruborum, Rubis, Rubos, Rubis, or perhaps as Varanasii, Varanasiorum, Varanasiis, Varanasios, Varanasiis, like the Etrurian town of Veii, Veiorum, Veiis, Veios, Veiis. IacobusAmor 21:57, 11 Martii 2009 (UTC)

[On declension:] Yes, I see the logic. It makes good sense in those terms. But if we are going to decline words from Indic (Sanskrit + relatives) languages I think we ought to agree how to do it in general, as I believe we have with Finnish and Polynesian languages. Varanasi is in fact (I've just checked in Monier-Williams] an -i stem feminine singular, as I had assumed: this would equate to the Latin third declension (or the fourth, if you imagine a fourth declension in -i rather than -u). So I feel that either we treat it as indeclinable (our default rule), or we give it 3rd-declension-type case endings. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 10:16, 12 Martii 2009 (UTC)

Yes, we probably don't have agreement yet (which is one reason I chose Ganges, as it raises many questions of this sort), and more issues than one are implicated here. As for tendencies toward declension, the suffix -i and the knowledge that placenames (including some really-really famous ones) could be plurals might lead more readily to the second declension than to the third, despite an expected shift of gender. The fourth declension is so thoroughly based on a -u- stem that imagining Varanasi as a fourth-declension feminine singular isn't easy. A related issue is the proper transliteration from Devanagari and related scripts. For example, is इलाहाबाद Alāhābāda or Allāhābāda (and therefore a first-declension noun)? or what? IacobusAmor 12:21, 12 Martii 2009 (UTC)

It's Īlāhābāda. A modern loanword (Persian in origin? I'm not sure). The classical name (I mean Sanskrit etc.) is Prayāga, 1st declension masculine, like nauta. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 12:37, 12 Martii 2009 (UTC)

According to the alphabet in Perry's Sanskrit Primer (1885), which happens to be on my desk, the first vowel is short (Ĭ), so the whole word is Ilāhābāda ; for इ to be long, it'd have to have a little hook above it. Are you transliterating from the Arabic-derived script? IacobusAmor 13:41, 12 Martii 2009 (UTC)

You're right, my mistake. And the Arabic/Urdu script agrees. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:11, 12 Martii 2009 (UTC)

... and the Catholic form is Dioecesis Allahabadensis. There you go. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:33, 12 Martii 2009 (UTC)

[On choice of names:] If attested Latin names are in some way offensive or clearly mistaken, of course we drop them. If not, our rule has been to use them, all over the world. Why should India be an exception? Many Wikipedias use forms like Bombay and Benares, as can be seen from the interwiki links. It's true that the international English-speaking media are under political pressure to use what governments have ruled to be official English names, but we aren't speaking English here. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 10:16, 12 Martii 2009 (UTC)

It may not be just English: a glance at Google suggests that Bombay→Mumbai may be an issue in Spanish these days IacobusAmor 12:23, 12 Martii 2009 (UTC)

Political pressure has not led to 'Bollywood' being called 'Mollywood' or 'Mullywood'. --Fabullus 12:31, 12 Martii 2009 (UTC)

Yes, good point! There's really no reason for us to treat India differently from other countries. I like our use of Latin geographical names where they exist: I wouldn't support a change. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 12:40, 12 Martii 2009 (UTC)

However, a completely different argument now comes into play. This is the seat of a Catholic diocese, and it is now called Dioecesis Varanasiensis (see [1]. By our rules, this trumps all other arguments, doesn't it? Here is an attested Latin name, satisfyingly close to the modern official name, and we should therefore accept it. Let it be Varanasi. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:30, 12 Martii 2009 (UTC)

And the name was changed to Dioecesis Varanasiensis so long ago as 14 May 1971! IacobusAmor 13:46, 12 Martii 2009 (UTC)

One wonders then whether the implied nominative for the city's name isn't Varanasīa, to be declined like Alexandrīa, -ae, f. IacobusAmor 12:59, 13 Martii 2009 (UTC)