Talk:Straße des 17. Juni

Title of the article

"ß" is not a letter of the English alphabet and should not be used in titles of articles at the English Wikipedia. I must therefore insist that this article be abolished and the other one retained. Adam 14:15, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

The ß is used in many articles on Germany related subjects and this issue has been discussed at length previously. Some pages have gone through requested moves, that is probably the right venue if anyone wants to start discussing moving the article. Stefán Ingi 20:15, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

How can the use of a letter which most English-speakers don't recognise be justified? Most people will read Straße as "Strabe." Do we call Beijing "北京"? - no, we use the Roman alphabet. By the same token, we should use "ss" instead of "ß", as the Germans themselves frequently do. Adam 03:12, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, this is one view. Another view is that ß belongs to the latin alphabet and that is the alphabet used for articles on Wikipedia. That makes 北京 an incomparable example. I also agree that many people will not recognise ß and confuse it with b, but these might not be the people who are most likely to read an article about a particular street in Berlin, the people who are likely to read this article are also likely to interested in Germany and are therefore quite likely in either knowing or be interested in knowing that Straße is spelled with an ß. We also have the template at the top of the article to point out the use of ß and where people can get more information on the letter. Finally, neither Straße des 17. Juni nor Strasse des 17. Juni is a title in English and both require some knowledge of German to be able to read. Stefán Ingi 09:27, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

"ß" does not belong to the Latin alphabet, it is a peculiarity of German orthography not used elsewhere. However, I know the futility of arguing with Wikipedia's culture of competitive pedantry, in which the desire of some writers to be more "correct" than everyone else is always placed above the convenience of readers, so I will not push the point further. Adam 10:05, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I see by the way you are Icelandic. Are you one of those guilty of scattering "Þ" and "ð" around the English Wikipedia? This is an even worse insult to readers. Adam 10:08, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

What is an insult to readers is to insult their intelligence by assuming they're incapable of comprehending the letters þ, ð, and ß. Angr (talk) 19:48, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

From the other side, it can also be perceived as an insult to readers to assume that they must know those letters. I am opposed to their use in article titles here on the English Wikipedia -- they're difficult to type, difficult to pronounce, interfere with proper sorting of articles in category listings, make linking more difficult, and don't always show up properly on everyone's web browsers. They also sometimes cause problems with copy-pasting, and make URLs unnecessarily complicated. They're fine to use within the body of the article, but should stay out of titles. --Elonka 20:37, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Why you make such a fuss about it. In de-wiki there is a simple rule of thumb for languages using the latin alphabet:

• if you have a name in your own language for a foreign place, use it and create a redirect from the original name.
  • example: article Cologne and redirect Köln
• If you have no name in your own language for a foreign place, use the foreign name and create a rediret in your language if necessary to transscribe special letters.
  • example: article Straße des 17. Juni and redirect Strasse des 17. Juni

For all other languages which have their own alphabet use the correct transscription of the word or name. --EvaK 23:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Right, so how do you say 17 in German? And why is there a . after the 17? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.246.166.109 (talk) 11:33, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

When German numerals appear in text, the dot indicates an ordinal number. It's analogous to the "-th" you would write in "June 17th". Wegesrand (talk) 12:29, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

The s-z ligature has over time attained the status of a letter in German, but in English it is still a typographical representation of two letters. Moreover, as German spelling has evolved, the two letters it represents have changed over time from s+z to (usually) s+s. Or, to put it another way, the modern usage of ß subsumes both ſz (long s + z-with-descender) and ſs (long s + short s).

Because ß is not a letter in English, and because English speakers tend to read it as a capital B, it should not be used in English Wikipedia. "Strasse" can perfectly well be written with a double s, as indeed it is in Switzerland. Hence this article should be moved to "Strasse des 17. Juni". Wegesrand (talk) 12:29, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Trying to merge

I have attempted to merge the pages and edit it at the same time. My idea was to organise the article so that after the lead section the other sections formed something of a historical account of the street. Feel free to edit, comment, improve, etc, of course. Stefán Ingi 20:15, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Original research

There is some very specific information in this article, such as, "Before World War II the street was called Charlottenburger Chaussee because it ran from the city to Charlottenburg. It was made into a paved road in 1799 and due to Berlin's rapid growth in the 19th century it became a major thoroughfare to the affluent western suburbs." This is definitely not "common knowledge" info. Where did it come from? The source of the information should be included in a "References" section on the article, or linked in some other way per WP:CITE. Or, if no source can be provided, the information should be removed, per policy at Wikipedia:Verifiability. --Elonka 13:45, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Requested move 10 November 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Consensus is against this proposal. qedk (t 愛 c) 10:11, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

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Straße des 17. Juni → Strasse des 17. Juni – The s-z ligature has over time attained the status of a letter in German, but in English it is still a typographical representation of two letters. Moreover, as German spelling has evolved, the two letters it represents have changed over time from s+z to (usually) s+s. Or, to put it another way, the modern usage of ß subsumes both ſz (long s + z-with-descender) and ſs (long s + short s). Because ß is not a letter in English, and because English speakers tend to read it as a capital B, it should not be used in English Wikipedia. "Strasse" can perfectly well be written with a double s, as indeed it is in Switzerland, and ss is recognized as equivalent by Germans where the s-z ligature is not available (on non-German keyboards, for example). Hence this article should be moved to "Strasse des 17. Juni". Wegesrand (talk) 23:58, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. The name is Straße des 17. Juni, not 17 June Street. Therefore it is in German and not English and should therefore use the German spelling. JIP | Talk 12:00, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
  • The proposal is not to change the title to English. The proposal is to resolve the S-Z ligature to ss in the title, and this is something Germans too do where appropriate. The argument "German names must be spelled as Germans spell them" doesn't hold up: we don't spell Japanese names as the Japanese spell them; we don't spell Greek names as the Greeks spell them, etc. Wegesrand (talk) 12:52, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:Naming conventions (Germany)#Alphabet. BegbertBiggs (talk) 12:49, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

  Amending my !vote to add that the proposed title also goes against MOS:LIGATURES. BegbertBiggs (talk) 22:50, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:Naming conventions (Germany)#Alphabet and consistency In ictu oculi (talk) 21:36, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
  • That convention is contested in regard to the s-z ligature; see the Talk on the page you cite. Also, that page is inconsistent itself! The article cited claims to be based on an EU stylesheet, and that stylesheet says "5.2 Personal names should retain their original accents, e.g. Cañete, Malmström, Šefčovič. However, the German ß is replaced with ss, e.g. Clauss." Wegesrand (talk) 12:52, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
• Support per WP:NATURAL and WP:COMMONNAME - there is nothing magic about the naming convention: this is not an English letter and is illegible to most native English speakers - but without any hope that en-Wiki will ever see sense on this issue. Ingratis (talk) 15:02, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
  • That ß is not an English letter shouldn't matter because "Straße des 17. Juni" is not in English in the first place. If the street had an official name in English we could use that, but as it does not, we should go by the native German name. JIP | Talk 18:35, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
    • As nom points out, German itself uses -ss as an alternative when the ligature is either not available or not suitable - as here. Ingratis (talk) 19:23, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
• Comment: Of all the interwiki links, every language using the Latin alphabet uses the spelling "Straße" except Swedish. Of the other languages, the only non-Latin alphabet I can read is Cyrillic, and those wikis seem to use their own native version instead of transliterating the original German name. JIP | Talk 20:21, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Sorry, but so what? en-Wiki isn't bound by what's done elsewhere. Ingratis (talk) 18:38, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
  • In English terms, we are not talking about spelling at all -- ß is not a letter, it is a typographical representation of two letters; see original argument. Hence all arguments about how to spell Strasse are flawed. The proposal is not to change the spelling; it is to resolve a ligature into component letters. Wegesrand (talk) 12:54, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:Naming conventions (Germany)#Alphabet and consistency with other streets in Germany and Austria. TSventon (talk) 22:43, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Comment: I do not want to make ad hominem arguments, but because an issue here is how we expect a typical reader of English to perceive the typography, I think it is relevant in this case to observe that some of the Opponents are native speakers of languages other than English. Wegesrand (talk) 12:52, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

• That would include at least User:BegbertBiggs and myself, but I fail to see how that would make the arguments any less valid. JIP | Talk 16:34, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
  • I guess what I'm thinking is this: I suspect that people coming to the issue from the cultural outside may underestimate the foreignness of the glyph in question -- that is, underestimate the degree to which it disrupts the typical native speaker's reading. Wegesrand (talk) 11:58, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
    • "ß" is not a letter used in my native language (Finnish) either but I still think it's part of the German spelling of the name, and as the street doesn't have an English name, we should use the German spelling. JIP | Talk 14:05, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
      • Dear JIP, I appreciate that you have a strong opinion. However, you haven't referred to my arguments at all (typography rather than spelling is the issue; WP guidelines demand clarity to English-readers; ss is acceptable even in German terms hence not inaccurate). So I'm at a loss how to continue this discussion. Wegesrand (talk) 10:38, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Comment: Looking for guidance in Wikipedia:Article_titles, I find this in support of the proposed typography: "If there is no established English-language treatment for a name, translate it if this can be done without loss of accuracy and with greater understanding for the English-speaking reader." So although the proposal is not translation, but at most transliteration (and barely even that: just resolution of a ligature), it meets the criteria adovcated in this guideline: no loss of accuracy; greater understanding for the English-speaking reader. Wegesrand (talk) 14:46, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

How formal is the ß in German? Or from a different angle, does ß substitute naturally to ss in German, as we might happily accept either café or cafe in English, or is it more of a stopgap, as some Arabic writers use the numerals 2, 3, 7, etc. to fill in for some letters when using a Latin alphabet keyboard? Would the German equivalent of the BBC use the double-S alternative, or is it just teenagers? — HTGS (talk) 01:30, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:Naming conventions (Germany)#Alphabet. For the record I am a native English-speaker from England! I am, however, capable of reading "furrin" words without my head exploding. Why ß is so confusing to people is frankly beyond me. And this is the 21st century. We don't rely on typewriters with limited character sets any more. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:18, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.