Talk:Brussels-Capital Region

-- Out of Place -- "The following is clearly out of place in a neutral article. Among all major migrants groups from outside the EU, a majority of the permanent residents have acquired the Belgian nationality. Since the 2000 Nationality Law (snel-Belgwet or Quickly-Belgian law in Dutch), knowledge (even basic) of a Belgian national language is no longer compulsory and there are thus e.g. Belgian Turks who can't speak or understand French or Dutch."

Removed matter

I removed the following matter:

The population of this area is dominantly French-speaking, altough the entire agglomeration was initially Dutch-speaking, except for the royal court, nobility and 'haute-bourgeoisie' that were French-speaking since several centuries. Important minorities are: nationals from many European Union-countries, USA, UK and Canada, and of 'guest-workers and their families, mainly southern-Europe and North-Africa, and more recently from Central and Eastern-Europa.

Redundant with Comtemporary Brussels and History of Brussels sections of Brussels' article. Must be merged if appropriate. --Edcolins 20:37, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Dear, looking back after a while, it looks like most contributors see the use of having these two separate entries. That allows also for a greater accuracy and precision in the descriptions, and in the actual information. However, i do agree that we should avoid double and redundant information. --Lucas Richards 14:31, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Creation year

The Region was created in 1989, not 1993 [1]. --Edcolins 11:19, Jul 4, 2004 (UTC)

I'm sorry.But on the Dutch apge there stand independent in 1993.

Brussels Region

I don't see why the "Brussels region" colloquial name should be removed along with its translation. Please explain. --Edcolins 11:19, Jul 4, 2004 (UTC)

Now there stands The Brussels-Capital Region (Région de Bruxelles-Capitale in French, Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest in Dutch, Region Brüssel-Hauptstadt in German) or Brussels Region (Région Bruxelloise in French, Brusselse Gewest in Dutch) is one of the three regions of Belgium.

I think

The Brussels-Capital Region or Brussels Region (Région de Bruxelles-Capitale or Région Bruxelloise in French, Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest or Brusselse Gewest in Dutch and Region Brüssel-Hauptstadt in German) is one of the three regions of Belgium.

is better.

I agree. Yeah, it looks better. Go ahead. --Edcolins 18:54, Jul 4, 2004 (UTC)

Why remove any reference to the Flemings in brussels beingt part of the Flemish community / nation?

Ed Collins, I saw your rewording of the introduction, but why removing that factual information that is supported by 100% of the Fleminsh politicians from Brussels? --Rudi Dierick 20:15, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Rudy, thanks for your comment. My edits [2] were intended to express that the Flemish Community and the French Community of Belgium are institutions on the political front at least. I am not denying that many inhabitants of Brussels may identify themselves with the political institutions, but that is more on the sociological front. On this front, Brussels contains many communities: let's say the community of French-speaking inhabitants, the community of Dutch-speaking inhabitants, the catholic community, the gay community, the community of European Union civil servants, the wikipedian community, and so on and so forth... Like every modern city in the world which is composed of many communities, I do think.

It would be nice to find opinion polls on this issue maybe, and refer to it in the article, that would be rather interesting. --Edcolins 22:09, Dec 20, 2004 (UTC)

Dear, my question was maybe not properly worded. It was not about the sociologigal aspects of the very diverse brussels population, but specifically about the political fact (that 100% pf the current flemish politicians in brussels support being part of the Flemish Community), and about the cultural and institutional reality (as laid down in the constitution). So, my qustion was why we should not first alk abot the most general thing, being that brussels has basically two 'cnstituent' ethnic groups, Flemings and French-speakers? More detailled information should, as far as I understood general Wikipedia guidelines, and common practice in encyclopedia, be referred to later parapgraphs or more specialised articles. E.g. the correct information that you added appears perfectly on its place under the subtitle 'Institutions'. As you did not give any reason (nor when cutting out hat information), nor later, I re-instated that bit of factual information that, as far as I can assess is indeed crucial in understanding brussels.

The problem with classifying Brussels inhabitants into communities is that it does not fit with the legal reality. As far as I know, Belgian ID cards do not mention in which community you are belonging. You can considered yourself as belonging to the both community or none of these communities. --Edcolins 16:31, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)

I'm not ure to understand what point you are making? What do you want to suggest as a conclusion? --Rudi Dierick

I mean according to me an inhabitant of Brussels do not belong to either the "Flemish Community in Belgium" or to the "French Community of Belgium". To my humble opinion, these two expressions legally refer only to administrative and political institutions which have certain competencies in the domain of culture and education for instance. One inhabitant of Brussels may be speak Dutch and attend a cultural activity funded by the "French Community of Belgium". Or the other way around. It is possible of course to talk about sociological, cultural, linguistic or religious communities, but almost every modern city presents such a diversity of communities. As a conclusion, I mean that there is no need to mention that the Flemings in Brussels belongs to the community of Flemings (of Flanders, Belgium and the world). It is a tautology. Does my point of view make sense? --Edcolins 20:11, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for implicitelt ("according to me ") acknowleddging that this is just a personal opinion. I invite you to consider the objective and verifiable fact that ALL Flemish politicians in Brussels, as well as the 99% of its entire socio-cultural and political organisations (except for very few) consistently stress that they are Flemings andf want to remain so. Moreover, in terms of political communities, 99% of the votes in brussels are given to political parties that all belong very spcifically to just one of the two communities, and that ALL are also active either in Wallonia, or in Flanders, being the 'heartland' of either community. Even the French-speaking FDF, now part of the MR, is not a truly 'brussels' party as it gathers support only from French-speakers, and not from any Flkeming in brussels! As such, many speak of Brussels as as 'bridge' between the two communities. So, whenever this article wants to he complete and scientifcally correct, this objective reality MUST be mentionned (especially given the fierce atempts of some French-speakers to isolate the Flkemings in Brussels from the others.

merge with Brussels

We should merge this article with Brussels, the capital of Belgium. It's too ambiguous at this moment, we have Brussels, Brussels-Capital Region and the City of Brussels. There are really two articles needed, the first being the proposed merged article about the Capital of Belgium, Brussels as most people call it, aka Brussels-Capital Region and the second article about the city of Brussels, one of the 19 municipalities of the Capital. moyogo 02:06, 2005 Mar 18 (UTC) I guess for the sake of consistency with other wikis (fr and nl) we should merge the other way, Brussels -> Brussels-Capital Region. moyogo 03:20, 2005 Mar 18 (UTC)

This is a definitive no-no. I don't think you get the difference right. Brussels and Brussels-Capital Region should not been merged, they represent two different concepts. Brussels is a (rather old) city, in the sense of "an agglomeration including suburban and satellite areas". Strictly speaking, it is arbitrary to draw a clear boundary between what falls within "Brussels" and what falls outside "Brussels", no matter how controversial this may seem in Belgium. The opposite is true for the (rather young) "Brussels-Capital Region", defined by the recent amended constitution as a clear geographical, politicial, administrative and linguistic entity. Brussels was there before Belgium existed and will certainly be there for long. The Brussels-Capital Region is 15 years-old only, and might only be a temporary political arrangement. --Edcolins 07:17, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

I think I get the difference right, we simply disagree. I'm not suggesting we blur the differences but I'm suggesting we put the content of both pages in one place. The content of Brussels-Capital Region should not be bigger than just politics and demographics. Brussels should have historical, political, demographical and geographical information. Right now there's just gonna be redundant information. Does Paris have Paris and Paris Department? No, they are both merged. The political entity Paris Department is merged into Paris, the city we all know. I think it makes total sense to include the political entity of Brussels in the article about Brussels. But we have the right to differ, I won't go ahead and force what seems obvious to me. What's even weirder is that the fr and nl wikis have only 2 articles, but Brussels -> the City of Brussels (the municipality) and Brussels-Capital Region. I'm not sure it makes sense to point to just a part of Brussels when someone would want an article about the whole city (not just the municipality). ---moyogo 13:17, 2005 Mar 20 (UTC)

Paris and Paris Department might not have separate articles but there is another (significative) example: London, Greater London (the administrative region) and the City of London. --Edcolins 08:29, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)

I get your point. I still disagree. I think Brussels-Region should just be the administrative and political section of the more general Brussels article. But there's no point arguing for this, as long as it's not confusing for the user. Should we move the InfoBox from Brussels to Brussels-Region to follow your logic? Should we move the redundant information and clearly point to it? ---moyogo 11:02, 2005 Mar 24 (UTC)

Yes, go ahead, move the infobox. That's a perfectly consistent proposal. --Edcolins 19:27, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)

French names

I'm not agree whit the fact that all the names of the 19 cities in Brussels-Region are in French on Wikipedia EN. Their all original dutch names and the french name is not more important than the dutch name. It should been Ixelles - Elsene (like it was BTW) not only Ixelles for example.

I Agree. For South Tyrol, another bilingual area, all the titles have a bilingual form. See for examples Communes of South Tyrol. I think this should be done for the communes in the Brussels Region too. The Dutch names are officially equal to the French names, like in South Tyrol the German and Italian names, so let's show that in the titles and make it e.g. Ixelles - Elsene or Woluwe-Saint-Pierre - Sint-Pieters-Woluwe. Like it's already shown in the table and the template on this page. Diemietrie 10:45, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I requested a move of all communes with both a French and a Dutch official name from the French title to a bilingual title as described above. Diemietrie 10:12, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

An Englishman, having lived in Brussels for almost a decade and speaking both French and Dutch, and taking an interest in Belgian community issues, I would stress that Brussels has a very large English-speaking community and that within it the words for the 19 Communes (we never say Gemeente) are exclusively the French ones. Flemings may not like this fact and may (or may not) be justified in thinking so, but the fact remains that the French names are the ones in actual usage in English in Brussels. In the same way, the name for Finland in English is Finland (not Suomi/Finland) despite Finland being the name of the country in a local minority language (Swedish).

I'm another English guy who lives in Brussels. The large English speaking population (not necessarily native English speakers) exclusively use the French names. Putting both the French and Dutch names together would be awkward. Most people in Brussels speak French. Depending where you live English or Dutch is the second language used. No body would ever suggest anglicizing the place names except maybe "Brussels".

Institutions

The section about institutions does not reflect the reality, which is much more complex, with reserved seats for the Flemish minority in the regional parliament etc. It is obvious for people who are informed of the situation, but the present article leads others to confusion. Awaiting the development of this article, I think it's wise to add a political stub status banner. --Pylambert 19:33, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

I hope my additions have solved this problem MaartenVidal 14:18, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

It is indeed much clearer, even if it remains quite difficult to understand these institutions, only because they really are complicated ! --Pylambert 14:54, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Requested move

• Talk:Brussels-Capital Region
  • Ixelles → Ixelles - Elsene,
  • Auderghem → Auderghem - Oudergem,
  • Schaerbeek → Schaerbeek - Schaarbeek,
  • Berchem-Sainte-Agathe → Berchem-Sainte-Agathe - Sint-Agatha-Berchem,
  • Saint-Gilles, Belgium → Saint-Gilles - Sint-Gillis,
  • Molenbeek-Saint-Jean → Molenbeek-Saint-Jean - Sint-Jans-Molenbeek,
  • Woluwe-Saint-Lambert → Woluwe-Saint-Lambert - Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe,
  • Uccle → Uccle - Ukkel and
  • Watermael-Boitsfort → Watermael-Boitsfort - Watermaal-Bosvoorde
  • These communes of the Brussels Region are bilingual and don't have an English name (sometimes the French name is more in common, sometimes the Dutch name, according to Google search). Therefore a uniform bilingual title like is also done for the communes of South Tyrol is the best solution here, with respect to both languages. --Diemietrie 19:25, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~

• Oppose. Keep them under one name or the other and mention both names on the first line of the article. Use a redirect for the other name. No one is going to seach on "Saint-Gilles - Sint-Gillis" etc, so both redirects are going to have to exist anyway --Philip Baird Shearer 14:25, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. I am also opposed to the present settlement of South Tyrol. Septentrionalis 00:37, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose The main name is the French one, there should only be a redirect from the Flemish/Dutch name. --Pylambert 12:48, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose Although in Brussels one can see many bilingual signs ("Vossenplein / place du Jeu de Balle" to give an example), I don't think it a good idea to introduce multilingual page names in English wikipedia. I'd stick to "the most common" for each of them separately, which, according to Diemietrie should mean some will be in Flemish. For those cases where "most common" can't be determined, I'd give precedence to the French name. --Francis Schonken 15:55, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
• Support. It's simpaly necessary. The dutch name and the french one are both on the same level and so it's not fair for the dutch people that their name is not mentioned in the tittle. Plus, the french names are in almost al the cases old dutch names like Schaerbeek vs. Schaarbeek.--Westermarck 18:55, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
• Support - Waerth 16:25, 11 February 2006 (UTC) - Choosing for one language above the other when both are almost equally relevant is POV and we are supposed to be NPOV!
• Support For NPOV reasons as detailed in discussion below Vremya 22:51, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
• Support It is the most neutral solution. --Donar Reiskoffer 20:03, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
• Support (if it still matters) I'm a Fleming living in Brussels so I'm not particularly neutral on this topic. Using the French namen when there is no English name is imho the PoV from the Partie des Francophones Henna 21:49, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Strongest possible oppose ever per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (city names). Articles about cities should be at either the local or the English name, but NOT at both. --Rory096 04:25, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Support only neutral solution; apart from Brussels-City, the other 18 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital region have no English name. For those having a French and a Dutch name, it depends on how/where/in which reference work a speaker came upon the name. Since the English language Wikipedia is often used by speakers of another native language, only the double naming may prevent their assumption of some official or common English name and thus unknowingly writing some seemingly biased articles themselves. I do suggest systematically using the French - Dutch order in each article's title and the Dutch - French order on the first content line (in each article that line already states both names with their language). Compare also e.g. article Mechelen, on an always Dutch speaking city that had three common English names: historically and traditionally Mechlin, mainly the early Belgium's French-speaking diplomats influenced Malines, especially since the 1988-89 European football (soccer) achievements of 'KV Mechelen' it is Mechelen (though one may still hear the older English names - when travelling in the UK, I usually say I'm from Mechlin). Wikipedia should not lead which of the currently bilingual names might become a common English name. -- 213.224.87.185 2006-06-02 16:57 (UTC)

Discussion

Philip, this is not a matter of what name people search most. I'm sure that no one will search for Bozen-Bolzano either. It's really a matter of what suits best with respect to the linguistic situation, given the fact that there are no common English names for these communes. For South Tyrol, it was therefore decided to use a joined German-Italian name. I think that the situation in the Brussels Region is exactly the same as in South Tyrol, so I propose the same solution. The alternative would be to search in Google which name is most commonly used in English, but that would mean sometimes the French and sometimes the Dutch name as title. I don't think that is the right solution for an encyclopedia. Neither is it to always use the French name as if Brussels is unilingual French territory. Diemietrie 16:51, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I do believe there has been some fixed usage in the past for Brussels subdivisions in English. Searching through the Gutenberg project, anyone can find old books in English using "Saint Gilles" and other names without alternating between either French or Dutch. Besides most of the names with ae in French and aa in Dutch are just due to a change in Dutch spellings. I'm not saying that we should use one over the other, but there are references that we could find of usage through history, nothing official though. ---moyogo 01:27, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

It is understandable that in the past the French names were most commonly used in English, while French was during long time the only official language in Brussels (untill the first half of the 20th century), a period in which the Brussels Region changed from a Dutch-speaking area to a bilingual metropole with a French-speaking majority. That's why all names in the region are originally Dutch. It's the same situation as in South Tyrol, where the German names are the original ones, but with the Italian names as the more commonly used.

Nevertheless, times have changed and both regions are officially bilingual now. I think this should be reflected in the names used in an encyclopedia. Only when an English name is not available, of course, but that is the case here (except for the city of Brussels). Diemietrie 14:25, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

It is not done for Londonderry in English. The French(fr:Londonderry) and Dutch (nl:Derry) pages do not split it across English and Irish, which would be "Derry - Londonderry - Doire". Are there any small Welsh, Irish or Scottish areas which are so designated in the Dutch or the French? It seems to me that this idea is not a useful one. Philip Baird Shearer 20:23, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this is about other Wikipedia's, it's about the English Wikipedia. If one decides to use bilingual titles for South Tyrolian communes, it should be logical to do the same for other bilingual communes without an English name.

Besides that, I think the Gaeltacht areas in Ireland are unilingual Irish and in the Gaelic areas in Wales and Scotland the Gaelic names are put in front. In Brussels and South Tyrol however, both names are treated equally. Diemietrie 23:42, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I do not believe that anywhere' is unilingual Irish any more. Septentrionalis 00:37, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

As a political observer, I went to several municipal council meetings in five communes of this region (Saint-Josse, Schaerbeek, Ixelles, Saint-Gilles, Molenbeek), all the meetings are hold exclusively in French, only the very few Dutch-speaking councillors speak Dutch, and even some of them speak French during the official meetings. Last December I heard again at the council meeting in Schaerbeek alderman Luc Denys (Groen!) and even councillor Johan Demol (Vlaams Belang) who were respectively answering and asking questions in French, though both are elected as members of Flemish parties. --Pylambert 12:48, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I can imagine that in a city with a French majority and in a country where French was during a long time the leading language, it's not evident that you can always make yourself heard in Dutch. I think the lack of knowledge of Dutch amongst a lot of French-speaking people may play an important role here. But that does not alter the fact that Brussels is officially bilingual and both languages are treated equally there, according to the constitution. In the Brussels regional government, there has to be an equal number of French and Dutch ministers. No Brussels government can be formed and no law concerning the use of languages, the rights of the linguistic communities etc. can be passed in the Brussels Parliament without the support of a majority of the Dutch-speaking (or French-speaking) MPs. Both linguistic communities have their own community centers, schools, libraries, sport clubs, youth and elderly homes, theatres, museums, etc. All road and street signs are bilingual, even the names of metro stations and bus stops are bilingual. So I don't think there can be any doubt about the fact that Dutch and French are equal languages in Brussels. Diemietrie 18:38, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

French and Dutch are only officially, artificially and theoretically equal in Brussels, and even migrants who previously lived in Flanders or the Netherlands feel they can't go on living in Brussels without learning French because it is the most common language, not only of the "French majority" but also between a Turk and a Moroccan, a Swede and an Italian. There is a strong minority of people who speak languages other than French and Dutch at home but use (basic or not) French outside. And there are all the time Flemish complaints because they face people who can't understand Dutch in shops or even administrations. --Pylambert 19:13, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I just looked through the contributions of Diemietrie and it appears this discussion is totally useless for him because he has already changed the titles of all the Brussels-related articles! This contributor seems obsessed by the subject and his contributions on wikipedia consist exclusively with changing French names to Dutch names. I suggest the intervention of an administrator to settle this. --Pylambert 19:26, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Don't lie. I never changed French names to Dutch ones. I've only started to move the titles from the French to the bilingual names for three communes (after my suggestion to do so in this Talk section), but then I realised that it was impossible for the other communes, so I asked at 'Requested moves' the move of these 9 communes above. Neither moving a page nor asking for it is illegal, I suppose. So please stay to the facts and the discussion instead of telling lies in a attempt to discredit your opponent. Diemietrie 23:03, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Not moved. (Although I'm personally in favour.) —Nightstallion (?) 08:22, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I've created recently an article about Arts-Loi/Kunst-Wet metro station and I moved Het Rad to La Roue/Het Rad but now I remember it was not good to have a slash in the article names. What should we do in this case? It doesn't make sense to have those article names translated in English as it is never used this way... Julien Tuerlinckx 22:36, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree, I definitely wouldn't translate into English.

In my experience, English-speaking people in Brussels almost always call it Arts-Loi. For that reason I would have the article at Arts-Loi metro station and redirects to it from both Kunst-Wet metro station and Arts-Loi/Kunst-Wet metro station. (By the way, thanks for adding that article, there's some interesting historical details there!)

I'm not sure whether one name is in most common usage for La Roue/Het Rad, so I can't really comment on that one. --David Edgar 14:09, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you when you say that English-speaking people in Brussels often call it Arts-Loi, but the problem is that this is not a valid argument to me as anyone can say that in its experience, those people call it Kunst-Wet and we would not be able to check this. Besides, I think that English people call it this way because the name is more often used in French (more French speaking people in Brussels, thus when one is asking his way in English, the answer will generally be with the French name of the station) and also because English-speaking people have good notions of French while they generally know nothing about the Dutch language (so for example when they see "Arts-Loi/Kunst-Wet" they understand its about art and for some about law, but they just never heard of what "kunst" or "wet" is); but this argument is also hard to support. Furthermore, it is no more valid with names like "Maelbeek/Maalbeek" as the pronounciation is the same and who knows which one is in French except Belgian people?

So actually I didn't even find a consensus with myself, and I think it is an important topic in wikipedia as many articles have the same problem (or will have:)), and many votes have been proceeded with always the same decision: to have the french name only, and i understand this hurts the moderate flemish people. Finally I'll make a proposition even if I'm not sure this is the best solution: let's have the french name only as it is now with the municipalities, but as soon as the entity related in the article (metro station, municipality, place, etc.) is officially bilingual, we should have a sentence right after the title (beginning with :'') that would say something like: this article is about a bilingual entity which name in Dutch is ... and in French...

What do people think about this? Julien Tuerlinckx 16:30, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

As far as the Brussels Metro stations issue is concerned, I would argue that the only correct approach is to give both names, for the simple reason that on the ground, these stations are invariably physically referred to by both names: All signs on station platforms and at station entrances are in both languages. All maps show station names in both languages. Destination signs on trains are in both languages or, if space does not permit, alternate between French and Dutch. Public address systems announce station names in both languages. This is an issue that many people in Brussels feel very strongly about (see Crainhem/Kraainem metro station for a real-life example where the initially monolingual name of a station was made bilingual after public protest) and the only way to ensure NPOV is to respect the real-world policy preferred by the actual inhabitants of Brussels. It may be helpful to consider that in quite a number of instances, potentially translatable station names are not in fact translated, because the same form of the name is used locally by both French and Dutch speakers. It would be quite absurd, for example, to refer to Vandervelde as Deschamps, Beaulieu as Mooieplek, Pannenhuis as Maison aux Tuiles, or, for that matter, Maalbeek/Maelbeek as Maalbeek/Ruisseau Meunière because nobody in real life ever uses these translations. Therefore, when they are translated, there is clearly a reason for it, and this should be respected. Nor is following official policy particularly burdensome. The argument that article names using the bilingual convention would be clunky and hard to find, requiring redirect pages for both languages, strikes me as a complete straw man, because whichever single language is chosen as standard, good practice would still require redirects for the other language. If redirects are inevitable anyway, we might as well follow the official, bilingual, and eminently neutral policy. It's not as if redirect pages are hard to create, and it would only have to be done once. Incidentally, this argument could also be applied to the larger issue of "Ixelles - Elsene" versus "Ixelles" alone or "Elsene" alone: Good practice would require three pages, two of which redirect to the third, so the most logical and neutral solution would be to have the main page under the bilingual name. Finally, if there are technical concerns about the use of slashes in article names, these could be easily remedied by using another separator, such as replacing "Sainte Catherine/Sint Katelijne" with "Sainte Catherine — Sint Katelijne" Vremya 22:48, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Vremya. I can add to this that the French name is often just the old Dutch orthography: Schaerbeek, Haeren, Laeken, Watermael in municipality names; Heysel, Crainhem, Osseghem, Veeweyde, Maelbeek, Stockel in station names. Francophones insist on using them only to underline the differences between French and (the present) Dutch (orthography). For example, Kraainem is a Flemish municipality with language facilities for French-speaking people, but the "French" name Crainhem is not official, while in other municipalities with language facilities both French and Dutch names are used if available. So, when in 1962/1963 the language border in Belgium was fixed and language facilities were set up, one considered no French name for Kraainem available. Only later Francophones began using Crainhem, the old Dutch orthography used in French for many names within the Brussels-Capital Region as well, as the French name.

I still argue to use the bilingual names for articles if there is no English name, as is done for South Tyrol. I see the supporters and offenders are now equal (including my opinion), so I hope that one more supporter will be sufficient to do so. ;-) Diemietrie 10:12, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

It sounds reasonable enough to me, but I'm one of V's personal friends, so if I throw in my support, won't people accuse me of being a "meat puppet"? Nude Amazon 02:51, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I usually try to avoid jumping back into a debate after having made my own position clear, but I feel I must break that rule here in response to Rory096's strongly worded opposition in the voting section. With all due respect to Rory, I find it deeply disturbing that his comments seem to demonstrate a profound inability (note that I am strenuously assuming good faith by not calling it a refusal) to understand the issue at hand. Among other things, the policy page Rory uses to support his position states that "In the absence of a common English name, the current local name of the city should be used." The whole point of this debate has been that the locations in question do not have a single "current local name"; they have two, one French and one Dutch. Which is why I and others have been advocating following local usage (surely a more honest interpretation of the spirit of the "current local name" guideline than insisting on a misleading and inadequate letter-of-the-law reading) in using bilingual names, which after all are the current local names. In fact, properly understood, the position that Rory096 and other opponents of the proposal seem to be advocating is not to use the "current local name" but an arbitrarily selected part of the current local name based on an arbitrary language preference that is not reflected in local usage. Vremya 09:48, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

With regards to Rory96's oppose, both these names are the local names, neither of them is the English one, could you try to reexplain your reasons? Henna 19:16, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

In South-Wales, one may more often hear native speakers of English than of its original language; in Mid- and North-Wales, Welsh is still very much alive. I do not think that any kind of names in the south should be handled differently from names in the north. If on such basis a spelling and/or pronounciation variant would happen to be used in English language texts, both should be mentioned with equal respect, in titles as well as in the content of articles. Being a foreigner, I never heard typical Welsh expressions in any subregion because people simply knew I wouldn't understand it and might not even be able to pronounce it. In case I would write an article on a Welsh subject in the Dutch Wikipedia though, I would definitely show respect for the original and for the currently most heard words. Thus I ask such from an English Wikipedia for English, French and Dutch names of subjects for as long as one must recognize the fully bilingual official status of the municipalities of the Brussels-Capital region, or the presence of an original minority: the Brussels dialect is still being spoken, that is a typical Flemish Dutch with (only slightly more than in Dutch or in English) a number of French influences. The officially upheld bilinguality is rather sneekily breached on the official website of the Brussels-Capital region by mentioning solely French names of its municipalities, not only in the English and Spanish versions but even in German, a language similar to Dutch. Such behaviour may explain why few Flemish people might be inclined to even consider Wikipedia to be neutral, if choosing for a single French language preference whenever the opportunity occurs. -- 213.224.87.185 2006-06-02 20:43 (UTC)

French-speakers vs. flemings in Brussels

Take a photo of every single building of every street in Brussels. Add up all the Dutch words and all the French words used. Compare totals. You will then see how Vlaams Brussels really is. Brussels is a de facto French-speaking city, where a de jure bilingual French/Dutch regime is imposed as a halfway house between the current largely French-speaking reality and the Flemings' desired Dutch monolingualism.

My personal experience (based on hunderds of discussions with EU-nationals from many countries, and with often booth Flemings and Belgian French-speakers included) is that most Flemings here in Brussels are nicely monolingual, and thus give the superficial observer an overly pessimistic view of the number of Flemings around. However, once you start getting to know those folks a bit better, you start finding out there are much more Flemings living in brussels then what you 'hear' at first.

This confusing impressions of superficial observers correspond with the statements of a few Flemings that were very sharp. They pointed out that even on the Flemish national holiday (somewhere in June), many Flemings institutions and especially cultural centres and individuals prefer not to show their flags, some out of fear for violent reactions from French-speaking radicals, some because they don't want to "provoke" the French-speakers, some for a combination of these and other reasons. Once, I even heard a priest sitting in the council of a local centre state this. No wonder, with such a cowardly attitude that all those christian churches are losing appeal and followers (sorry for the stingy remark, could not help). --Lucas Richards 22:44, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

"My personal experience (based on hunderds of discussions with EU-nationals from many countries, and with often booth Flemings and Belgian French-speakers included) is that most Flemings here in Brussels are nicely monolingual." I'm sorry, are you saying that most Flemings in Brussels are monolingual= only speak Dutch? You were talking about impressions and wrong impressions, before we argue I wanna find out whether or not we really disagree :)Evilbu 20:36, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Official manifestations of Flemishness are not done in a spirit of "this is also our city" but rather in a spirit of "this is our city alone" (cf. Flanders unilateral decision to appoint Brussels its capital

Knowing several French-speaking as well as Flkemish politicians from Brussels, I have heard this claim also. However, when I attend those manifestations, and when I see the policy of the respective cultural authporities (COCOF for the French-speakers and VGC for the Flemings), it appears just the other way round! Nearly all Flemisgh manifestations underline the multi-ethnic status of Brussels, with both French-speakers and Flemings as the two 'native' communities, and lots of other migrant minorities, whereas such an openess is clearly not the stadard for manifestations organised by the COCOF. This statement therefore appears to me a very partisan point oif view. No wonder it is an anonymous one. --Lucas Richards 13:41, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Hold on. Multiculturalness is something else. Flanders uses "multiculturalism" to dilute French in Brussels. "French is spoken, yes but so is Arabic etc." I don't advocate the use of French over Flemish in a Belgian context. I think we just need to be honest that Brussels is the capital of Belgium in a legal and real sense - and to assert anything else risks disenfranchising some of its inhabitants.

even though the city/region is also the political and cultural centre of gravity for French speakers in Belgium - and is legally no more Flemish than French-speaking according to the Beglian constitution).

As several other contributors to the French and English languages pages on this and related topics already pointed out:

* According to the Belgian constitution, all regional and community authorities have a very large autonomy. As part of that, they all enjoy the full right to chose their capitals theirselves. ALL of them did this, and none consulted with the other one. So, the fact that you blame Flanders, for something that ALL French-speaking federal governements did to, appears wholly partisan, and not objective as required by Wikipedia.

* There is only one known case where an institution from one of the regional/community governements did not respect the territorial limits established in the Belgian constitution, being when the Walloon export agency located it's office outside Wallonia, in Brussels. That choice is quite understandable of course. --Lucas Richards 13:41, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

You're missing the point. You actually agree with me. I mean that Brussels as Flemish capital is only meaningful as far as Flanders chose it to be so (yes, like the French community, although the French-speakers refer to it as the Belgian capital first and foremost). However, other capital status' which Brussels has are more meaningful outside of a strictly legal sense: - Belgian capital: The two main communities are present there. All people in Brussels who are not nationals of other countries are nationals of Belgium. Road names are in the 2 main languages etc. - EU capital: All Europeans have a right to live and work there and all the officially registered local "nationals" are Europeans. A majority of the people in Brusses are EU and a majority of the people living in Brussels would agree that Brussels is European and in Europe. BUT - Flemish capital: Brussels only houses the Flemish institutions - and has a historical reality as part of a Dutch/Low German/Germanic-speaking region. A majority of the people in Brussels are not Flemish and a majority of the people living in Brussels would deny that Brussels is Flemish or in Flanders.

Dear why insist on a non-issue? You suggest that 'most' Flemings and/or official Flemish institutions would have an 'exclusive' claim on Brussels. However, this is a groos lie! Flemings just want to enjoy their rights in Brussels as legally recognised inhabitants and as the original population of this city! So the fact that other capital functions have a wider geographical scope appears irrelevant to me. In a democracy, even minorities have guaranteed rights. And those Flemings don't deny they're a minority. --Lucas Richards 11:38, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

It is this attitude I believe that leads to a defensive reaction on the part of French-speakers, when they not the Flemish are the de facto majority.

What do you mean exactly? Maybe some words got lost in this sentence? --Lucas Richards 13:41, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I mean that the Flemish are an actual - if not legal - minority in Brussels. As a result, when they assert that Brussels is their capital it is offensive to French-speakers because what then is the capital of the French-speaking majority that inhabits the city?

Wouw, do you realise the implication of what you said here? This means that ALL minority groups (as the protestants and muslims in belgium, as the Greens, ...) should keep a low profile in order not to provoke the overly sensible majority-members. I really don't see why it would be offsenive when Flemings want to be part of Brussels. After all, this city is French-majority only since less then one century?. The first 3/4 of its history, it was a flemish-only city, and it was Frenchified by brute discrimination as from the french period only! --Lucas Richards 11:38, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

If Flemish people asserted the unity of Belgium and Brussels as a jointly Flemish-French city at the heart of it - and (important) that they saw the French-language culture that is present in Brussels is a positive thing that should continue to exist and which also has historical legitimacy, they would see a much more positive reaction. I am English speaking by the way.

On what basis do you think that this is the Flemish point of view? It looks to me that you are quite ignorant about this! your description is more or less that what the french-speaking press and politicians pretend it is. However, that is a groos distortion from reality. having several Flemish AND French-speaking friends, this massive gap in perception has become clear to me.

More precisely: If Flemings spoke in line with the correct Belgian legal reality i.e. that Brussels is a bilingual city at the heart of Belgium officially equally Flemish and French-speaking, they would find less hostility to manifestations of Flemishness among French-speakers. But as it is, these manifestations in their current form are correctly perceived as agressive.

See my earlier remark: looks like you only know how the French describe the Flemings, but not at all the actual political programmes and actions of flkemish institutions, politicians, ... --Lucas Richards 11:38, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

This is plain silly: what irritates the extrfemists among the French-speakers is just ANY expression of Flemish identity and belonging to Brussels! --Lucas Richards 13:41, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Does Brussels need a Flemish identity? Is it not enough that the Dutch language is co-official. Saying it is Flemish rather than Dutch speaking, what does that mean? Do Brussels people behave in a Flemish way. Flemish people drink beer and like tennis and football, like French speakers. What is "Flemish" about Brussels? The architecture of the main square? Do buildings have nationality or language? Brussels has its own identity.

Flanders consistently speaks in a way that denies the legitimacy of a French-speaking population in Brussels. I visited Ghent on the Flemish national day a couple of years ago - not a Vlaamse Leeuw in sight... so why is it used in Brussels?

Hi there, just wanted to add my 2 cents:

• 1st cent: are there any extremists among the French-speakers (I mean extremist towards Flemish people)? Could someone explain this to me?
• 2nd cent: i fail to see how flemish people were "original population of this city". Wasn't brusseleer that used to be spoken in Brussels? To my knowledge there was no (stupid) fight between flemish and walloons in brussels before the second world war, thus no criterion to name people "flemish" or "walloons" except the language. Then is brusseleer a variation of dutch or french? To me: neither of them...

I hope those comments will not make our friend Lucas angry, I just ask questions to help the discussion to be a little more precise for people not familiar with the topic. Julien Tuerlinckx 17:51, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

1st question :

Democratic Front of Francophones ! This party is a Frenchspeaking party in Flanders. They embody the concept of French imperialism.

I'll leave the second question to someone else, but I don't think you can call this fight stupid. Easy for you to say when your language (I checked your Babel Box)is the strongest one...Evilbu 19:38, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

"Nen Brusseleer" is a male and "een Brusseles" a female inhabitant of Brussels (ethymological name Broekzele, clearly Dutch language) and they spoke "Brussels", the Dutch-language dialect of Brussels that belongs to the Brabantian (also named Brabantic) dialect group of the Duchy of Brabant. The term 'Flemish' used to be limited to the neighbouring Countship of Flanders but in relatively more recent times came to be used for all related dialects, including the Brussels dialect (as the term 'Flamand' that by the French speaking south had possibly been generalized even earlier because to them it all sounded the same); by the time Belgium became regionalized, 'Flemish' had become quite common for al Dutch dialects spoken in Belgium, and 'Flanders' encompassed the whole area, including Brussels as far as the native language still went. By the regionalization, 'Flanders' as far as it is used for a synonym of the 'Flemish Region', lost Brussels but there are still native speakers of the Dutch language dialect - this explains partially why the region chose its capital there, stating they won't abandon them. This is also institutionally correct as the powers of the Flemish Community do extend to the Brussels-Capital Region. There is still no French-language dialect of Brussels, one hears standard French [in the Belgian style, e.g. 70='septante' 90='nonante', not 'soixante-dix' and 'quatre-vingt-dix'] or such with varying influences by several Walloon dialects. French influence in Brussels started by the French nation state occupying the country, followed by a short episode under Dutch control (United Netherlands), separation from which was most unanymously supported by speakers of French, though also speakers of Dutch (Catholic) had problems with the Dutch king. Early independent Belgium was strictly French-speaking for all official matters. Army officers had to be (natively) French-speaking; the death of many Flemish soldiers in World War I could have been avoided if some officers would have understood Dutch/Flemish or could have given understandable commands. That was one of the more prominent causes that started an 'emancipation' of Flanders on a wider scale. But by then the capital that housed so many official institutions had become completely dominated by speakers of French, including many of native Dutch-speaking origin who had to send their children to French-speaking schools so as to offer them a future, which explains why lots of French-speakers in the Brussels area, have a typically Flemish family name. — SomeHuman 19 Dec2006 03:57-04:19 (UTC)

Names of the 19 communities (again)

How is it possible that Bozen-Bolzano has a double name but the communities in Brussels don't? The dutch name should be also mentioned.--81.240.86.154 19:33, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Quite simple actually :

1. Brussels is not in South Tyrol
2. Berchem-Sainte-Agathe-Sint-Agatha-Berchem just doesn't work
3. having the title in one language and then both language on the initial line suffices, people are smart.
4. redirects work.

Maybe we should just have plain English translations. Oooh, bigger question mark indeed. --moyogo 20:48, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Currently:

• Anderlecht: nl* + fr
• Auderghem: fr (old nl spelling) vs. Oudergem nl
• Sint-Agatha-Berchem: nl vs. Berchem-Sainte-Agathe fr
• City of Brussels: en*
• Ixelles-Elsene: nl-fr ??? inconsistent with others but follows Bozen-Bolzano
• Etterbeek: nl* + fr
• Evere: nl* + fr
• Forest: fr vs. Vorst nl
• Ganshoren: nl* + fr
• Jette: nl + fr*
• Koekelberg: nl* + fr
• Molenbeek-Saint-Jean: fr vs. Sint-Jans-Molenbeek
• Saint-Gilles: fr vs. Sint-Gillis nl
• Saint-Josse-ten-Noode: fr vs. Sint-Joost-ten-Node nl
• Schaarbeek: nl vs. Schaerbeek fr (old nl spelling)
• Woluwe-Saint-Lambert: fr vs. Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe nl
• Woluwe-Saint-Pierre - Sint-Pieters-Woluwe: nl - fr ??? inconsistent with Ixelles-Elsene, space around hyphen
• Uccle: fr vs. Ukkel nl
• Watermael-Boitsfort: fr vs. Watermaal-Bosvoord nl (absent! from the article)

That gives us 1 name in plain English, 6 naturally bilingual names (5 from Dutch, 1 probably from French), 8 exclusive French names, 2 exclusive Dutch names. The question is what should be done with the 10 exclusive monolingual article titles? Many things could be done :

1. use both languages for the article title
   • with a slash to separate them, as Crainhem/Kraainem metro station - even if / has a special meaning
   • with " - " as in Woluwe-Saint-Pierre - Sint-Pieters-Woluwe - inconsistant with Bozen-Bolzano
   • with "-" as in Ixelles-Elsene, and Bozen-Bolzano - problematic with already hyphenated names
2. use a plain English translation, like City of Brussels. - very weird and unusual for most names, and still subject to argument
   • use the reformed Dutch spelling when the name is from Dutch origins
3. use what seems to be mostly used - hard to define or find, some people might be infuriated by this however.

--moyogo 21:25, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the Bozen-Bolzano solution is something to be happy about, see the discussion there Talk:Bozen-Bolzano. I'd prefer the name in the language of the majority of the population, but I don't know the numbers for the municipalities, and couldn't find it on the Belgian statistics website. Markussep 13:33, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Is the prescribed approach on English Wikipedia to use names commonly used by English speakers to refer to places, and then resort to local names (and the associated interlingual squabbles) only if no term is clearly preferred by English speakers? If so, as someone who lived in Brussels, and went to an English-language school in Boitsfort, I can give you the following set of data points: In English none of us referred to Bosvoorde, Sint Pieters Woluwe, Elsene, Vorst, or Sint Genesius-Rode. I don't know if you can base a generalization on that, that all the Brussels communes are known to English speakers by their French names. I admit that while I pronounced Auderghem as in French, others pronounced it as in Dutch, except with a hard English/French /g/, so I can't make a clear case that my schoolmates were saying "Auderghem" instead of "Oudergem". On the other hand, in English writing (as in the Brussels Bulletin), I don't recall the Dutch names being used (even for Rhode-Saint Genèse, outside of the agglomeration is at is). And it wouldn't be possible to say whether my colleagues were saying Uccle or Ukkel, Schaarbeek or Schaerbeek, or (outside of Brussels) Tervuren or Tervueren. Food for thought. --Largo Plazo 23:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Almost a year passed since my request to change the article names to bilingual ones and still nothing happened, as is made clear bij Moyogo. Indeed, apart from Brussels City, only 12 out of 18 municipalities in the Brussels Region have different names in Dutch and French. The other 6 have a universal name, as their names are not translated into French. I must correct Moyogo here: none of the names in the Brussels Region are originally French, for the simple reason that the city of Brussels was - and the surrounding municipalities (villages in those days) were even more - unilingual Dutch untill the end of the 18th century. That's why most of the French-speaking people in Brussels have a Dutch surname (there are also descendants of 'migrants' from Wallonia, who as a result have a French surname). Nevertheless, while Brussels being officially bilingual, French is nowadays the majority language in Brussels city and all 18 municipalities. On the other hand, in Belgium as a whole, the majority of the people is Dutch-speaking and many of them work in Brussels. That makes the choice for either the Dutch or the French names very difficult. Therefore I still think that bilingual article names are the only logical solution for the discussion. Diemietrie 18:36, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

There was a survey about the names for places in South Tyrol some months ago, and as a result of that single names were chosen. For most places that was the name in the language of the local majority (German for most places, some Italian (a.o. Bolzano), some Ladin), for some there was common usage in English. See Talk:Communes of South Tyrol for details. If the same rationale were to be followed here, I guess most of the disputed municipalities would get the French name for article title. Which I think is fine, as long as there are redirects from the Dutch names, and the Dutch names are mentioned in the text (first line). Markussep 20:22, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

The difference between South Tyrol and Brussels is, I think, that in South Tyrol German is also the original language. Place names are originally German and most of them were only in 1916 translated into Italian by Ettore Tolomei. In Brussels, the Dutch names are the original ones. Some of them are translated into French during the centuries (Bruxelles, Ixelles, Forest, Boitsfort, Uccle (from old Dutch spelling Uccel)), some of them use in 'French' just the old Dutch spelling of before 1948 (Auderghem, Schaerbeek, Watermael, -Noode and the former villages Laeken and Haeren within Brussels city - in the Netherlands some of these old spellings are still used!), the rest have only the names of saints translated into French and 6 municipalities along with the former village of Neder-Over-Heembeek within Brussels city have only a Dutch name.

Using the name of the majority language is one solution, using the original language is another. For example, following a survey, Wikipedia NL has chosen the latter for South Tyrol, resulting in German article names for all places except for the Ladin municipalities and villages. A third option is a mixed solution, using French article names for the real French translations (Ixelles, Forest, Boitsfort, Uccle) and Dutch for the rest. A fourth option, eventually combined with the third, is to skip or short the names of saints from the article names, resulting in just "Molenbeek", "Berchem (Brussels)", "S-J-ten-Node", "Woluwe (S-L)" and "Woluwe (S-P)". In accordance with the latter two, the Flemish neighbour village of Sint-Stevens-Woluwe can be shortened as "Woluwe (S-S)".

However, because of the exceptional case of Brussels as a region with a French-speaking majority (that is: compared to Dutch. Taking into account the languages of ethnic minorities and 'European Brusselers' (workers of EU and NATO institutions), French is not a majority language anymore. A survey of the Free University of Brussels some years ago resulted in French being the main language of only 40% of the population, Dutch 10%, with 10% being bilingual Dutch-French, 10% bilingual French-other or Dutch-other language and as many as 30% speaking neither French nor Dutch!), but historically and surrounded by Dutch-speaking territory, with only half of the place names translated, I still advocate to use bilingual article names. Diemietrie 13:22, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Also because the names in both languages are officially equivalent. I suggest using e.g. "Woluwe-Saint-Pierre - Sint-Pieters-Woluwe" (with blancs around the language-separating dash), for all Brussels' municipalities first in French and second in Dutch (of course redirects exist in reverse order, as well as for each separate language). I suggest the same order for content of the articles, e.g. "Rouge-Cloître - Rood Klooster (Red Cloister)" though giving some slack for e.g. "the Abbey of Rouge-Cloître or Rood Klooster (Red Cloister)": Though some sites can be translated into English, and this may have been done in brochures or on web sites for tourists, such names would often not be recognized by locals or found on maps.

Though there can easily be 5 times as many French-speaking than Dutch-speaking inhabitants, the city does get a very sizeable number of commuters of which at least half are Dutch-speaking; with the origin being Dutch and the capital region being surrounded by a mainly Dutch-speaking region; Brussels being the Flemish capital [which I have to regret for it used to be my city Mechelen before], as well as the one of Belgium with 60% of Dutch-speakers; while there simply are no English names and speakers of English may refer to the municipalities by the name they first hear it, which can be in either language; it then seems the only fair and practical solution. Even if it were possible, it is not quite serious to try and find out which percentages of languages are spoken in each municipality: Brussels is as much the capital of speakers of Dutch and the municipalities of the capital region rely on them, not as much for choosing a mayor, but for economical prosperity. The English Wikipedia does not suddenly change the language of a streetname if its latest instream of inhabitants prove to be speaking Berber or Turkish - in fact such may very well be the majority's native language for a few of the municipalities at hand: we keep the official name; in the 19 Brussels' municipalities, that is bilingual. Phantasy shortnames like "Woluwe (S-P)" are out of the question because it would give no indication whatsoever as how to pronounce it and one would better not ask the way as such or try to find it on a map. The doubled long names may seem peculiar, but it is typical for the area and draws the unaware's attention to this otherwise lightly forgotten but important characteristic; it saves us from giving a more lengthy explication of the bilingual nature in the lead of each article, as it will be obvious. — SomeHuman 18 Dec2006 18:39 (UTC)

I think we should name the articles in a way the average English speaker would most easily recognize, that is the least confusing way. IMO showing both the French and the Dutch name in the title is confusing. Quoting myself from Talk:Communes of South Tyrol: "it suggests (especially when the names are quite different like Olang-Valdaora) that they are two different places combined, rather than one place (like Castrop-Rauxel or Minneapolis-St. Paul)". For "Olang-Valdoara" you can read "Elsene-Ixelles", I think few people who are not familiar with this town would guess that it's the same place in two languages. Remember that nobody calls it "Elsene-Ixelles" (or vice versa) in normal conversation.

In response to some of the proposals and statements of Diemietrie and SomeHuman:

• IMO, it's not really important what was the original language. Istanbul was Greek some time ago. I know the situation is different here, but French was already being spoken in the Brussels region several centuries ago.
• Let's not skip parts of names, that's even more confusing.
• I hope "Rouge-Cloître - Rood Klooster (Red Cloister)" is not a serious suggestion, that's about as horrible as Sëlva-Wolkenstein in Gröden-Selva di Val Gardena.
• I sincerely doubt there are Berber, Arab, Turkish or Lingala names for any of the Brussels municipalities (except of course Brussels itself: tr:Brüksel).
• I don't think "Elsene-Ixelles" as a title makes it obvious that those are names in two different languages. We have to give both names and an explanation in the articles.

Maybe we should start a proper survey about this. Markussep 21:12, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Several centuries ago, Brussels was by far and large Dutch speaking, e.g. in the 1790s someone wrote a letter complaining that nearly 10 (ten) percent of the people in Brussels spoke French. And the municipalities never lost their Dutch names but only got a French alternative added. Of 19 municipalities, only for "Ixelles - Elsene" the names are not obviously related and thus only in that article, it would be wise to explictly state such. For all others, there can be no confusion. I will not continue to allow francophone bias presenting the French names of these municipalities as if these should be English. The argument that the native speech of the majority of the inhabitants should be the guideline, would indeed need ascertaining how some of the municipalities are pronounced by their possibly Berber majority; which would be ridiculous. Therefore and for the sake of NPOV, each of the officially bilingual municipalities of which the names in Dutch are used by 60% of the country's population, need to have both names in the title. 'Rouge-Cloître' is merely a French translation of the old abbey's name 'Rood Klooster', but is now too often used for it not to be mentioned as well; the part of the sentence 'Abbey of...' in my former comment, is a quote from an article wich actually is quite readable. — SomeHuman 18 Dec2006 22:47 (UTC)

I didn't claim that several centuries ago French was the majority language in/around Brussels, that's probably a development of the 19th century, or middle 20th century as the Dutch wikipedia article states. As you wrote yourself, French was spoken by a significant minority in 1790 already, and probably also long before that (nobility/elite?). Note that I never said that the Dutch names should not be used at all, that would be ridiculous. You should also consider that to people who do not speak French and/or Dutch it's not obvious that Forest and Vorst are the same, or Bosvoorde and Boitsfort, or even Saint-Pierre and Sint-Pieter. And about that famous klooster, I'm OK with having three languages in the article itself, but not in the title! Markussep 18:40, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

In response to Markussep, I want to join SomeHuman saying that the bilingual names wouldn't be confusing except for Ixelles-Elsene. (There won't be any seperate articles about Bosvoorde or Saint Pierre). As most names have already one or more '-' in them, I suggest to leave space before and after the '-', resulting in "Ixelles - Elsene". In the first line of each article will be made clear that the first name is in French and the second in Dutch. But while both names are in the article name, one can clearly see that both names are equal and none of them is to be favoured in English.

I must correct you Markus, these bilingual names are indeed common in Brussels, just to avoid any linguistic problems. Forms like "Boulevard Anspachlaan" (Boulevard Anspach in French, Anspachlaan in Dutch), "Place De Brouckèreplein" (Place De Brouckère, De Brouckèreplein) or "16, Rue de la Loi - Wetstraat 16" are very often used. Place names are very often shortened, especially in spoken language and by migrants, as e.g. "Molenbeek" or "SJTN".

About the history of the region: French was not a popular language in Brussels untill the 19th century. Of course there was some elite which spoke French (5-10%), but that was the case in most cities of Europe in those days. Around 1800, French was much more important in cities like Berlin or Maastricht than in Brussels. But unlike the other cities, where the French-speaking elite gradually adapted the local language, French became the only official language in Brussels in 1830. This resulted in more and more people switching from their Dutch dialect to French. The turning point from a Dutch to a French majority must be somewhere between 1900 and 1940. But all this only concerns Brussels city. In the surrounding villages, the present municipalities of the Brussels region, developments began much later and went faster. Ganshoren, Evere and Sint-Agatha-Berchem were attached to the bilingual region of Brussels only in 1954, as the last language census of 1947 (which was heavily criticized because of fraud and anti-Flemish actions) resulted in a small French majority here. On nl:Talentelling you can see the results of the language census (talentelling in Dutch) for most of the other Brussels municipalities in 1866 and 1920. Categories are "Dutch only", "Dutch and French" (in a country where French is the only official or most important language, you can imagine that most of these people are of Dutch-speaking descent), "French only", "French and German", "German only", "German and Dutch", "Dutch, French and German". In 1866, only Elsene/Ixelles, Sint-Gillis/Saint-Gilles and Sint-Joost-ten-Node/Saint-Josse-ten-Noode had a French-speaking minority as large as or larger than Brussels itself. Especially in the table for the province of Brabant - that is: Brussels and surrounding regions - you can very well see the gradual 'frenchification' of the area.

Concluding, I think that a survey about the subject is a good idea. Diemietrie 20:01, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

The only point I wanted to make was that the use of French in Brussels didn't start yesterday. About street signs, addresses etc., I think those bilingual "solutions" like Boulevard Anspachlaan are merely meant to save space. I saw a nice example of that in Edingen: a sign to the park ("parc" in French, "park" in Dutch), like this:

PAR	C
	K

Obviously, Dutch and French wikipedia don't use double names. See for instance fr:Boulevard Anspach and nl:Elsene. But well, let's have that survey. Markussep 20:38, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

When I say bilingual names are common, I did mean they're used that way by private people, enterprises, public authorities, etc. You're right that these bilingual solutions are used on street signs. I think that many people copy that. Diemietrie 21:48, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

If you really think some Francophones have an agenda by using the French names for Brussels' municipalities, this question will go nowhere. I don't care if we decide to go with what 60 % of the Belgian population uses or what 80 % of Brussels population uses, but either none is POV or both are. --moyogo 02:02, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Either one is POV, both is neutral – and the only solution respecting the Constitution of Belgium. Obviously, the Dutch Wikipedia uses the Dutch names and the French Wikipedia uses the French names. English is neither and thus represents both equally. Pushing for "one language, that's easier" and then "French of course" is the francophile Belgicist POV and will not be tolerated, no matter what excuses you come up with. — SomeHuman 21 Dec2006 16:37 (UTC)

"will not be tolerated" by whom? We're giving information, not telling people what language to use. And I thought the South Tyrol discussions were difficult... Markussep 17:02, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

SomeHuman, sure. It has to be the francophile Belgicist POV. What else could it be? Let's go for the long redundant names, road sign style. It doesn't matter anyway, facts are facts, if those names don't have any official or clear usage in English let's go for the long bilingual forms. As long as things are clearly stated, i.e. which dash means what, etc. btw, which languages should come first in the bilingual form ? I'd hate to be the one saying any language should come first, I'd be *phile Belgicist POVing. --moyogo 17:32, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

A long time ago I had suggested French - Dutch in the title and Dutch - French on the intro line (which shows to the reader that the double language indication does not form a fixed name by itself). But within the articles, there will also be bilingual indications for sites not havig an established English name . It would be overzealously "objective" to continuously switch from 'French - Dutch' to 'Dutch - French' and back, which for speakers of English would be bewildering unless one would put "(Dutch)" and "(French)" with each site name. Simply putting these indicators on the also French - Dutch intro line suffices and allows systematically using that order in bilingual names of sites further on without again mentioning which is which language. That's what I suggested on this page earlier this week. In general, the Flemish are not offended by such logical avantage causing a mere stylistic prevalence, but take it badly when people are told what language to use as when their language systematically 'happens' to become omitted or only mentioned (as with only-French title and bilingual intro line) as an afterthought, suggesting to quicky forget the Dutch. — SomeHuman 21 Dec2006 23:42 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, this is more an issue of being politically correct, about not offending parties for using only the other party's forms of names, rather than NPOV. Dutch or French speakers should take no offence really, none is meant, this seems to me like it's a deeper issue than just names from one language being used in English. If bilingual article titles and explicit introductions make you happy, that's perfect. I don't think we should go as far as "fixing" every occurence of a name everytime as if it were an infraction ; what is used is used. --moyogo 00:51, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

One should fix this because it is very confusing if one municipality would have a French name only, another only a Dutch name, a third both names in Dutch - French and within the article the reverse, a fourth... I hope your suggestion not to fix is not inspired by the systematically unilingual French titles that exist now: these were fixed without consensus while many municipalities used to have bilingually named articles. These should be reinstated. Having some bilingual and some unilingual names would erroneously indicate that the unilingual ones have another status or even belong to a unilingual region. — SomeHuman 22 Dec2006 04:48 (UTC)

Note: What I have in mind, can be inspected in the article Auderghem (only the title should still be changed again to 'Auderghem - Oudergem'). Notice in the text that italics are used for French - Dutch names and the English translation follows in normal characters between (), but for an established English name, the English name in normal characters is followed with the corresponding (French - Dutch) names. I think the combination of constant order French - Dutch and always (except for bold names that correspond to the title) in italics, makes this quite readable while maintaining comprehensiveness. Notice that for the in English named Chapel of Saint Anne, there is no French or Dutch name given (as this could be too ostentative: [Chapelle] Saint-Anne - Sint-Anna[kapel]); also that the historical names (in former Dutch spelling which corresponds twice with present-day French and once with current Dutch) of three former villages are used in proper context; thus this will probably be the most complex of the 18 articles other than City of Brussels. — SomeHuman 22 Dec2006 05:52-06:06 (UTC)

Those changes have been waiting to be made for a while. It's time the people who think the current situation is wrong change it instead of blaming others for doing POV. --moyogo 08:19, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

SomeHuman and I obviously disagree on what's readable. I think it's OK to mention alternative names in the articles, also for places like Rood Klooster (BTW a better translation would be Red Monastery, "cloister" is used for "kloostergang"), but only once. Still I urge to make it clearer that it's not one name, but the same name in two languages. And I don't think both names belong in article titles. If it were up to me a line like "Auderghem - Oudergem is adjacent to the municipalities of Etterbeek, Ixelles - Elsene, Woluwe-Saint-Pierre - Sint-Pieters-Woluwe, and Watermael-Boitsfort - Watermaal-Bosvoorde.", as it's in the Auderghem article now, would change into "Auderghem is adjacent to the municipalities of Etterbeek, Ixelles (Elsene), Woluwe-Saint-Pierre (Sint-Pieters-Woluwe), and Watermael-Boitsfort (Watermaal-Bosvoorde)." For this exercise I assumed that the French name is the most used name, which may not be true for all of them. The name "Oudergem" would be obsolete in this line because it's already mentioned in the first line of this article. This is more or less how it's done in South Tyrol articles now. Markussep 10:25, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I propose the solution consequently chosen on the German Wikipedia, with both names mentioned in the title but divided by '/' rather than '-'. See e.g. de:Berchem-Sainte-Agathe/Sint-Agatha-Berchem. This clears every doubt about whether it is a municipality/object/street/etc. consisting of two parts (what you might think with a '-', although most names have similarities in French and Dutch) or a bilingual name. As for German, English has no 'own' translations for these municipalities/objects/streets/etc. and therefore a neutral solution should be found. In my opinion, the only neutral solution possible is to mention both names. To use only French or only Dutch would falsely suggest either of the names is preferred in English or has a higher status. As far as I know, a lot of foreigners already think Brussels is French-speaking with only some minority rights for the 'Flemish-speaking' (some even think this is the situation nationwide!), instead of a fully bilingual region with both language groups having equal rights. It would be wrong to contribute to this bias by joining those who - consciously or unconsciously - only use the French names. There are no insuperable objections against bilingual article titles, particularly not with the possibility to use '/' instead of '-', so I hope we can all agree on this. Diemietrie 11:10, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Support of Diemietry's suggestion to use "/" without blanks instead of " - "; further following my proposal as explained. — SomeHuman 23 Dec2006 00:59 (UTC)

'/' makes more sense than '-' as long as it doesn't end up making subarticles. Btw, the maps in the metro are either using French/Dutch, or alternating French/Dutch and Dutch/French. --moyogo 01:14, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

They're always alternating (if you can find all signs), but may I ask to apply "/" and further following my proposal as explained on 21 Dec2006 23:42 & 22 Dec2006 04:48, thus to avoid confusion without alternating the order. Note: "Ixelles / Elsene" exists as redirect page and I seemed to be able to create "Ixelles/Elsene" though I did not save it, thus it is not creating a subpage. — SomeHuman 23 Dec2006 01:24-01:28 (UTC)

I'm starting a survey, see below. Markussep 10:45, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

It's a bit late for that, Marcussep. The other contributors have been waiting long enough for restarting this lengthy discusion all over again; I modified the survey (which is not the purpose of the 'Requested moves' project page) into a proper "requested move" as all contributors, with possibly you excepted, to the discussion appear to have come to a workable final proposal, and your demand to leave the 'survey' abnormally long in the pipeline may seem to be an attempt to stall indefinetely.

I'm infuriated by this "survey modification" of yours! Where do you get the nerve to obstruct this survey, and inviting others than this very small group of editors to contribute to this apparently controversial issue? BTW, I'm not so sure moyogo is on your "side", as you claim. Obviously, I'm reverting your edits to WP:RM. Markussep 12:53, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Your invitation is long overdue and came only when your point of view was apparently not the final outcome of the discussion, as I am sure you had well understood from moyogo's last comment: "'/' makes more sense than '-' as long as it doesn't end up making subarticles." It was time for the proper proposal to move, not to start over the lengthy discussion by a survey that will not entice reading the arguments that have been discussed and is thus bound to come out at the "simple solution" without voters having become aware of all reasons for not oversimplifying. That is what I put on the 'Requested move' page while I let your 'survey' visible for everyone, in fact the strike-through gray put attention to it so that people would be aware of your survey as well as to the proper proposal for which that page is intended. What you did is unforgivable: you utterly destroyed my proper proposal so as to have people coming to your survey without having the least opportunity to be even aware of the proposal being another option; and you did so with the edit comment that you were reverting vandalism, which it was clearly not: such is a content dispute and cannot be considered WP:Vandalism, whereas incorrectly calling "vandalism" is a direct violation of WP:NPA. — SomeHuman 24 Dec2006 03:33 (UTC)

If there was a vote, my vote would go for the bilingual solution but also for an English monolingual solution, either way I don't car much anymore. The bilingual solution makes sense if we don't have a consensus on English names. --moyogo 13:40, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Requested moves for its municipalities

See above lengthy but necessary discussion;

• Support from 3 main contributors to discussion appears already to be found: Diemietrie, moyogo and SomeHuman.
• Oppose from 1 main contributor to discussion appears to be the preference of Markussep

Hey! It's not up to the four of us to decide this! What's wrong with inviting others to contribute to this discussion? Markussep 12:46, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

It is not up to you to obstruct proper Wikipedia procedure: discussion on talk page till a consensus appears, then proper proposal towards the majority's consensus. We do not decide, we propose. But you destroyed the valid proposal on the proper page in order to get the whole road cleared for your one-man survey show. — SomeHuman 24 Dec2006 03:40 (UTC)

You (plural) started a discussion involving the move of e.g. Schaarbeek on this talk page without making a note of it on the talk page of Schaarbeek. No wonder that there wasn't much input into the discussion. Starting a wider survey was the correct thing to do before deciding on such a clearly contentious and potentially inflammatory decision. Fram 13:07, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Definitely not at that moment and against consensus but for one person, thus the decision to launch a proper clear-cut proposal for a move would not have been contentious. If such would have resulted in a move, that could not be more inflammatory than earlier unilateral moves for some municipalities towards what exists now. This talk page is far more visible than those of the municipalities in this region and mentioning it for each of those might have caused scattered discussions even if a link would have been provided, e.g. by someone wanting to keep or change just one particular municipality's name. — SomeHuman 4 Jan2007 00:37 (UTC)

Population number

Hello,

not all questions need to be controversial :), I noticed that the Dutch [3]and French [4]articles give a different number for the population : 1,018,804. I calculated the sum of the number of inhabitants for all communities in the Region that were given on the Dutch Wikipedia, and found the exact same number. Note that those Dutch articles claim it's from a 01/01/2006 census. Unless we use a different definition of the region or its inhabitants, I think there is no reason to revert it? Evilbu 20:41, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Names survey

This is a survey for which names the articles for the municipalities in the region of Brussels should have. The region is officially bilingual, French-Dutch, and several of the municipalities have different names in French and Dutch. The articles in question are given below, with their present title.

• • Auderghem (French name, Dutch: Oudergem)
  • Forest, Belgium (French name, Dutch: Vorst)
  • Ixelles-Elsene (French-Dutch)
  • Molenbeek-Saint-Jean (French name, Dutch: Sint-Jans-Molenbeek)
  • Saint-Gilles, Belgium (French name, Dutch: Sint-Gillis)
  • Saint-Josse-ten-Noode (French name, Dutch: Sint-Joost-ten-Node)
  • Schaarbeek (Dutch name, French: Schaerbeek)
  • Sint-Agatha-Berchem (Dutch name, French: Berchem-Sainte-Agathe)
  • Uccle (French name, Dutch: Ukkel)
  • Watermael-Boitsfort (French name, Dutch: Watermaal-Bosvoorde)
  • Woluwe-Saint-Lambert (French name, Dutch: Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe)
  • Woluwe-Saint-Pierre - Sint-Pieters-Woluwe (French-Dutch)

This survey handles the issue whether both names should be in the article title, if so, how, and if not, which one. The first question is whether both names names should be in the title. The second question depends on the result of the first question: if the result is "one name", which one, and if it's "two names", which name comes first, and what separator ("-", " - ", "/", " / ", " or ", etc. etc.) is used. Because of the holidays I'd propose to let this survey run for a month, and use the first two weeks (until 6 January) for the first question. --Markussep 11:37, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

One name or two names in the title

Add  * '''One'''  or  * '''Two'''  on a new line followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~.

• One for clarity, see discussion below. Markussep 11:50, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
• One as Markussep said, choice should be for the single name most commonly used in english, redirect pages for alternative uses etc. Long names are at best confusing.--Caranorn 13:42, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
• One for several reasons: clarity (title and article), consistency with similar decisions elsewhere (South Tyrol, Finland…), and because two names don’t get rid of the problem (which one comes first?). LVan 14:56, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
• One per above.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 16:16, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
• One. Surely we do not have to repeat the whole South Tyrol discussion? -- Eugène van der Pijll 16:23, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
• Two. The region is equally bilingual, there are no English names, the Dutch names are the original ones, there are more French-speaking (45-50%) than Dutch-speaking (10-15%) people but many people speak neither French nor Dutch (30%) or speak both languages (10%), so for this exceptional case both names should be used. Diemietrie 17:23, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
• Two. As these municipalities all belong to the Brussels-Capital agglomeration, the mayors and council are elected by their own inhabitants but the municipalities are all well-known by nearly all Belgians of which 59% speak Dutch and only 40% speak French, and visited by so many them (e.g. getting a visum at an Embassy, to work in the IT offices, at NATO, to walk or drive in the touristy Sonian Forest which expands over several of the municipalities, etc). It is not acceptable for Wikipedia to upset the inhabitants of the officially bilingual municipalities or the citizens of their country, or to get envolved in the French/Dutch controversies that are very much alive and politically exploited by both language groups, by enforcing either one language upon speakers of English: none except for the City of Brussels (which keeps that name on Wikipedia) has a common or usual English name, thus any single language name as article title is bound to be a WP:POV. A single name does not add to 'clarity', especially as these municipalities are most often talked about with respect to their bilingual status, which is thus most notable, or for some municipalities with respect to their majorities of non-European origin. — SomeHuman 24 Dec2006 02:43 (UTC)
• One No more South Tyrols; here we cannot even fall back on the language of the country as some tried to do in the South Tyrol.. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:10, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
• One. Per Caranorn. Trying to appease only the natives is not consistent with most naming conventions nor NPOV and is extremely unwiely. Flemings aren't supposed to have an encyclopedic monopoly on how to write about all things Flemish. Same goes for their immediate neighbors. / Peter ^Isotalo 16:08, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
• Two, if there both official there must both mentioned.--Westermarck 00:44, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Two: cf. "I want to bring on the German solution: de:Saint-Gilles/Sint-Gillis.--81.241.217.246 01:02, 28 December 2006 (UTC)" (created as separate section and moved by Markussep to 'If two names, how', then obviously to be counted as a such vote and therefore mentioned here by Somehuman).

Comment: who is User:81.241.217.246? His/her only contribution to English wikipedia was this. Markussep 10:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

• One. Wikipedia is not an arm of the Belgian authorities and its not required to use the official formulation du jour. Two would be a total mess. —  AjaxSmack  06:09, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
• One, it's a lot easier that way. Fram 13:15, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

If one name, which one

• The original Dutch name, before it got poorly translated into French.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 16:20, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
• As I already said with my vote, preferably the one most commonly used in the English language. If no reputable sources can be found go with google hits instead. And I don't think we'd be offending anyone by opting for a single name as long as we include all the relevant variations in the article introduction.--Caranorn 16:02, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
• None. Even no article would be less inacceptable than either one language that inevitaby constitutes a violation of WP:NPOV, as there are arguments for Dutch names (history, capital of mainly Dutch-speaking country and of purely Dutch-speaking region and of community that have more Dutch-speaking inhabitants than the French-speaking counterparts, the French-speaking region not even having its capital here) as well as for French names (based on the specific choice of counting inscribed or electoral inhabitants while disregarding numerous other people daily present and of the much larger number of people that are represented by their own capital) and mainly arguments for bilingual names (both communities, inhabitants and workers of both languages, the only official status, the only solution that does not envolve making a political choice but respecting the local political solution and reality). An urge for "Simplicity" does not allow for letting go of the one and only prevailing Wikipedia rule of showing a Neutral Point of View. — SomeHuman 24 Dec2006 13:01 (UTC)
• English usage Since this is an English encyclopedia, I agree with User:Caranorn that the best guideline is to conform to the name that Anglophones would normally use to call these municipalities, even if it takes some work to find out what it is. Other criteria, such as the existence of an English translation, usage by non-Anglophones, and especially historical considerations, which are the basis of many of the arguments advanced to date, do not work as well. Consider for instance Beijing instead of Peking (English translation), Rome instead of Roma (local usage), and Tongeren instead of Atuatuca Tungrorum (historical name).
  The only method proposed in this discussion so far to gauge Anglophone usage is the one proposed by User:Markussep and User:Septentrionalis. Granted, this is an imprecise method, and we may find better alternatives later (asking a representative number of Anglophones, for instance…). Unless proven grossly biased, however, the ratio of 11:1 that was determined for Ixelles is decisive. For the statistically inclined, the p value of such a proportion is 0.000, which is decisive at a level higher than 99.9%. An alternative Google search method, proposed in Talk:Bruges#Bruges/ Brugge, yielded a proportion of 3.5:1 for Ixelles versus Elsene, which is just as decisive given the higher number of hits involved. This being said, I also agree that we should make sure that the bilingual character of Ixelles, the local usage of the two names, and historical considerations are all properly explained in the article introduction.
  Such decisions would need to be made individually for each one of the 12 municipalities that have different names in Dutch and French. In case of a tie, I would go for the Biel/Bienne solution. LVan 16:42, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Before applying statistical calculations, proper data are required: see for instance my table under '#Google tests by SomeHuman' and my comment on Markussep's figures under #Encyclopedias, Google Scholar and Google tests by Markussep. As you seem to be statistically inclined, look especially at my figures and footnotes for a suburb of the City of Brussels, Laeken/Laken. Although it is generally considered most notably because of the royal residence there, 96% of found pages with the French name on several internet domains relate to one and only one entirely different subject, and thus the language far more commonly used in diplomacy than Dutch by one organisation, brings the ratio at 19:1. — SomeHuman 27 Dec2006 04:02 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more that proper data are required and my statistical comments above were meant only for Ixelles. The data for that particular municipality are decisive, even considering the extremely restricted data set you propose under '#Google tests by SomeHuman' (23 to 5 still gives a p of 0.000). LVan 15:29, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I was as surprised as you will be, to find the Ixelles/Elsene ratio around 1.8:1 which is found to be the average for all municipalities, each now staying rather close to that mean ratio, for an identical search [though raw figures] on all domains except for .com (thus including the domains in my first table). See #Google tests by SomeHuman underneath yesterday's table. I had intended this search to deliver higher counts for the municipalities with so far too low figures for statistical analysis (elsewhere on this page, one already talks about the p-factor for Auderghem with 7 French hits versus a single Dutch hit and calls such 'decisive'), but contrarily to my expectations, in fact the municipalities that had seemed to have sufficient counts now show a ratio strongly deviating from yesterday's. It does show how careful we need to be as to gathering data by Google hits; many factors seem to be at work that would require nearly each page to be examined, which is impossible for significantly high numbers. I suspect a major influence of the .net domain (which is hardly more reliable than the .com for our purpose); unfortunately, to my knowledge, Google does not allow selecting/deselecting multiple domains. — SomeHuman 27 Dec2006 23:12-28 Dec2006 00:46-01:04 (UTC)

• Either one, I don't really care. However, I have seen proposed somewhere (but forgotten where) to implement it like it is now done at Schaarbeek: if you use the Dutch name for the title, give the French name first in the article (and vice versa), as an indication that we don't want to give preference to either one. And perhaps we can use "Molenbeek" instead of the longer French or Dutch name, since everyone seems to call it Molenbeek anyway (even the official site of the municipality is at [5], and the first text after the intropage says either "La vie à Molenbeek" or "Het leven in Molenbeek"). Fram 13:15, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

If it's going to be "one name", we have to decide somehow what name to take. I've seen one user in favour of only Dutch names (Stevenfruitsmaak), and two for common use in English (Caranorn, LVan), which is the naming convention. On Wikipedia:Naming conflict there are some guidelines to find the commonly used name, especially the sections Wikipedia:Naming conflict#Identification of common names using external references and Wikipedia:Naming conflict#Ambiguity persists look applicable to me. Given the (mostly not decisive) preference for French names in Google tests, and the majority (or plurality) of French speakers in the Brussels region, I lean towards picking the French names. But I would like to discuss with you all what criteria should be leading here. Markussep 20:58, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Fram, Encyclopaedic articles, when no English name is clearly established, should have as title the official name(s) of a municipality, not a colloquial one. I had thought about this too, but it would cause even more confusion because that colloquial style cannot be used for any of the other municipalities: Only Saint-Josse/Sint-Joost is quite common as well but still keeps a different version in each language. — SomeHuman 3 Jan2007 21:13 (UTC)

Markussep, the guidelines do suggest to be guided by local situations, rather than choosing for "simplicity". Wikipedia guidelines however, cannot foresee everything. The total of all these municipalities' population is only a fraction of the people envolved because of their function (e.g. employment at and visits to one of the public offices and numerous head-offices of international and national private businesses and organisations incl. the European Union, embassies, etc) inherent for the capital of the country wherein the language balance is 3:2 the other way around and obviously matters to 10 times more citizens than the whole region and nearly 17 times the total population of the municipalities having two names (as the City of Brussels has a clearly established English name and other municipalities have only one name). Would most of these municipalities have been notable for the English Wikipedia or even have been mentioned in English texts if it were not for their capital function? — SomeHuman 4 Jan2007 01:42 (UTC)

The Wikipedia criteria mentioned above are indeed clear, and in favour of English usage. The definition of “prevalent usage” can be made rigorous, as I have tried to explain elsewhere on this page (see #References, for instance). I therefore have to disagree with the assessments that English preference is “mostly not decisive” or that “no English name is clearly established.” If despite all this, however, “ambiguity still persists” (as it seems), a vote is the prescribed solution of last resort. So we are on the right track… LVan 02:24, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

If two names, how

• With a '/' between the French and the Dutch name. French comes first, as there are more French- than Dutch-speaking people. See e.g. Biel/Bienne (bilingual German-French city in Switzerland) or the solution for the Brussels region on the German Wikipedia (de:Sint-Agatha-Berchem/Berchem-Sainte-Agathe etc.). Diemietrie 17:23, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
• As Diemietrie suggests, always a fixed order which may well be French-name/Dutch-name. (I'm Dutch-speaking, the order is not nearly as important as omitting one in the titles: it is first the majority language of the present locals of most of these municipalities and then the majority language of the visiting or there working countrymen/women - or would many women be very upset by this last order.) Thus as I explained in the relevant discussion on 21 Dec2006 23:42, 22 Dec2006 04:48 and 23 Dec2006 00:59. — SomeHuman 24 Dec2006 03:13 (UTC)
• I want to bring on the German solution: de:Saint-Gilles/Sint-Gillis.--81.241.217.246 01:02, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Facts

• From WP:NC: "Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature."
• From WP:NC: "A redirect should be created for articles that may reasonably be found under two or more names (such as different spellings or former names)."
• All municipalities in question are officially bilingual: French and Dutch.
• There are no specific naming conventions for places in Belgium.
• There are no names commonly used in English that are different from the French or the Dutch name.
• The character "/" is not allowed in article titles, see WP:NC#Do not use an article name that suggests a hierarchy of articles. Correction by SomeHuman: perfectly allowed in titles when not suggesting an hierarchy, as is here OK, see the link. Next are not exceptions but just samples of proper usage.
• There are exceptions to this rule, for instance Aoraki/Mount Cook and Biel/Bienne.
• Both names are commonly (or both rarely) used in English.
• On average, there is a small (1.8 to 1 according to #Google tests by SomeHuman) preference for the French names in common English usage. Encyclopedia Britannica and Columbia use only French names in titles, Encarta uses Dutch (4#) or French (8#) names.
• The majority of the local population is French speaking. - a) natively; b) as second[ary] language before Dutch. According to Dutch wikipedia 70.6% of the regional population was French-speaking in 1947 (last official figure). A recent survey in 2001 conducted by the Free University of Brussels (VUB) shows 50% of the population has French as a mother tongue, 10% Dutch, 10% is bilingual Dutch-French, 10% bilingual with French and another language or Dutch and another language and 20% has neither French not Dutch but only one or more other languages as a mother tongue (source: Rudi Janssens (2002), Taalgebruik in Brussel. Taalverhoudingen, taalverschuivingen en taalidentiteit in een meertalige stad. Brussels: VUBPRESS).

Facts to be checked

• Many of these municipalities - other than the City of Brussels - have a considerable instream of day-long or week-long commuters from outside the capital region, at least 50% Dutch-speaking; and are wellknown and regularly visited for various reasons (request visa at one of the many embassies, sites and museum visits, walking or driving in the Sonian Forest, ...) by Belgian citizens in numbers representative for the respective major languages [known to be 59% Dutch-speaking and 40% French-speaking].
• This issue has not (yet) been covered by the Wikipedia:WikiProject Belgium.

English usage statistics

Google tests by SomeHuman

Brussels-Capital's municipalities having separate French and Dutch names, presented in the English language — Research and table by SomeHuman

Results per Google advanced search on December 26, 2006 set to show up to 50 pages in English language for domains .ac.uk, .ac.gov, .gov, .edu and .org (so as to avoid sources of uncertain reliability like blogs), in the text of the page with at least one of the words "municipality" or "municipalities" ("commune" not in this clause as it is also the French term; clause augments relevance by excluding e.g. the Dutch-speaking historic villages) and excluding the words "wiki" "wikimedia" "wikipedia" "wikimiki" "rue" "chaussée" "chaussee" "avenue" "av" "boulevard" "bd" "steenweg" and "stw" (Avenue d'Auderghem, Steenweg op Elsene etc as part of an address not quite seldomly fully in French language even in English texts; street names in Dutch cannot generally be excluded in this way thus a hit page showing an equivalent, was omitted from the count, as were misspelled French "A venue" and "Ave"); for each municipality entered as exact phrase, number of hit pages shown for per municipality different sites (figures between parenthesis include also the same sites' extra pages shown):

Municipality in French	.ac.uk	.gov.uk	.gov	.edu	.org	total fr	Municipality in Dutch	.ac.uk	.gov.uk	.gov	.edu	.org	total nl
Auderghem	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	70(8)	7	Oudergem	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	1(1)	1
Berchem-Sainte-Agathe + Berchem-Ste-Agathe	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	30(3)	3	Sint-Agatha-Berchem + St-Agatha-Berchem	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	2(2)	2
Ixelles	1(1)	2(3)	0(0)	3(3)	[fr1] 17(23)	23	Elsene	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	1(2)	[nl1] 4(5)	5
Forest/Vorst omitted: 'forest' is a common English-language word (found in municipalities all over the world)
Molenbeek-Saint-Jean + Molenbeek-St-Jean	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	[fr2] 030(3)	3	Sint-Jans-Molenbeek + St-Jans-Molenbeek	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	1(1)	1
Saint-Gilles/Sint-Gillis (+ St-Gilles/St-Gillis) omitted: also 15 municipalities Saint-Gilles in France, Sint-Gillis (Dendermonde) exists in Flanders
Saint-Josse-ten-Noode + St-Josse-ten-Noode	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	1(1)	[fr3] 040(4)	5	Sint-Joost-ten-Node + St-Joost-ten-Node	1(1)	1(1)	0(0)	1(1)	2(2)	5
Schaerbeek	1(1)	1(1)	0(0)	3(3)	[fr4] 16(20)	21	Schaarbeek	1(1)	0(0)	0(0)	2(3)	[nl2] 6(7)	9
Uccle	1(1)	0(0)	1(2)	0(0)	[fr5] 09(10)	11	Ukkel	0(0)	0(0)	1(1)	0(0)	2(2)	3
Ville de Bruxelles/Stad Brussel omitted: 'City of Brussels' appears to be the established English-language name; hereunder its suburb and royal residence, Laeken/Laken
Laeken	[fr6] 20(20)	[fr6] 16(16)	0(0)	[fr6] 5(6)	[fr6] 110(128)	151	Laken	[nl3] 1(1)	0(0)	[nl4] 3(3)	[nl5] 0(0)	[nl6] 4(4)	8
Watermael-Boitsfort	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	[fr7] 000(0)	0	Watermaal-Bosvoorde	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	0
Woluwe-Saint-Lambert + Woluwe-St-Lambert	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	[fr8] 020(2)	2	Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe + St-Lambrechts-Woluwe	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	0
Woluwe-Saint-Pierre + Woluwe-St-Pierre	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	30(3)	3	Sint-Pieters-Woluwe + St-Pieters-Woluwe	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)	[nl7] 2(2)	2
Any of these municipalities	3(*)	3(*)	1(*)	7(*)	64(*) 0			2(*)	1(*)	1(*)	4(*)	20(*)

(*) Some counted sites may be mirroring others counted as well. A significant number of pages mention more than one of these municipalities. Both cause the figures in italics, given as indication of the balance between domains, to be higher than the number of pages with different texts (hence potentially different authors) that mention any of these municipalities. The total number of sites that independently mention any of these municipalities is still lower, because a significant number of sites mention several municipalities each on a separate page (a site's relevant pages may all be by a single author or house standard or taken from a single source). Any sum of totals would thus not offer valid information.

In particular on the .org domain, the considerable number of sites that appeared not to be of natively English-spoken countries cause figures to primarily reflect these origins, with their respective more or less widespread native languages as potential influence on the availability of sources or choice between them, apart from the possibly non-English native language of writers or translators potentially being a factor.

Notes: [fr1] 2 excluded: "Lettre à Hetzel. Ixelles 7 avril" + in list of names & locations with non-English name "Natalia Garcia Mozo Brussels-Ixelles" [fr2] 2 excluded: "Commune de Molenbeek Saint-Jean (Belgique)" + "Region Bruxelles Capitale - Belgium ... Twinning between Molenbeek-Saint-Jean Et Oujda" (copy-edit from www.molenbeek.be/fr/JumelagesFR/Jumelages.htm incl 'et' instead of 'and') [fr3] 1 excluded: "St. Josse-ten-Noode (Bruyn, Trésor artistique des églises de Bruxelles, Louvain, 1882)" [fr4] 3 excluded: "Administration Communale de Schaerbeek, Belgique" + "Hôtel de ville de Schaerbeek" + "Halles de Schaerbeek" [fr5] 4 excluded: "The Belgian d’Uccle Bantam was bred for the first time in the small municipality of Uccle" (as the placename here serves to explain the poultry breed name) + "39 communities in Flandern (the Flamish speaking part of Belgium) and 81 communities in Wallonie (the French speaking part of Belgium) have declared themselves GMO-free. Flandern: ... Wallonie: ... Uccle ..." (names in German and Uccle erroneously in unilingual region) and site with copy-correction having Flanders, Flemish, Wallonia, but the place still in the wrong region + "(Uccle-Bruxelles)" and "Une commune de l'agglomeration Bruxelloise, Uccle, IV" as reference work in the extra page from same site) [fr6] All refer to the 2001 European summit there, e.g. by 'the Laeken Declaration' or 'the Laeken indicators', except for 1 on .ac.uk (to a 1993 summit) and about 4 on .org [fr7] 2 excluded: "commune de Watermael-Boitsfort" + "Collège des bourgmestre et échevins de Watermael-Boitsfort" [fr8] 2 excluded: "Administration communale de Woluwe-Saint-Lambert (Bruxelles)" + "Musée Communal de Woluwe-Saint-Lambert" [nl1] 1 excluded: "Illus. by Clare Elsene Peck. © 23Feb34" [nl2] 1 excluded: "Basisschool Hendrik Conscience, Schaarbeek" [nl3] 1 excluded: "und die Hausfrau faltet Laken"; the other one mentions 'the Declaration of Laken' cf. [fr5]. [nl4] 1 excluded: "Sikand, A., and Laken, M." (authors of a reference work) [nl5] 1 excluded: "to Morton Laken" (person) [nl6] many excluded: "S. J. Laken et al." (and other personal names) + "All anthropometic data were laken according to the WHO recommendation", "have been laken. to military. canps." (?) + "West-Virginia's antiquated correctional facilities ... a new prison facility for women was opened at Laken", "Derwent Laken" (locality of Clarence City in Australia), "Inter-Laken" (Interlaken), etc. + several with the Dutch word 'laken' as in "gilds of laken-makers", "municipal museum De Laken- hal". Of the withheld 4, 2 refer to the Laken indicators, cf. [fr5]. [nl7] 1 excluded: "St Pieters Woluwe – Brussel, Gemeentelijke basisschool Stokkel – primary school" Mentionings that were disputable, or could not be shortly demonstrated as dubious, or were rather uninformative, were withheld and counted. A mere few samples: "Ekila Liyonda, (Adrienne) (b. Oct. 16, 1948, Kinshasa, Belgian Congo [now Congo (Kinshasa)] - d. June 22, 2006, Uccle, Brussels-Capital region, Belgium), foreign minister of Zaire (1987-88). She also served as minister of social affairs and the status of women (1983-85), ambassador to the Benelux countries (1985-87), and minister of information and press (1988-90)." (born in outwardly French-language colony and made name in that later independant country) and on same page "Engels, Alphonse (b. Jan. 7, 1880, Schaerbeek, Belgium - d. Aug. 31, 1962, Uccle, Belgium), deputy governor-general of Equateur (1919-21) and deputy governor-general (1922-29) and governor (1925-29) of Congo-Kasaï." (Spanish-language Equador is mentioned by its French name) and also "Elslande, Renaat (Antoon Joseph) van (b. Jan. 21, 1916, Boekhoute, Belgium - d. Dec. 21, 2000, Ukkel, Brussels-Capital region, Belgium), Belgian politician. Although a member of the Christian People's Party (CVP) and not of one of the traditional Flemish nationalist parties, he was a major advocate of the Flemish cause in Francophone-dominated Belgium in the 1960s and '70s." The site, rulers.org, was withheld for many of the municipalities, for the French and/or (for less) the Dutch name, either being presented as English. "Spa belgium - 17 Sun 2006 15:07:58 UTC - University in belgium: Manchester United States and oratories of Belgium. ... 2 Jul 1559 French Community the Belgians are Brussels Airport SaintNicolas Schaerbeek Seraing SintNiklaas Spa SpaLa Sauveniere StHubert Uccle Vilvoorde More Books Document Downloads Document Downloads Document code CRL university in belgium" (here on December 26, 2006 from Google's cache of metroway.org/belgium/University-in-belgium.html as retrieved on December 18, 2006; not a language or not a mind of this world?) This site was withheld for many of the municipalities.

Brussels-Capital's municipalities having separate French and Dutch names, presented in the English language — Research and table by SomeHuman

Results per Google advanced search on December 27, 2006 set to show up to 50 pages in English language for all domains except .com (so as to avoid sources of uncertain reliability like blogs), in the text of the page with at least one of the words "municipality" or "municipalities" ("commune" not in this clause as it is also the French term; clause augments relevance by excluding e.g. the Dutch-speaking historic villages) and excluding the words "wiki" "wikimedia" "wikipedia" "wikimiki" "rue" "chaussée" "chaussee" "avenue" "av" "boulevard" "bd" "steenweg" and "stw" (Avenue d'Auderghem, Steenweg op Elsene etc as part of an address not quite seldomly fully in French language even in English texts; street names in Dutch cannot generally be excluded in this way; as too many pages are reported to inspect each against such, as simple check the count for Elsene was compared with that one also excluding simultaneously Elsenestraat, Elsenebaan, Elsenelaan and Elsenesteenweg and that count was identical, thus for the other municipalities at most a very minute misbalance is expected; for each municipality entered as exact phrase, number of hit pages shown for per municipality different sites (figures between parenthesis include also the same sites' extra pages shown):

Municipality in French	all but .com	Municipality in Dutch	all but .com
Auderghem	440(58)	Oudergem	250(29)
Berchem-Sainte-Agathe + Berchem-Ste-Agathe	300(36)	Sint-Agatha-Berchem + St-Agatha-Berchem	160(19)
Ixelles	95(119)	Elsene	520(62)
Forest/Vorst omitted: 'forest' is a common English-language word (found in municipalities all over the world)
Molenbeek-Saint-Jean + Molenbeek-St-Jean	420(51)	Sint-Jans-Molenbeek + St-Jans-Molenbeek	230(29)
Saint-Gilles/Sint-Gillis (+ St-Gilles/St-Gillis) omitted: 15 municipalities Saint-Gilles in France, Sint-Gillis (Dendermonde) in Flanders
Saint-Josse-ten-Noode + St-Josse-ten-Noode	370(46)	Sint-Joost-ten-Node + St-Joost-ten-Node	220(23)
Schaerbeek	113(139)	Schaarbeek	580(70)
Uccle	77(102)	Ukkel	390(48)
Ville de Bruxelles/Stad Brussel omitted: 'City of Brussels' appears to be the established English-language name
its suburb Laeken	5??(571)	its suburb Laken	880(95)
Watermael-Boitsfort	410(51)	Watermaal-Bosvoorde	190(22)
Woluwe-Saint-Lambert + Woluwe-St-Lambert	410(51)	Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe + St-Lambrechts-Woluwe	280(34)
Woluwe-Saint-Pierre + Woluwe-St-Pierre	420(54)	Sint-Pieters-Woluwe + St-Pieters-Woluwe	2733(0)
Any of these municipalities	562 (000)		309 (000)

This table is to be considered less accurate than the one for specific domains because the number of hits made even a rudimentary inspection for relevance of each page too tedious, here the raw figures are put in the table. While still excluding the assumedly least reliable domain with an expected high number of hits and thus potential influence, the more significant number of hits might allow a statistical analysis. In general, the balance French/Dutch here comes near 1.8:1, surprisingly also for Ixelles/Elsene that in other counts had shown a far more notable unbalance.

Minor comment on your remark about Equateur in your first table: not the South-American country Ecuador, but Équateur, province of the Belgian Congo colony, is meant, see [6]. Markussep 13:10, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Encyclopedias, Google Scholar and Google tests by Markussep

This is an attempt to find the most used name in English for the Brussels municipalities. For Google Scholar and Google several additional search terms are used in order to avoid picking up false hits, see the links. Markussep 17:52, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

municipality	Britannica	Columbia	Encarta	Google Scholar	Google
Auderghem	no	no	Oudergem#	Auderghem 17, Oudergem 7	Auderghem 58k / Oudergem 14.8k
Forest	Forest	no	Vorst#	both heavily ambiguous
Ixelles	Ixelles	Ixelles	Ixelles	Ixelles 233, Elsene 21	Ixelles 136k / Elsene 57.4k
Molenbeek-Saint-Jean	Molenbeek-Saint-Jean	no	Molenbeek-Saint-Jean#	Sint-Jans-Molenbeek 9, Molenbeek-Saint-Jean 6	Sint-Jans-Molenbeek 21.4k / Molenbeek-Saint-Jean 19.7k
Saint-Gilles, Belgium	no	no	Saint-Gilles#	Saint-Gilles 115, Sint-Gillis 10	Saint-Gilles 38.2k / Sint-Gillis 13.7k
Saint-Josse-ten-Noode	no	no	Saint-Josse-ten-Noode#	Saint-Josse-ten-Noode 14, Sint-Joost-ten-Node 11	Saint-Josse-ten-Noode 25.2k / Sint-Joost-ten-Node 21.3k
Schaarbeek	Schaerbeek	no	Schaerbeek	Schaerbeek 93, Schaarbeek 45	Schaerbeek 86.4k / Schaarbeek 56.1k
Sint-Agatha-Berchem	no	no	Sint-Agatha-Berchem#	Sint-Agatha-Berchem 5, Berchem-Sainte-Agathe 3	Sint-Agatha-Berchem 17.6k / Berchem-Sainte-Agathe 0.9k
Uccle	Uccle	no	Ukkel	Uccle 901, Ukkel 134	Uccle 191k / Ukkel 35.3k
Watermael-Boitsfort	no	no	Watermael-Boitsfort#	Watermael-Boitsfort 27, Watermaal-Bosvoorde 4	Watermael-Boitsfort 23.6k / Watermaal-Bosvoorde 14.4k
Woluwe-Saint-Lambert	no	no	Woluwe-Saint-Lambert#	Woluwe-Saint-Lambert 15, Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe 1	Woluwe-Saint-Lambert 21.5k / Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe 20.1k
Woluwe-Saint-Pierre	no	no	Woluwe-Saint-Pierre#	Woluwe-Saint-Pierre 9, Sint-Pieters-Woluwe 2	Woluwe-Saint-Pierre 17.9k / Sint-Pieters-Woluwe 18.5k

# Note: Encarta World Atlas, no encyclopedia article available.

Little decisive differences, I think. Only Ixelles is obviously more common in English than Elsene, according to all sources. Diemietrie 20:03, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Diemietrie, Google results are more useful if you search exclusively, i.e. Auderghem without Oudergem and vice versa: Oudergem 14.8k, Auderghem 58k. I've changed it for all of them. Another thing you can do (using "Taalhulpmiddelen" or "Language Tools" in Google) is search for pages in specific countries. Same search for US: Auderghem 971, Oudergem 290. But if I look at the present figures, I see decisive usage of the French name for Auderghem, Ixelles, St-Gilles, Schaerbeek, Uccle and Watermael-Boitsfort, 4 draws, and decisive usage of the Dutch name for Sint-Agatha-Berchem. Actually the difference there is so large I wonder if the town has a different name in French. Markussep 21:26, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I would have called the googling for St-Gilles, Schaerbeek, and Watermael-Boitsfort a lead, rather than decisive; but with the encyclopedias agreeing, insofar as they say anything, they are probably the better choices. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:08, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I see Molenbeek redirects to Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, and googling it gets 57K, without either spelling of Saint John, and without "wikipedia". This won't work with the other ties, I see. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:18, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Without restriction to specific domains, Google searches are utterly irrelevant for the purpose of determining English usage, even when the language is set to select pages in English. Especially the .com gives the most dubious results but too many to inspect each source individually, which would absolutely be required. See under #Facts the table for the domains that by their nature are most likely to deliver useful data in proper English. The problem however is a very meagre number of hits in the most suitable domains: too few to have reliable statistical data though it is obvious that the English language shows no clear prevalence, the balance goes mainly from 1:1 to 1:4 (Ixelles/Elsene even slightly higher and Auderghem/Oudergem disregarded as 1 more hit could bring it at 1:4) and averages just under 3:1 but for the most relevant domains (.ac.uk, .gov.uk, .gov and .edu), the overall balance is under 2:1. This means that in English, both the French and the Dutch names occur as equally correct and with a balance that is too feeble to pick a preferenced one. At least, the usage in English appears not sufficiently apparent to be a determining factor for either one name on Wikipedia. In fact, the influence of Wikipedia on the .org domain and indirectly further onwards, could well have a larger influence on which usage will come to prevail in English [and may already have had such influence], than what is found so far - such would not be acceptable, it is better to state both names entirely equally (as I suggested, the French may well be mentioned first, but none omitted). — SomeHuman 27 Dec2006 01:20 (UTC)

Note about Markussep's table at top of this section: By explicitly excluding the name in the other language, the searches have a clear built-in bias: The Flemish being a relative minority in Brussels, and their respect for the bilingual status or not wishing to appear flamingant, causes them to often mention the other language as well; the speakers of French are usually less careful and simply mention the French name. Proof is found by searching e.g. ['Uccle Ukkel' (23.6K)]: by replacing 'Uccle' (211K) with 'Uccle -Ukkel' (188K) brings the French-language figure 12% down, replacing 'Ukkel' (58.7K) with 'Ukkel -Uccle' (35.5K) brings the Dutch-language figure 40% down - the arbitrary choice to exclude one language exaggerated the balance from 3.6:1 to 5.3:1 in favor of French; e.g. by replacing '"saint-gilles"' (50.5K) with '"saint-gilles" -sint-gillis' (37.2K) brings the French-language figure 26% down, replacing '"sint-gillis"' (27.7K) with '"sint-gillis" -saint-gilles' (13.3K) brings the Dutch-language figure 52% down - Markussep's choice brought the balance from 1.8:1 to 2.8:1 in favor of French.

Also, a search without domain selection catches all French sources that have been translated by speakers of French and all Dutch sources that have been translated by speakers of Dutch; the search may thus largely measure the number of speakers of French versus the number of speakers of Dutch worldwide and has little to do with establishing usage in the English language: other terms do not become proper English because of the usage by non-native speakers either. This assumedly strong influence might be proven by doing similar searches on the .ac.uk, .gov.uk, .gov, .edu (mainly native English/American sites). (The more restrictive searches in the table under #Facts showed rather few pages having both names of a municipality.) — SomeHuman 27 Dec2006 02:19 (UTC)

Hi SomeHuman, some comments on your impressive work:

• I'm sure you will get more (relevant) hits if you don't restrict yourself to pages that contain "municipality" or "municipalities". If you need something to weed out false hits, try "brussels" or "belgium".
• about your built-in bias comment on my exclusive searches (e.g. uccle without ukkel): I think this is the only way to determine differences in usage. By using both you'll probably pick up many pages that mention the other name only once, and maybe some translation lists.
• I agree that the differences (French vs. Dutch) are not overwhelming, but they're certainly significant for a number of municipalities (Auderghem, Ixelles, St-Gilles, Schaerbeek, Uccle and Watermael-Boitsfort). Markussep 10:56, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Using the restricted data set proposed by User:SomeHuman in #Facts, and assuming that all bias has been removed from that data set, the statistics are as follows:

• Auderghem versus Oudergem: 7 to 1, p-value is 0.035, decisive
• Ixelles versus Elsene: 23 to 5, p-value is 0.000, decisive
• Schaerbeek versus Schaarbeek: 21 to 9, p-value is 0.021, decisive
• Uccle versus Ukkel: 11 to 3, p-value is 0.029, decisive

All the other data from the same table (except Laeken) show p-values larger than 0.05 and would therefore require more data before we can say anything. The question now becomes: can we get more unbiased data for these municipalities? LVan 17:46, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Markussep, I still see little decisive cases here. I agree that apart from Ixelles, Saint-Gilles and Sint-Agatha-Berchem may be considered decisive as well. But Schaerbeek and Watermael-Boitsfort only have a firm lead over the Dutch names (not even 2:1), while in the case of Auderghem/Oudergem and Uccle/Ukkel encyclopedias do not agree (Encarta uses the Dutch name here). So still 9 out of 12 municipalities aren't decisive in my point of view. For the two sub-municipalities of Brussels city, based on Google search only, I would call Laeken 169k decisive over Laken 14.4k and Haren 38.6k decisive over Haeren 0.6k. Diemietrie 22:41, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply to Markussep: 1) The term 'municipality' was mainly chosen because I was interested in finding pages written by someone who knows his subject (assuming the term usually relates to the searched municipality), leaving out incidental mentionings, of a name repeated from some source of for our goal dubious origin, or connected with specific people (e.g. the birthplace of a famous person could swing the balance considerably) etc. 'Brussels' or 'Belgium' could not serve this purpose. 2) I wanted to establish usage mainly by native speakers of English (or living in a major country with this native language, thus the domains choice - .org was added as I needed to get some higher counts for relatively serious sites, though that domain tells little about the country of origin). It does not matter that a same page may be listed under Dutch and under French, your mutual exclusion would be relevant if you wanted to establish the notability of municipalities but that has hardly been a topic on this talk page. In fact it was necessary to allow both names because also this option is being considered for Wikipedia and their counting for each would bring the ratio towards a level that supports such possibility, fair enough for pages that mention both names. For establishing main usage in English, the shown strong bias is certainly not desired. 3) The significance of ratios could not be determined for the municipalities that had very low counts [incl. Auderghem/Oudergem and Uccle/Uccle that are 2 out of the 4 withheld by LVan]; and my new table for all domains except .com and thus more significant numbers, throws the earlier ratios in the bin even for the least expected municipalities (see once more under #Facts). — SomeHuman 28 Dec2006 00:38 (UTC)

Comment for LVan: As I understand it, you use the term 'decisive' as having a 20:1 chance of one language having prevalence over the other; in other words, it can be decided that the ratio is not 50/50. Even with a 70/30 ratio established however, this does not necessarily mean that it can be decided that in English one term will maintain that ratio. The balance may swing quickly, e.g. an important meeting [cf. the Laeken Declaration] and for these rarely mentioned municipalities even far lesser causes. Whether this would make the 70% or the 30% becoming dominant cannot be decided. As for now, while 30% of speakers of English write the term in a particular way, should we decide to present the other way as the 'mainly' established spelling, in fact causing that spelling to become the established one? This is a very different question from being 50/50 undecided or not. Personally, I would not consider 70/30 a sufficient ratio to determine whether a particular term outranks the other one. — SomeHuman 28 Dec2006 01:33 (UTC)

Hi SomeHuman, thank you for engaging me on the stats and also for your work done on pointing out the dangers of using data without having a good look at them (I acknowledge I was a bit hasty myself in that respect in the Bruges talk page). Like you, I looked at the Google results in more detail and I was also astounded at the number of repeats and illegitimate results that came out regardless of what keywords are specified. The example I took was Auderghem/Oudergem, the first one in the list and the one that was mentioned as a subsection above. Looking at the UK pages for Auderghem, adding the keywords Brussels and Belgium as suggested by Markussep, and not removing Oudergem as you suggested, I got [7] 175 “raw” hits. Checking manually one by one for those that were not part of addresses, or written in wikis, or written by obvious non-Anglophones, or from a site already obtained earlier (lots of those!), I got only 19 legitimate hits. The same procedure for Oudergem got me 8 legitimate hits out of [8] 16 “raw” hits. For the US pages, the number of “raw” hits was [9] 722 and [10] 324 for Auderghem and Oudergem, respectively. I had the courage to go only through the first half of those in each case and got 27 and 18 legitimate hits, respectively. The total number of legitimate hits for the UK and the US is therefore 46 for Auderghem and 26 for Oudergem, and I could have had a few more if I had gone through the second half of the US data. Note how close these numbers are from your second table (coincidence?). The p value of this ratio is 0.012. I didn’t have time to do work on the other municipalities yet…

Now for the stats… Your understanding is perfectly fine; my interpretation of “decisive” is indeed whether we can or cannot say, with a 1:20 chance of error, that English usage prefers one name versus the other. Using a manual check of the data, as described above, would limit wild swings in the data since a major event in Laeken would add only 1 data point per Anglophone author describing it. But this is indeed a danger for rare data: the 7 to 1 decisive results for Auderghem in your first table would have suddenly become indecisive had Oudergem got one more hit. The way the data is obtained then becomes critical… With the current 46 to 26 ratio, however, this danger has disappeared. Also regarding the 70/30 zone of comfort, it is usually not needed as soon as we have a reasonable amount of data (some people got to be president of the US with a lot less of a margin!) LVan 04:04, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

We, who try to establish a proper choice, are not appointed by politicians. Fortunately, we can choose for both names simultaneously at equal level if all the arguments pro and contra a single or which single name are about in balance. Having two equally enpowered presidents was not an option, but making up the rules as one sees fit at the time of coming to a decision, has clearly been proven not to gather deep respect from any observers. I do not intend to make Wikipedia procedures the laughing stock of the world, or otherwise jeopardize the believability of an assumed neutral point of view. Interesting data, good job! I'd be rather curious about your evaluation method applied to Ixelles/Elsene (for which the sampling and analysis methods gave very different results), though this might be too tedious for it's about three times as big a job as appears bearable. — SomeHuman 28 Dec2006 23:20 (UTC)

Not too tedious if we take a representative sample. The total “legitimate” hits for Ixelles and Elsene in the UK were 63 and 15, respectively. The total “legitimate” hits for the first 2% of the US pages for Ixelles and Elsene were 77 and 36, respectively. Needless to say, both ratios are decisive. LVan 02:40, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Auderghem/Oudergem tests by Septentrionalis

Done as a sample, because neither form is likely to be ambiguous:

Four of the methods recommended under WP:NC (geographic names) seem applicable:

• Encyclopedias:
  • Britannica; neither found
  • Columbia:neither found
  • Encarta Oudergem
• Scholar.google and Books.google
  • Scholar; excluding patent to exclude street addresses in patent applications, and Avenue to exclude "Avenue d'Auderghem, Brussels"
    • 17 for Auderghem w/o Oudergem; 7 [11] for Oudergem without Auderghem. This is not decisive.
• Standard histories and country studies
  • No country study for Belgium.
• Major news sources.
  • Neither found in Lexis-Nexus.

In short, yes, they are rare. Are they notable? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:20, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Notable enough I'd say, they're rather big towns/suburbs. You picked one of the smallest, probably Elsene/Ixelles, Schaarbeek/Schaerbeek and Uccle/Ukkel would give more results. Some test results for Elsene/Ixelles:

Britannica: Ixelles

Columbia: Ixelles

Encarta: Ixelles

Google Scholar: minus "1050" = zip code Elsene w/o Ixelles 21, Ixelles w/o Elsene 233.

That's still not many hits, would you call it decisive? Markussep 00:54, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

It's a lot more and the ratio is 11:1, so I'd call it decisive; others may differ. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:51, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The figures might be different for other municipalities: Ixelles/Elsene is certainly not known as a municipality that had for a long time significantly resisted to become French-speaking. Note that for several of the other municipalities, the French name is simply the Dutch name that is spelled as it used to be in Dutch, or a very obvious translation like 'Sint-Pieter(s)' -> 'Saint Pierre', whereas Elsene got its very own French name Ixelles. — SomeHuman 24 Dec2006 04:47 (UTC)

Three remarks: 1) The region is very young, its officially bilingual status is too. Thus there will be more sources in English found that derive information from older sources, with French immensely prevailing. 2) There used to be a time that "Malines" was much more common in English than "Mechelen", a city that was always Dutch-speaking. Now the native name clearly prevails in Google searches; but for the municipalities in the bilingual region, the current situation with respect to languages is much more recent. 3) The current French majority has come to existence only during an officially unilingual French period in which the French-speakers in Belgium were clearly politically dominant, this situation has, without intention to get it the other way around, recently changed with a considerably economically stronger Flanders than Wallonia - significance and speed of according changes in language balance in the bilingual municipalities of the country's capital region are as yet an open question. It is however very unlikely that a historical balance of the names used in English is going to remain, as none of these names have become more than very rarely used in English, unlike the mentioned Malines which usage did change most considerably. [For all clarity, the city of Mechelen had earlier been commonly known in English as "Mechlin" and that had quickly changed to "Malines" as well.] It is however, most unlikely that in any foreseeable future, any one of these municipalities could become officially unilingual, and unlikely that the number of Dutch-speaking inhabitants that survived as a minority would further diminish while now having much more favorable circumstances. — SomeHuman 24 Dec2006 04:35-05:52 (UTC)

Consequences of the survey result

As for now, 6 people have voted for one name in the title, but only 1 has made clear what name he wants the title to have. If people don't vote for the second question (if one name, which one? - if two names, how?) this survey has little use, as it remains unclear how the result should be implemented. What can be done about this? Diemietrie 15:12, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

What can be done is to wait for January 6, when voting on the second question opens. Eugène van der Pijll 16:38, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

What also can be done is to determine the options to choose from in the second vote. For the "one" case there are some obvious options:

• all French
• all Dutch
• name most used in English (my preference, but what if there is no clearly preferred name, and how is it determined?)
• local majority language (but how is it determined, census?)

Markussep 10:11, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Since 1947, there hasn't been any census about language in Belgium. In fact, because of the tensions the census results on language gave in the past, language censuses are banned forever when the 'language border' (taalgrens, frontière linguistique) was fixed "once and for all" in 1962. So the last option is very difficult to determine. We only know there are more French-speaking people than Dutch-speaking people in Brussels, but the exceptional situation is that none of these two linguistic groups have a majority, according to the survey of the VUB (Free University of Brussels).

The name most used in English would be the best solution if only one name has to be chosen. But this is also very difficult to determine, because most names are not very common in English at all (otherwise there was no discussion or survey needed...). I think the choices here will always be based on arbitrary methods of determination.

That's why I think everyone who votes should choose for a concrete solution rather than a vague preference for "one name". Of course my first preference is also to choose one name for articles. No one likes long-winded names. But the question here is: what's realistic in this specific case? When most of the voters for one name do not make clear how they want their votes to be implemented, it seems to me as if these votes only show a simple preference for articles with one name, rather than a contribution to a solution for this problem.

Maybe that's the result of the way this survey is set up. Maybe it would be better to make a survey with only concrete options and make clear before the survey starts how these options will be implemented, particularly how the name most commonly used in English will be determined. Now we run the risk this survey produces more questions than answers. Diemietrie 13:23, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments:

I prefer one single name because double names are ambiguous and confusing, especially for people who are not familiar with the region, and don't speak French or Dutch. Two names in a title suggests that the article is about two (related) places rather than one. See Talk:Communes of South Tyrol for a similar discussion. Markussep 11:37, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

This 'survey' is assumed to be designed to keep stalling a long overdue action indefinitely; the discussion time should by now be finished and a proper proposal to move the articles of the municipalities at hand has been requested. See #Requested moves for its municipalities. — SomeHuman 23 Dec2006 12:38 (UTC)

Weren't the Dutch names used long before there were any French names? --Ganchelkas 15:05, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

That's right, the region was predominantly Dutch speaking before the 19th century. Markussep 15:59, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

The Dutch names are the original ones. In some cases the French name is only the old spelling of the Dutch name! The Brussels region had a Dutch-speaking majority untill the first half of the 20th century. Since Belgium was founded in 1830 as an officially unilingual French state (although with a Dutch-speaking majority!), many people in the Brussels region gradually switched from Dutch to French. This process continued untill circa 1970, when Dutch and French communities got their own institutions (schools, public centers, libraries, etc.). Diemietrie 17:38, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

If the articles are primarily about the present towns, I don't think it matters who was "first". We should describe present dominant use then (in English, if any). Is the use of Dutch in the Brussels region increasing lately? Markussep 01:06, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean a) the City of Brussels [which established English name is not part of the discussion about the titles] as well as the other 18 municipalities? b) usage by 1. inhabitants incribed in the registers for having their main residence there, 2. inhabitants renting a place there where they stay during the week, 3. people living or working there. The figures and the changes of figures might be quite different, though rather difficult to obtain reliably even for 1. as there has not been a census for a long time.

Furthermore, which precedence is to be given (provided there is no established English name, which is likely for these in English rarely mentioned municipalities: a Google search on rarely used names does not find established names but does original research): a) the local name of the municipality officially or by de facto majority; the name local on municipality level or on community level (with identical official but inverse majority-based result); c) a position that does not make Wikipedia envolved in and an accomplish to local, inter-regional and national heavy disputes that are currently still going on with strong political consequences for the whole country? — SomeHuman 24 Dec2006 05:17 (UTC)

You're right that there are several definitions for "inhabitants". I'd go with people actually registered in the municipality, I don't think commuters contribute much to local culture. Regions and communities will not bring us further because the Brussels region is part of both the Dutch and French speaking communities. That Brussels isn't part of Wallonia is irrelevant. Let's not exaggerate the severity of the language conflict, I've never heard of Dutch or French speaking schools and institutions being torched etc. Markussep 10:05, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

You do not think commuters to contribute much to local culture. Which local culture then, because a) the typical commuter employment of the capital area is a main source of income for the locals, as in several municipalities the unemployment rate is very high (immigrant non-EU majorities) and the "locals" in the other communities are on the opposite scale of the social ladder, substantially rather recently arrived (from other Belgian regions, from EU countries, from still other countries) and for a part [NATO, European Community, the many embassies] came to live there temporarily. Thus selecting 'inhabitants' as determining culture is POV and then using such for language orientation for article titles is a violation of WP:NPOV. b) Your remark while addressing me, about the irrelevance of Brussels not being part of Wallonia, is misplaced as I never mentioned such [though probably shows which region you feel Brussels should belong to]; but I did mention the communities which you wave away while precisely the communities are the institutions entitled to finance, organize or supervize cultural elements in the Brussels-Capital region (that has no such authority) and thus the communities nearly alone determine what is culturally available - and the Flemish Community contributes substancially more to this region's culture than represented by this regions minority of Dutch-speaking inhabitants, not only for pure national political reasons but simply because all the Flemish people are represented to the world by their capital. Indeed there have not been incidents of torched schools, financed by each community for its language; which shows a degree of civilisation so as to resolve conflicts in a non-violent way by creating an officially complex situation, in particular the bilingual character of these municipalities. Is it then not about time that Wikipedia respects that? — SomeHuman 24 Dec2006 12:09-12:19 (UTC)

"Is the use of Dutch increasing lately?" Yes and no. There are several groups of inhabitants using Dutch in the Brussels region. The traditional Flemish community (10% of the population according to the VUB-survey) is more or less stable in number. However, since the 1990s the use of Dutch language institutions is increasing very rapidly because of the good quality and reputation of especially Dutch language education, which attracts more and more students of unilingual French-speaking background and also of ethnic minorities. Currently the Dutch language education network has a 'market share' of over 20% (nursery and primary schools even nearly 25%) and the ambition is to make it 33% within the next 15 years. As a result, an increasing percentage of the population will be able to speak Dutch on a native level, if not being totally bilingual. On the other hand, the number of people with Dutch as a mother tongue shrinks rapidly as the native bilingual Brusselers with their typical Brabantic (Dutch) dialect as a mother tongue fall away. Most of them never took part in the Flemish community and as a result, their children have 'frenchified'. Good example of this extincting group is the present mayor of Brussels city, Freddy Thielemans: he is of mixed Brussels, Flemish and Walloon descent, his mother tongue is the original Dutch dialect of Brussels, he speaks French and Dutch fluently and appears regularly in Flemish media, but is member of the Parti Socialiste, the French-speaking social democrats, and takes part in the French-speaking community. Diemietrie 14:57, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Relist?

I'm on self-appointed WP:RM duty tonight and ran across this. Should it simply be relisted at WP:RM? Or do you want to call part of the issue settled and you can re-start a different request? This sounds like an awfully complex issue - I even see a chart above... —Wknight94 (talk) 02:26, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

No, not for now. After a timeconsuming and lengthy discussion, 3 out of 4 contributors had come to a consensus and then the fourth quickly created on the "Requested moves" page an invitation to a Survey that would start the whole thing over again. As I knew all too well that calling in the troops would get a lot of quick looks and thus the "simple" solution that the proposer defends, making the complicated appearance of the WP:NPOV style that others had come to, chanceless. I then intervened with a real proposal to move and created the above section Talk:Brussels-Capital Region#Requested moves for its municipalities. But the forementioned proposer reacted with what is still there with edit comment "revert vandalism to move request" (Not vandalism, and not a request to move either as such was to be established by his survey). Under Names survey, after most (5 out of so far 8) of the expected "one"-name votes came in during just 3½ hours, the survey has revealed some interesting research results in the 'Facts' subsection and comments in particular in the 'Auderghem/Oudergem', 'Discussion', 'If one name, which one' and 'English usage' subsections, and after those first hours, 3 more "one"-name votes and 4 "two"-name votes arrived, but the holidays seem to have stopped further reactions. — SomeHuman 2 Jan2007 06:07 (UTC)

I object to your interpretation of the events. It's true that you and Diemietrie found consensus between the two of you, but you two are not very representative for wikipedia users since you're from Flanders and Diemietrie is Dutch (so am I). And again, the third vote pro is only wishful thinking on your side, see Moyogo's reply. I don't claim to be perfectly objective either, so IMO it makes perfect sense to invite more people, also because the previous move request to bilingual names failed.

Would you care to read the last sentence of Moyogo's reply from your link here above... And that reply came after your unilateral 'survey'; consensus was clearly reached including Moyogo since "Those changes have been waiting to be made for a while. It's time the people who think the current situation is wrong change it instead of blaming others for doing POV. --moyogo 08:19, 22 December 2006 (UTC)" and thus most clearly did not want you to stall by a survey about all possible and impossible directions and options either. And again:

"Support of Diemietry's suggestion to use "/" without blanks instead of " - "; further following my proposal as explained. — SomeHuman 2006-12-23 00:59 (UTC)

'/' makes more sense than '-' as long as it doesn't end up making subarticles. Btw, the maps in the metro are either using French/Dutch, or alternating French/Dutch and Dutch/French. --moyogo 01:14, 23 December 2006 (UTC)"

  made clear that a proper request to move – if not an immediate move – was immanent since not only the principle but also the precise type of bilingual naming had been determined. Your starting that bewildering survey after Moyogo's far from enthousiastic but very decisive comments, was not intellectually honest – neither towards the 3 that had come to a consensus, nor towards new readers who by the multi-threaded survey were kept unaware of that definite consensus. Furthermore, that January 2006 request to move towards bilingual names was opposed by 4 and supported by 5 users, which is not a failure but it seems that no-one bothered to close.

Anyway, my explications and proven facts in this section this morning and now here above, clearly indicate that relisting Markussep's multi-threaded survey would not be as appropriate as a proper and precise request to move (thus this but without showing the striked-through survey of Markussep, and now mentioning There is no English name for any municipality around Brussels; nor can a French or a Dutch name singularily be established for usage in English. For most municipalities, the French name is slightly more often (1.8:1) found than the Dutch name in English texts, and is therefore consistently placed first in the titles. - as such was proven by the survey and several users had come with such simplistic usage in English argument that it misses the point of that part of the problem). Personally, I'm not to keen on immediately listing because this would most likely cause another merry-go-round; better keep the current 'survey' in the 'Backlog' section of Requested Moves for a few more days. — SomeHuman 2 Jan2007 18:11 (UTC)

That's still no response to my point that this shouldn't be decided by two Belgians and two Dutchmen. I count 5 oppose and 6 support on that previous survey, and that is too little support for a move. And you probably missed this part of the previous discussion: "Concluding, I think that a survey about the subject is a good idea. Diemietrie 20:01, 20 December 2006 (UTC)". Markussep 21:19, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Be serious, that remark by Diemietrie came well before any consensus had seemed likely as there had remained a 2:2 tie. But you awaited many more comments and only days later at the 3:you outcome, suddenly without consulting you started the then inappropriate survey.

Indeed there were 5:6 votes in favour of bilingual names, not 4:5 as I accidentally typed. But whether that could not sufficiently support the moves is another matter: many titles had been bilingual before and had been moved unilaterally without discussion, thus a minute difference could well be decisive.

You keep blowing smoke in front of the readers' eyes: 1) as long as we keep in mind that this is the English Wikipedia, nationalities do not matter as most native speakers of English will not be as interested in or aware of the many aspects regarding the topic, they were not kept out but had simply never joined – in your survey, so far I was the only one who attempted to find texts written mainly by native English speakers [though it can still be translations that are likely to be guided by their source's language with respect to a municipality name] by searching typical domains, so as to come to a more reliable idea of the balance between French and Dutch names in English by British and American speakers; and 2) you already know my response to your incorrect statement that we decided: we proposed by requesting the moves towards the clear-cut set of titles that had become the result of the discussion – see Requested moves for its municipalities and you alone decided to obliterate that proper proposal from the Requested moves page. — SomeHuman 2 Jan2007 23:24-23:45 (UTC)

I see we'll never agree on this. If you don't see the added value of the current survey, to which several long-time and active Wikipedia editors are contributing, I have nothing more to say to you. Markussep 10:37, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Yep, I did not think you had anything to say upon my last reply. But your "nothing more to say" is lead by once more a false accusation trying to discredit your opponent: my first comment in this section already included: "the survey has revealed some interesting research results in the 'Facts' subsection and comments in particular in the 'Auderghem/Oudergem', 'Discussion', 'If one name, which one' and 'English usage' subsections," - that looks like my recognizing added value. — SomeHuman 3 Jan2007 21:35 (UTC)

Official names

The page should be moved to Brussels Region. The constitution : http://www.senate.be/doc/const_nl.html (Dutch) or http://www.fed-parl.be/constitution_uk.html (English) David Descamps 15:31, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Nonsense, but it is what the constitution's art. 3 obviously suggests. David already aknowledged my showing by a link in his language on his talk page, that articles 134 and 138 etc prove both the long and the short names for the region to be official, and the Brussels-Capital Region uses the longer name on its official web site. — SomeHuman 2 Jan2007 05:46 (UTC)