Talk:Amu Darya

Darya, river or sea

In my language Persian, Darya means Sea. If anyone want to revert it back to "River", please discuss it here first. Thank you.

Since this is an english encyclopedia, we should use "river" instead of "darya". Persian, Pashto, Uzbeki and other translations should be included in the text. The title of the article should be "Amu River". (Ketabtoon (talk) 18:32, 6 August 2009 (UTC))

I have removed the Pashto and Turkish translations, because, frankly, they are totally irrelevant in this article. The Pashto expression is derived from the Persian name and simply uses the Pashto word for "river" instead; the Turkish transliteration of "Jayhoun" is irrelevant as well. Tajik (talk) 20:53, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

You have to remember that both Pashto and Dari are the national and official languages of Afghanistan. Therefor, either both the translations should be deleted or neither of them. (Ketabtoon (talk) 22:24, 8 August 2009 (UTC))

First of all, the language is called Persian. Secondly, this is not about national or official languages, it's about the origin of the name, and that is clearly Persian (or Tajik). I will also remove Uzbek and Turkmen, because they are irrelevant as well - it only shows the different spellings of the name, but not its ultimate origin. May I remind you that you were the one who removed the Persian spelling of the name "Kandahar" in the respective article?! You clearly have double-standards. Tajik (talk) 11:38, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

The IP "119.152.246.44" does not belong to me. The person who made that edit was from Pakistan and I am thousands of miles away from Pakistan. (Ketabtoon (talk) 13:28, 9 August 2009 (UTC))

You have removed the Pashto spelling of the name "Kabul" in the respective article and many other articles also (I have noticed Maidan Shar among other articles) even before. 119.152.248.87 (talk) 13:18, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

• The name of river comes from the city of Āmul (Khwarezmian?) so stop saying it's Persian. Please discuss content reversions on their talk page before reversions. So that we know the consensus. 119.152.248.87 (talk) 13:18, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

"It allegedly derives its present name from the city of Āmul, which is said to have occupied the site of modern Chärjew in Turkmenistan." It clearly states that the origin of the name is not Tajik. So how can Tajik claim that it is? I will undo the revision by Tajik and the so called Inuit from Iran. They are welcome to discuss it here first and provide us valid sources that Amu's origins are Tajik. (Ketabtoon (talk) 13:37, 9 August 2009 (UTC))

We can add "Amu Darya River" as English alternative name in the article lead and the native names in Pashto, Tajik, Turkmen etc. in parenthesis. 119.152.246.85 (talk) 15:42, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

The name of the article is fine as it is. Darya is the Dari/Farsi translation of the word River. In Afghanistan, the Persian speakers call it "Darya e Amo" and Pashto speakers call it "De Amo Seend". The word "seend" stands for river in Pashto language. Therefor it would be a good idea to leave the name of the river as it is and add the native names in Pashto, Dari/Farsi, Turkmen, Uzbeki in parenthesis. (Ketabtoon (talk) 16:27, 9 August 2009 (UTC))

First of all, the word "Darya" is Persian, no need to have any discussion about that. Be it derived from whatever city, the name "Amudarya" is clearly Persian and all other languages, inclduing Pashto, have adopted that name (the only exceptions are languages that falsly refer to the river as "Jayhoon"). Anyone who wants to know the Pashto, Uzbek, or whatever name of the river can click on the sister-articles in the respective Wikis. I doubt that you can find reliable sources for "De Amo Seend". Tajik (talk) 17:27, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

We are not discussing the word "Darya" in here. In here we are talking about the word "Amu" and its origin. You claim that the origin of the word is Persian, but you do not provide us with any proof. I have quoted your favourite encyclopedia, britanica, and they say "It allegedly derives its present name from the city of Āmul, which is said to have occupied the site of modern Chärjew in Turkmenistan.". (Ketabtoon (talk) 20:18, 9 August 2009 (UTC))

No, we are not talking about "Amu", we are talking about the name Amu Darya in total - and that name is clearly Persian. You only cite Britannica when you like the message. In another article, you have promtly deleted the Britannica source (which is a clear act of vandalism!). Anyway, to keep the discussion shourt: the name "Amu" is also Persian. See ĀMOL (ĀMŪYA) in Encyclopaedia Iranica. BTW: you have been reported to admins. Tajik (talk) 00:44, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

De Amu Seend - د امو سيند

User Tajik doubts that I can find reliable sources for "De Amo Seend". I will provide some sources.

International sources:

• [1]
• [2]
• [3]

Afghan Sources:

• [4]
• [5]
• [6]
• [7]

(Ketabtoon (talk) 21:05, 9 August 2009 (UTC))

Etymology of Oxus

Various etymologies have been suggested for the name "Oxos" (or preciously, Ôxus, Ωξος)

I suppose that:

The the root "Uks-", is derivated by name "S-akas" (i.e. Sacae, Sacians, or else Scythians).

The same root occurs in words:

1. "Ukrayina" ( i.e. Ok(s)-raine)( = Ukraine, the modern European state)
2. "Iaxartes" (i.e. Oks-arta) ( = Syr Darya, ancient river, in Central Asia)
3. "Euxinus Pontus" (i.e. Oks-inus pontus) ( = the modern Black Sea) etc.

--IonnKorr 08:40, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment on the described direction of flow

The Amu Darya page currently says:

"One source of the Amu Darya is the Pamir River, which emerges from Lake Zorkul/Victoria, flowing east until Ishtragh, where it turns north and then east north-west through the Hindu Kush as the Panj"

That appears to be incorrect. The Pamir River, to my eye, appears to emerge from Lake Zorkul/Victoria/Sari Kul, heading more or less south-west until it gets to Ishtragh, then curves north, eventually makes more or less a U-turn and then proceeds south before turning around again and heads north-west, mostly, to the Aral Sea. The current description seems to be almost 180 degrees out of phase for the early stages.

Also, for what it is worth, Google Earth seems to be using "Ucdrag" as the spelling for Ishtragh, for which a bunch of different spellings seem to have been used in English.

Further, I believe that from the confluence of the Pamir and the Wakhan rivers the combined river is called the Panj (with various spellings) and not just the Pamir anymore. Finally, there appears to be some semi-consensus that the true source of the Amu Darya is the Wakhan, not the Pamir.

The Wikipedia page on the Panj is similarly confusing to me, by the way, since that is, in fact, the name of the Amu Darya at this stage.

I have no expertise of any kind on this and I base the comment on the true source on some interested reading from hundred-plus year old writing by Curzon, 50-plus year old writing by Tillman and other such material I have poked around in. I leave it to someone better informed to do something with this. This is one of the world's great rivers. I presume there is a lot of expertise floating around.

71.167.49.186 01:01, 3 December 2007 (UTC) Shankar

Native names

I added Tajik: дарёи Ому - Daryoi Omu, Dari: آمودریا - Âmudaryâ, Pashto: د آمو سيند - də Āmu Sind, [Amudaryo] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help), Turkmen: Amyderýa in parenthesis. And I used the English version of the name in the article. The native spelling of a name should generally be included in the first line of the article, with a transliteration if the anglicization isn't identical; redirects from non-English names are encouraged. Where there is an English exonym for the subject, it should be mentioned, even if it is not the most common name in English language usage. (see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) 119.152.247.228 (talk) 06:45, 15 August 2009 (UTC)