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Name

I've changed the representation of the name from Ḥalā'ib/حلائب to Ḥalāyib/حلايب thruout (with two exceptions explained below). I carry out research in the area, & locals use the form Ḥalāyib & do not recognise the version with the glottal stop/hamzah as correct. Further, the Egyptian government uses this spelling[1][2], as does the Sudanese[3]. Most likely the spelling with an apostrophe/hamzah comes from a recognition that an intervocalic glottal stop often becomes /j/ in Egyptian & Sudanese colloquial dialects. The Hala'ib form is, then, hypercorrection. It does appear in some Arabic sources, but not generally in government sources (zero Sudanese state documents turn up for a حلائب Google search, & only one Egyptian state document), &, as already mentioned, it is rejected by locals. Further, this brings us in line with Arabic Wikipedia, which uses the (correct) form حلايب.

This is not an established place name in English. This is not a matter of retaining consistency with other English-language sources. In fact, of the two news stories quoted in the article, one spells the triangle "Halaib", the other "Halayeb". (In both cases, a previous editor had modified direct quotations to "Hala'ib". I have changed the spelling in both cases to reflect the original source.) Neither original uses the apostrophe.

Ultimately, I would like to move this page to Halayib Triangle. Pathawi (talk) 23:09, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ "Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources".
  2. ^ Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. http://www.mcit.gov.eg/Egypt_Maps. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  3. ^ "Ministry of Information".

Pathawi Dear User, if you are from Arabic origin, we can discuss it as you want, but the majority of the worldwide websites call it Halayeb. Best regards, Abd Elamid Elsayed Abdelhamidelsayed (talk) 19:54, 10 November 2020 (UTC)abdelhamidelsayed[reply]

For anyone following this, Abd Elamid has moved the conversation to my talk page. Pathawi (talk) 20:49, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Why? Discussions such as this shpuld not be decided elsewhere, in private, a consensus needs to be found here, on the article's talk page. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:27, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I had not been thinking of my talk page as private, as anyone can access it, but you're right that it would have been better to have the conversation here or on Halayib's talk page. Part of the problem was that this reflects multiple edits on multiple related pages. I had replied to Abd Elamid's comments on Halayib's talk page, but he then replied more substantively on my personal page. I was trying to consolidate conversation locations, and thus opted for the most recent location of substantive comment. I made a poor call: I wasn't trying to make the conversation in any way private. Pathawi (talk) 21:43, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Why not copy the discussion from there to here? As long as the other editor agrees, and you clearly mark where it came from and when it starts and stops, there should be no problem. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:46, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That conversation follows, with additional indentation, and with contact information eliminated. (Abd Elhamid: Feel free to replace that contact info. I removed it in case you were under the impression that my talk page was invisible to others.) Pathawi (talk) 21:56, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion copied from User talk:Pathawi

Halayeb triangle and Halayeb city. Dear Pathawi, We do not have to fight about Halayeb, because I speak Arabic and English fluently, being from Arabic ancestry (exactly from Egypt and my mother is from the Halayeb triangle) and I have been living in USA from 1998 (which means I speak excellent English).Beside that the major websites worldwide call it Halayeb. Feel free to contact me at ————— or if you live in USA at —————.Also on Whatsapp. Best regards, Abd Elhamid Elsayed
Abd Elhamid: A disagreement isn't a fight! But you'll have to excuse me: I'm sure you speak excellent Arabic, but that doesn't mean that you have a good knowledge of Romanisation, nor that you've read the Manual of Style. I strongly suggest you check out the link I posted on the Halayib Talk page. Then we may have something to discuss! Take care. Pathawi (talk) 19:47, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
Pathawi : can we talk by phone.I was born in the Halayeb triangle, my mother is from there and my father is from northern Egypt. —————.
Best regards.
Abdelhamidelsayed (talk) 20:06, 10 November 2020 (UTC)abdelhamidelsayed
Hi, @Abdelhamidelsayed:. I know this wasn't intentional, but please don't edit other people's messages on Talk pages. I'm in the Sudan right now, so an international call really isn't very viable. Plus, I think it's best to solve these things within Wikipedia, so that other editors can follow what happened: This isn't a dispute between you and me—it's an issue for a collective encyclopædia. Have you read the Manual of Style page on Arabic that I directed you to? If so, do you think I'm misinterpreting something? Pathawi (talk) 20:47, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Abdelhamidelsayed: You wrote:
Please be informed that the name of many geographical areas in the Arabic countries have been published with the most known word in English, for example : Cairo, is in Arabic (Alqaheera) and another version is (Alkaheera).The first one is more near to the Arabic pronunciation, I can go on with hundred of examples. Be informed that the Arabic language has more sounds compared to the English language ( ح خ ع غ )sounds and lacks some sounds like (v). Please, I want to get an agreement as soon as possible regarding the name of Halayeb being my birth place and regarding the unsubstantiated information about the rebels that are willing to proclaim a new country in the Halayeb triangle, do you think, if they get to the light, they would have any chance against the dictatorship in Egypt? My last visit to Egypt was in 2010 and from that date and after my political views came to the the knowledge of the dictatorship regime, I was informed that I will be arrested the moment I touch the Egyptian soil. I can express my opinion, freely here in USA without fear, while the movement is secret in Egypt, and only one member beside me is in the USA, and he is my link to the people there.
So please, allow me to revert the name to Halayeb and the information and do not block me (you personally) or report me or block me in Wikipedia, if you have more power than me, please.
It is my area and my only interest in Wikipedia. Thank you, Best regards Abd Elhamid Elsayed
Abdelhamidelsayed (talk) 21:12, 10 November 2020 (UTC)abdelhamidelsayed
I don't think that you've read the page I've asked you to read from the Manual of Style. Again, it's this one: WP:MOSAR. You are correct that we use Cairo. Check out Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). Basically, there are two guidelines: First, if there is one established name in English, use that. Thus, we use Cairo, Germany, China instead of *al-Qāhirah, *Deutschland, or *Zhōngguó. However, if there is no established name used in English, we use an established systematic transliteration. The MOS page I directed you to gives the Wikipedia standard for Arabic. We moved Halayib from *Hala'ib precisely because there was no established name in use and that transliteration was incorrect. On-line, you will find "Halayib", "Halayeb", and "Hala'ib". Given this diversity, it seems that the best choice is the "established systematic transliteration". Please read those pages. Pathawi (talk) 21:33, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
== Sorry ==
Sorry for the mistake, but I asked you kindly to not revert it, and you did, I am not willing to get into a fight through the internet, I am going to revert it again, it has been like this for more than a decade, I asked politely, you could have messaged me, before reverting it, beside that, with all the explanation that I gave you, you dump all my evidences and revert it.
If your English is 100 %, your Arabic as you say, can't compete with my Arabic, knowing that my English is 90% compared to you. it is a fact of sounds and phonetics.
Beside that you are in Sudan, get to a Sudanese and ask him to pronounce the word Halayeb ten time and then another guy and then another guy and then make your mind. The manual cannot apply to a language that is governed by a Holy book the QURAN, that only the very able in that language understand it after repeated reading.
And still, I am ready to have a discussion about such manual but our messages have to be moved to a normal mail server to make it easier to exchange our ideas, please contact me at
————— or by written messages at Whatsapp number —————.
Please do not revert Halayeb again, it has been like this more than a decade, and the web cites it more as Halayeb, compared to Halayib, till we get a common agreement between all people involved about it.
Best regards,
Abdelhamidelsayed (talk) 21:45, 10 November 2020 (UTC)abdelhamidelsayed[reply]
END OF COPIED DISCUSSION

Continuation of discussion

The article should never have been moved away from Hala'ib Triangle in the first place

  • Google hits:
  • "Halayib" - 28,900
  • "Halayeb" - 60,100
  • "Hala'ib" - 2,370,000

My conclusion is that @Anthony Appleyard: should never have moved the article away from "Hala'ib Triangle". WP:COMMONNAME calls for the subject's common name as used in English. Local names should only be considered when there is no English-language name, so Anthony's rationale for the move was mistaken.

Anthony, given these facts, can you please move the article back to where it was for 9 years before you moved it? Or, at least tell me you have no objections, and i'll move it back. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:35, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Beyond My Ken:I know that the above comments are addressed specifically to Anthony Appleyard, but I made the request for the move, so I thought it wouldn't be inappropriate to comment. The naming convention policy at WP:USEENGLISH says that established names such as one would find in a reliable source are to be preferred. I know we all know what that means, but the page specifies "for example other encyclopedias and reference works, scholarly journals, and major news sources". Google hits are an indicator, but as a source in and of themselves they're a problem: Nine years of Wikipedia's using the spelling with the apostrophe has led to its proliferation on-line, in no small part through mirrors or partial mirrors. I think, also, that the numbers you've got are a little off: Searching for hala'ib without quotes also returns everything for "halayib", "halayeb", "halaib", and a bunch of other stuff, as Google tries to correct a searcher's weird spelling. The unquote version gives me the 2.31 million number that you're getting. Beyond this, I can't reproduce your results. If I put the terms in quotes, I get:
  • "hala'ib": 161,000
  • "halayeb": 276,000
  • "halayib": 29,300
  • "halaib": 89,500
In print sources, I don't know how to gauge the currency of the different uses: None of them gives anything in a Google Ngram search, which is itself suggestive. In Google Scholar, "Halayib" turns up 119 hits, "Halayeb" 289, "Hala'ib" 236, "Halaib" 890. That doesn't seem like a cut and dry case to me for the prevalence of "Hala'ib" in reliable sources: If anything, it takes second place to Abd Elamin's preferred "Halayeb" in general Internet usage and to "Halaib" in scholarly work. Looking at the sources I have PDFs of, "Halayib" appears in the English version of the last Sudanese census. "Halayeb" appears in Lonely Planet Egypt. "Hala'ib" doesn't appear in anything I've got. "Halaib"—to my surprise—actually appears in several articles and books, including an article on Ababda history, the Handbook of Ancient Nubia, A History of the Beja Tribes, an ethnography on Beja people entitled Responsible Man, and a couple other Beja ethnographic articles. When we lack an established name, WP:USEENGLISH suggests going to an established system of Romanisation. The clear choice here would have been Halayib, as I proposed, but I had not searched for or given serious consideration to "Halaib" before I tried to figure out the results of your search.
I do not think it was a mistake to move this page, tho in reviewing the academic sources I now think that I may have been mistaken in my proposed target. I wish there had been more time for discussion. Pathawi (talk) 22:34, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Why would you put the phrase in quotes? It skews the results. Rechecking my results:
  • Halayib with no quote marks - 29,800 [1]
  • Halayeb with no quote marks - 74,100 [2]
  • Halaib with no quote marks - 108,000 [3]
  • Hala'ib with no quote marks - 1,950,000 [4]
It seems quite clear to me that Hala'ib is the preferred term in English. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:11, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Beyond My Ken: The search term ought to be in quotes for two reasons:
First, in order to search for the exact phrase, which is what's at question here, rather than everything Google thinks you might have meant to write.
Second, because the term in question has an apostrophe in the middle of it. So your first several hundred hits are probably all legitimate, but if you keep digging, you're also getting Wikipedia's page Siege of Baghdad (1258) because it has sources by Fattah Hala and I.B. Tauris. You're getting all kinds of irrelevant junk that has "hala" & "ib" somewhere in the page. This is also counting every single "halaib" hit as a "hala'ib" hit. It's throwing the numbers off wildly. It's simply incorrect.
If you want to compare exact phrases—which is what we're doing here—especially when one of them includes punctuation, you've got to put it in quotes. Please check this out if you're doubting me. I'm not skewing the results with quotation marks: I'm correcting them. Pathawi (talk) 23:27, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I see your logic, and it's persuasive.
  • "Halayib" - 29,100 [5]
  • "Hala'ib" - 43,300 [6]
  • "Halayeb" - 77,000 [7]
  • "Halaib" - 90,900 [8]
So you may be right that "Halaib" should be the title. What if we start an RfC to attract some more editors and see what happens? Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:37, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I support this course of action. Pathawi (talk) 06:49, 11 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Name in Arabic is حلايب

Context: Many months ago, I proposed that this article be moved from Hala'ib Triangle to Halayib Triangle. The move was made. That move was reversed within the last twelve hours for reasons that can be found in the discussion above. In reversing that change, all (I think?) occurrences of ‹Halayib› in the article were changed to ‹Hala'ib›. I then changed back only those occurrences which were explicitly transliterations of the Arabic word, rather than uses of an English name. I also changed one occurrence of حلائب to حلايب. The former was added by an editor who was unfamiliar with the Arabic word based on the English name given in this article. I had hoped that these changes would be uncontroversial as they are—I think—matters of fairly straightforward fact. Beyond My Ken reversed those changes. In order to avoid edit warring, I'm explaining my changes here. I won't revert the reversions quickly in case my perception of uncontroversiality is amiss.

Both the Eyptian and Sudanese governments consistently use the spelling حلايب in their materials, with only one Egyptian exception that I was able to find many months ago; that page has since disappeared. For anyone who knows Arabic, I do not think that it is controversial that the Arabic name is حلايب. There is copious evidence on-line, including on our sister Arabic Wikipedia. (The word حلائب does occur in Arabic, so you'll get Google hits, but it does not refer to the city or the Triangle.) If we are transliterating Arabic, the appropriate MOS Romanisation is Ḥalāyib. It is not Ḥalā'ib. I think that this should also be uncontroversial: It is not different from saying that the Pinyin for the Mandarin name of China is "Zhōngguó", not "Qaina" or "China", even tho for obvious reasons we choose to call the page China rather than *Zhongguo.

I understand the desire for consistency within the article. However, I believe that a form of consistency which demands that the representation of the original language (whether in Arabic script or in Romanisation) match the chosen English name is backwards, & in this case leads to multiple inaccuracies.

I would like to:

  1. remove the two places where this page asserts that the Arabic name is حلائب, as that's simply false;
  2. employ the Romanisation Ḥalāyib when transliterating Arabic (but nowhere else until we have a decision on moving or not moving), as, again, I think that's false; and
  3. restore the Romanisation of Egyptian Arabic from "Mosallas Ḥalāyeb" back to "Musallas Ḥalāyib", as the other transliteration is inconsistent & not in keeping with either the MOS or any scholarly materials that I'm aware of. Pathawi (talk) 07:08, 11 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Request for Comment

Should the page Hala'ib Triangle be moved to a new name or left as and where it is? Pathawi (talk) 18:54, 11 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am not a neutral party in this conversation, but I hope that the above framing of the question is sufficiently neutral. Briefly: The name of the region in question is uncontroversially مثلث حلايب Muthallath Ḥalāyib in Arabic (WP:MOSAR). For many years, the page was at Hala'ib Triangle. Last year, I proposed that it be moved to 'Halayib' and this was done. A couple days ago, it was moved back. In subsequent conversation, I believe that the other editor who called for the return move & I have come to have more similar perspectives; they proposed the RfC. I'll state below what I think the major options & questions are, but I want to be clear that I'm just speaking for myself:
  • I believe that the representation ‹Hala'ib› is in an important sense wrong: The apostrophe is most frequently used in Romanisation of Arabic to represent the glottal stop. There is no such phoneme in this place name.
  • But accuracy is a secondary consideration after common use in reliable sources (WP:NCUE). I argue that there is no good case for "Hala'ib" being the most common use in reliable sources. Looking at raw Google hits of names for the place that I know of, using quotation marks, I find:
  1. "halaib": 98,500
  2. "halayeb": 73,900
  3. "hala'ib": 54,200
  4. "halayib": 28,200
(Your results might vary: I am doing the search from the Sudan. I think that people get different results from different countries.)
The version with the apostrophe comes in third place. We get a similar ranking if we try to stick to reliable sources by just looking in Google Scholar (again, your results may vary):
  1. "halaib": 890
  2. "halayeb": 289
  3. "hala'ib": 236
  4. "halayib": 119
Thus, I think "Hala'ib" is unjustifiable, and should go. For me, the reasonable options are "Halaib" (most common in search results, both in Google and Google Scholar), and "Halayib" (most similar to the standard Romanisation for Arabic that Wikipedia employs).
  • I think that we're looking at a case of "divided usage" WP:DIVIDEDUSE. WP:NCUE warns against overreliance on search engines: 'Search-engine hits are generally considered unreliable for testing whether one term is more common than another, but can suggest that no single term is predominant in English.' I think that that is the case that we've got. (Note that WP:NCUE doesn't identify simple majority as common usage, identifying a case of 60% versus 40% as one of divided usage.)
  • However, it's also possible that we're looking at a case of "no established usage".
  • I think that the WP:NCUE recommendations should be interpreted as the following:
    • If this is a case of true divided usage, we could interpret the directive to '[give] more weighting to verifiable reliable sources' to mean that a clear majority in scholarly sources is more indicative of common usage than is a clear majority in general search engine results. In this case, we should go with "Halaib".
    • WP:NCUE says: 'When there is evenly divided usage and other guidelines do not apply, leave the article name at the latest stable version.' If we don't agree with the interpretation of the previous bullet point & don't think that other guidelines apply, then the article should revert to "Halayib".
    • If instead we think that we're dealing with too few sources to identify any usage as common, we should follow the standard romanisation convention, & go with "Halayib".
Another editor has in the past day been pushing for "Halayeb", but I am not able to present that editor's argument. You can see it elsewhere on this page.
I wish I could make a good case for "Halayib" but I haven't convinced myself with the above. I think that there's no justification for leaving this page at "Hala'ib" and that "Halaib" is the clearest choice. There's probably a lot that I haven't thought of, & I look forward to others' comments. Pathawi (talk) 19:47, 11 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Halayeb, it is pronounced Halayeb from a capable Arabic language native, very good English language ( living in USA from 1998, so I speak English very good). It is not Halayib, understand.

HALAYEB Halayeb - understand, it is Halayeb when it is spoken in Arabic not Halayib ; the difference is in how the Arabic letter ي is pronounced. Do you understand ? Dear USER: I am asking kindly that you do not revert my change of Halayeb to any another name, I do accept that you deleted my unproven section about the rebels that are still secret till today and only few people know about this matter and I am one of them who can speak freely because I live in USA and another person who is my link to the people living in Halayeb triangle. Do you think, rebels can proclaim themselves in Egypt with the dictatorship there and ask for a referendum, a free referendum, in Halayeb triangle, without being caught and imprisoned and then executed without a trial ?

If you find another user who understand Arabic better than me and surely you will find an English language better than me, then, I am ready to accept the change of name: must be better than me in both Arabic and English. If you are targeting me as you did in the past, I am ready to fight till I get blocked from Wikipedia and then, I will continue to edit as an anonymous. So let us ask people about which is exact : Halayeb or Halayib with the above condition : better Arabic and English than me.

And for your knowledge : there are signs that can be found above or below an Arabic letter and those change how the letter is pronounced. So the name in Arabic is حلايب - ح - ل - ا - ي - ب ح = h ل = l ا = a ي = i or y ( which are very similar in pronunciation, just read Andi and Andy) while the ي in Arabic here is pronounced just like ye ب = b So according to the rules used by some people who do not understand Arabic - why there is an extra (a) between the (h) and (l) in the English word ?

I will revert your edit and I will fight for the correct name as it is pronounced in Arabic, just for one cause : I am from Halayeb triangle. And why the name remained almost the last decade and more as Halayeb ? If you want to fight after all this facts and proofs, I am ready. I can be reached at +1 2622275793 and abdelhamidelsayed@hotmail.com Best regards, Abd Elhamid Elsayed Abdelhamidelsayed (talk) 01:41, 12 November 2020 (UTC)abdelhamidelsayed Abdelhamidelsayed (talk) 01:46, 12 November 2020 (UTC)abdelhamidelsayed

Once again, you're not understanding. Please read WP:COMMONNAME. The name of the place IN ENGLISH is what matters, not what the locals call it in Arabic.
You've been trying to make this change for 10 YEARS. It's time to stop before you get blocked. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:41, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

HALAYEB - I AM REQUESTING THE NAME TO BE CHANGED TO HALAYEB FROM ALL THE OTHER VERSION, IT IS PRONOUNCED HALAYEB IN ARABIC, UNDERSTAND. NOT HALAYIB

HALAYEB - understand, it is HALAYEB when it is spoken in Arabic not HALAYIB ; the difference is in how the Arabic letter (ي) is pronounced. Do you understand ?

If you find another user who understand Arabic better than me ( who cares about HALAYEB ) and surely you will find an English language better than me, then, I am ready to accept the change of name: must be better than me in both Arabic and English. . So let us ask people about which is exact : HALAYEB or HALAYIB with the above condition : better Arabic and English than me.

And for your knowledge : there are signs that can be found above or below an Arabic letter and those change how the letter is pronounced. So the name in Arabic is {حلايب - ح - ل - ا - ي - ب} 

          First letter = H (ح) 

          Second letter = L (ل) 

          Third letter = A (ا)

          Fourth letter = I or Y (ي)( which are very similar in pronunciation, just read Andi and Andy) while the ي in Arabic here is pronounced just like ye

          Fifth letter = B (ب)

Do you understand that it is 5 letters in Arabic, so why it is six letters in English ?

So according to the rules used by some people who do not understand Arabic - why there is an extra (a) between the (H) and (L) in the English word HALAYEB?

I will fight for the correct name as it is pronounced in Arabic, just for one cause : I am from Halayeb triangle. And why the name remained almost the last decade and more as Halayeb ? If you want to discuss after all this facts and proofs, I am ready. I can be reached at +1 2622275793 and abdelhamidelsayed@hotmail.com Best regards, Abd Elhamid Elsayed Abdelhamidelsayed (talk) 01:41, 12 November 2020 (UTC)abdelhamidelsayed Abdelhamidelsayed (talk) 01:46, 12 November 2020 (UTC)abdelhamidelsayed

Abdelhamidelsayed (talk) 03:32, 12 November 2020 (UTC)abdelhamidelsayed Abd Elhamid Elsayed[reply]

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