Talk:Lake Sevan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Lake Sevan is within the scope of WikiProject Armenia, an attempt to better improve and organize information in articles related or pertaining to Armenia and Armenians. If you would like to contribute or collaborate, you could edit the article attached to this page or visit the project page for further information.
Start	This article has been rated as start-Class on the Project's quality scale. (If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)

	Lake Sevan is part of WikiProject Lakes, a WikiProject which aims to systematically improve lake-related articles using the tools on the Project page. You are welcome and encouraged to edit the article attached to this page and to join the project.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.

[edit] Comment

Lake Sevan, formerly known as Gegham in ancient times, was never referred to as Gokcha (or Goktscha) by the inhabitants of Armenia. Gokcha is an informal name given by non-Armenians and is not recognized in any official manner. --4.42.6.234 22:11, 11 July 2005

Yes, Gokcha is the Turkish name for the lake, never used by Armenians themselves. However, the name was prominent enough to appear in numerous English, German and Russian literature, historic texts and maps. For example, a species of fish endemic to the lake was named the "Gokcha barbel", with the binomial name Barbus goktschaicus, these names remaining official to this day [1]. Overall, there is enough usage of the term in Western languages to justifiy a mention in an English encyclopaedia article. Even the Great Soviet Encyclopedia lists Gokcha as an alternate name [2]. --Aramգուտանգ 13:57, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm sure everything in the Great Soviet Encyclopeadia is absolutely historically accurate. Lake Sevan was known by many other names as well, especially in ancient Greek and Roman sources. If we were to mention the name of the lake in every source one encounters, the whole page would be filled with former Sevan names. If we're going down that road, we might as well refer to every place-name with a Turkish name that's referenced in sources. Also, just because a species of animal is named a certain way, does not validate it's common use. Finally, because of the insistence of so many to call Sevan by its non-Armenian name Gokcha, the new Google World service (3D maps of the world) has mistakenly referred to Sevan as Gokcha. --4.42.6.234 18:21, 12 July 2005

Since this is an English encyclopaedia article, it should list any alternate names that have a reasonably high rate of occurence in English language sources, irrespective of their official status. The fact that even Google mistakenly uses the term Gokcha shows that there is reasonable likelyhood that someone will look up the lake in an encyclopaedia using the name. The fact that it's mentioned in the article helps people recognise that it is not the official name, rather than be confused by its absence. P.S. Plase sign your posts in the future by typing ~~~~. Thanks.--Aramգուտանգ 04:49, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Geycha

I added the rendering "Geycha" because someone used it in the article Siunik. -- Beland 15:08, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Azeri name

I don't quite follow your logic, Hakob. I see the Armenian name at Kars, Van, Diyarbakır, Yozgat, and even İzmir—all of those cities are situated in the Republic of Turkey, so are they unnecessary as well? I don't recall their being a Wikipedia rule that states historical names can't be mentioned in articles. —Khoikhoi 01:44, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Me neither. So can I now add the Persian and Armenian names for Ganja? Hakob 09:29, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Go right ahead... —Khoikhoi 00:21, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Lake Sevan was never part of Turkey or Azerbaijan. History shows this. Therefore, the names should not be included. Names in other languages should only be applied if a certain region was part of country at one point. -- Clevelander 23:28, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

We surely do not follow THIS rule when we use names such as Leghorn for Livorno or Cologne for Köln or Moscow for Moskwa.Cosal 01:20, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, my mistake. I didn't mean to say "place names," I was thinking of something else. It's fixed now, though. -- Clevelander 01:38, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

So we should also remove the Armenian names from Rize and İzmir? They were never part of Armenia —Khoikhoi 01:45, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Rize was part of Byzantine Armenia and Lesser Armenia (not to be confused with the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia). The present-day Rize province even includes the Hemşin (or Hamshen) region where the Hamsheni Armenians orginated from. You're right about İzmir, though. It was never part of Armenia. Its only significance to Armenian history was its noteworthy Armenian population which greatly contributed to Western Armenian culture. -- Clevelander 01:52, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't know that. My point is that there is no rule for including or not including historic/alternate names. —Khoikhoi 02:08, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I see where you're coming from now. -- Clevelander 02:11, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Fine by me. :) —Khoikhoi 02:14, 23 September 2006 (UTC)