Talk:Éislek

Move to Ardennes (Luxembourg)?

Per the conversation at Moselle Valley (Luxembourg), shall we move this to Ardennes (Luxembourg)? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:19, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

I've brought this up in the discussion about renaming Guttland to Central Luxembourg, but if this article were to be renamed, I'd prefer it'd be rebranded as Éislek, which is the Luxembourgish name for the region. Oesling or Ösling would be a suitable alternative, but since that name has little traction in English either way, my preference is with Éislek. I don't think that renaming this to Ardennes (Luxembourg) is that necessary though, since the Ardennes by definition have a bias to refer to the Belgian part of the region. Other than that, I'm not the biggest fan of dual names, so if the "(Luxembourg)" definer can be avoided in a decent way, I'd prefer that.
-- Wauteurz (talk) 14:34, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, if there's a better name that distinguishes the region without referring to quite an extensive international range of hills, I'm happy with that. Éislek is a cool name. It's the "Luxembourgian X" that I find clunky.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 15:08, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

I can understand that. I honestly doubt that there would be that many people that would disagree with this name change. I am thinking that keeping "Luxembourgian Ardennes" around as a redirect isn't a bad idea though, especially since Éislek isn't that well-known of a name. I'd expect speakers of English to generally refer to the area as either the Luxembourgian/-ish Ardennes or Northern Luxembourg, so having a more accessible alternative might prove useful as a redirect.

In any case, since they were part of the previous Luxembourg discussions, I'm also pinging Andyrom75 so they know this one is being discussed as well.
-- Wauteurz (talk) 15:18, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

The official name of that area was "Diekirch District". Was beacuse district have been abolished, but the area in the map is this one without any doubt. But I suppose that is an old and not very known name outside Luxembourg.

That territory can be also assimilated to "Oesling" (as we said do not have clear border), whose local name is Éislek. I would avoid to use this local name because I think that worldwide Oesling is more used than Éislek.

Looking at all the alternatives on the table, I would go for Oesling. Notwithstanding this, I have nothing against "Ardennes (Luxembourg)" even if to me it sounds more like a part of the mountains instead of a region of a Country, but maybe it's just my personal perception and it's not a general understanding. --Andyrom75 (talk) 18:16, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

I can agree that Ösling (OE in this case is the romanised version of Ö, so Ösling would be the ideal way to write it) would be more used worldwide because the name is German and the amount of German speakers (100-120 million) outnumbers the amount of Luxembourgish speakers (circa 390.000) by quite a few. We are comparing a German and Luxembourgish name here, and to quote WV:Naming conventions:

"For destinations where multiple names or spellings are in use and there isn't an obviously correct English name, the title should be the most commonly-used name in the local language."

Since Luxembourgish is the first official language of Luxembourg (spoken by 82% of Luxembourgers), followed in usage by French (spoken by 99% of inhabitants and official language for laws), then German (spoken by 81%), Éislek would be the correct form to use by these guidelines. The German name's usage in English can be nullified since it's the name for a region that's somewhat larger than the Luxembourgian part, and seen the larger speaker-base of German, naturally that name is used to name the area in English. Using Éislek would, aside from being in line with the naming conventions here, also serve to single out this region as a part of Luxembourg.

Furthermore, discounting Éislek simply because it is a local language (even though Luxembourgian is an official language of Luxembourg) shouldn't be done. It doesn't follow in line with how some regions of the Netherlands are named here. Outside from people living there, I have never heard anyone refer to regions such as Kennemerland, Baronie van Breda, Meierij van 's-Hertogenbosch, Markiezaat or Langstraat as such. The same can be said for Vijfheerenlanden until it became a municipality a few years ago. Not using Éislek because it's not a name you hear a lot also doesn't make much sense.

For clarity, I'll summarize my preferences:

1. Éislek - As per above, it is the natural choice here.
2. Luxembourgian Ardennes - Status quo, it says what it is, and since the Ardennes are more or less Belgian in the perception of the layman, I don't mind this. Also, I have a general bias against using brackets in titles unless necessary.
3. Ardennes (Luxembourg) - Bias against brackets. I've definitely heard people say they're going to the "Luxembourgian Ardennes". In my perception, the name as-is is the proper English name for this region, which would omit the usage of the indicator in brackets. I won't lobby for the brackets, but it's a relatively neutral name should none of this go anywhere.
4. Ösling - Not in favour of this one at all per the above.
5. Diekirch District - Definitely off the table. This administrative division of Luxembourg has been abandoned for some years now, and I see no use in picking it up again. This would also introduce double usage of the name Diekirch in Luxembourg's hierarchy, which I'd rather avoid.

-- Wauteurz (talk) 21:22, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

As an additional note, naming this region would fit in with the naming of the Mullerthal. Naming this region Ösling could set a precedent that the Mullerthal needs be renamed to Müllerthal. Since I discussed that with Hobbitschuster back in 2016, they might possibly want to add their ten cents in here as well.
-- Wauteurz (talk) 21:45, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Honestly I never used Éislek, but if you are so confident on it, I'm fine. --Andyrom75 (talk) 00:30, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Neither had I until a few days ago, but to me this seems like the better option. I'd hope to hear a few more opinions on this from others though, as I might be misinterpreting some of what's written on Naming conventions.
-- Wauteurz (talk) 09:44, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Naming conventions on this site are to use the name most commonly used in English, which is fairly often not the same as the name most commonly used locally. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:48, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

@Ikan Kekek: I am aware of that much, but I'd be interested to know what your judgement here would be. Éislek or Ösling are the Luxembourgish and German names for the Luxembourgish and German half of the Ardennes, about half of which is in Luxembourg, the other half being in Germany around Bitburg and Prüm. Using the Luxembourgish name would in that context serve to localise the region to only the Luxembourgish half. As for the Luxembourgian Ardennes name, I would argue that that is the proper English name of the region, which in my mind would omit the usage of brackets in its article name, though I haven't been able to find whether this method (omitting the brackets if the adjective is in the proper name) has any policy in favour or against it. To me it seems like either Éislek or Luxembourgian Ardennes should be the name of the article here, but like I said, I found the guidelines to be somewhat unhelpful for this particular case. If we were to indeed use the most commonly used English name, then this article would be called Luxembourgian Ardennes, which it is, but is the exact thing that's being debated here. To put it mildly, I'm a bit torn as to what would be the right name to use here.
-- Wauteurz (talk) 10:34, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Google searches: "Luxembourgian Ardennes", 9150 results (top result this page); "Luxembourg Ardennes", 41,700 results (our article doesn't even make the top 5 pages of results). Neither is particularly well-used, perhaps because Luxembourg isn't talked about much in English. Between the two, the more natural for me is the one that uses the noun "Luxembourg" as an adjective, as English is wont to do, rather than the awkward "Luxembourgian". I also discovered that Visit Luxembourg are marketing the region as Éislek, and that when you search "éislek" in Google, most of the first page results are travel guides in English. En.wikipedia is a bit of an outlier by going with w:Oesling, but that covers part of Germany as well (there isn't an article in English for just the Luxembourgish bit). --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:24, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for checking into this. Is "Luxembourg Ardennes", therefore, the name for the region that's most used in English? Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:34, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't know. Since there's ambiguity on this point, I think we should go with the official name that the region uses to market itself to English-speaking visitors, i.e. Éislek, and also set up redirects for Luxembourg Ardennes, Ardennes (Luxembourg) and the existing Luxembourgian Ardennes.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 13:20, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

I defer to you guys. Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:33, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot about this. Will put into action now.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:16, 26 August 2022 (UTC)