This article is within the scope of WikiProject Rivers, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
Rivers on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.RiversWikipedia:WikiProject RiversTemplate:WikiProject RiversRiver articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Wales, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
Wales on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.WalesWikipedia:WikiProject WalesTemplate:WikiProject WalesWales articles
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.
Oppose move Looking at Google Books, there are
four books published in this century that contain "River Twymyn". There are
six that contain "Afon Twymyn". Similarly there are
zero news reports for "River Twymyn" and
two for "Afon Twymyn".
Railfan23 (
talk)
17:07, 21 July 2019 (UTC)reply
Comment This is turning out to be more controversial than I previously thought. I requested the move under the impression that the use of the word 'afon' in English is a colloquialism. According to
Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English the formal dialect (not colloquialisms) should be used if there are strong national ties to the topic. I understand the Welsh dialect of English does include loanwords from Welsh but the use of code-switching is mainly colloquial. I am however unsure if the use of the word 'Afon' is correct when naming a minor river in a formal letter, written in English, although I know the word 'nant' is used in the name of a stream e.g. Nant Gwernol. I have since noticed tributaries of the Dovey/Dyfi being referred to solely with the Welsh prefix 'Afon' in Ordnance Survey maps as opposed to the bilingual 'Afon/River' in the case of the Dovey/Dyfi. I wonder if this to avoid the need to use bilingualism if the name of the river is the same in both English and Welsh. I blame my confusion on not having an official guideline (not one I know of anyway) on whether to use the Welsh or English name for places in Wales and I admit it might be helpful to have one in
Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)#United_Kingdom similar to
Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Ireland-related_articles#Place_names.
Tk420 (
talk)
20:38, 21 July 2019 (UTC)reply
Afon is not a "colloquialism", it is a Welsh language word. "National varieties of English" is a red herring. We are not talking about a "Welsh dialect of English", whatever that might mean. We are talking about the Welsh language. Places in Wales are usually named using the Welsh language, not some dialect of English. This is particularly true in the northern half of Wales, and is particularly true in recent decades, hence the move back from "Aberdovey" to "Aberdyfi". The Ordnance Survey has the river name as "Afon Twymyn" (see
here. Given the stance of the ordnance survey and the predominance of Afon Twymyn, per
WP:COMMONNAME, I think it is clear that the article should not be moved.
Railfan23 (
talk)
00:18, 22 July 2019 (UTC)reply
By
Welsh English I mean the varieties of English specific to Wales. According to the article there is no standard variety of English specific to Wales and it describes a series of dialects. If the appropriate form of English is region-specific it looks like it would be appropriate to use the formal variety of the North Wales dialect. Given this is the English-language Wikipedia the usual policy is to use the name most familiar to English-speakers although there are allowances for strong national ties to a topic e.g. the use of Irish English in the Dublin article. So we must ask ourselves which name for the river would a local native English-speaker use in a formal conversation e.g. when writing a formal letter in English?
Tk420 (
talk)
13:59, 22 July 2019 (UTC)reply
Oppose per the Ordnance Survey, it looks like the Welsh name is the common one here, compare this to
Eilean Mòr which means "Island Big" but the Scottish Gaelic name is used on the English based OS so the
WP:COMMONNAME would be the Gaelic, not
English one. Crouch, Swale (
talk)
14:06, 22 July 2019 (UTC)reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a
requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this
talk page or in a
move review. No further edits should be made to this section.