Talk:Algiers

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Khair-ed-Din (see History, below), who, to accommodate his pirate vessels, caused the island on which was Fort Penon to be connected with the mainland by a mole.

A mole? What kind of mole? -Martin

A massive structure, usually of stone, as pier, breakwater or junction between places separated by water.

Cheers :)

[edit] province and city

the article Algiers referrences both a coty and a province, I suggest they are seperated --The Brain 11:47, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Why is Algiers called the islands? There are no visible islands in the vicinity of algiers...--Burgas00 17:38, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

This is really quite a complex question. The name of the city varied in the old times in Arabic: some wrote it "jazayer" others wrote it "zayer" (obviously this is vocal transliterations I'm writing with latin characters). "jazayer" means "the islands" in Arabic. "zayer" means absolutely nothing in Arabic. Anyways... as the city grew powerful in the middle ages it also became the name of the country Algeria (Algeria is called "el jazayer" today in Arabic) like Tunis to the East gave its name to Tunisia and Marakech to the West gave its name to Morocco. The thing is that in Algeria there is an Arab and a Berber culture. Today those who want to promote Arabic identity of Algeria claim that "el jazayer" means "islands" and is a proper Arabic word (just like el jazira, the TV station means "the island" or "the peninsula". singular). Those who want to promote Berber identity claim that in the historical books it was written more like "zayer" originally. So the 2 viewpoints are these: - "zayer", which means absolutely nothing if taken as a noun in Arabic comes from the fact that the man who rebuilt the city was called Ziri. And he was a Berber prince. "Zayer" therefore would mean "Ziri's city". - To make matters worse, those who support Arabic identity and the theory of "the islands" actually have a case too. There used to be 4 small islands in front of the old city which was much smaller than the modern Algiers. The old city was located in the left side of the bay on the satellite picture and it is today the Casbah district of modern Algiers. The islands got linked to the land however over centuries. The last island ceased to exist as an island in the 16th century. It was the one which the Spanish had built a massive fort with an artillery based there, from which they bombed the city continuously in order to obtain it's surrender in the 16th century. When the residents of Algiers captured the fort from the Spanish, they destroyed the fort and used its blocks to link this last island to the city. I think that was around in 1520. Over time therefore, there is no more islands left. So the origin of the name of the city is a matter of discussion between Algerians themselves. The fact that the city gave it's name to the country makes the discussion a national one. And the fact that the government which suppressed Berber culture for a decades took sides with the Arabic theory of "jazayer" (also written djazair in latin characters) has pushed many defendants of Berber culture into the arms of the theory of "zayer" or the Berber prince Buluggin ibn Ziri's city. What exactely is the truth? I personally don't know but I think that its both at the same time. Voilà for this quite Mediteranean dispute over a name :) Cordially, a resident of Algiers 82.101.153.210 06:34, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

The Arabic version has the longer documented history, as Abu Abdullah al-Bakri writing in the 11th century calls it "the islands" belonging some tribe I forget who. And I've also seen it somewhere that the Phoenician name Ikosim meant seagull islands. Anyway, is it not odd that neither Arab nor Berber explanation of the name is given in the article, but another one? MisterCDE 05:28, 8 February 2007 (UTC)